B2112's Anime Reviews - Episode 5: Durarara (Seasons 1 & 2)
by bassman2112
Anime is weird. Often times, creators of anime like to come up with conceits that you would never encounter in Western shows, which is something I certainly appreciate! Durarara is a good example of this - it is a show about gang wars, teenagers, supernatural creatures/characters, and superhuman strength. It has an extremely broad cast of characters, and tells a fairly intricate story. It is th...
Anime is weird. Often times, creators of anime like to come up with conceits that you would never encounter in Western shows, which is something I certainly appreciate! Durarara is a good example of this - it is a show about gang wars, teenagers, supernatural creatures/characters, and superhuman strength. It has an extremely broad cast of characters, and tells a fairly intricate story. It is the kind of show where everything feels like it was planned from the start, and you - as an audience - are along for the ride. It has plenty of moments that will make you go "huh, that's cool," but an equal amount that will make you say "... what? Where did that come from?" It is cool, stylish, and cluttered.
The story is pretty difficult to explain. It is centered around a boy named Mikado who moves to Tokyo (Ikebukuro specifically) after having lived in a small town for his whole life. Once he arrives there, he hangs out with his buddy from many years ago, and the two start attending school together. After that it quickly turns into a show where you are following a decentralized street gang (called the Dollars), a headless motorcycle-riding Dullahan named Celty, a seemingly all-knowing information broker named Izaya, a dude named Shizuo who is strong enough to literally throw cars across the city, an underground doctor who is in love with Celty, a quiet high school girl named Anri who has a big secret, and many more. Frankly, the story is more about the characters than anything else, which ends up being a problem. There are so many main characters in the show that you're bound to lose track of who they all are, and what importance they have. By the end of DRRRx2, I stopped trying to remember who was important, and just let the story reach its end since I kind of stopped caring about the details.
Overall, if you look at DRRR as an arc from the first episode of Season 1 to the last episode of Season 2, it is an interesting show. It tells some cool stories along the way, and it certainly presents itself with a lot of swag and bravado. It is crazy stylish, and takes influence from a lot of psychological thrillers (namely Memento). It tells its story in a very non-linear fashion. One episode may take place on November 3rd, the next episode will be on November 1st, the following will be on October 20th, and then the next one will be December 1st. It does not care about keeping things contiguous, it just wants to tell the story in the way they feel is coolest; but, often times, I feel it trips and falls on the way. It's the type of show where they will try to have a big twist, but the twist is lost on you if you forgot who this minor character who showed up 20 episodes ago is. There were multiple times where I had to pause the show, google the character's name, and think "Oh... Right... I guess I kind of remember this person?"
Despite these criticisms, I am certainly not saying any of the characters suck! I think that almost every character is fascinating in their own way, and that there is a significant lore with experiencing with each of them! Everyone has more going on than you'd expect, and there are a lot of shades of gray - there are no truly evil characters (apart from Izaya who is just a big ol' butthead). The characters are brought to life by very strong visual art, as well as great voice acting. They are each visually distinct, and you get to know their voices quite well - I definitely appreciated all the care put into them, and do look forward to any potential future seasons!
The other aspects of the show, in general, were pretty great! Music was solid throughout, art was consistently beautiful (hell I had one of the scenes as my background for a long time, despite not being in love with the show). Overall.. It's a good show, but it has a lot of problems. I could delve deeper into it, but I don't feel this is the place for a deep deconstruction and analysis of the show. If I were to provide a recommendation, I'd say that it is worth a watch with some caveats. I'd recommend giving it five episodes, and if you aren't enjoying it by that point, then you likely will not enjoy it.
I rate Durarara: 3/5