Durarara!!x2 Ten – 12 (24, Fin)

The conclusion of the second of three cours of Durarara!!x2  is marked by two major plotlines: Mikado’s Dollars vs. Masaomi’s Yellow Scarves, and the whole Yadogiri Jinnai business. In both cases, there’s a lot to be hashed out in the third and final cour next January.

Ten, like Shou, ends with Mikado and Masaomi very far away; or as the former puts it, the threads of their bonds are so tangled up that perhaps it’s best just to burn those threads and start over. Celty thinks Mikado has gone mad, and is even more upset when he insists he isn’t. She also laments that for all her centuries of experience, she’s unable to stop two young friends from going to war and possibly destroying one another, simply because neither is willing to budge, and Anri isolated from both of them.

Ten, like Shou, also ends with Izaya outmaneuvered by Jinnai (who isn’t an individual so much as a network of old-man decoys led orchestrated in the shadows by Kujiragi Kasane, who has the red eyes of Saika. That I was not expecting, but it does mean we may see more of both Anri and Haruna (who also carry Saika within them in some form or another). It also establishes the latest “monster” threat for the final cour, running parallel to the “human” threat of Mikado and Masaomi’s war.

I also daresay Celty is as confused as I was by suddenly coming home to find so many disperate characters assembled in her and Shinra’s apartment. There’s Shinra’s parents, Namie, Egor, Seiji, Mika, Togusa, and Walker. Their gathering isn’t explained any further than the fact no one assembled was able to resist being brought together.

How will this seemingly random collection of people make their mark on the third cour? I have no idea, but like every season of Durarara!! it’s going to be a very full plate.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 11 (23)

The Dollars supposedly doesn’t have a hierarchy or a “symbol”, just as it doesn’t have a color, but as far as Shinra is concerned, the unofficial twin chief deterrents of the Dollars are Shizuo (armed) and Kodata (psychological). And I can’t really argue with him that things could crumble quickly now that one is in a coma and the other is arrested, even if Celty believes things won’t be that different.

Meanwhile, Anri is with Erika as the two wait for Dotachin to wake up; one because of everything he’s done for her, and the other for the same reason, but also so that she can tell Walker and Sabura as soon as Kodata awakes, hoping to stop them from doing something rash, like, say, toss a molotov into a karaoke bar.

Just the Dollars lose two very visible, well-known and feared pillars, Kida is back in town, re-mustering the Yellow Scarves to “save” Mikado from himself, even if he has to “kick his butt.” As far as Kida’s concerned, Mikado is in the wrong pool and out of his depth, and he’s going to pull him out, whether he wants out or not.

As Aoba leads Mikado and Blue Square to a new hideout (the same one where there was the yakuza dust-up) Mikado doesn’t seem interested in quitting. In fact, he seems both shocked and a little excited that Aoba invited Celty to join them, proposing she fill one of the void left by Kodata; and after meeting with Izaya, Akabayashi shows up, wanting to join and possibly fill the void left by Shizuo.

Seemingly more peripheral to the apparently imminent showdown between the Dollars and Yellow Scarves (with the Dragon Zombies possibly involved as well), Namie is abducted by her uncle Seitaro, who also plans to capture Seiji and use him to get her to cooperate. It’s Yadogiri Jinnai’s secretary Kujiraji Kusane who subdues her.

And again floating above it all, though not aware of everything yet (such as who is using one of his screen aliases in the chat room) is Izaya, Namie’s former employer. That mysterious chatter is spreading rumors of the Yellow Scarves using Kodata to declare war on the Dollars.

Ikebukuro is a tinderbox once again, and there are a variety of potential sparks that could set it ablaze. We’ll see who ends up setting the fire, and how much damage it will do next week, in the final episode of the Ten cour.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 10 (22)

After a week off, a new Durarara!! arc begins with a scattered (even for this show) and at times yawn-worthy table-setting outing in which Erika lures Anri into trying out cosplaying, and the remaining members of Kodata’s crew are having a meal at Russia Sushi when they’re confronted by Masaomi, who wants them to leave the Dollars and join his Yellow Scarves. Masaomi wants to “destroy” the Dollars, who have been corrupted by Blue Square in order to “save someone” who we know to be Mikado.

Meanwhile Aoba’s puppet-master Aoba is confronted by his aniki Izumii Ran, fresh from working with Izaya and hungry for revenge against Kodata & Co. A lot of dirty laundry is aired, including Aoba setting fire to Ran’s room when they were younger, and Ran agreeing to take over Blue Square from Aoba once it got too big and unruly.

As for Kyohei, he says he’ll consider Masaomi’s offer and discuss it with his crew (of which Erika is absent), later pondering the recent change in Mikado’s personality and his involvement in the internal purging of the Dollars. Then he’s suddenly hit by a car; most likely Izumii Ran’s opening salvo in his quest for revenge. Just like that, a major player in Ikebukuro is taken out, leaving all who relied on his strength and honor a lot more vulnerable, not to mention torpedoing Masaomi’s plans.

As Aoba rides in a van with Mikado and other Blue Square sharks, we see Mikado continue to portray the proverbial kingpin, saying he himself probably shouldn’t go visit Kyohei, but suggesting Aoba do so, but not to bring the wrong kind of flowers. He even seems a little morbidly relieved that Kyohei is off the board for the forseeable future, even if he wasn’t aware Masaomi was trying to recruit him.

If nothing else, Mikado is happy to keep working in his current role with his current support group, diving down a hole that may not have a pleasant bottom. Masaomi wants to save his gentle-hearted friend, but that Mikado may no longer be around, and may not be coming back.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 04 (16)

Everyone has their favorite characters on Durarara!!, or their favorite combinations of characters, and you know what? The ostensible “main trio” of Mikado, Anri and Kida aren’t my favorite. One of my favorites has always been the enigmatic and ridiculously strong yet often kindhearted Heiwajima Shizuo. I also like it when new combos of characters are wrought, creating new and interesting connections.

So I was most interested in the unexpected but utterly logical “love” triangle of Shizuo, Vorona, and Akane. Mind you, both ladies swear they wish to kill/destroy Shizuo, but the desire to possess and dominate your “prey” or “quarry” is just love/romance y any other name. It’s all close human connection.

Obviously, Akane is far too young for Shizuo, and is too young to even understand the feelings going through her head: She doesn’t want to kill him and thinks he’s a good man; she just thinks she has to kill him before he kills those closest to her. Because she’s so young and impressionable, the lies of others have complicated how she regards Shizuo, and necessitated her fatwa against him. If there were no fatwa, she could presumably grow up to become Awakasu’s female boss and name Shizuo as her right-hand man. But that’s too far down the road. Her mission is to kill him as soon as possible, even if she doesn’t want to and isn’t sure how to.

Vorona is a great mirror into the near future for Akane: a little older (20), a little wiser, a little stronger…yet nowhere near strong enough. Vorona is still in a funk after losing, not to Shizuo, but to those Awakasu guys, and losing badly. Her life belonged to them, and they showed mercy, but she feels like she’s failed her lifelong, life-defining mission to “test the limits of human strength.”

When she joins Shizuo and Tom on their debt-collecting run, she impresses them mightily with her strength, grace, toughness, and knowledge of the composition of Olympic and Nobel Prize medals. Yet she rejects their praise, despite being more than deserving of it, because she’s nowhere near where she wants to be.

The medal chat, while seemingly random trivia, actually says a lot about Vorona and her quest: when medals were pure gold they were easily susceptible to deformation, because pure gold is soft. That is to say, it may be pure, but it isn’t perfect,or at least the ideal metal for medals.

In the same way, the “pure strength” she seeks—and of which she considers, not wrongly, Shizuo to be the paragon—isn’t the end-all, be-all. Even if your life is all about beating everyone, until there’s no one who can stand against you, the ultimate strength isn’t enough.

It certainly isn’t enough for Shizuo. He values his relationships and alliances, and is even cognizant of the way his actions reflect on his famous brother. He may be “all-lifting”, and can take a bullet or knife like a champ, he’s not invincible, and cannot stand alone, nor would he want to.

We see that when Akane, who Akabayashi leaves with the Orihara twins to train at their dojo (in self-defense, the same stuff Vorona learned years ago), encounter Shizuo, Tom, and their gorgeous new “secretary.” The duality of both Vorona and Akane’s feelings towards Shizuo are laid bare, as Akane is happy to see her “big bro” and Vorona is more than a little jealous by all these new girls up in her business.

Shizuo doesn’t detect any of this, of course. Like Takeo in Zane’s Ore Monogatari!!, he’s strong pretty much everywhere except in noticing things, whether it’s two girls fighting for the right to kill him, or the rumors flying furiously throughout Ikebukuro that Shizuo is somehow in a weak enough condition to take on.

A particularly foolhardy gang of Dekotora-driving roughs hear about this, and how Shizuo has a woman and even a kid, and they think “let’s kidnap the girls and bring Shizuo low.” People are always, always waiting for Shizuo to expose a weakness. But as we see, none of these girls are incapable of defending themselves even without Shizuo around.

This ep’s title “a rumor lasts 75 days”, but it can last a much shorter time if it’s tested, as it was here by that gang, to their ruin. Shizuo may have a “girl” by his side, and she may have “eyes only for him”, and a “kid hanging off him”, but that’s only half the story, and even the other half is the whole story, because there are always new developments; changing, evolving connections.

Neither Akane nor Vorona are going to back down on their claims of Shizuo ownership. Yet, as they spend all this time talking about wanting to kill or destroy him, as if that would make their lives complete, the fact of the matter is, both girls are quickly becoming his friends. He’s someone they can count on, someone they trust and respect; someone that defines a large chunk of their existence; person they want to protect.

I imagine then, that despite their claim’s they’re in a hurry to get rid of him, a part of them would probably prefer to delay his destruction indefinitely.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 03

Akabayashi Mizuki doesn’t like drugs. He doesn’t like them so much, in fact, that when some kids taking after Dollars and using the net for their rootless drug-dealing operation set up shop in the bathroom of an Awakusu Group nightclub, he feels the need to impress the lesson upon said lads: drugs are bad. Don’t sell them. Don’t do them. Flush them down the toilet. They and their jonesing customers will be better off; he’s sure of it.

Why is he sure of it? Because drugs ended up killing the woman he loved, who happened to be Sonohara Anri’s mother, Sayaka. He fell for her when she slashed his eye with Saika six years ago, and though she had to refuse him because she already had a husband and family, her affection for her endured. When Sayaka’s husband became a violent drug addict (thanks to Akabayashi’s boss) and started abusing his family, including Anri, Sayaka killed him and herself, leaving Anri alone.

When his boss, a particularly nasty piece of human garbage, shares his plans to adopt and pimp out Anri, it’s too much for Akabayashi to bear, to the point that when Sayaka’s kid brother shows up to stab his boss, Akabayashi does nothing to stop it, and his boss’s death is a victory for all decent humankind.

These events six and five years ago transformed Akabayashi from the wild “red demon” he was known as to a far mellower fellow, and it’s not hard to see why: after spending so long on the side of the night, Sayaka showed him the day, and he liked it. Now, in the present, he walks the thin line between night and day, protecting not only Anri but Awakusu Akane as well; and never passes up a chance to teach misguided youths that they do not want to be walking in the night.