Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 04 (28)

Chikage’s confrontation with Masaomi and the Yellow Scarves looked like bad news, but he’s only there on behalf of himself, and wants to use them to smoke out the “purge” Dollars who hit Kodata. But because this is a meeting of gang leaders who don’t mind the occasional rumble, it comes to fisticuffs, and we see Masaomi in actual action for the first time in a long while.

I assumed he had some skill to be the leader of a color gang (even one as wishy-washy as the scarves), but I didn’t expect him to hold his own so well against Chikage (though he isn’t able to do any damage, he’s able to dodge his attacks well enough). Still, the “blood is thicker than water” title/theme applies here, as Chikage is loyal to Kodata through the bond they forged in righteous, honorable combat.

The Saika family reunion continues, with Anri stating her reservations about manipulating people she holds dear with Saika as Haruna does. It comes down to them having different values. Kasane lays it out thusly: one can either entirely enslave their Saika or allow their Saika to entirely enslave them. Anri is trying to be nice to “both sides”, which Kasane believes is untenable.

Of course, she’s driven by the desire to acquire Saika from Anri, which would mean extracting her, but that can only happen if Anri truly doesn’t want Saika anymore. Anri still feels she owes Saika for saving her from her father, among other things. But Kasane remarks that Anri is too hard on herself for believing herself a parasite, or somehow not or less than human.

Letting go of Saika could perhaps mean returning to “normal” humanity in a biological sense, but she’ll always be one of the “family” by virture of her flesh, her blood, and her past. It’s a fascinating discussion between three very different personalities. Erika lightens the mood effectively both by inviting Kasane to a cosplay event and announcing Dotachin has come out of a coma and can see visitors tomorrow.

Masaomi and Chikage’s duel continues, with Chikage ending up falling off the building when Masaomi bails out. Just then, Izumii Ran shows up with a gang of men and his mallet, looking to continue his revenge tour.

His taunts easily provoke Masaomi into attacking him, but a fierce punch to Izumii’s head only results in Masaomi breaking his hand. Will Chikage, who was just fighting Masaomi, get back up to that roof and help him stay alive against another superior opponent?

Like Dotachin, Shizuo has been mostly an inert element this cour, as he’s in jail after a woman pressed charges against him for assault. An obvious Saika plant in the cell neighboring him wants him to tear up the joint so they can make off with the head in the commotion, in exchange for the charges against him being dropped.

However, this Saika plant seems to be too late with his proposal, as Shizuo is released without having to do anything after the woman drops the charges. No sooner is he free to go than some kind of rocket or missile hits the police van carrying Celty’s head. Varona of all people makes off with it, staring down Shizuo momentarily before zooming off on her bike. Shizuo assumes this is more of that wretched Izaya’s handiwork.

Prior to this to-do, around dusk, presumably after Haruna left Kasane and Anri, she is kidnapped by a Saika slave and brought to her former boyfriend Takashi, who has plans for her, none of them good.

All the news of Celty’s head being out there, exposed to the world, causes her nightmares. She wakes up to find an understanding and supportive Shinra, who has spent the day trying to deal with the Yagiri siblings under control (mostly through sedation).

When Emilia says a girl with glasses is at the door, Shinra assumes it’s Anri, but it’s not; it’s Kasane, who is apparently not done wheeling and dealing. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who hired/compelled Varona to snatch Celty’s head.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 03 (27)

Mairu and Kururi sorta narrate this episode, but only sparingly, but they have a couple funny moments despite never appearing in the episode (even through chat): First, Mairu interrupts just before a masked man tells Shijimi his name. Second, Mairu wonders if some kind of world revolution is afoot, and Kururi calls that “a stretch.”

That’s certainly true, since Durarara!! has virtually strayed outside Ikebukuro’s borders, nor has there ever been any indication that the things that go on there have any effect on the outside world. But what if Ikebukuro was the world, in it’s entirety, as for all intents of purposes, it is in the show? It would mean the world really was in the midst of upheaval.

All the characters who dot Ikebukuro’s landscape are the players who shape Ikebukuro World. Rather than gangs, the Dollars and Yellow Scarves and mafia are nations; their leaders world leaders. And Saika isn’t just a parasitic demon, but an ideological movement. Anri, Niekawa Haruna, and Kujiragi Kasane are three different “schools” of Saika, and those schools butt up against each other this week.

Ever since Anri cut Haruna, there have been two Saikas inside her mingling, and since Anri’s Saika is older, it’s a form of control that’s also opened Haruna up to other emotions and ways of thinking – as well as Anri’s confused feelings for Mikado and Masaomi. Haruna wants to join forces – Anri will help her attain “real love” with Takashi; and in return she’ll help Anri with her romances.

 

Anri declines, because she doesn’t want to use Saika for nefarious purposes, only to protect; which provokes Haruna into fighting her. That’s when Kasane, who was hanging out in the park the whole time, neutralizes and chastises the “daughter” Haruna for raising a hand to her “mother” Anri (speaking in Saika terms, of course.)

Of course, this doesn’t mean Kasane is on Anri’s side. In fact, Kasane is somewhat surprised by how little Anri has mastered or even used Saika; which frustrates her more now that she knows how good having freedom feels. So she breaks out a proposition, just as Haruna did. No joining forces; rather, she’ll take Saika off Anri’s hands for a handsome, fair sum. I mean, if she’s using it so little, she doesn’t really need her, right?

The only problem is, while Anri certainly hasn’t mastered Saika, she has more or less accepted her as a part of her, not to mention relied on her in times of trouble; she’d likely be dead without her. Losing her wouldn’t necessarily make her human (a human would never have had Saika to begin with), so I’m doubtful she’ll make the deal. However, I’m also doubtful Kasane will give up easily.

Despite the rarity with which she needs or uses it, Anri has become dependent on Saika as a form of defense in a dangerous Ikebukuro World; a weapon to keep sharks off her in that world’s roiling waves. Meanwhile, Mikado tells Izaya in a lengthy but wonderful phone call that he wishes to remain in a boat, detached from those waves, but able to watch them ebb and flow and be entertained.

That’s the “interesting world” he first sought when he arrived in Ikebukuro World (an arrival akin to a birth). It’s why he founded the Dollars. And it’s why he’s evolved into someone who isn’t the slightest bit surprised by the face Celty’s head is in a bush (though he is relieved by Mika’s hilarious voicemail message about it not being her head).

Now he’s put himself in a position to press the reset button on the Dollars, hoping he’ll catch lightning in a bottle once more. He and Izaya are revealed to be a lot more alike than I ever considered, as the two may use different metaphors, but both seem willing to act as both arsonist and firefighter in order to mold the world into something interesting.

I’d say Mikado differs in that he has empathy for humans and has a few he actually cares about and doesn’t want swept up in those waves…but I doubt Izaya wants his sisters hurt, either. It’s also interesting in this particular situation, that Mikado knows something – that Celty’s head was found in the park – before Izaya.

That’s a rare moment of someone having the upper hand over Izaya, which is always nice. And knowledge is definitely power in Ikebukuro World; just look at which Saika dominated the other two, and why. That being said, there’s nothing Izaya adores more than humans acting unpredictably.

The Saika trio and Mikado-Izaya phone call are the A/B plots, but the episode still managed to fit in a C and a D: There’s the hiding Shijimi, who is approached by a masked man who was in the passenger seat of the car that hit Dotachin, offering to bring him in on some kind of heist of Yadogiri Jinnai’s fortune.

Then there’s Chikage confronting Masaomi and his Yellow Scarves, 1 on 8, and giving them a choice: let themselves be taken over, or be destroyed. And we know there’s no one among those 8 scarves who is a match for Chikage alone. Mairu is right: the time of revolution, war, and global upheaval is nigh in the Ikebukuro World.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 02 (26)

This week’s narrator is Shingen, whose wise, matter-of-fact tone is somewhat offset by the fact his voice is slightly muffled by the gas mask he never takes off (He’d be right at home in a Gundam anime). And what does Shingen talk about all episode? Women. No, nothing so crude as how they be shoppin’ all the time, but how women are women, whether they’re human or not.

Just take Anri and Erika at the hospital when Chikage arrives with his harem in tow. The two girls donning black may as well be sisters, but only Erika is fully human; Anri is a vessel for Saika, her calm, timid facade concealing churning multitudes of power and potential for destruction. By comparison Erika can’t do much besides not call Chikage back after giving him her email.

Later, then Izaya shows up to have his injuries checked out, he tries to lure Saika into losing her cool and proving she’s not human but just a pretender…and Izaya knows humans, loves them, and believes that gives him leave to mess with them all he likes.

His tortured metaphor of Mikado and Masaomi walking a tightrope with nooses around their necks connecting them, and all the various people trying to help or hurt him, is nevertheless enough to get Anri’s Saika blood boiling, until it’s all she can do to not kill him.

The whole episode, Manami is walking around with a bag we later learn contains Celty’s head. She’s ostensibly working for Izaya but also trying to hurt him wherever she can after failing to kill him before. But Izaya has made it clear humans who hate him are free to try to kill him, but he’ll never stop loving and forgiving them. But that love means nothing to Manami.

Erika consoles a very disturbed Anri; after all, it’s plenty human to feel like killing Izaya now and again. And just as Izaya will always forgive humans no matter what they tried to to to him, Erika will always love and forgive Anri, even if she becomes the dark instrument of the world’s destruction.

As Celty, another non-human whose human friend (and lover) Shinra will always love and forgive even if she destroys the world, is run ragged getting all the freeloaders situated in the apartment, her “still unknown enemy”

Kujiragi Kasane shows that she isn’t always Saika, or the shadowy leader of an organization using body doubles as the now-dead Yadogiri Jinnai to conduct business, or Ruri’s mothers half-sister (as we learn from the gossipy Shingen). Sometimes, she’s just a woman who buys cat ears, takes her shoes off and relaxes in the park, contemplating cafes to try out.

When Erika sees how Anri smiles and cries and feels such concern for her troubled friends, she can’t help but disregard “humanity” as some kind of requisite for being a good person. Anri is a good person, whatever’s stewing within her, and I think she has a crucial role to play in mediating the war between her two friends soon.

It’s a little heartbreaking, then, that just when Anri is accepting Erika’s words of encouragement (and going to buy cat ears for her, only to find they’re sold out), she runs into Niekawa Haruna in the street, who asks her to come with her, or else.

As I said, Shinra, like Erika with Anri, sees Celty as a woman first and foremost, but a woman who, due to her non-humanity, is disposed to act even kinder than humans usually act towards one another, aware of the stigma of what she is and how hard it is to hide. Without even thinking, Celty is a passionate, warm, caring, generous woman, and all Shinra asks is that she not think any less of herself.

But like Anri with Niewkawa, Celty has her non-humanity thrown in her face, as Manami took her head from Niekawa and unceremoniously hucked it in the bushes for all to see. It even making the news, which after chatting with the twins is how Celty finds out. And when she sees her head, exposed and vulnerable; the very object she was made the head of a new guild to retrieve, she does something a woman is more likely to do than a dullahan – she faints.

Shingen completes his monologue about “women being women” human or not, telling the women listening he has nothing more to say, but warning the men they “can’t be too careful,” implying the woman you choose may be someone like Anri, Ruri, Kasane, Haruna, or Celty, who are all more than just women.

It’s less of a condescending warning to stay away, and more of a warning to make sure you’re worthy of such women, and are resolved and prepared to stand with them when things get tough.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 01 (25)

This third and final cour of Durarara!!x2 is subtitled Ketsu (結) Japanese for (among other things) “sintering” (compacting a solid mass without melting it) and Chinese for “knot.” (It can also mean “ass”, referring to the end of Dura2…but stay with me.)

We begin where Ten ended: Celty in her and Shinra’s apartment, which is full of random people, and she has no idea why they’re all there. That is the knot, the puzzle that is loosened and unraveled in this episode. On a larger scale, Ikebukuro itself has always been like a knot: a combination of disparate strings periodically tightening and loosening, with often surprising results.

This episode follows the same pattern as most Dura episodes: a central narrator (this week Shinra) comments on all the various goings on. We dart from string to string in the Ikebukuro knot, from Mikado still mixed up with Aoba in an imminent war with the Yellow Scarves, a potential conflagration Aoba wants to keep Kururi and Mairu out of. Two cops under Saika’s control try to get rid of Heiwajima, but the motorcycle cop Kuzuhara frees him.

It’s not easy when the only people in her house who aren’t certifiable are Igor and “the driver” (Togusa), Celty gradually learns their reasons for being there. Shingen and Igor descended on Seitarou and Kujiraji Kasane in gas masks to rescue Namie (using gas bomb that made the news in the process). Walker and Togusa are hiding out, as is Yagiri Seiji and Mika.

I must say there’s a great imaginative, insane energy to putting all these kooks together. Shingen, Emilia, Walker, Namie and Mika are each their own special blend of crazy, and knotting them together makes for interesting exchanges and reactions, none of which really help Celty get to the bottom of things.

As for Izaya, who looked to be in bad shape last cour, was only pretending to be passed out as the Saika-controlled Sloan took him to a hideout of Izaya’s enemies. He had Sharaku and Kine follow Sloan, who he knows is under the influence of Kujiraji, not Niekawa or Anri.

The immediate puzzle of her many houseguests thus solved, Celty lays out her goal: to retrieve her head from Izaya and leave it in the care of Nebula (which Shingen and Emilia belong to). She’d rather they poke and prod it than leave Izaya to use it as a ball or vase; it’s a matter of pride and principle.

The crazies all unite right then and there to form a “guild” on Shinra’s suggestion in order to aid her, with his true reasoning being keeping his lover as minimally involved as possible in the head retrieval process, knowing that she and the Dollars, are at the very center of the storm brewing…which is, after all, nothing new.

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 – 09 (21)

After opening with an “insurance agent” interviewing a guy who apparently sold Orihara Izaya his name, Drr!! cuts to the familiar cat-and-mouse of Celty vs. Kinnosuke, before she returns home, exhausted and lamenting her police-target status before putting things into perspective: Shinra is in bed convalescing, having been beated half to death by Adabashi (Of course, Celty is also missing her head, so I think she wins the whole despair sweepstakes).

While changing Shinra’s bandages, Celty discovers an old scar, which Shinra proceeds to talk about despite the fact he has some mixed feelings about it. He received it twelve years ago in middle school. That’s incidentally where and when he first met Orihara Izaya, and learned of his love of observing humans. He got him to join a two-member “biology club”, even though they wouldn’t be doing much biology.

It seems they mostly hung out in a lab, collecting money for sports betting. One of their classmates, Nakura, got in too deep and demanded a refund with a pocket knife, but Shinra came between them, getting stabbed in the process. After stopping the bleeding with duct tape (truly a mob doctor in the making), Orihara asks Shinra to tell the police he, not Nakura, stabbed him. In exchange, he’ll make sure Nakura regrets it the rest of his days.

It would certainly seem like Nakura regrets a great many things, considering Orihara made him both “Lizard” of Amphisbaena and “Mr. Momui” of Heaven’s Slave, two apparently fictional leaders of the two organizations, fictions whose respective Number Twos (Mimizu and Shijima perpetuate to maintain order. And if there’s ever a gang war between, say, Awakasu and either or both of those organizations, Nakura, not Izaya, will take the heat.

It was the first of many acts by Izaya that could be construed, depending on your perspective, as selfless, thoughtful, or loving acts to protect his friends and family, or more selfish poking and prodding of humanity. Ostensibly, he tortures Nakura to this day for hurting Shinra, and hired Celty to protect his sister, but in both cases those actions served him just as much as the beneficiaries.

And as Izaya continues to carry Celty’s head around, it would appear his own stabbing by an associate of Yodogiri Jinnai hasn’t discouraged him from continuing his usual habits.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 08 (20)

This marks the second-straight episode of anime, after OverLord – 04, in which a group or groups are ultra-confident to the point of arrogance they have the upper hand over a foe, when in fact, they’re hanging by their pinkie off the edge of a cliff. The one to show them reality in OverLord was Momonga; here’s it’s everyone’s favorite human observer / information broker, Orihara Izaya.

The confident parties include Heaven’s Gate, a group we were introduced to when Akabayashi broke up a drug racket in a club bathroom, and Amphisbaena, a rival group running underground casinos using cashless IC chips. Awakusu asks Izaya in investigate the latter, who knows he’s investigating them, and Heaven’t Slave knows too and wants to find a way to make it to their advantage.

Izaya by now has assembled his team of muscle made up of Zombie Dragons, martial-arts ace Sharaku Mikage, a girl who is a Saika vessel, and a due with a big hammer, and more. Yet, throughout the episode we cut from him interacting with both his team members, sisters, and Celty (to transport a laptop displaying GPS tracking data), to a man in his clothes with a burlap bag over his head being very lightly tortured by a very comely, well-dressed Amphisbaena member.

Heaven’s Slave crashes Amphisbaena’s party, which gets both groups in the same place, and then it’s time to unmask the captive. Both leaders get phone calls from someone with a disguised voice who momentarily gets them to believe they may have accidentally captured one of their own bosses, only for the captive to take his bag off and reveal it was Izaya all along, utterly unimpressed with Amphisbaena’s interrogation techniques.

Then Izaya’s friends storm the place and lay absolute waste. Again, like in OverLord, there’s no contest between those who thought they had everything figured out and those who actually do. Heaven’s Slave and Amphisbaena are humiliated, and their inexperience with how things are done in Ikebukuro—with supernatural beings and elite specialists in various fields—and end up looking amateurish. The lesson is: don’t mess with Awakusu…or at least don’t mess with them when Izaya is working for/with them.

From Izaya’s victory we cut to another conversation with Shiki in the back seat of his car. Shiki is pleased both the rival gangs were dealt with, but warns Izaya they know he went above and beyond, and not to overstep his bounds with his new over-leveled mini-gang, and to call Akabayashi as soon as it’s convenient.

Izaya acts the submissive part, as someone who receives “bliss” for being “used to the max” by Awakusu Group as an information broker. It’s not necessarily a dishonest statement, as his work does allow him to observe very interesting humans doing very interesting things. But I can’t believe he assembled that team just for that one job. There’s much more to observe and do.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 07 (19)

With the stalker—scratch that, stalkers—initiating their attack on Ruri’s acquaintances, it’s Mikado who takes charge, warning Celty to get to the severely beaten Shinra post-haste, as well as dispatching Blue Squares to foil the stalkers targeting Shizuo (whom Kida is with) and Anri (keeper of the kitten). In this way, the damage the stalkers do is mostly minimized, but a lot more suddenly comes to light that breaks this cour wide open.

Adabashi, for instance, manages to get Anri where he wants her, but is so fixated on killing the cat that he leaves Anri alone to chase it, and ends up tangled up with a bunch of Blue Squares. He’s more than capable of tossing the relatively weak amateurs aside, but didn’t count on Kida being their to deliver a professional crotch kick. He even manages to recover from that and turn on Kida, but one of the masked Blue Squares sets Adabashi’s back on fire, forcing a retreat.

Kida, who has seen texts from both Mikado and Aoba, assumes his benefactor is the latter, but then Mikado, his nose broken and his forehead split open, removes his mask and reveals himself to Kida. This is Kida’s first encounter with “the New Mikado”, and it shakes him to the core, especially when Mikado asks his friend to wait a little longer for the time when he can make Ikebukuro a place where Kida and Anri can live.

Kida had worked so hard for so long to keep Mikado out of the fighting, but in his absence Mikado has rendered all that work moot, placing everything on his shoulders. I was expecting Mikado to even ask Kida for help, but he doesn’t: he tells him it’s best if they don’t see each other until his self-imposed ideal conditions have been met.

Kida is shocked, but then turns around and tells Anri the same think Mikado told him: to just hold on and wait a little longer. Clearly, Kida senses, this isn’t the right time to come clean to his two estranged friends about everything he did as leader as the Yellow Scarves prior to his exile.

In the meantime, we see a new face in a pipe-smoking, monocled fellow who seems to be Yadogiri Jinnai’s immedtiate superior. This villainous-looking fellow wants Celty, Anri, and Ruri for his own purposes, and won’t accept failure; if Jinnai can’t get it done, he’ll find someone who can.

We only saw a brief glimpse of Izaya last week, but he is already working towards reasserting his primacy in the goings-on of Ikebukuro. He’s recruited a number of familiar faces—including the tomboy dojo instructor, a heavily bandaged Sloan, the girl who tried to murder him in the hospital, and the badly-burned Adabashi, plus at least six others who don’t look like people you want to mess with.

Izaya has welcomed them into the Dollars just as Mikado is attempting to purge the group of unwanted or unstable elements. But something tells me re-introducing instability and chaos is high on Izaya’s to-do list, no matter how much that agenda might clash with the Dollars’ founder. And you know what? I’m glad Izaya is back, about to raise hell that will test Mikado’s resolve.

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.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 02

This episode is called “Life is But a Dream”, which may not come from the most sophisticated or subtle song, but does manage to encapsulate the lives of Harima Mika and Yagiri Seiji. Considering everything these two have been through, having an ordinary life where they can go see movies and eat sushi together must feel like a dream. Too bad for Mika, then, that Namie isn’t done trying to wake her beloved brother up from that dream, and turn Mika’s into a nightmare.

This episode also focuses in on the Namie-Seiji-Mika triangle that wasn’t really visited in the Shou cour, telling a relatively self-contained story that nonetheless depends on little assists from the rest of Durarara!!’s sprawling cast who are periphery this week. With Izaya in the hospital and his sisters feeding her good intelligence about her brother and Mika, Namie decides the time is right to lure Mika into another dark warehouse where she can rid herself of her once and for all.

What neither Namie, nor I, expected was for Mika to put up such a good fight. Not only is she more athletic than either of us thought, she’s a lot shrewder, self-aware, and well, abnormal, to the point that Namie accepts her as a worthy rival rather than just trash. She ends up on top of Mika and is about to pour acid on her face, but Mika is able to keep her distracted long enough (by reciting all the secrets of the show, the protection of which keeps everything status quo) so that Seiji can figure out where Mika is, rescue her, then give Namie a calming not-kiss and scold her for “going too far.”

The status quo is maintained, Seiji and Mika remain an item, and Namie is appeased by the not-kiss for the time being. But both Namie and Seiji (and we) are also now more aware of what kind of person Mika is: the kind of person who would eat Celty’s head if it meant being able to stay by Seiji’s side.

Durarara!!x2 Ten – 01

It’s appropriate that I watched this particular episode of Durarara!! x2 on a national holiday like Independence Day, because this week pretty much everyone in the Drrr!! universe has the day off as well, as befits the day after all that excitement transpired.

It’s a lazy, sprawling episode that checks in on almost everyone, even a few people I didn’t expect. It not only explores what it is to have a day off. Normal people go out and do something to experience something “abnormal”, while people who are abnormal every day (like most of the characters in this show) either don’t have days off or try to find even more abnormal experiences than they normally would.

Then we have Shingen warns CEO of Yagiri about getting too close to the likes of Yadogiri Jinnai, who may be shaping up to be the big bad after stabbing Izaya. He certainly seems to have his hands in all things abnormal. They’re just glimpses of these peoples lives, resulting in a scattered but eclectic “character flight” upon which to nibble before things get started in earnest.

Fittingly for a down episode, we’re introduced to a character who considers her plight and her mission to be of the utmost importance, but to everyone else is about as insignificant as one of the extras walking Ikebukuro’s streets. This girl, who holds a murderous grudge against Izaya for getting her involved in that suicide business under his alias “Nakura”, learns about Izaya’s stabbing from The Great Connector—local TV—and decides tonight’s the night to exact her revenge.

Izaya joked during his long and boring time recovering in the hospital that with enough properly placed rumors about Shizuo, some less informed individuals with bones to pick might get the idea that he’d be vulnerable to attack. Thanks to the news report, it’s Izaya who is the “sitting duck”, or at least appears that way, but even if this disgruntled girl prepared her body and mind for this night, she’s still no match for even a recently-stabbed Izaya.

But even though the girl fails, the fact she saw the news and came to Izaya’s hospital room to murder him inadvertently serves as the latest example of why Izaya loves the humanity he observes so much. Even with everything he’s seen and experienced on the superhuman or non-human side of the world, sometimes ordinary humans can surprise him too.