Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 12 (36) (Fin)

The final episode of Durarara!!x2 opens with almost total chaos: Shizuo and Izaya continuing to go at it, the Saika zombies storming Russia Sushi, and Mikado shooting himself in the head with his microgun.

Gradually, order is restored by various means, such as Varona stopping the duel in order to prevent Shizuo from becoming a “beast” like her. Izaya, for his part, eggs her on to kill him, lest she prove to him by not doing so that she’s just an ordinary human being.

Simon then stops Varona from killing by tossing a flash-bang into the standoff. Then, all the Saika zombies and the bullets in Mikado and Masaomi are neutralized by Celty, now with her memories as a headless rider overriding her memories as a person and Shinra’s girlfriend.

Shinra knows Celty is lying about not knowing anything about Ikebukuro, or them, but the head won’t budge on her decision to leave town after cleaning up all the chaos she believed she caused by being a disruptive supernatural entity in an ordinary human city.

When she finally gags Shinra and rides Shooter into the night sky, Shinra cashes in on a high school promise and has Shizuo launch him into the sky, so he can be the “villain.”

And, well, I guess he is the villain—in that the spooky, powerful, supernatural dullahan should be allowed to leave down—only he doesn’t want that. So he uses the Saika ability he gained to separate Celty from her head once more.

The moment he does this, she starts to panic about the possibility of him dying, even when he’s softly and safely landed in a web of her shadows. I like how she held onto her smartphone, as if subconsciously preparing for the eventuality Shinra would foil her plan to slink away.

And Shinra, we know, isn’t the only one who counts Celty as a valued friend and ally. She saves Mikado and Masaomi, so that Mikado can take a knife from Nasujima in Anri’s place—an action he makes reflexively but also perhaps as amends the way Celty tried to do.

After Mikado is stabbed—more than once—the show starts wrapping up loose ends, from Kasane denying Ruri’s own attempts to atone for her crimes, to Varona heading back to Mother Russia, promising to duel Shizuo if she ever returns. Shinra and Celty are happily back together. Then Anri, in a rage, turns Saika on Nasujima for hurting Mikado.

Niekawa stops her blow with her knives, surprising Nasujima, who thought he was controlling her all along (since she always called him “mother”, no doubt) but was mistaken.

While trying to escape Niekawa’s clutches Nasujima ends up crossing paths with the Kodata and the van posse, but before we know whether they run him over, he wakes up in restraints on a table, as Niekawa wheels tools of torture up to him.

As for Mikado, he wakes up. Just before he does, Anri admits to Akabayashi that she likes him, and those feelings are her own. She seems to have accepted that she’s a human; after that night it was a lot less rare to have Saika inside you, after all. Mikado, for his part, isn’t as concerned with whether his life to follow will be ordinary or extraordinary. What matters is that it’s reality.

The twins in the chat room don’t rule out more Durarara!! in the future, but while I enjoyed this latest arc, hopefully it doesn’t come too soon, for I’m little Drrrr‘d out.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 11 (35)

Her fate on hold for now, Celty is literally above the fray this week, as Erika gets in touch with Kasane, informing her of what Nasujima is up to, Shizuo and Izaya continue their fight in the streets, biker gangs from all over the region who have joined the Dollars amass, and Akabayashi considers Awakusu’s role in all this, if any.

Now that Masaomi is on that roof, there’s no more reason for Mikado to hold any secrets, and he points his handgun at his best friend, while revealing his ultimate plan: to turn the Dollars into such a nasty group with so many enemies, it will end up collapsed, with nothing left but another urban legend.

The reason? The Dollars, which he founded to escape his ordinary life, have become, well ordinary again. At the end of the day, Mikado shares the same “creative destruction” philosophy as many other villains in anime: he’ll destroy the world as it is, and him with it, hoping it will give way to a better one.

He’s well on the way to doing just that if someone doesn’t stop him, but here’s the thing: he doesn’t want to be stopped; not by Masaomi, or Anri, or anyone else. Mikado has backed himself into a corner, but it’s exactly where he wants to be when all the pieces he’s set up start lashing out.

Meanwhile, the story of Kasane falling for (!) Shinra seems like something that belongs in a much quieter episode. I appreciate that Kasane realizes Shinra’s feelings for Celty are real, and that she figures if she won’t be loved by anyone, she’ll love him, but as far as Shinra’s concerned Kasane is just a glorified obstacle on his journey to find and reunite with his one true love. The connection with Mikado’s situation is that Celty may have the power to stop him. The problem is, it may be too late.

Masaomi, knowing how Mikado would be holding his gun by the book, slaps it away and starts trying despertely to beat some sense into him, but Mikado has gone well and truly cuckoo (he’s even aware Izaya is using him, but doesn’t mind).

When he shoots Masaomi in the thigh with a hand-mounted micro-gun, he retreats even further back into that corner, now believing if he could shoot Masaomi, he could shoot Anri. Rather than end up in that scenario, he turns the little gun on himself. He doesn’t see any other way to stop himself from doing worse things and causing more trouble for more people.

And considering he shot at both the police and Awakusu, he may not be wrong. I just wish he was, and that Masaomi and Anri and whoever else could tell him there’s still a way out of that corner; he can come back from the precipice; that no amount of trouble he causes will hurt his friends as much as killing himself will.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 10 (34)

Like water towards a drain, Dx2’s many  characters are accelerating faster and faster towards the epicenter created by Nasujima, and Anri lists all the people who have a reason to go and fight, including herself. First things first: she wants to help Dotachin’s group rescue Erika from the Saikas.

She also feels it’s time to finally reveal her secret to them: that she has Saika within her; that she’s not quite human. Unsurprisingly, no one in the van recoils or condemns Anri; quite the opposite. These are Celty’s friends, after all (not counting Namie, though she’s with Seiji).

As Shizuo and Izaya’s battle continues, with Shizuo stalking a slow, wounded Izaya, their friend Shinra reminisces on a talk he had with Celty back before she got her head back and lost her memories. He draws contrast between their group of friends at school and the triangle of Anri, Mikado and Masaomi.

In particular, how the their friendships have been defined as much about the secrets they kept from one another than anything else. Izaya and Shizuo never had any secrets about who they were to the rest of the world, while Celty, like Anri now, wanted to be the peacekeeper. Shinra isn’t ready to give up on her yet, as the dark night sky reminds him of her embrace.

Anri, meanwhile, is overcome by gratitude that Dotachin and his crew are so kind and understanding, but Dota makes it clear: even though Celty’s far less human than Anri, they know her, and know her well, and care for her, so they’d never fear either her or Anri.

As for Erika, she digs into her purse and finds the one thing that will serve her best in the middle of a pack of Saika zombies: red contacts lenses. Able to move more freely by looking and acting the part, Erika’s wandering segues nicely into Niekawa, who Anri calls on her cell.

Nasujima answers for her, telling her how Niekawa now calls him mother, that Mikado and Masaomi have been invited to his “party”, and she should attend as well. This only further steels Anri’s resolve to do what she can both for Erika and for her two best friends.

Masaomi and Chikage, it turns out, are tricked by Blue Square, by having Chikage lured into a baseball bat ambush while Mikado sneaks up on Masaomi on the rooftop to finally reveal his secret: he’s the founder of the Dollars. It’s a confession so long in the running I could have sworn Masaomi already knew long ago.

But the confession itself is of little consequence compared to whatever Mikado plans to do next. Is that gun for Masaomi? Are they truly beyond the point of no return? Can Anri get to them in time, and when she does, slap some sense into them? Will Shinra be able to reunite with Celty, and will she ever remember him again? Will somebody put Nasujima in his place? This is all going to be answered very soon.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 09 (33)

Another week closer to the end, another incremental episode that can’t help but feel over-contemplative, repetitive, and dilatory. The suspense is building…I guess…but only in fits and starts, not a surging stream. Last week everyone moved a little closer to a final showdown in front of Russia Sushi; this week everyone moved a little closer to a final showdown in front of Russia Sushi.

Anri and Saki have been milling around, and Nasujima has been standing around smirking for ages. Akabayashi serves as occasional narrator this week, weighing whether he should get involved somehow, for Anri’s sake.

At the construction site, Mikage fights to a draw with Varona and Kasane; because none of the three actually wish to fight. Mikage even agrees with Varona that Izaya’s chances against Shizuo are slight, but she wants to see Izaya go all out for the first time. The results are…disappointing.

Back in the beginning of Durarara!! fights between Shizuo and Izaya were almost played for comedic effect: these were just two diametrically opposed dogs who no one could convince to ever like. It’s almost as if a kind of twisted relationship deeper than friendship evolved from their intense conflicts. But I fear that conflict’s grown a bit stale, like the Neo-vs.-Smith by the end of the Matrix trilogy.

Izaya decides the best way to kill Shizuo is by carbon dioxide asphyxiation, so he leads him into an area where a pocket of the stuff slowly chokes him. Then Izaya tosses a match, apparently abandoning that method and settling for blowing Shizuo. (Also, CO2 isn’t flammable, so I guess there was something else being pumped in there).

There’s a big bang, but it’s quickly swallowed up by Celty. Like Izaya, we’re not sure what Celty’s game is; as far as we know her memories are gone, and yet here she is, showing allegience to the explodee rather than the exploder. Is it the basic morality and kindness that made Shinra fall for her in the first place, shining through even in her rebooted state? The episode doesn’t say; we don’t get to see or hear from Celty other than when she consumes the boom.

As for Shizuo, he naturally survives the blast, and pulls down the entire steel structure upon which Izaya stands, sending him plummeting. Before he can hit the ground, Shizuo belts him with a girder like a bat hitting a ball, sending Izaya flying through the starless urban night he loves so much. Much has been made of Shizuo’s monstrous strength and durability, but Izaya is clearly not just a regular human either, as he’s always surviving or dodging Shizuo’s attacks.

The Kodata gang is reassembled (sans Erika, but plus Saki, Anri, Namie, Mika and Seiji), and Kodata warns Anri to get out of town, but she won’t. Her eyes flashing red (like Shinra’s), she tells him there’s “something she has to do,” which is see this thing, whatever the heck it is, all the way through.

Chitoge and Masaomi get a birds-eye view of the situation on the ground, with swirling masses of ordinary people moving around in strange mechanical patterns, around the Russia Sushi epicenter. They spot un-Saika-fied but masked Blue Square members down below, and Chitoge goes to see if one of them is Mikado; we later see it isn’t, and Mikado is on his own with his gun in his jacket.

Finally, in one of the more unexpected pairings, Manami ends up helping a wounded Shinra enter a taxi so he too can get to where everyone else seems to be going. While en route, she tries to avail herself of Izaya’s one and only true friend’s insights about the best way to get him to despair as much as possible.

Shinra’s answer probably isn’t satisfying: Izaya, whom Shinra believes may be the most human of all of them, is a bottomless receptacle for all the worst impulses and actions of humans. He’ll accept it all and love humans unconditionally; not because his soul is strong, but because it’s fragile. As for Shinra, as the unnecessary flashbacks repeated, he is willing to lose his humanity and become a demon for the woman he loves.

Another few inches forward we lurch.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 08 (32)

While I acknowledge it contained some progress and a couple of Durarara!! firsts, this episode had a disappointingly incremental feel about it. Sure, virtually all Durarara!! episodes are incremental, but the better ones do a better job keeping me entertained and distracted enough to overlook the fact there is a dizzying number of players involved. It’s starting to get a little out of hand.

But let me get back to one of those firsts: Celty finally has her head back. In true Dullahan fashion, she doesn’t simply reattach it to her neck, but carry it in her arm. Her horse turns back into a horse, and she regains her original armor, but considering she has no idea who Izaya is when she sees him, it would seem her memories of Ikebukuro to date have been erased.

If that’s true, that would be a real bummer, but in the meantime Izaya has a fight to the death with Shizuo to take care of, so Celty kinda just…slinks away from the episode. Back at Shinra’s, Kodata shows his face for the first time since the hit-and-run, and wants Erika and everyone else to stay indoors. Tom Tanaka, pissed that neither Shizuo or Varona showed up for their rounds, has some late night Russian sushi, unaware the streets outside are growing more dangerous for him by the minute.

Nasujima, now some big-shot rogue Saika host, has turned dozens if not hundreds of citizens into Saika zombies, with which he intends to capture Tanaka and use him as a bargaining chip in his dealings with Shizuo. Shijima is with them to, though I’m not sure why.

Back at the construction site, Izaya briefly recalls what Shinra said to him about the benefits of getting along with Shizuo (he’s a tiger who will one day be an urban legend) rather than remaining adversaries (someone will get hurt or killed). Back in the present, Shizuo and Izaya are only circling each other. A big fight seems imminent, but it’s still just sputtering so far.

Chikage decides the best way to get Masaomi and Mikado to meet is with the chat room and a little bit of theater. He interrupts Namie’s ranting to demand Mikado call Masaomi’s phone…or else. When Mikado calls, Chikage answers, and sets up a meeting to hand over his “hostage.” Mikado agrees, and sets a location very near and dear to him vis-a-vis the Dollars.

That other Durarara!! first? Mikado actually has a gun, given to him by Izumii when they met. I have no idea what he intends to do with it, but it’s clear he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to use it properly; though at the end of the day, point-and-shoot will suffice. Call it another step deeper down the dark inscrutable abyss for Mikado, albeit an incremental one.

Once guns start being shot, the results can quickly become something one can’t simply, as Tom puts it, “let slide.” When bullets fly, impasses and stalemates start to become irreversible conclusions. I’ll hope Mikado takes after the re-booted Celty, and keeps his head.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 07 (31)

The item Mikado got from Aoba’s brother is not revealed; instead, Mikado is coy to Aoba about the content of their conversation, and then gets distracted by Namie’s meltdown in the Dollars chatroom, witnessed by the twins.

Namie isn’t about to forgive Mikado or let him have his perfect life without reminding him that he defeated her and messed up her life, but didn’t destroy her. Namie is just one of the “loose ends” Mikado will have to reckon with before he can reach his goals.

As indicated by Anri’s eyes reddening, Kasane’s Saika slaves are out in force, blocking all the roads and alleys that lead to the area where she’s restraining Celty’s body. Shizuo, not one to break the law unless its necessary, dutifully rides past the barriers, but soon realizes that he has to break through to get to Celty. Meanwhile, Izaya has come out to observe Shizuo’s confrontation with Kasane from on high.

I loved how calm and civil everything was. Sure, Shizuo crumbles a bit of wall and tosses it at Kasane’s associate, President Yagiri, but he and Kasane do not engage in any violence. Kasane merely restrains Shizuo, putting her hand on him. Whatever would have happened next is interrupted by the arrival of Varona with Celty’s head.

I also loved how Shizuo didn’t feel in the least betrayed by his junior, because, well, he wasn’t. He didn’t disallow her from taking other jobs on the side, but does recommend she chose more carefully in the future.

Shizuo appreciates that Kasane has business to conduct, but his friendship with Celty won’t allow them to treat her as a product or thing, even if that’s the best way to describe the state she’s in.

Kasane also appreciates Shizuo’s personal investment in this situation, as well as Varona’s complicated relationship with Shizuo, and decides the best thing to do is retreat for now. Despite her best efforts, her plan ran into a hitch, and that hitch was Shizuo. Howver, Izaya isn’t content to leave things there, and drops “liquid on the litmus paper” in the form of a pile of steel beams on Shizuo. Varona pushes him out of harm’s way, but a beam falls on her leg

Now Shizuo wouldn’t have been hurt by those beams (he flicks the one off of Varona’s leg like a 2×4) but Varona acted to save him anyway, because until she’s able to destroy him under her very specific conditions (i.e. going all out), she doesn’t want him to die. Similarly, when Izaya drops an excavator on Shizuo, he catches it on his shoulder and flicks that away too, saving Varona for real.

Izaya has seen the human chemical reactions he wanted to see, and likely wants to see more tonight, but when he calls Shizuo to chat, all Shizuo says to him is “So long.” No listening to his drivel, no angry outburst, no tossing of the excavator back at him. Shizuo won’t let harming his junior pass. He’s coming for him.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 06 (30)

This relatively spare (and almost entirely supernatural-free) episode focuses on the major players once more: Mikado, Masaomi, Anri, and Izaya, with Chikage narrating as he learns more about the state of things in Ikebukuro.

While much of that state can be attributed to Izaya, who has Chess, Shoji, Go, and Othello pieces scattered on his game board as he builds a house of tarot cards (a bit too much game imagery here, frankly) he’s correct in stating no one person is to blame, because everyone played little roles that added up.

At this point, he’s super-excited about Mikado’s state in particular, and interested in what he’ll do next, even if it means he himself becomes a pawn. He also wants this to be a humans-only game from here on out, which means taking Anri, Kasane, Celty and Shizuo out of this stage.

Still, it’s Anri’s human side that shines in her first meeting with Mikajima Saki, which cam as a surprise to me, considering how long this show has gone on. Saki has come prepared for war if Anri was to express feelings for Masaomi. While she heard from her boyfriend that Mikado was crazy about Anri, she wanted to meet her one-on-one to get her own impression of her.

What she finds is a cute, charming, mild-mannered young lady who has convinced herself that she’s a parasite who neither knows how to love anyone nor believes she deserves to love or be loved. It’s a much more nuanced situation than Saki imagined. The reality is, she’s no more certain of what love is than Anri, but being a parasite (or a puppet, as she once was) doesn’t automatically disqualify them from love and happiness.

Mika decides to further explain her relationship with Masaomi by going into her past with him; to a time Anri wasn’t present for. Despite having made a promise to the guys that they’d reveal their respective secrets upon meeting again, Anri is intrigued and lets Mika proceed.

Izaya’s efforts seem intended to pare down the players, especially limiting them to those who are only plain old flesh-and-blood humans. Mika’s efforts seem intended to enlighten her about the love triangle in which she’s been the fourth vertex for long enough.

And then Chikage, who is titularly “in for a penny, in for a pound”, breaks Masaomi’s dilemma down to brass tacks: He wants to see Mikado and save him (either by punching him or being punched, in the simplest possible terms). Blue Square is in the way, so Chikage will help Masaomi get close. If Mikado won’t answer a call from Masaomi’s phone, then Chikage will call him on his. Easy peasy, right?

…Perhaps not. Izumii Ran visits Mikado (much to Aoba’s consternation), they proceed to have a very civil conversation, Izumii gives Mikado some kind of “gift” hidden in his arm sling, and then leaves in the car of Awakusu’s Aozaki, activity that Aozaki’s rival Akabayashi learns about pretty quickly.

These are presumably the “grown-ups” Chikage is worried about getting tangled up with. His basic plan could work if he could just get two old estranged friends in the same room together to hash it out, but with an apparently important object now in Mikado’s possession that probably wasn’t given to him so he could pull out of his tailspin, it may already be too late for basics.

Durarara!!x2 Ketsu – 05 (29)

I misread Kasane’s intent last week: she didn’t come to Shinra’s intending to make a deal. Instead, she’s only implementing the next step in her comprehensive Celty research. She takes control of Shinra with a long kiss, plucks him out of his wheelchair and jumps out the window into the night.

Celty goes berserk, transforming into a big black ball of rage and gives chase just as Kasane intended. We see a lot of emotions going through the darkness of Celty’s mind, but the one that stands out the most is Shinra, Shinra, Shinra. And so her body moves instinctively to retrieve him.

As Varona stands by a car with Celty’s head inside, Kasane leads Berserk Celty through the skies of Ikebukuro, periodically firing blades to slow her down. Meanwhile, Chikage accompanies Masaomi to his Yellow Scarves hideout after saving him from Izumii earlier in the day, putting their fight on hold for now.

Masaomi, for his part, is shocked to hear Izumii is fighting on Mikado’s behalf as a member of the Dollars, while Chikage wonders what version of the Dollars he’s encountered truly represents them.

Kasane eventually meets up with Varona, who is this week’s narrator, and unlike everyone else running around this week has a lot of time to think about things. She admits she felt the euphoria that comes from gaining power when she stole the head; but it didn’t last long, and she realizes that it’s because her cover was blown instantly, and by Shizuo, no less.

Varona remains a deeply wounded and scarred young woman, but Ikebukuro and Shizuo have definitely had a profound – and I believe positive – effect on how she looks at the world and her role and values in it. She isn’t denying her feelings, only trying to figure out what they are and why she has them, and it all comes back to Shizuo and the peaceful daily life she enjoyed. She concludes it’s too late to go back now; that life is gone. But is it?

As chance would have it, after teaching some punk kids a lesson, Shizuo ends up with another bike on his shoulder when he encounters Celty’s horse. In the funniest and coolest scene of this entire Ketsu arc, the horse goes through various forms of transportation for Shizuo to ride it until settling on the bike, which he mounts and is then propelled at very un-bike-like speed.

While I’m unsure how interconnected Celty and her horse are, or whether they’re one and the same, it did seem like the horse was acting more reasonably than the mindless black ball of rage being messed with by Kasane. Whatever the case, it’s a given that the horse and Shizuo are on a direct course to the car with both Shinra and her head in it, which just so happens to be driven by his former adoptive protege.

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 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.