Review of Durarara!!

**THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN A FEW SPOILERS** After hearing a large amount of praise for this anime and as well as the sizable fanbase that it has gathered over 5 years I finally decided to watch Durarara!! and I found Durarara!! to be an very interesting anime due to just how insane it is with it's story and how it handled characters. Story: (7/10) The story of Durarara!! begins with a guy named Ryuugamine Mikado who has always wanted to visit Tokyo because he has never gone outside his town before finally gets his wish and starts living in Ikebukuro. After seeing the urban legend called the BlackRider on the first day in the city, many weird events begin to occur all around Ikebukuro. The story for Durarara!! is definitely a unique one because of how the story doesn't just go from point A and B like most anime do, each character has a separate story that is told through their perspective that all eventually intertwine together and seeing all the stories come together is very satisfying. Another thing Durarara does with its story is that it tends to change how the story is told by sometimes suddenly transitioning to past events which is an interesting method of storytelling but can sometimes lead to confusion because of how we are not told that the events actually took place in the past until it finally leads up to current events that are happening and then being able to realize that it was a past event, so I would say that this is a negative for the story due to the confusion that it causes. Another problem I found in the story was how in the end of the anime it left some loose ends which made it a somewhat unsatisfying ending but since there are 3 more seasons after this I think that those should be able to fix this.

Art and Animation: (6/10)

I thought that the art for Durarara!! was fine because it would sometimes look unappealing due to how the people in the background would be not colored in and would be left white or purple. I thought that the backgrounds could also use a bit of work. There were many good character designs. The animation even thought that it would look choppy at times was actually pretty good.

Sound: (7/10)

The soundtrack in Durarara!! I would say is pretty good because of how all the music is varied and how it could help build an atmosphere during scenes. The OPs and EDs are good. The voice acting was above average and the sound effects are average.

Characters: (7/10)

The characters are definitely the best part of Durarara!! and that would make sense since Durarara!! is a character driven story. Most of the characters are well written with the backstories that they are given and I found Izaya to be the best one out of all of them because of his personality and how he would just observe events unfold before him like it was all a part of his plan. My only problem with the characters would be how some characters would have more development than others and even Mikado didn't much screen time compared to the other characters but that would probably be due to the large amount of characters that are in this anime.

Enjoyment: (7/10)

I definitely enjoyed this anime and I will plan to watch the second season next.

Overall: (7/10)

If you want an anime that has a unique and entertaining story with a cast of dynamic characters I would definitely recommend this anime to you.