Review of Durarara!!

In depth review #8 - Durarara!! Durarara was definitely an interesting anime to experience. The plot, the writing, and the characters contributed to this, but this feeling mostly came from the fact that Durarara fell inside its own genre. This show was made by Ryogo Narita who is responsible for creating Baccano in 2007. Both of these anime really can’t be compared to anything (besides each other) since both of these anime created their foundations from the ground up. The only way to interrupt these shows from the perspective of someone who hasn’t watched either would be to dissect their names. Baccano is an Italian wordfor noise, or rowdiness; the perfect way to generalize that anime. Durarara is similar to that by being the Japanese onomatopoeia for “vroom vroom”; the sound a motorcycle makes when being revved up, and that’s the best way to describe Durarara. It’s an anime that builds up its energy with each consecutive episode until the story kicks up its brakes up, and let loose. I thought this was a unique way to convey an anime’s story, but this made the first couple of episodes a tad slow. After all the “vroom vrooms” were done though (during episode 11) this show turned into one of the most enjoyable anime I have watched in a while.

Story: 8.5 (Very Good)

Durarara is an anime about the interesting inhabitants of Ikebukuro, an urban Japanese city that always has something interesting going on within it. The people that make up Durarara’s large cast is the main focus of the story, and are the people who contribute to making the main conflict of the show. The revelation of what Durarara is truly about is slowly revealed as the story continues. However, the story introduces itself by telling the story of a headless dullahan that rides a jet black motorcycle, following the lives of the most dangerous people in the city, giving the viewers the perspective of three high school freshman in the city, and revealing bits of information about a mysterious online gang called the dollars. With each passing episode, more and more people are introduced, and more of these obscure plot device pop up. With time though, all of these interrelated instances comes together and makes up the overall main story of the show. It may seem like Durarara is some sort of weird mashup of random people’s lives, but it isn’t. Everyone plays a role in a bigger scheme that takes place in this anime.

Moving away from the synopsis, the feeling you get when watching Durarara is kind of mixed. Durarara at times can be a bit of a dark anime. There are subtle tints of supernatural aspects, suicide, guilt, manipulation, murder, and gang violence in this show, all of which contribute to the anime’s story heavily. However, Durarara cancels most of this out with a lot of comedic relief, and slice of life tropes. It should be said that Durarara is a very funny anime and does a good job at balancing the two extremes.

Animation: 7.75 (Good)

As for the animation, it was very distinguishable. It has that style that you can glance at, and instantly know its Durarara. The art overall was ok, but a large part of time that went into it was focused on the atmosphere. The setting, the backgrounds, and the city were nicely animation. It looked like what I would think a modern day ikebukuro would look like honestly. It also made the show livelier from either the color pallet, or how much was on screen at one time. The detail for the characters in the show was ok. There’s nothing to say about the main characters designs but what caught my attention was the background characters. These people are represented as greyed-out humanoid. The people void of color are those who aren’t essential to the plot and story. I just thought it was a cool way to distinguish the important characters from the masses. This became apparent in certain scene where the main characters are in the midst of a crowd. This was cool, and I understand the purpose of it, but it not something I would say, “Wow, this is nicely animated”. Certain scene stood of from the rest like the scenes that involved the small supernatural aspects this show has, and the fight scenes, but everything else was average. Overall, the animation was good.

Sound: 9 (Great)

Man, I haven’t heard such a great soundtrack like Durarara’s in a while. Even if this review somehow doesn’t convince you to watch Durarara at least listen to the amazing OST. What a piece of art. Not only is the OST riddled with those soft jazzy mixes that made me fall in love with Baccano, but it also has those mellow down-tempo bass music, and piano solos that were amazing. My favorite songs from the OST are “Ikebukuro West Exit Five-way Intersection” and “Butterfly by ON/OFF”. As for the placement of these songs in the anime – they were very memorable, and made the scenes they complemented what they were. I remember thinking to myself while watching some the scenes was how amazing the background music was. Its soundtrack germinated so much energy for the anime as a whole, and made it feel more alive. The actions scenes had those intense drum solo segments behind it, the eerie supernatural events had those suspenseful tracks, and the lighthearted scenes had the smooth unimpressionable music behind it. Everything just had a place. The team who made this OST did a great job.

Characters: 8.5 (Very Good)

The entirely of this show can honestly be judged by how interesting the characters are. This show thrives off the back stories, and actions of these characters since the story is all about them. The more interesting, funny, or cool they are, the better the show will ultimately be. Durarara, for the most part, nailed this. Most of the characters in this 20+ cast were all interesting. I wanted to see more of them on screen, and dwell into their lives more often. This is especially true for the Izaya, and Shizuo who in my opinion should have been the main characters. Even Certy, and Kyuohei’s posse was something I wished we saw more of. Instead, we got to follow the three uninteresting high-school freshman, Kida, Mikada, and Anri. Mikada, and Anri were dull, and boring characters. Their back stories were epic all hell, but their lackluster personalities were too shitty to make me care. The only salvageable main character was Kida, but he as well didn’t come close to being as interesting as the other supporting main characters in this show. Like seriously, there is a girl who rides a horse that transformed into a motorcycle who is also headless, and she is a supporting main, lol. This was a big letdown in my eyes. Despite this, I do have to give credit to Durarara for making so many interesting characters for this show. Even though they weren’t the main characters, it seemed that every one of them were on screen for a more than reasonable amount of time. Compared to other anime that have casts, Durarara made sure to make these characters relevant to the story, and to give them all their own unique personalities. This was yet another aspect of the show that made everything more realistic and lively.

Enjoyment: 9 (Great)

I’ll just come out and say it. I absolutely loved this anime. It was one of the most enjoyable anime I’ve watched in a while. There were things that I would have had changed but the overall feeling I got from this anime was the best. I would say most of my enjoyment stems for 3 major components. The story, the characters, and the references from other anime. I voiced my opinion on the story, and characters above, but the references was the icing on the cake. There had to be a least a dozen references from other anime in this show, while the most notable ones being from Baccano. This is why I would highly recommend watching the anime Baccano before watching this series. One of my favorite scenes in the show was a cameo from Baccano, and I thought it was amazing when I first saw it. Also, the familiarity you get from watching the openings, and listening the jazzy music in the background adds a unique layer to the overall feeling of Durarara that people who didn’t watch it wouldn’t understand. Durarara was definitely a motorcycle ride of an anime, and I’m thinking of watching it again soon.

Score: 8.55/10 (Very Good) - You'll wish your life was this interesting :D