Review of Durarara!!

Durarara!! was a show that I had previously seen videos on youtube on recommending me to watch it. Seeing the title on Netflix enticed me to check it out. The story lured me in with intriguing mysteries, a wide main cast and sleek animation. The story is complicated and rewards you for paying attention to subtle details. The characters are defined not only by their individual personalities but how they fit in to the city's ecosystem, the city itself features as a main character. There are a lot of exaggerated personalities and abilities in the story each of which is fascinating in their own way.I also enjoyed that each character is assigned a specific motivation such that they could individually helm their own series. I did find that the story really had two different climaxes and it was disorienting to slow down the plot after the first one in away that kind of took me out of the action a little, but the anime quickly supplemented that with new twists in the plot which were primarily done by revealing new information to the viewer. I liked that the show didn't withhold info in contrived ways and instead had characters withhold info from each-other for story-driven reasons, such that the audience know only a little about specific characters than other characters do. Overall I felt that the story blended supernatural elements with the crime-drama aesthetic very nicely and aside from being slow here and there the story kept me engaged by dangling pieces of information here and there. I would recommend it for people that enjoy crime-drama and thriller stories.