Review of Durarara!!

Welcome to my review of Durarara!! from the writer who brought us Baccano! I'm kind of excited to review this so I hope some people will hear me out and read the whole thing. Hopefully I can convince at least one person to watch this beautiful example of story telling and near perfect narration. Story : 8 : The story for this anime is great, although not the reason it stands out. The narration is absolutely perfect however. Our narrator may as well be his own character, and sometimes they switch it up and have an actual character from the show narrate which is great,but the default narrator is impeccable. The narrator constantly gives his own opinion on the current situation that any of our protagonists are in which adds a fun sense of involvement for the viewer.
The actual narration however makes the story so much more interesting as it focuses on every character almost equally, not giving us an actual protagonist, although I suppose you could look at many of the characters as 'protagonists' for example Mikado Ryuugamine seems to take spotlight quite a lot despite seeming relatively generic at first. You could also say that Izaya Orihara is the true protagonist, being the character who seems the most in tune with the going on's around the city of Ikebukuro, but I digress.

Art : 7 :

The art is okay, nothing special here, moving on.

Sound : 8 :

I don't really know enough about the audio sound of anime to give a proper analysis but the music was well executed in its timing and sound and in line with the current situation always, No Mars of destruction Beethoven shit here.
I personally really enjoyed the sound aswell but like I said I don't have enough knowledge to give a proper analysis, It sounds good, that's all I know. Izaya's theme is especially well executed throughout the series : He's Such a Coward that he can laugh.

Characters : 10

I could talk for days about how this is probably the best characterization that I've ever seen in an anime. The only anime I've seen that comes close to portraying real character emotions and reactions to the same level being Steins;Gate.
Characters have a real sense of fear and react to situations almost exactly how you would expect someone with their personality and traits in real life. I could give a detailed example of why every character is like this but I think I'll focus on the two main examples of why the characters are so great.

Izaya Orihara :
I'm personally a people watcher in real life and I can tell you for a fact that Izaya, although extreme in his methods is an EXTREMELY accurate representation of someone who is genuinely interested/infatuated in human emotions and reactions to events for what they are and not idealistic versions of people that someone looking from a subjective standpoint would be easily persuaded by social standards to see. Izaya also constantly keeps you guessing, kind of similarly to Light Yagami, Sora or Lelouch vi Britannia, just a lot less generic. ( As much as I love Lou-lou ) The way he's written and the situations he's put in accentuate's this perfectly and the anime is worth watching for Izaya alone.

Mikado Ryugamine :
I can't talk about this without spoilers I'm sorry, you're going to have to watch for yourself. But I can tell you that the character development in Mikado is akin to anything Fate/zero has to offer or even Zuko's from Avatar ( Yes, I know, not an anime. ) Although I can't say this is executed as well as it could've been it's still great to see proper character development in any sense.

Other Characters:
If you don't laugh from/Relate to Erika and Walker you're inhuman.
Celty and Shinra OTP

In conclusion. Yeah the character's are pretty good.

Enjoyment : 10 :

The series made me feel included, Immersed and made me care about the characters and enjoy even the dullest of moments with them, not much else I can say.

Overall : 9 :

I find this anime is near perfection in the sections it's good at. Although I will admit the audience it appeals to can sometimes be a bit niche, it does fill out the review categories well but the anime heavily relies on your love of the characters and enjoyment as opposed to Art/Sound and to some extent story. In conclusion I would say this anime is a MUST watch for slice of life lovers, even though technically it's not slice of life, it does have certain element which are akin to the genre. Maybe a niche for action lovers but I still feel like it's worth the watch regardless because of the sheer quality.