Durarara!!: Ahhhh, let's tell an odd, odd story...
So, then, Durararara!! (sorry, I slipped). A 2009 fall season anime of 26 episodes, Durararara!! (based on the noise made by a motorcycle. And also, given that the japanese don't separate the 'l' and 'r' sound, also a pun on several story elements, such as the 'Dollars' gang, a celtic mythological creature called a 'Dullahan', and a japanese phrase meaning 'to loaf about') is based upon a light novel written by the people who also wrote the story behind 2008's delightful little 1930ies gangster-flick-as-shot-by-Quentin-Tarantino anime Baccano!. The show was produced and animated by Brain's Base. A sort of urban mystery action series, it concerns a number of odd, freaky, outlandish and eccentric characters living in the Ikebukoro district of Tokyo. Through a series of smaller stories that together form a quasi-coherent narrative, Durarararara!! explores these very odd people and the everyday lives they attempt to live, while the very oddness they represent warp their home district into one that does not suit a quiet downcast life at all.
Remembering the glory that was Baccano!, I practically jumped at watching through and reviewing this show: Wanting to see if the writers could get the magic working in a different setting with different characters. While I didn't entirely get a second Baccano!, I did get 26 episodes of near pure entertainment that manages to not rip Baccano! off and stand on its own merits. Although it should still be said, at times somewhat aimless entertainment spread out over a slightly too large a cast of characters that aren't all as relevant.
Animation and Visuals: 8/10 -- "We built this city/we built this city on rock and roll on impressively detailed locales and background easter eggs."
Set in the Tokyo district of Ikebukoro, Durara!! has a rather nice attention to background detail and showcases a wide range of different urban settings and backgrounds. It seldom recycles its locales and shots and gives us fresh material for each episodes. While I can't speak for their accuracy as I'm not an Ikebukoro native, the buildings and set pieces are done with an admirable amount of detail. Even if the detail and scale is not completely to the level of the similarly-set Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, things like the public TV screens showing scenes of Baccano! and the easter eggs on the posters only help aid the positive impression. The method of animating background people that are not active characters as grey, indistinct blobs gets a bit annoying, I for one got used to it (and as it turns out, there's also something of a reason for doing this). The animation isn't exactly top-notch, but still works well enough. Special effects, like those used by supernatural beings like the Headless Rider, spice up the graphics a little. While the opening sequence is pretty much ripped off from Baccano! (or, for those of you with knowledge beyond that of simply anime, Snatch), it is well-done too and worthy of a mention.
The character models are varied more than most shows nowadays, if not extremely distinctive. The facial expressions and showcases of emotion, not to mention the facial structures, stick out enough and there's only so much one can deviate from the artist's original style. Ultimately I cannot call Durarararararara!! one of the best-looking anime I've ever seen in my life, but it's very little I can actually pin on it as overtly detrimental either: It's more of a case of 'just not enough truly stand-out stuff overall'. Ultimately this is closer to a 7.5 than a true 8.0, but I chose to round up because I feel generous.
Sound: 8/10 -- A fairly steady and well-done music- and voice-choice across the board, though nothing that scales my personal list tops.
Almost just as impressive is Durararararara!!'s sound, which is also well-made. Basing itself partially on Baccano!'s roaring jazz soundtrack, Durararara!! mixes up a selection of more modern-sounding jazz with some fusion/techno-inspired synth music. It mixes well with most scenes and aids in the ambience without becoming dominating or ignorable. It reminds me somewhat of Darker Than Black's music, although it is perhaps not entirely as good. The OPs and EDs (especially "Uragiri no Yūyake" by theatre brook, the first opening) are memorable and you'll likely find yourself tuning yourself into them mentally, if you've got any inclination at all towards doing this to begin with (and I, alas, do). There’s also what I’d in a charitable (read:drunk) mood consider a perfectly decent homage to traditional celtic music that finishes off the first arc… Even though it mostly sounds like the only “celtic music” the composer has ever listened to is The Pogues. But what the heck.
Although good, the music alone isn't meritable enough for this sort of score. When the voice acting gets factored in, though, it helps. The voices in Durarararararara!! are very good across the board, and help keep the rather large cast separate from each other and memorable: Minor characters like the crazy otaku duo get much more memorable for being allowed to overact a bit. Although two of the tree main character students are a bit boring, the voice acting can be said to fit their actual personalities well. Pretty much all the roles are excellent: In passing I'll just mention Kamiya Hiroshi, who gets to play his first major "jerk" role in a series since Shinji Matou in Fate/Stay Night and shows that he is still able to play a smug bastard as well as ever. The 'weakest', for whatever value that is worth here, major role is possibly Miyuki Sawashiro as The Headless Rider -- though this may just be wishful thinking that having the character actually stay mute throughout the series would have made for a more interesting character concept. About the only other negative thing I have to say is that there are occasional discussions in Russian: The spoken Russian sounds awful to me, and I don’t even speak Russian. I expect native speakers are laughing their buttocks off listening to it.
Story: 7/10 -- "Nice! I love a happy story more than anything else. So, explain to me why a gang of criminals weirdoes is comin' and goin' at this place."
As I alluded to in my introduction, the story of Durarararararara!! (sorry, I slipped) makes itself out as being something of an exploration of the characters living in the setting and their surroundings. Unlike in, say, Baccano!, there is not a complete story that runs through the entire 26-episode run: There are several smaller arcs that each introduce a new major event to the daily life of Ikebukoro. Over three main story arcs, Durararararara!! gets to focus on and develop the most central characters -- in order, Mikado and Celty share the first arc, then Anri gets the second one and finally Masaomi -- while in the background, Izaya serves as antagonist by continuing to manipulate each of the arcs' events and characters for his own sick amusement. All the while, members of the 10+ strong secondary character cast come and go, moving along the plot and serving as guides to Ikebukoro by fleshing out areas the main characters themselves do not thread. Meanwhile, they each get to narrate an episode of their own, showing their viewpoints on life and the events as they happen on-screen. Ok, let's get this straight out of the way before I get any further, though: This show is no Baccano!. The energy, the anachronistic episode telling, and the compressed storytelling that made Baccano! such a high-energy hit isn't here. Durarararararararararararara!! is a much more slower, careful beast, and suffers somewhat for it, even though it means more time to deliberate and explore the setting and characters. But saying 'not quite as good as Baccano!' doesn't say all that much about quality, anyhow; that's a pretty high goal after all.
All in all, Durarararararara!! manages to tell its story without any major gripes on my part: The arcs are decently crafted and, although the individual episodes are a bit aimless at first, manage to segue into a greater narrative. The overhanging plot hooks work, the characters focused on are well-characterized and unique and as a result provide interesting material for the viewer to be entertained by. There's even a few half-decent plot twists (although no major shockers). Although there are a fair bit of side tales and a bit of back-stories that may seem irrelevant to the overhanging story, most of them work for showcasing that this is a living, breathing, dynamic world. Apart from one somewhat wall-banging plot resolution regarding a character named Shinra and his girlfriend (which I shall not spoil but really pissed me off), the only main problem when it all comes down is that, in the end, the only absolution offered by Durara!!'s story is a setup for another season. While an effort is made to show that some things of significance has happened in-between and a fair bit of character development has happened on-screen, it's still somewhat weak tea. Then again, being based on a light novel series that didn't end at that point there's pretty much no other way for it to end if they ever want to make a sequel.
Characters: 8/10 -- More people should have the hobby of stomping on cell phones.
Durararararara!!'s character gallery, as revealed by the opening credits, is quite massive. Well over 10 recurring characters are running around in this show and the show neither has the time nor attempts to make the effort to give equal billing to all of them: The characters shift in and out of focus as they are needed. Occasionally this leads to leaving some of them in the background for a bit too long, making you question their value. It's easy to pin down main characters -- the student trio consisting of Mikado Ryuugamine, Anri Sunohara and Masaomi Kida, the Headless Rider and Izaya Orihaya, the closest thing the series has to a villain -- but it's occasionally a bit harder to understand the role of people like the strange quartet who drive around in that minivan. Fortunately, Durarararara!! manages to make me ignore this, mostly by making sure their characters are memorable and by actually giving, if not plot relevance, proper screen time to explore their characters. While Baccano! crammed all the characters in tight together and let their extreme personalities rub off of each other, Durararararara... rararara!! (sorry, I slipped) takes a slower, more exploring view, and manages this very well indeed. Not in the least because the characters are actually fairly memorable, if not always important.
You'd think that, having already penned Baccano!, the authors had run all out of crazy for this new show: Baccano!'s cast was probably one of the quirkiest selection of loonies I've seen outside of a comedy anime, almost on the level of semi-parody shows like Sengoku Basara and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. As this show proves, this is not so. While the three main student duo and the Headless Rider are fairly straight-laced (the last one disappointingly so, given her origins), the supporting cast try and mostly succeed to pick up the slack on the bat**** angle. While none of the characters in this show *entirely* reach the levels of over-the-top lunacy found in Baccano!, people like Izaya (basically a cross between Light Yagami, The Joker and an internet troll), Shizou (crazy-ass bartender who throws vending machines at people) and that tragically underused traffic cop that looks like Ladd Russo, come pretty damn close. Speaking of Izaya, he also serves extremely well as an antagonist. In a medium where petty prettyboy jerks and improbable plan users are a dime a dozen and mostly serve to annoy me (and I'm talking of anime here, for the benefit of the room temperature IQs reading this), Izaya actually manages to be so much a jerk and a mad implausible planner (and relishes his role so much) that he ends up crossing the line and loops right back to entertaining.
In short, I'm very positively inclined towards most of this cast: Sure, they're pretty damn unrealistic most of them, but they're very entertaining and fairly well explored.
Value: 7/10 -- It's no Baccano!, but it's still a fresh(er) breath of air in this age of stale moe.
Durararara!! appears to pretty much be a series for boys. I'm not saying that females and older people won't get anything out of it (I did), but the show doesn't seem overly concerned with trying to reach beyond its demographic. The show's characters are slightly archetypical at first, though it is handled better than most. The show's grabbing for archetypes isn't necessarily bad when they (mostly) manage to use that immediate familiarity: By initially capturing the audience's attention, they get some time while they build a unique character out of the initial presentation. The originality of the setting and story aren't the greatest either, but something relatively unique is still constructed from it all.
Overall, I'd say Durararararara, etc!! (sorry, I- don't really care at this point) is still pretty recommendable to anyone who doesn't mind shows from this demographic, although I *would* recommend watching Baccano! first before starting on this. I'd also very much like more of it, either shows of similar quality or by a second season. Other shows that viewers may enjoy: Cowboy Bebop, Black Lagoon, Darker Than Black and possibly Fullmetal Alchemist. Since BEEZ seem to have licensed it for an European release (sub only; waiting for the dirty yankees to make a dub or, shock and horror, make one yourself apparently isn't economically viable in the Age of Net Pirates), I believe I may buy it.
Enjoyment: 7/10 -- Season high scorer, though with its competition this season that's not as hard as I'd like...
Durarararararara!! was not exactly a positive surprise or anything -- I was expecting high quality from the writers and studio, and I pretty much got what I wanted: Good characters, well-crafted storyline, decent fight scenes and comedy; the works. Well, OK, not *entirely*; as I've already said ad nauseum I found myself slightly disappointed when comparing it with Baccano!, which is also true on the entertainment front. It just lacks that... Je ne sais quoi and compact energy of its predecessor, and there were the occasional splotches of boredom in it. Still, mostly a constant source of entertainment to me from start to beginning and pretty much on the top of my watch priority in any given week. Don't regret having watched this, not one bit.
Total: 7.5 -- Roar out a central narrative louder and we're talkin'. Perfectly serviceable as is, though.
Overall, Durarararararara!! is a very good show, bordering on but not quite reaching a status of 'great'. The graphics and sound departments are both excellent if not completely world-class, but the story and energy could possibly use a touch-up. Even though I realize it was necessary to flesh out the frankly humongous cast of characters sufficiently for them to function, I believe the show's story and pacing suffered a bit as a result of too many people. Still, function they did, something I do wish to impress. Despite the fact that many of them serve as little more than a showcase of the life in Ikebukoro, managing to juggle this many characters is impressive (even if the show does occasionally slip up a bit). It also suffers a bit from its lack of a finish, but perhaps this is for the best: Durarararararararara!! (yeah, you know the drill by now), although an incomplete narrative, has a lot of potential for further exploration.
And I for one would not look away if we can actually get more of it.