Hello everyone and welcome The Anime Pulse: First Reaction. One of my favorite shows is back for the second part (or cours) to their second season. It is everyone’s anime version of Pulp Fiction… Durarara!!x2 Ten!
General Overview
Set in Ikebukuro, this continues the stories of Mikado, Masaomi, Izaya, Shinra, Celty, Anri, Shizuo, Simon, and many others in the Durarara!! universe. It’s also the continuation of the conflict between The Dollars and The Blue Sqaures.
First Episode Impressions
The first episode picks up right where episode 12 left off from Durarara!!x2 Shou. Orihara was stabbed and is now residing in the hospital. He plans on making an escape regardless if he’s back to a hundred percent or not.
They also go to great lengths to set up a lot of stories.. especially with Egor and Shinra’s father. Then there’s a new girl who comes to the hospital in an attempt to kill Izaya. Add in Masaomi returning to Ikebukuro to come see Mikado and we’ve got a lot of nice interesting set ups.
The highlight of the episode came when Shinra/Celty embarked on a trip and getting pranked by Izaya when Shinra complete blows Izaya off over the phone. Izaya, seeing the police officers who questioned him about the stabbing in the hospital lobby, he loudly states some pretty nefarious things to Shinra, making the officers suspect. The officers then call Shinra back and Izaya walks away smiling.
Then Shinra and Celty come back from their vacation and Aoba is there to introduce himself as the episode’s cliffhanger. Aoba is the pseudo-leader of the Blue Squares who had Mikado take over for him as both leader of the Squares and The Dollars at the end of last season.
There really isn’t much to say other than Durarara!! is back once again and if you’ve been a fan of the series from the beginning, then you will feel right at home. There’s plenty of stuff happening and with the flashback in the opening, they made this feel like episode 13 rather than the first episode of a new series.
It’s Durarara!!
Just go watch it.
OP & ED Impressions
Opening
“Day You Laugh” by Toshiyuki Toyonaga
Okay.. I usually have an issue with the seiyuu singing openings and endings, but this one will be heavuily forgiven because this opening theme song is absolutely AMAZING. Everything from Theater Brook to ROOKieZ IS PUNK’d to OKAMOTO’S always gave a certain flair and vibe to the series. You can imagine yourself in an urban setting just jamming away to these tunes because it just paints that kind of picture. Toyonaga continues that here with “Day You Laugh” and the track is done masterfully well. I actually haven’t heard of a character-driven opening this good since Daisuke Ono. I repeated this one multiple times and can’t wait for the full version.
Ending
“EXIT” by REVALCY
I’m not really digging the ending. The art is just another copy of the very first ending to Durarara!! which was also reproduced in Durarara!!x2 Shou. It’s almost becoming the only ending they know how to do, although I loved the second ending to the original Durarara!! even more. The song just doesn’t have that Durarara!! feel to it and even though I tried to like it, I just can’t bring myself to. Oh well.. at least there’s that awesome opening, right?
Worth Watching?
YES – If you haven’t watched Durarara!! then I suggest you go marathon it. This is going to be one of the great animes of our time if it isn’t already!
