Category: Finished Series: Action

Ah, so the creators are going into an anime original ending. My opinion of those kinds of endings is simple: as long as it works, I don’t mind. Although of course in the past creators have shown that adapting a story and writing an original can be completely different (I think Claymore is the most notable example of this). But, here this series has the odds in favour of it: Takahiro Omori‘s endings have got an excellent track record. Baccano ended wonderfully, even though the source material continued on, Jigoku Shoujo always had excellent endings in which everything came together, and Fancy Lala had the single best ending of any mahou shoujo ever.

But Durarra… its ending is a bit more nuanced. You can see that a lot of thoughts went into it, but it lacks refinement. Here’s what I mean:
– I really liked how in this episode Mikado explained why he decided to shut down the Dollars. A surprisingly solid reason and gamble of him. The fighting didn’t stop immediately, but I doubt that he was just thinking in the short term. Unfortunately, he did not explain why he refused to answer Kida’s calls.
– I liked how the adults here set the children in their place, the chemistry between Celty, Anri, Shinra and Shizuo was well done, it was subtle, developed the story and was very interesting to watch. The conversation between Simon and Kida however… that was just too one-sided.
– The twist that the Blue Squares were the ones who took over the yellow scarves was actually quite interesting. It gives a reason to those random attacks they’ve been making beyond “ZOMG dollars sucks”. On the other hand… what were the creators thinking with that fight? Why can Kida easily kick away guys twice his size, and only after ten or so guys does he give up? I know that such an iron bar can hit hard and all, but it’s thugs he’s dealing with. These guys should know how to fight. I also did not like how they stood there like sheep while Kida was having a nice talk. And even during the fight, most of them just did nothing. Yeah, that’s a good idea, attack just one at a time.

Nevertheless, those are just details. What about the bigger picture? There, I can see where the creators are going here. They’re continuing the path of the flawed characters. They made Mikado more naive (seriously, I’ve seen quite a few webmasters pulling some weird drama that makes shutting down the Dollars just seem like nothing special) to let everything spiral out of control like what was originally hinted at. It decided to focus on the fact that the characters are teenagers, in the way that they have good ideas, but at the same time can’t quite see all of the consequences of their actions and don’t always take the smartest way out.

I suspected this way earlier, and with series that focus on flawed characters, it’s really hard to make your audience care about them compared to the flawless and charismatic ones. For me, it was especially Kida who got in the way and made me lose interest. This episode actually used Celty as a catalyst very effectively to develop Mikado a bit, in the same way that she took care of Anri.

The final episode is going to be very important for this series. I really want to see a good conclusion here, when the creators went out of their way to create a new one, eliminating any chance for a possible sequel. Kida is about to develop out of his angsty self. If the creators can get his character-development in the final episode right (and I really mean make something memorable out of it), then I feel like I’ll be able to forgive a bit of the disappointment of the second half of this series.
Rating: * (Good)

I think that I can finally point to what exactly I’ve been disliking about this series during the second half: it’s Kida. In this episode I actually quite liked Mikado and Anri, and their actions are quite believable. Anri had a bit of a slump at the end of her own arc, but even that was great as a build-up. I loved how in this episode she came to terms with herself, and how she finally developed. It’s here where all that build-up pays off. At the same time, Mikado was also quite interesting. I can believe his angst at the end of the episode, because hey; he just found out that one of his best friend became involved with some silly struggle that he was the indirect initiator of. The guy needs a bit of time alone.

Kida though… I don’t get him. His angst to protect those dear to him, combined with the way that he suddenly started yelling to Anri when he finally was able to talk to her under two eyes… I’m not really interested in that to be honest. For me, the parts of this series that focus on his angst are by far my least favourite of the entire series.

And it’s a darn shame, because the rest of this series really is excellent. It still sucks that it’s gonna end in two episodes, but this episode was well written, and one of those episodes in which a ton of build-up comes together and pays off. That really was great to see, and I loved the subtlety that the creators put into the development of the relationship between Celty, Anri and Mikado.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

“Oh yes, a girl from my school with glasses and big boobs. That sounds just vague enough to be Anri.”

I know it’s nitpicking what I’m doing here, but when this episode kept repeating it I really couldn’t help but notice how such a vague hint convinced everyone immediately about Anri’s identity.

In any case though, aside from that I can’t say anything new about how this series disappointed so far. This episode was clearly building up the things it had already established (ie, the drama around people who just refuse to talk to each other), but at this rate the series could still very much end with a bang.

Not sure whether this has to do with Mikado coming back into the picture, but I actually really enjoyed the time that was spent between him and the Dollars. To come with a bit of an analogy: it feels like Kida is trying to lead a group of dogs: loyal, but when left alone they might start barking and attacking. Anri on the other hand is leading zombies: brainless and completely obedient. Mikado on the other hand is trying to herd cats: it doesn’t work and more often than not they’ll just go with their own ideas. I find the relationship between Mikado and the dollars by far the most interesting of the three fractions that are currently about to go to war with each other.

I’m not really interested in the chaos that’s going to follow from now. Rather, I’m waiting for the moment in which the first of the three friends starts to speak up. That should prove to be very interesting. But at the same time… it’s still a pity that there are only going to be 24 episodes in this series. It really feels like the wrong place to end this series at.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I’ve said before that this isn’t the sort of climax I like. You know, the kind where characters just refuse to talk to each other, which is something that could make things a lot easier. With Anri… it’s still somewhat understandable: she doesn’t know about Mikado, and instead she’s just worried about being rejected as a monster, that’s fine. But in this episode Kida finds out that Mikado is the leader of the Dollars, and also remains silent. *headdesk* It also doesn’t help that Mikado still keeps listening to Izaya and that the rest of the Dollars are running around beyond his control.

There’s a line between flawed and just downright annoying here, and Kida… unfortunately is constantly hopping over that line. His angst has just been a bit too much for me… I can see that he’s had quite a past, but he doesn’t quite feel like such a dynamic character; my impression of him is that he’s either angsty or hyperactively hiding his angst, with hardly anything else. Anri on the other hand is getting more and more interesting now that we’ve gotten to know her, and Mikado already was interesting… though he’s gotten way too little airtime during the past episodes. I want to see some more scenes of him, trying to keep the Dollars under control. The two of them have a bunch of different sides now, but surprisingly there are just too many characters that are just… too one sided. This also includes Simon (who seems like he always talks about how good Sushi is) and Izaya (who seems to be a professional troll or something: do we see him do anything else?).

At this point though, I’m not yet sure whether I should criticize this show for having an annoying plot on purpose: it’s clear that the creators put a lot of thought into having things escalate like this, and Izaya’s trolling is making sure that everyone keeps doubting each other. But I’m just not enjoying this show like I hoped I would at the end of the first half of this show. It’s not bad or anything near that, but at the same I consider the second half as inferior to the first half of this show.

It’s also a bit of a shame that the animation budget still hasn’t recovered here. There are a few scenes with smooth animation, but none of them last longer than half a second, and on top of that there are a ton of distorted or rushed frames. That’s something you wouldn’t expect of Brains Base. I believe that this is the first series that they animate continuously for 24 episodes without breaks, and I guess that the toll of this becomes visible now.

Let me also talk a bit about the OP here, which have been… misleading to say the least. Consider the OP, which displays a bunch of characters who hardly made any appearance in this second half. I mean, why Shizuo’s brother? Why was there the need to include his brother? Heck, I actually thought that that Cop would make a big appearance, but aside from a cameos he’s also been pretty useless aside from giving Celty a strange quirk that feels a bit overdone. It’s another one of those “hey, we’re advertising to be like Baccano while we actually are completely different”-gimmicks of this series that caused me to expect the completely wrong kind of series here. I see that part of the fault lies with me for actually expecting this, but still…
Rating: * (Good)

The second half of this series turns out to be disjointed in a completely different way than the first half. The first half threw random scenes together and kept jumping back and forth to make a fun little story. The second half on the other hand is much more linear, but instead it likes to pull twists that it’ll only explain later, without any hint beforehand whether it’s going to do so or not. It was indeed a bit weird for Anri to suddenly show up at the end of the previous episode, this episode explains what she was doing there.

Now it’s time for this series to deliver. I’m not going to tolerate any more boring episodes after this, because overall my expectations for this series might have been a bit too high. I really tried not to compare this show to Baccano, but in the end the lack of energy of this series compared to Baccano unfortunately did bother me during the second half when the pacing suddenly turned down, instead of up.

Another thing is that Baccano just did have a huge cast of incredibly charismatic characters. Durarara on the other hand doesn’t: it’s about a bunch of angsty teenagers, a bunch of psychopaths, a headlesss rider and a bunch of characters whose quirks could have been great, but were underdeveloped. Sorry, Simon. I really liked him when this series started, but this guy never really got further than his episode in which he was the narrator. There are more of these minor characters who degenerated into caricatures due to lack of airtime in the second half, and I think that that’s something that I’ve been missing with this series.

Having said that though, I’m very interested in the plot here. It’s the kind of plot that I dislike, but in a good way. The way in which everything is based on misunderstandings and everything would be solved if people would just stop listening to Izaya and instead talk to each other. It’s been well built up however, and the creators can actually get an interesting climax out of it if they go out all the way with this, remain true to their characters and let everything spiral out of control.

The characters are acting with a kind of stupidity that is incredibly annoying with underdeveloped characters. However, now that Kida’s background has also been shown, they’re actually turning into rounded characters here, and that’s something that I appreciate a lot. However, character-development is one thing, now they also have to use it. I did cringe at the point in which Anri in this episode refused to show her face to Kida, however when the creators back it up well enough this can do interesting things for the plot.
Rating: * (Good)