Durarara!!X2 – 08

No animation issues this time around thankfully. Really like the touch of Irelands flag on the cup Shinra gave the girl at their apartment. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Celty is indeed Irish. Probably one of the few Irish characters in anime. And here we learn that the one who told the little girl to kill Shizuo was in fact Izaya. (No surprise there) Shizuo reaction to this is the most unexpected and pretty funny scene. A ridiculously off putting smile as he goes off laughing to kill Izaya. Naturally Izaya goes to lengths not to face Shizuo directly. Even framing him for murder and getting a gang after him. Izaya’s plan looks to be coming to fruition. With him even taking Masaomi out of town so that he doesn’t mess up his plans for Mikado. He is currently suspicious but hasn’t caught on to the real reason Izaya sent him to the countryside. Verona’s gearing for a rematch and Ladies man is picking a fight with Kadota. Things for this arc look to be coming to a head.

Mikado’s section basically involved him being offered the position of the leader of the blue squares. The impact of this scene is lost on me. Because it relies on Mikado denying his desires and having someone else point them out. The problem with this is that Mikado is not unaware of his desires. They are the very reason he moved to Ikebukuro in the first place. He himself pointed this out to us in his flashback. So having him deny this and claim he wants an ordinary life is just out of character. Why does he need someone to bring up something something he already knows? That Izaya brought up with him only an episode ago. I like the idea of Mikado taking up a position of power. I am just not fond of the execution.