Summary:

Seiji has been taken care of financially by his sister Namie, but the constant cell phone calls between them bothers the girl he calls Celty, so she dumps his cell phone into a fountain when he’s not looking. Namie was the one who had actually shown her brother the head in the capsule years ago when it was owned by their uncle, and Seiji had become fixated on it. When Namie had moved the head to their pharmaceutical company, Seiji had stolen it one day. Unfortunately, Harima Mika had seen the head, and Seiji had killed her. He told his sister, and since she loved him, she took care of things by putting the head on Mika’s body. Namie now starts to worry because she’s lost track of Seiji, and she goes to Izaya to find him. Izaya jokes that she’s like a stalker, but he looks into it anyway and reports that the police will take Seiji into custody soon and call her about it.

The neck scar girl meanwhile is still uneasy because she’s getting text messages warning her that she’s being pursued. She tries to have Seiji take her away someplace, but in the process they pass by Celty and Shizuo, and Celty recognizes her head. Celty chases after and catches her, but Seiji tries to protect her and starts stabbing Shizuo with pens. This allows the girl to get away, so Celty gives chase again while Shizuo beats up on Seiji. Celty, however, is unable to catch the girl because the girl bumps into Mikado, and upon realizing who she is, Mikado leads her into the subway. All Celty is able to see is that Mikado is from Raira Academy, and she tells Shinra all about it later. Celty wants to find the Raira student, however Shinra questions what she’ll do when she meets her head again given how it reacted this time. Celty concedes that she doesn’t want to admit that everything she’s done for these past 20 years might have been for naught, and Shinra tells that it wasn’t.

Shizuo meanwhile had let Seiji go after head-butting him, and Seiji was taken in by the police and returned to his sister. Seiji only cares about finding the girl, so his sister promises to get her back. Namie, however, has decided that the girl, which she considers to be a doll, has gotten in the way of her own love, so she orders her men to get the head back dead or alive. The neck scar girl is actually still with Mikado, and unbeknownst to him, the person she’s been in touch with is none other than Izaya who is having a lot of fun with all this.

Preview

I’m probably going to end up saying this a lot as the series goes forward, but this was easily my favorite episode so far. As I had hoped, we found out all about what happened with Harima Mika and with Celty’s head, and based on that, I guess there’s no more head-in-capsule mystery anymore as I had questioned last week since they probably just disposed of Harima Mika’s original head. What was really entertaining about this episode though was the entire middle sequence starting with Celty encountering neck scar girl (incidentally, I’m going to keep calling her that until there’s a more definitive name shown because calling her Celty is just going to get confusing). I definitely didn’t expect Mikado to show up, and I laughed so much at everything Shizuo said and did.

Izaya was great too once I realized that he was behind everything – I love his complex game board – and I have harder time choosing now whether I enjoy seeing him or Shizuo more. On the other hand, both Seiji and his sister turned out to be a lot more loony than the first impressions of their characters suggested. Seiji in particular is frighteningly unstable, and I don’t know what the two girls see in him. Maybe that will change if and when he gets to narrate an episode. For the time being though, it looks like we’ll be following Celty and Mikado’s stories, and the preview indicates that they’ll finally meet each other.

41 Comments

  1. I never thought I would actually say that this series gets better and better every episode. The series manages to contain a deep storyline with an appropriate amount of plot twists AND a ton of humor (Shizuo getting stabbed 3 times and saying it didn’t hurt was hilarious, the best part being him worrying about a band-aid when THE PEN WENT THROUGH HIS HAND). The part where they reveal that Seiji killed Harima for seeing Celty’s head was pretty creepy, even creepier than Izaya’s I love all humans’ dance. There a few strange things though, like how they were able to find out the head’s name or why Harima looked exactly like Celty. Anyways though hopefully the series will get EVEN better (and it probably will), and I’m looking forward to all of the explanations of the strange things happening (including the slasher and who the identities of the chat room people are).

    Click
  2. I think neck scar girl is still Harima Mika, so she still loves Seiji. However, because memories are supposed to be stored in the head, she doesn’t remember anything about her stalking him.

    Also, how did Izaya get her phone number? Doesn’t make any sense.

    Bruce
  3. Wait so there’s no capsule anymore because Celty’s head is on Harima Mika’s body and Mika’s head was disposed of? Is that it? Crap I’m totally confused.
    Awesome episode though. I personally love Izaya’s character and how he’s always behind everything. Also still wondering if he’s human, but that’ll be cleared up eventually (probably).
    Lol, Mikado was cute this episode. His naivety is just adorable. Can’t wait to see him interact with all the other characters, especially Celty.

    Kit Kat
  4. Seeing that pen go through Shizuo’s hand made me flinch so badly. I’m glad my roommate wasn’t here cause she would have thought I was nuts (how in the hell can he just wonder about if he needs a Band-Aid or not?!) for how much I was freaking out.

    Seiji and his sister are INSANE to the max. He kills a girl and she just says “I’ll fix it”? Somethings messed up here. At least we now know that there’s someone weirder here than Izaya, by 10 times at least. And I agree with you Omni, I love his weird chess/Othello/shogi board. Hmmm…secret agenda anyone?

    And did anyone else feel really bad for Celty? Her and her head are the most interesting part I think. Her questions are pretty valid. And how Shinra comforts her is incredibly sweet…aww…favorite pairing.

    queenie
  5. @Bruce
    Yeah, and Seiji himself also is just as insane as the two.
    Actually this anime is filled with so many out-of-mind characters. I guess the most “normal” person in there should be Dotachin. Selty is a nice lady but you cannot call her a “person” anyways.

    DC/AC
  6. Mikaido is the one character is who I’m concerned about in this and later episode. IF he gets involved with that neck-scared girl any more, he’ll be in serious trouble. And only if i hadn’t looked him up in Wikipedia, i would have stayed in wonder. And what the hell is Shizuo even thinking about using superglue??

    Karis
  7. There’s just something about this series that makes you want to know more about everything and you just can’t wait.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    sealouse
  8. I’m actually starting to believe in the “it’s still Mika theory” since we haven’t seen how badly she was injured and we know Shinra can easily do plastic surgery and a memory wipe. I’m having a hard time believing a 100+ year old head can just wake up speaking japanese and be speed texting with a cellphone already. At the same time if Celty’s head can heal like her body maybe it’s not that hard to attach to a corpse and retain some memories.

    Maybe we should start calling one Celty with a C for cute and the other Selty with an S for scar.

    Firefly
  9. I love this series so much but the thing that’s getting to me is that they are stretching it soo long that it is become pretty boring and not so surprising. I mean I wasn’t at the edge of my seat till the end of this episode, but knowing the pattern the reveal wont be much and may be dry. It reminds me of baccano! alot but baccano had action to keep it intense throughout.

    jfdklajflk
  10. Yeah, this still has that Baccano vibe, but it’s more of a raw story. Hell, you could justify it being a love story.

    Definitely still reigns supreme among the 2010 anime so far, we’ll see if there is anything in the spring that can topple Durarara =)

    invAZN
  11. If anybody wants to read snippets and dialogues from the novels (and spoil themselves), you could always go to http://anni-fiesta.livejournal.com/

    She translated a ton of passages from the novels up to volume 7 and provided an in depth time line of the events in the novel. It’s a lot to read, especially starting now, but it’s cool to know what’s going to happen and watch it all play out either perfectly or differently. Also, Narita’s writing style is pretty fun to read.

    Qwerty
  12. A Shizuo and Celty pairing seems really probable now after seeing her stutter in front of Shinra Anyone else looking forward to it?
    And I’m sure most of you noticed, Shizuo seems to have have something huge against false romances. Defender of true love? Hoping to see it explained in the future.

    tommichaa
  13. I’m probably alone on this but concerning the music on this show…the word off comes to mind “should be more tracks” feel like I’m hearing the same loop over and over +they don’t feel scene appropriate .
    @invAZN i agree wit da “reigns supreme among the 2010 anime so far” lord know there’s slim pickings so far “lotta crap” but Man i wish could be as excited as u toward this series, but its failing to impress me like Baccano did. its just not serious,mysterious, and all around VAST FEELING as Baccano was. ah well, its a different product i guess

    BROOKLYN otaku
  14. @Karis superglue is used as a skin sealant by surgeons lately. It started out as a surfer trick. Surfers would tend to wipe out into coral reefs and cut themselves quite badly, and instead of going to get stitches, they would use the superglue to fix the wound. Doctors don’t recommend it, but mostly because they would lose simple stitching patients.

    “Cyanoacrylate is a tenacious adhesive, particularly when used to bond non-porous materials or those that contain minute traces of water. It is also very good at bonding body tissue, and while this can be a bothersome (or even dangerous) side effect during everyday use, it has been exploited for the benefit of suture-less surgery.” (wikipedia)

    TehJawknee
  15. Izaya seems to be more then just some dude. Is he the devil or some evil spirit pulling strings all over town to screw with all the people in the series? Im sure whatever it is there is more to him then just a kid in the neighborhood stirring up trouble.

    Splash
  16. Omg,the series is getting more intresting.YAY! I was a surprised that how calm Shizuo was when he got stabbed mulitple times by Seiji with pens.As for Seiji sister….she needs to get a life and stop worring about him so much.I dont like her.Infact I think shes the only character so far I dont like.

    Tokki
  17. @Firefly I’m really beginning to think too that mika didn’t die and they just did plastic surgery and memory wipe on her too. Isn’t that shinra here look at the hair https://randomc.net/image/Durarara!!/Durarara!!%20-%2009%20-%2028.jpg
    The more I thought about it who would put such a priceless head on a body to please her brother and why would the higher ups allow it but why didn’t seji notice.

    cx
  18. Wow what an episode!

    Am I the only one who finds some sort of parallel between Shinra -> Celty and the crazy Phrama siblings?

    The man that the portrait artist was talking to years ago was twirling a pen. And then Shinra’s father was twirling a pen. That means he took a trip to overseas? Namie’s uncle obtained the head after his trip. Could that be that Shinra’s father is Namie’s uncle, and he is one who originally stolen Celty’s head?

    InstantNoodles
  19. @CX
    Yes, I think that is clearly Shinra who did whatever surgery was done on “Harima Mika.” In previous episodes it was hinted that he knew exactly what had happened to Head@Celty and was trying to discourage Body@Celty’s search for exactly that reason. Now we know for sure. So, he either attached Celty’s head to the body, or… something else. But likely the former IMHO.

    dbm
  20. Seiji is crazy! In love with a head since childhood, kills a girl out of anger and depends on his sister to fix the problem. His sister is no better, she has a brother complex, a bitchy attitude and does shady human experiments. Most characters in this show are weird but these two takes the cake.

    conyo985
  21. I am almost sure that Mika is still Mika but after face remodeling and brianwashing.
    And about super glue and wounds. There is info that super glue was used to patch wounds in Vietnam war on battlefields and patrols.

    sarissofoi

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