Summary:

After setting everything up and getting Celty’s help, Mikado calls Namie and offers her a deal. The two meet on the busy streets of Ikebukuro, and Mikado reveals that he has custody of the neck scar girl, but he wants Namie to acknowledge what she and Seiji did to Harima Mika and to turn herself in to the police. Namie, however, is adamant about no one getting in the way of her brother, giving Mikado a glimpse of the reasoning behind her actions. While confronting her about this and citing his own ideals, Mikado worries about his plan, but when Namie summons her goons, he has no choice but to put it into action. Using his cell phone, he transmits a message, and moments later, the cell phones of almost everyone in the crowd start ringing. This includes those belonging to Kadota and his friends, and Kadota subsequently heads up to the top of a nearby building to meet Celty, bringing along with him the neck scar girl. His group had found her after nearly running her over earlier, and when Walker had posted about it on the Dollars’ message board, Mikado had responded. Mikado had also arranged a meeting for the members of Dollars, and almost everyone in the crowd right now is one of those members.

As it turns out, Mikado and some online friend had created Dollars back when he was in junior high school and had wanted to change something. They had made it well known through online rumors, and Mikado had distributed the password to the website. It grew beyond his control though, and his online friends eventually disappeared, leaving it all to him. Nevertheless, Mikado had tried to nudge the group in a positive direction, and he had seen the impact of Dollars once he got to Tokyo. The message he had just sent to all the members had declared that the people in the crowd not looking at their cell phone mail were enemies. He instructed everyone to just stare at these people quietly, and the result of this is Namie and her goons getting surrounded. On the roof of the nearby building, Celty meets the neck scar girl like Mikado had promised she would, and she learns that the girl also calls herself Celty. Celty then jumps onto her motorcycle and rides down the side of the building, announcing herself to everyone below. Once she reaches ground level, she fights Namie’s goons and gets her helmet knocked off. This causes a huge scene, during which Mikado makes his way to the outside of the crowd. Unfortunately, Seiji finds Mikado there and charges at him with a knife.

Preview

It was great to see Mikado’s plan coming together this episode. He was a tad on the preachy side when he was talking to Namie, but for the most part he’s become much cooler and is a lot more likable as a character. Arguably the best part of the episode (and no I didn’t miss the Isaac and Miria cameos) was when he sent the message and everyone in the crowd changed from colorless to colored – given the fact that they’ve called Dollars colorless in the past, I had wondered at one point if making random sidewalk people gray was an intentional choice, and it clearly was. As I said last week though, I had been spoiled on the fact that Mikado created Dollars, so that element of surprise here was gone. Still, it was interesting to see how Dollars came about, and I’m sure that Izaya had some hand in growing the group.

As for Celty, she got some character development this week too, and I wonder if she’ll seriously consider marrying Shinra. I also initially thought it was a bit weird that Celty met the neck scar girl but didn’t do anything to her other than ask for her name. I assume though that Mikado had given Celty the job of being the diversion or being the person to defeat Namie’s goons. Thinking about it now, it would have been entertaining to see Shizuo or Izaya get involved too, but there might still time for that. Regardless, it looks like next episode could be the finale to this first story arc, and the preview makes me think that either Celty will somehow get her head back or that Izaya will do something to mess things up.

62 Comments

  1. LOVED Mikado in the episode. He’s such a badass calling out the entire Dollars gang. 😉
    If i hadn’t ruined myself with the spoilers, then I would have been surprised at the whole reveal. And does everyone now totally agree that Seiji and Namie are just plain messed up? Seiji is just a total whack job (that should seriously get some professional help, in my opinion) and Namie is in love with her brother to…um…unhealthy levels. Yeah…my two most hated characters in the show.

    And is this 24+/- show? From the way they’re going, it seems that way.

    and Omni, when are you gonna have the Spring 2010 preview up? I’m dying to read it. 🙂

    queenie
  2. ISAAC AND MIRIA. BEST CAMEO EVER. Seriously, I was cheering when they came up suddenly! And they’re part of the Dollars too, which is kind of random but expected at the same time. I wonder how Firo and the others are doing, but I don’t think they’ll make a cameo anytime soon since Isaac and Miria were good at speaking Japanese even in 1930s America while the others have no idea how to…

    What I don’t get is that Baccano! posters were seen which implied that Baccano! was a series that was watched in that series, but I guess that’s looking too much into things…

    Mikado is total win in this episode. Dollars ftw. Celty was also awesome but I wonder how everyone heard her when she doesn’t have a head…

    akani
  3. @Akani

    The posts were a simple advertisement plug, its not uncommon when the same people are behind both shows.

    I completely agree with you, Isaac and Miria cameo came out of nowhere and was AWESOME! 🙂

    Ashan
  4. i literally started shouting when miria and isaac came on the scream! 😀 that was epic! that would be awesome if they showed firo and them toooooo 😀 so after next week’s episode we get the new arc. I can’t wait to see that one animated

    rey
  5. Celty’s behavior at the end of the episode was kinda confusing, but this episode was exceedingly cool nonetheless. It was also awesome to see so many of the characters we’ve seen as Dollars, starting with Izaya, Shizuo and Simon, and even minor ones like Rio and Kaztano and the Hashim boy and the lost-and-found girl.

    p.s.) Yohoo! Yo!Tube! Amezone!

    Starshade
  6. I completely LOL’ed @ Miria & Isaac’s cameo. GO BACCANO!

    And btw, was it just me or did Shinra’s proposal feel too much like a “DEATH FLAG”…Haven’t spoiled myself, so I wouldn’t know…but I call it.

    kazekaeru
  7. Bwahahaha…. loved the Ubuntu Linux (wbunte) reference!!… take that, Mac/Wintards!!… would be better if it was a Debian or Slackware reference, though.

    Baccano cameos were good.

    My weeks been sucky, especially after I found out about Nujabes’ death 🙂 , but this episode helped me recover a slight bit.

    Litho
  8. Did anyone manage to recognize all the anime from the posters back in episode 7 ?
    I got: Rozen Maiden, DTB: Ryusei no Gemini, Shizuo’s brother’s movie, Baccano! and Cenrocoroll – so can anyone tell be which is the one between Baccano! and Cencoroll!

    Plus, what is the connection between them – they were all made by different companies (mostly) and directed by diffident people?

    someguy
  9. @someguy: I think they were in Aniplex or something.

    Loved this episode, I can’t believe that the girl from episode 1 was a dollars member. Lol, they will let anyone be in DOllars these days.

    underMebius
  10. I love the baccano references, the password the guy typed for the dollars website is actually baccano, i went back and checked to make sure

    best part tho is when both characters are sizing each other up assuming that they know what the other person is like, idk i liked the match up between the two.

    leftarrow
  11. Man, this episode rocked. I also loved Isaac and Miria’s cameo, and the other references wbunte, Mindows7, Yo!Tube, Nixi, Yohoo, Amezon. Durarara!! is getting better with every episode.

    Choko
  12. Reminds me of Unwritten Law’s “Genocide”:

    You’re standing there
    Like we’re gonna be all scared
    Come now
    And I don’t really wanna brag
    But my whole city’s got my back
    And we’re all ready to attack

    P.S.- So fitting I posted this on Starcrossed as well. heh heh.

    kbot
  13. When they was talking about dollars, one of the guy said something like “i dunno, it’s fun cause there is always someone to answer your posts”.
    so mikado just created 2chan and colled it dollars ^^

    nice revelations here, for those who don’t read spoilers it was a great moment 🙂

    Zeross
  14. OK this episode is great… and yeah is because of Isaac and Miria too… but nonetheless i`ve tried to avoid any info about this show or his novels and i`m really glad you guys here hide the spoilers because reading omni thoughs is obvious that this spoilers kinda ruin surprises and i`m glad that the mikado boss thing caught me off guard because it was WHOAAAA!!! for me even knowing that he is kind of the principal characters group here… anyway keep it up omni i like to read your thoughs every week 🙂

    Null_x
  15. Great episode! Though I would have been even better with a little more Izaya. And my surprise of Mikado being the Dollar’s leader had been spoiled before this episode too X(. Can’t wait for the next one. =)

    KurayamiAkane

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