「猫の首に鈴」 (Neko no Hitai ni Suzu)
“Bell the Cat”
It’s rare of me to watch an entire episode of Duarara!! and understand it from start to finish. There are just so many characters and ongoing plotlines these days that unless I make a web of characters, I can’t keep track of who knows what. Luckily this week’s episode was easier to understand and it resembles a part two of last week’s premiere. We see returning characters that we didn’t get to see much of last week and an expansion of the plot – especially regarding Celty’s head. Everything’s told from several key female characters’ perspective this week so let’s break down exactly what happened:
The best part of the episode has to be the ending (which I’ll get to in a second) but leading up to it, it’s pretty obvious what was going to happen with the reintroduction of Mamiya Manami (Tanoue Marina) and Niekawa Haruna (Nakahara Mai). I mean Manami is carrying a backpack, she wants to get revenge on Izaya… it’s clear to me that she was going after Celty’s head. Haruna’s reappearance is an interesting one, considering she hasn’t appeared for 2 cours now (she wasn’t in Shou right?). I totally forgot her background until recently so to see her confront Anri was a shock – I thought she’d be look for Nasujima Takashi first. We’ll have to see what Haruna and Anri end up discussing next episode, but I’m expecting more of a brawl than a chat.
The episode starts with Anri visiting Erika at the hospital even though neither of them can actually see Kadota (as visitation is family only). Rokujo Chikage (Ono Yuuki) shows up at the hospital to give his regards and we haven’t seen him since Shou so that’s a surprise. I wonder what kind of mischief he’ll cause this time around. Izaya shows up shortly afterwards and his conversation with Anri is a bit more hostile than I thought it’d be. Izaya taunts Anri to pick a fight right there and then but Anri tries trying her best to keep her cool… resisting the urge to beat this guy up. I mean, even MY blood is boiling just thinking about it! Who does Izaya think he is going around controlling everyone like puppets?! Clearly that’s his role in the story and even he doesn’t deny it. His character is scheming and rotten. Thank God Erika was around to stop the two of them… but I hope Izaya gets what’s coming to him before he sets Masaomi and Mikado on track to kill one another and poor Anri will try her best to stop it all.
The ultimate enemy for Izaya is none other than the mysterious Kujiragi Kasane (Kuwashima Houko) who is still wandering around time “enjoying her freedom”. She doesn’t have a huge role this episode but you do learn that she loves cats!
Finally we get to Celty who is the star of this episode in my opinion. Celty’s head remerges! And not in the way that you’d expect it to, but out in the open for everyone to see! Why are people not panicking more?! But this is the world of Durarara!! so maybe they’re used to the supernatural by now. Celty quickly faints after seeing her head on the screen and that’s where we leave off his week’s episode. What does this mean… will Celty get her head back? To me, that’s always been like the “end goal” for me in the series because the initial introduction for Celty always talked about her getting her head back. Given that she’s such a critical character, it’d feel weird to end her story so soon before everyone else’s.
OH! And the whole episode is narrated by Shinra’s dad – Kishitani Shingen (Ootsuka Akio). Not that it impacts this episode too much.
So a lot has happened while Kadota has decided to remain in the hospital and behind the scenes. After this week’s episode, I don’t think there are too many more “threads” hanging and it’s time to get back to the schemes and plots. I’m primarily waiting to see if Celty gets her head back, but if not for that, Kadota waking up and/or Anri’s showdown with Haruna would be interesting. I don’t think Masomi and Mikado will duke it out anytime soon but they have been too quiet in the background since the end of last season. And what about Shizuo? He’s like one of my favorite characters, what is Izaya planning for him??
Bottom Line – @ RCCherrie: Finally! An episode of #DurararaX2Ketsu which didn’t completely confuse me =P That shouldn’t be saying a lot but it does sadly. A whole ep devoted to the women of #DurararaX2Ketsu. Also a focus on those we missed last week. #drrr_anime
Preview
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It’s a race to get to the head now!
And Mikado and Masaomi are having their little gang war in the background.
Devoted to most of the women, if not all.
I find the lack of Varona and the little girl who taser-ed Shizuo, disturbing.
Definitely no lack of female characters in this series. I would’ve liked to see Izaya’s sisters or Namie’s POV, but nothing too interesting is happening to them ATM.
I love this series but am starting to hate the lazy storytelling of villians like Izaya who just want to make trouble and have fun doing so. Its like they are just internet trolls and yet so many animes go for this type of lame villian. Izaya is just one of the best at doing it. I hope he gets punished big time one day.
I kind of have to say this as the person who read the original LN, but I feel like the portrayal of Izaya for the past few season was very lackluster as an adaption. Especially the episode where Izaya got caught by these group of people(amphisbaena) and ended up screwing them over from last season.(I guess it was inevitable that one of the volumes had to go through a 2-episode adaption rather than the more ideal 3-5 episode adaptions so that more of the final volumes can have more space.)
It’s a scene that got cut off so I don’t think I have to, but I’ll put it in spoilers just in case.
Show Spoiler ▼
I love Erika.
I wanted to punch Izaya in this episode. Poor Anri…
I’m sure deep down, we’d all love to have a friend like Erika.
at last it’s back to the blog…I missed it so much last time…
https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Ketsu%20-%2002%20-%2011.jpg
Durarara!! is a hard series to blog because there’s a lot going on at once… sometimes there’s just TOO MUCH info thrown at you and sometimes “nothing” happens and there’s nothing to talk about =S until you realize so and so was actually super important. So that’s probably why no one fights tooth and nail to blog it. That and there’s a lot of awesome shows every season that people wanna talk about.
Is it me or is the animation the best it’s been in a while in this episode?
ok, let me get this off from my system:
don’t lose your head, Celty…
ok after this worst pun of the new year is out of the way, I am actually considering picking this up, since it seems the show is fun… I was kinda scared of not understanding who-is-doing-what-and-why, but maybe it is not that hard…
Or maybe I’m just really good at explaining, huh huh?? =P haha! Jks! Hope you decide to follow along. ^^
Nice screenshots, am tempted to watch Durarara!!x2 Ketsu now 😀
Yay! More people on the Durarara!! train =D
I hope that Celty actually puts the head on her before the end of the season just to see what happens.
So celty is like a rabbit hehehe^^
Last episode Celty said she doesn’t want to get her head back till Shinra is gone and dead. What does that imply exactly?
Rokujo is as disgusting as ever. Frankly, I don’t see any point in Anri’s character. She is just there.
Im super late but I think you mistook a word in the title.
首 (neck) is romanized as “Kubi” while “Hitai” actually means forehead.
So, “Neko no Kubi ni Suzu” would be the right romanization of “猫の首に鈴”.