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「会うは別れの始め」 (Au wa Wakare no Hajime)
“Those Who Meet Must Part”
A lot is crammed into Durarara!!x2’s final episode and the flashbacks remind me just how much has actually happened in our little big city of Ikebukuro. Let’s just jump right into it now and avoid the ramblings.
There’s a lot of words on the page but that’s because there’s so much crammed into one episode. For a finale, it’s rushed; but Durarara!!x2 has been such a long run, anything that happens within one episode is good. It’s nice to see a lot of character returning, with the “villains” put away (for now) and everyone pretty much ends up with what they deserve. I wouldn’t say that everything goes according to plan, but it wasn’t a bad way to tie everything up neatly. It’s not the best of Durarara!! that I’ve seen, but it’s certainly not the worst. My favorite episode the season was actually episode 4 with its improvements in animation and story and nothing has quite lived up to that one. Durarara!!x2 Shou was probably my favorite cour of the three; because the story wasn’t so convoluted that it went over my head at that point. While I’m sad that this is the final episode of a long-running series, I can’t help but feel relieved that it’s finally here and hopefully it’ll be remembered in a good way.
Epilogue:
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Final Impressions
I feel a wave of accomplishment and yet sadness as I write this Final Impression for Durarara!!. As an anime that I greatly admired and loved 6 years ago, it’s such a shame to see it come to a close. I remember when I first started Durarara!!, it was one of the more unique and captivating anime out there. The characters were special, but relatable; the intertwined plot was interesting but not overwhelming; and the storytelling was fascinating to say the least. It was also one of the first anime I watched that so complicated but left me so satisfied at the end to see it all come together. Durarara!!x2 didn’t give me the same feeling… perhaps in some arcs but definitely not as an overarching second season. This is where I’m conflicted by the love I had for the original season, and not so much the sequel.
Now, there’s a lot that I love about Durarara!!x2 too and it still carries a lot of the charm that it had from the first season. The strength in these types of series has to be the characters that it revolves around and our famous trio, Izaya, Celty, Takashi and gang, all find ways to keep it interesting. Ikebukuro attracts all sorts of weirdos, but that’s the beauty of it – you never know what you’re going to get. Even at the end, it doesn’t leave you with a definite ending, but more of a “life goes on” stance because there’s always something going on in the city. Just because you don’t see it anymore, doesn’t mean that life is suddenly peachy for everyone. So while I don’t want to give away spoilers (you can read my summaries), the ending does do the story justice; but that doesn’t mean there’s not more that can be said. In fact, there is a follow-up novel called Durarara!! SH which is currently being released.
With that all said, Durarara!!x2 ends off on a predictable note that leaves its characters exactly where they deserve to be. The series wraps up everything as neatly as it could – even bringing back people whom I forgot about. I would highly recommend the entire second season for all viewers that watched the original Durarara!! despite seeing the popularity of the series decline. Don’t you want to know what happens next? However, I only caveat that because I don’t want you to go in with the same expectations. Keep in mind that the studio has changed, quality of the animation has declined, but the same great soundtracks, and seiyuus are still around. I’m sucker when it comes to finishing off great anime that I’ve started so despite the second run under-delivering, I’m still glad it was released. I don’t regret sticking around for its final stretch.
Bottom Line – @RCCherrie: That felt like an incredibly long run for #drrr_anime (over a year!) but I’m satisfied with the way things ended. It’ll be missed =’) Also very happy with the way things ended up for our trio, Shinra/Celty and Shizuo/Varona #happyendings. #Drrr_anime packs everything in its final episode and ties up literally all loose ends possible – even though, as expected, “life goes on.”
“The strength in these types of series has to be the characters that it revolves around and our famous trio, Izaya, Celty, Takashi and gang”
I honestly don’t see Takashi as a character this story revolve around. If anything, I’d say it’s Shizuo.
Also, ” he’s can “love human beings” somewhere else now.” “his”
Takashi’s integration to this last part of the plot was far better explained in the novel, even if more vaguely than I would’ve preferred. The anime did a terrible job adapting him from that, and the explanation as to what had happened to him and where he’d been was completely cut out. Not to mention how they minced the more vulgar parts of his dialogue to bits, and even sliced out entire scenes. They did a pretty bad job reintroducing him in general, but of course that’s what you get when an anime is twelve episodes and almost nobody cares about the character in question
except for me, the rarity who likes Nasujima, who hates this ending and is fuming over how rushed Ketsu was in its entirety. They got rid of the novel’s “narrator”, tsukumoya, who played a pretty decent part in some latter events of the books, which was just the tip of the iceberg for me; they also shortened Shizuo and Izaya’s fight from the original novel as well, it completely lacked the monolouging Izaya was having after being shot and stabbed…. ugh I didn’t like how this adaptation was handled whatsoever, Shou was okay, I feel things began going downhill a bit during Ten, but completely took a nosedive with Ketsu, and as someone who was anticipating this, I can say I was very unsatisfied with the results. Not going to lie. The only consistency I liked was that they kept the intensity from the source material, but that’s about it.The entirety of Drrr x2 bothered me. The fact the scenes look so flat and Shizuo and everyone else can go from 13 heads tall in the knife scene with Izaya to 7 heads tall in other scenes to just anything goes at the point.
That’s a whopping sudden double height boost.
before I comment on this, I would like to address some comments from the last ep in this site since I wasnt present during that time.
people are underrating mikado a bit too much. sure he isnt a “badass fighter” or a show off like izaya, but he’s quite a capable and powerful person in his own right. this is kinda hard I guess to show in anime, its more easily felt if you read it by the details, but what mikado does throughout durarara is truly amazing not just from creating the dollars.
he is a master hacker and can easily find out various kinds of information, its quite plausible that he’s on par or even better than izaya if he really puts the effort, but since in the early parts he was mostly hesitant in doing so its not quite felt, it doesnt help that a lot of his activity is shrouded in darkness until much later. you can see this mostly in the 3rd season… which unfortunately wasnt blogged her in RC, so perhaps thats one of the reasons why the people here dont know or didnt quite understand. he controlled and investigated the dollars, and with the help of the blue squares, purged them off. this is to show how he is quite good at pinpointing various types of people just from an anonymous site. then do remember back during the stalker arc, he had already positioned all the blue squares to protect the different people who were targeted by the stalkers. this shows how good his preparation and foresight is.
I dont think I need to comment on the darkness part except that its always been there and not just due to all the events that happened(even though the finale makes it sound like it was). celty and izaya were just triggers, mikado’s always been quite interested in the “not normal” life. and while he really does care about his friends, he had always put forth an appearance of being a “nice guy”.
there’s some trivia that the anime wasnt able to do back in season 1-2, but did you know mikado actually handles several stocks and business online? its commented just once or twice in the novel so not putting it is understandable(considering there’s a load more important details) but this one helps to cement that mikado’s quite a resourceful and attentive individual. I forgot if the anime addressed it explicitly at the start, but mikado came to ikebukuru and enrolled there on his own without support from his parents. basically all his funds came from his management.
anyways regarding the durarara anime:
like I said before, its more of the case how certain parts dont translate that well on screen versus reading it by the detail. well actually they could still try, but it would lead to making the whole series even longer than it is already, which they really cant afford unless you want the studios to go bankrupt.
there’s some minor scenes thats kinda harder(and redundant) to animate or convey to anime viewers: izaya and shizuo being moved by vorona’s words since shizuo was willing to be called a monster to stop izaya while izaya wanted shizuo to go down history as a monster, izaya noticing how he was close to beating shizuo from all those wounds had those flashbangs not happen, “turn around celty” shinra was actually referring to celty’s body and not the head in this part, I think he even said “im not talking to you, im talking to celty” in the novels.
I would echo what cherrie said that at least its fortunate that durarara managed to finish its whole series in the anime, which is something that hardly ever happens, especially for a long series like durarara. quality might not be the best, but at least you get the whole story finished instead of just ending at a cliffhanger with no continuation ever coming.
https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Ketsu%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2041.jpg
in Izaya’s secret hideout no one can hear you scream!!!!!
this felt so satisfying…. along with him being hit by car ina moment of laser guided karma (trope!)
next most satisfying epilogue:
https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Ketsu%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2032.jpg
been shipping Shizuo X Varona ever since I started watching this series. forgive me for a bit of internal “squeee!” when I saw them promising to meet again
and finally:
https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Ketsu%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2045.jpg
“curses! foiled again!”
P.S. Shinra riding off with Celty was kinda predictable… but still good!
I would like to say though that aoba was indeed sincere in his concern for mikado, he really does admire him even in the sequel.
Nope. First Durarara ended in a good place. I don’t need to see likeable characters descending into idiocy and screwing everything up, nor do I need to see the prior order of things overturned for the sake of drama, or for just plain weirdness. There are no weird additional “true” Saikas, Mikado hasn’t descended into complete insane villainy, Shinra and Celty are getting along fine and mostly aren’t that interested in finding her head any more, Masaomi’s together with his girlfriend, Izaya got punched in the face by Simon… everything was fine. I have no need for the insanity or stupidity that ran rampant in X2. I will let things end where Durarara ended them, with no second/third season to screw them up.
-there were already possibilities of other saika’s to exist, do you think haruna got hers out of nowhere?
-truth be told, mikado has not been a villain until like the very last, and even then you could argue it was just that mikado got a bit too heated up during his confrontation with kida. please do check what ive written above, mikado has really not done anything “villainy”. all of the people he has targeted, were assholes and crazies. the yellow scarves and kida only got dragged in cause they opposed him in the first place, otherwise what mikado would have just done was get rid of the bad people in the dollars. do remember that in season 3, he and his gang were the ones who took care of the ruri stalkers.
people are so narrow minded that just cause some guy is taking extreme measures, he is now “evil”. yeah and some of those who say this even have the gal to like izaya.
-shinra and celty’s relationship would still havent truly resolved the issue with the head. the series was also there in order to test their relationship as well as strengthen it.
-masaomi who hasnt faced his friends and is just running away from responsibility.
-an izaya who would just come back to stir shit up. with the finale, he is actually going to fuck off, at least for a long time, giving ikebukuro some peace.
this was kinda lost due to how much stuff the anime needed to cram all the important bits, but vorona’s words really struck a cord in izaya about shizuo being human. basically, she denied izaya’s expectations and plans to shizuo, giving him such a shock that he wanted to get away from ikebukuro for a while.
also without the following seasons, we’d have:
-shizuo still thinking of himself as a monster, vorona’s words also quite struck him.
-anri still thinking of herself as someone not worthy of love and/or would have succumbed to saika’s influence and slashed the people she likes.
-seiji, mika and namie would never have gotten along.
so just because it didnt apply closure to you, doesnt mean it didnt for the other characters.
to add a bit more regarding the gang wars:
truthfully, the blame goes to kida on this. all mikado was planning to do was get rid of the bad guys in ikebukuro, FOR to have “a place to return to” and keep anri safe. its all kida’s fault that he misunderstood about izaya manipulating mikado to doing this, when it was mikado’s own decision for the sake of his friends and not just cause he was power hungry.
also people may have forgotten, but the point that led to mikado to doing all that shit, was when the dollars were going around and causing mayhem. thats when he realized that, if he wanted to get something done, he would need people who were strong, and thats where the blue squares came along.
it should also be noted that, the blue squares only did horrible shit when izumii was in charge. if you guys note, aoba’s personal gang dont really do that much and only became part of dollars since its quite a vast place for them to be like free and safe. after being under mikado’s control, what really bad things have they done?
Well. That sure was a long journey for such a small step taken forward. I mean, a lot has happened. But when you look only at the results. It’s almost like nothing happened. 3 friends finally got to be honest with themselves. Some asshole got what he deserved (hopefully Haruna castrates him).
Then we have Izaya and his gang. Well, what do I say. That karate girl was totally stupid, risking her skin for god knows why, since from what little we saw Izaya apparently “shamed” her according to her brother. Then we have the head-stealing girl, turns tsundere last minute even though she claims to want to watch Izaya suffer (hurr durr).
Watching Shinra mouthing off Celty’s thoughts made my skin crawl (which is a good job on Fukuyama Jun’s part) but oh god was it cheesy.
Aoba has some “plans” blah blah. His brother Izumii is still crazy and out and about.
I can’t help but feel that even with 3 cours this second season was rushed. There were plenty of loose ends that weren’t properly tied up. It doesn’t help that the show looked like a slideshow half the time.
… well THAT was a hastily rushed ending for Mikado! :O It also doesn’t feel real that this anime is finally ending!
Well, it was quite a ride. A fairly rough and bumpy one, but still one that was enjoyable. My biggest thing with Drrr has got to be the animation. I felt severely underwhelmed with the animation for the finale of this huge season 2, and considering how the overall season’s animation wasn’t great either, I would’ve liked to see a bit of an improvement in animation for this final episode. 😛 Still an enjoyable (but messy as hell with the series breaking it up into 3 parts and so much character and events happening all over the place) watch, and I guess the series ended on a good note, though I just feel season 2 just doesn’t live up to season 1 as a whole.
I wanted to see more of Takashi, I felt this adaptation hardly explained anything revolving around him, simply skipping from scene to scene with little to no explanation for his desires for vengeance, or anything else. Although a lot of what happened to him was only vaguely explained in the novel, it was still sufficient enough explanation, and that being completely scrapped and put aside in the anime did irk me. from a personal standpoint I hate the ending for him too, but my main gripe lies in the fact that any establishment that was given to him in the novel was almost completely scrapped, as well as a bunch of his dialogue and his ‘tics’, i.e. he clicked his tongue quite a bit in the novel description…. not to say he’s a greatly established character there either, but Ketsu did not do him any justice at all even compared to the source material.
It’s pretty depressing to be a rare fan of this kind of character and watch them get an even shorter end of the stick than they already had to begin with. I will admit because I hold a lot of animosity towards Haruna, who I find either to be a bore or a bother (such a yandere stereotype), I hate the ending especially, but as I said, it’s nothing compared to how shorted I feel Nasujima was overall. Of course, this entire adaptation suffers from the same distillation, being condensed into twelve episodes to obviously slash animation budget (which was clearly subpar to begin with based on how shoddy the quality has been), but overall I’d say as an original novel reader I’m pretty disappointed as to how Ketsu ended up overall, considering how much hype surrounded it initially. Even as a standalone series, even if I was someone who’d never read the source material, it’d feel equally rushed.
I think the best thing is that everything happened because of three characters.
1) Shizuo and Izaya = caused by Shinra.
2) Mikado seeking abnormal life = Celty.
3) Kida’s adventures – Izaya’s manipulation.
4) Most of gang fights – Izaya.
5) So many people not dying – mostly Shinra, at the end Celty.
In the end, the those three seasons felt rushed, there were too many characters, etc. etc.
But hey, it had the Durararararara spirit till the end. Narration by a different character in every episode, all the crazy (Niekawa best girl, that pink dress NNNGGGHHHHH), ridiculous fights and romances, it’s just that none of those three seasons was 2-cour, so they had no time to install the melancholy the first season served us.
It’s a bit of a pity they ignored Durarararara SH, but I can live with that.
Actually, most of them will come back in volumes 4-7 of SH.
I could not help but think, man did Mikado luck out by all the turn of events. He was saved by Celty, and his future safety is ensured by Akabayashi thanks to his friendship with Anri, and also saving her from a knife attack. That plot convenience though.
Still, I hand it to the team for nicely covering all of it’s bases and tying up basicially all loose ends, although it was pretty crammed. Even something we all forgot about, like Ruri’s stalker was taken care of in like a minute. While I thought this season was arguably the weakest (or at least weaker) of the Durarara seasons, I still enjoyed the ride. I’m going to miss seeing this colorful cast of characters, and I’m glad everyone received a happy end (save Izaya and Takashi)
Will miss it greatly. As I feared no much to cover in last season so poor close out.
Don’t know why Celty had to lose her head. I pretty sure after she saw her love fly by and was trying to save him she would have stayed. I wanted to see Shinra and Celty with head interactions. Over all a very touching romance. Plus with her head she could have rated her visa seamed normal for a second then take her head off to shock the cops and drive off on her “bike”
Love the no major endings that;s Durr lots of excitement followed by not much so you know the fun goes on and on.
Plus any show with three Yanderees two who seam to actually agree to share their man is fantastic.
And of course Chikage describing how wonderful women are, how they are superior to men and how to treat them well, thus earning his harem. His only flaw is trying to protect them from fighting even if they are good at it.
(I’m sure most of his girls leave him, without resitance by Chikage if they reach the point of wanting to settle down, but until that time he’s way better than the average man and has lots of girls around to talk to and do things with)
Just in case it was missed, Anri was referred to as Airi (from Erased) through this article. ;D
Could have really done without the implied torture porn.
Did Shinra really need to sever Celty’s head? I would think that since Celty was lying about everything and after seeing what Shinra was willing to do she would change her mind perhaps? They even said her body retained the head’s memories this time. On the other hand she probably couldn’t stay in the city while having to carry her head everywhere.
Man the animation sure was shit in some parts.
Well, there is SH still. I can’t wait for that to be animated.
I am so sad that it has to come to an end yet i am so happy. Ryohgo Narita is one of my favorite authors! i hape they remake baccano again or make his other books into an anime show. I dont know so much about “etsusa Bridge” but i think “Vamp!” might have a little hope because they talked about ruri and he half aunt and house that had special blood! , well that blood is vapire bloood and in “vamp!” they talk about how the hijiribe{ruri] (sorry if its misspelled) dspanded from the vampire and went to live with humans. Although it doesnt explain them much in DRRR!, that only because he want to advertise them in a way lol . please if any one know of his other books getting future adaption, please email me “segoken41@gmail.com”