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Summary:
Kishitani Shinra is an unlicensed doctor who works underground jobs in Tokyo, but more importantly, he lives with the headless rider Celty Sturluson. Her story goes back many years since she’s what’s known in Celtic legend as a Dullahan. Dullahans normally carry their heads under one arm, but in Celty’s case, she woke up 20 years ago to find her head missing, and most of her memories along with it. She had of course decided to find and take back her head since it contained her raison d’être, and that search led her to a ship headed for Japan. After changing her horse to a motorcycle, she had stowed away and had been seen by a young Shinra. Shinra in turn had gone to his father, who had also been a doctor, and his father had decided to approach and offer Celty a place where she could stay and belong in exchange for the chance to dissect her. She had agreed, and when he had later cut her open, Shinra’s father found that she had no heart, her organs that didn’t function, and that she healed very quickly. Shinra’s father had let Shinra himself take part in the dissection, and Shinra had consequently become fascinated with her. He still feels that way after the 20 years he’s lived with her, and she’s still searching for her head while working as a courier on the side.
On this particular day, Shinra arrives home to find Celty in an irritated mood. She eventually reveals that Izaya, after another job, had told her about an artist in the area who had supposedly seen a Dullahan in the past. Celty had spent a lot of time trying to track this artist down, and it had been Shizuo who had finally helped her find the guy. It turns out that the artist had seen a Dullahan many years ago when he was in Ireland and has drawn many pictures of her, but none of them show what her head looks like. The artist was unable to tell Celty anything about the head, but he did note that he was visited by a strange man recently who said that the pictures were fine as they were. Having now learned of what happened, Shinra feels that the strange man was right and that Celty is fine without her head. He instead proposes that she give up the search and go together with him somewhere, but she refuses because living with him like this is more than enough for her. She then storms out after he tries to suggest that she be a little more girl-like. As it turns out, Shinra had been the one who had told the artist that the Dullahan picture was perfect without the head.
Preview
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This was an interesting episode all-around since it was about Celty and how she got to where she is now, but the best part had to be hearing her voice. Like I suspected two weeks ago when she narrated episode two, Sawashiro Miyuki is indeed the voice actress behind her, and I imagine that the director/producers decided at some point that they had to voice her or else all of Celty’s scenes would be silent and would force the audience to read her cell phone text. Having a voice of course gives her all sorts of personality, and in this case, she’s shown to be the type that can get frustrated and can react angrily.
The whole thing about the artist told us more about Shinra than it did Celty though, and this episode was also partly an introduction to him and his interest in (or love towards) her. Fukuyama Jun did a fairly good job voicing him and narrating the episode – it was better than Simon last week anyway – and it wouldn’t surprise me if Shinra become possessive of her and even tried to sabotage her efforts to find her head so that she would stay with him. Speaking of which, this episode also made me wonder where Celty’s head actually is since it appears to be shown in the OP sequence. That seems like something we won’t find out until closer to the end of the series though, and next week looks to be focused back on Masaomi, Mikado, and Anri.
Show Spoiler ▼
Even though there was like no action, this show somehow manages to entertain me the most every week just out of pure style and script.
About her head, I get the feeling that it’s put on that girl’s body that the Yuji kid who skipped school is in love with. Either that, or she has the scar around her neck because she was cut by Certy before and something really freaky happened to her. I bet it’s the former tho, because if that’s Certy’s head at the end of the OP sequence, it has the same color hair as the “girl with the scar’s” head (the girl the Yuji kid who skipped school is in love with). Sorry I forgot her name.
If my memory is correct, I think that her head is shown a few times in the OP and even in the ED. Episode 01 was really telling, to be honest.
@MiraNai
I get the idea that this show has to deal a lot with “perspective” as a theme. So every character will probably narrate an episode before it decides to focus on, most likely, Mikado Ryugamine, and there will probably be a lot of overlap in stories.
I love Sawashiro Miyuki! So glad she’s Selty.
Selty… nice bod. hurhurr
D-D-D-D-D-Dullahan!!!!!!
Storytelling is such a major component of this anime but I am actually getting kind of tired of all these narrations. But I won’t give up on this series, it has such potential and I can’t see it ending up poorly.
Actually I am kinda disapointed.
Not much but still.
Bad news that there is only 12 episodes and I feel that I want more.
Strange.
But episod wasnt bad. I simply want better.
@BigFire
I believe what was said was the horse is just a dead horse inhabited by a spirit acting as her familiar. All She did was transfer that spirit from the horse to the motorcycle. I wouldn’t think there would be any transforming or disguising involved unless you consider it as her disguising her spirit as a motorcycle?
BigFire: Hence why I said “changing her horse to a motorcycle”
sarissofoi: Durarara is slated to be 24 episodes long.
Hot biker chick without a head? Interesting.
Headless horsewoman => headless biker FTW. Though I wasn’t expecting this show to reveal Certy’s background this quickly, it does come as a nice surprise. I wonder if this being episode 4 has anything to do with it (the number 4 being synonymous with death in Chinese/Japanese culture).
What’s up with the hate on Simon???
I found the way he narrated episode 3 hilarious.
:/
@Pikow – I thought so too, about the girl with the scar. Where’d she get the body from though?
That “autopsy” was messed up. Particularly for a kid to do that too..
Something makes me think that Shinra’s father is more involved. Well, one instance really.
When the artist saw the Dullahan, he ended up in an inn (or something), talking to someone, who told him that must have been a Dullahan. You don’t see that person, aside from the white-clad right arm with a gold-edged pen; someone good at spinning it.
Later, on the boat when Shinra goes and tuggs on his father’s coat…..
…anyways, just my two cents.
1:49 in the op…celtys head
The more I’m watching the more I’m getting intrigued. The OP has a lot of clues, the chick with a scar on her neck and the head inside the jar is connected to Celty. I hope when they finally reveal everything about the characters it will be surprising revelations. Eden of the East kinda was a disappointment when it comes to revealing mysteries. Durarara!! don’t let me down.
Also interesting to note at 0:21 in the OP it freezes on the girl with the scar, but doesn’t provide a name like is done for the other characters.
Well, of course Shinra was gonna fall in love with her. He literally saw her naked when he was a kid, and probably more as time passed, studying her. lmao
Anyhow, Im disappointed with this episode. I really didnt want to know her background so fast, I wanted it to be a mystery throughout the series. Ok, yeah, we still dont know what happened to her head and all, but now the enigma that was her character has vanished (at least for me).
O
Thx Omni
I thinked that there will be only 12.
Good to hear that I was wrong.
meh… i didnt really like this episode so much. >_<;; but it was nice to see all the baccano! references it had xD
makes me wonder if the stig has a head underneath his helmet
So I was right about the title Dulalala!! having something to do with the Dullahan. The first tip off was indeed Celty’s head for me.
Show Spoiler ▼
It’s an Irish fairy, so the name is an Irish word too, not English. Wikipedia(English version) says It’s Dullahan or Durahan, both ways to spell are OK, so apparently the Irish don’t care much about the difference between R and L, especially when they speak their own(old) language. And considering that the official homepage has its URL as durarara, you have to assume they chose the latter one(Durahan) as the spelling(in alphabet) of the headless rider fairy in this series.
@DC/AC
Thanks for looking that up. I was a little disgruntled I guess when I saw the translators call it a “Dullahan” when the show is “Durarara!” Foreign languages with different alphabets need to be spelled phonetically in English. It’s my pet peeve when people pronounce “manga” as “manja” lol…
Nice name for your pet Pikow.
Some people seems to regard this Durarara title thing as an Engrish problem, but appears to be more like an Irish-English translation issue.
BTW Omni, this Durahan should be Selty, just because she appears on the messenger software as ‘SELTY’ in this episode.
I hope they don’t focus too much on Selty’s immortal body and the fact that it can be mutilated. I find that very disturbing.
Show Spoiler ▼