Durarara!! / First Impressions

「泣き面に蜂」 (Naki Tsura ni Hachi)
“Misfortunes Seldom Come Alone”

*A small note about this show’s episode titles: Durarara!!x2 Shou exclusively uses Japanese idioms as episode titles, and those are somewhat awkward to translate literally. I’m going to stick with the ones the titles subs use, i.e. fairly close English analogues.

Meet Hijiribe Ruri (Fujita Saki), talented makeup artist, famous pop idol, and serial killer. She’s also apparently currently going through puberty. You know that one kid in kindergarten who, instead of wanting to be a firefighter or an astronaut, wants to grow up to be a dinosaur? That’s her (and, er, me) right there. Then when they instead grow into a teenager and have that phase they go on a power trip and start thinking they have mutant powers and whatnot. Monsters aren’t bound by your repressive social conventions! Stick it to the man! Rawr! It’s a large part of why vampire fiction is so popular with adolescent goths everywhere.

So Ruri gets to be a monster, but discovers that being a monster is pretty monstrous. Who’d have thought? Somehow, even with the healing factor and superhuman strength and gravity-defying skills, it’s never worth it. Why isn’t it worth it for Ruri? I’m not really sure. Even with a narrator dumping her backstory onto us, it is still unclear why she has to go around murdering specific people in grisly ways (and Ruri shouldn’t even blame herself for the gore; the average anime character is 95% fluid). Perhaps she’s like Anri and Saika, possessed by some malevolent force with a twisted compulsion to kill. Whatever the case may be, it’s not a big deal for Ikebukuro, where the population is certified crazy. Ruri will fit right in.

Uncovering the identity of Hollywood wasn’t as climatic as I thought it’d be, because nothing much really came out of it. I assume Ruri is just going to go back to killing whomever it was she hadn’t finished killing, and perhaps Egor (Morikawa Toshiyuki), our brand new Russian mummy, will continue chasing him. Their story has intersected with the rest of the cast, but has yet to really involve them yet. All in all, not a lot actually got done this episode. Most of it was actually just talking, either in chunks of exposition or navel gazing. It’s all very relevant information that needs to be communicated, but the extra chatter does slow down the pace of the show noticeably. It must be very hard to make a conversation between Ruri and Kasuka compelling, even when one is straddling the other and threatening to kill him (especially because of how unlikely it is she’d actually do it). Ruri’s an expressive person only in her inner monologue, and Kasuka is missing his frontal lobe, so it’s like watching Spock talking to himself. They both sound so very bored, which somewhat detracts from whatever serious topic they hope to discuss for the audience. Cute couple, but so far zero chemistry.

Looking head

I was expecting Durarara!! to steadily ramp up the tension, but this week deflated the climb somewhat. To think we’re still we’re three episodes into a second season and we still need exposition. It’s like we have plot bloat; it takes a lot of pushing to get the ball rolling.

The good thing is, with all the angles that Durarara!! works, even if one of them feel a bit slow one week there are always plenty of others to pick up the slack. It’s unlikely we’ll ever get to the point of uninteresting, just bogged down. And this episode was still fine; we’re just in a bit of a setup phase. It’s still entertainment. And the preview for next week makes everyone look a bit evil, and nothing revs up a plot quite like evil. One of Durarara!!‘s strengths is unpredictability, though, so who knows what will happen. Well, we’ll know. But only next week.

 

For those still following Kantai Collection, I gave it three episodes and wrote a bit of a reaction post on it on my blog, but I’m afraid I wasn’t able to be as positive about it as I would have liked. Still, give it a read if you want, since I’m not covering it here on RandomC.

 

Full-length images: 06, 19.

 

Preview

37 Comments

  3. Man, it appears Saturday is the one day of the week this blog gets any posts! Is it all a coincidence?

    … wait… is Hollywood Hijiribe Ruri, the idol?! That’s a twist.

    Man, Yuhei moves fast. Hahaha one person’s crying over Ruri being taken, and one of the twins is crying over YUHEI being taken! 😀 😀

    starss
    Reply

    1. It tended to get lost amongst the confusion of dialogue and talking to herself and whatnot, but some hints were given that she’s not just doing this because she wants to. In fact, it seemed to come across pretty clearly that she doesn’t want to. Killing people horrifies and disgusts her.

      Perhaps the fact that Shingen wanted to have her kidnapped and dissected and experimented on is a clue. Or perhaps the flashback to her coming home one day to find the home of her wealthy family destroyed, and the rest of her family apparently dead.

      Just to specify, I don’t actually know why she doing it. But I think we have enough evidence to indicate that she’s not just in it for kicks.

      Wanderer
      Reply

    2. Well she did mention that she didn’t want to kill Yuhei as he wasn’t one of ‘those people’. Not sure the reference but it did sound like she had a reason unknown to us why she kills those particular people.

      Vandsy
      Reply

      1. I haven’t seen the episode yet so I’m not sure what to say about the mass confusion, but the original novel makes it very clear why she does what she does. You can read most of the translations using the links here.
        http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/?title=Durarara!!

        The events in the released episodes take place in volume 4 which is fully translated( you might not want to read beyond that if you don’t want to spoil anything).
        If it makes you feel better, she doesn’t randomly murder people. whether or not her victims deserve to die is up to you to decide though.
        she’s being hunted and killing in fear and retaliation, the hunters are “hired” however and hold no real grudges.

        Meh
        Reply

  6. The first season was expository even at it’s most climatic parts, so this nothing odd for show with establish narrative voice. Personally I thought Kasuka and Ruri definitely had chemistry because of the unique way they happened to be emotionally distant. Because of that they both came to strange sense of understand about each other that normal people couldn’t.

    Yeah, this episode didn’t reveal everything about her situation since it focused introspection but we got plenty of hints her actions are not random.More she became connected to lots of people in the cast this week, like Singen, Celty, Kasuka and heck even Shinra and the Yakuza.

    Iron Maw
    Reply

  8. Uncovering the identity of Hollywood wasn’t as climatic as I thought it’d be, because nothing much really came out of it.

    It was never really meant to be a shocking development, more of a plot device as well as a sort of character introduction. It was placed early because of what will come out of it in future events as things will get even more messy from this point on.

    As for the discriminate killing and whatnot, it’s obvious that she has a reason, didn’t she just imply it on the episode, its not really that subtle for people not to notice. If I remember correctly Show Spoiler ▼

    On a last note, every little detail on this arc counts(even more so than in S1). No event is unrelated no matter how insignificant they seem.

    Justpassingby
    Reply

  9. During this episode when looking at Ruri in her Hollywood clothing, all I kept thinking was, “Did she piss her pants after being launched into the air by Shizuo?” That crotch stain was distracting me from her dialogue with Kasuka.

    I have just re-watched episode 2, so now I know that the crotch stain was there from the beginning. Well, when people die they tend to evacuate their bowels, so I am guessing this is simply her attention to detail as a pro makeup artist.

    Monimonika
    Reply

  13. https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Shou%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2034.jpg

    Clearly, I need to work out more!

    https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Shou%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2028.jpg

    Lame-ass cock(?)blocking punks! See two hot chicks making out then dared get in-between before the clothes started coming off!

    https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Shou%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2024.jpg

    Poor Kaji Yuki character :<

    https://randomc.net/image/Durarara/Durarara%20×2%20Shou%20-%2003%20-%20Large%20Preview%2003.jpg

    Izaya-vibes getting stronger. I wonder who gets to be Aoba's Shizuo…

    Beedle
    Reply

  14. Wait, what I don’t get is, how did Ruri x Yuhei coupling happened so suddenly? I mean, I get that Yuhei saved her and talked Ruri out of being a serial killer or whatever, but how did “I’m gonna kill you in your bed” turned into kissing inside the car? (Or maybe the mass media is mistaken for them being a couple)

    And I’m assuming Ruri is possessed like Anri and killing people.

    drzero7
    Reply

    2. I suspect it went something like “people are coming for you, but if it “leaks” that you and I are seeing each other the media will be on us every time we go anywhere, so no one will be able to do anything.”

      Wanderer
      Reply

      1. Correct. I think the anime left out that little that Kasuka noticed that people were following and took some precautions to safeguard her. Seems like most viewers get Kauska’s intention, but yeah all of that is for show for the time being.

        Iron Maw
        Reply

  18. Why is Ruri crying in the end? is she glad that she found other extra-ordinary people or was she lamenting the fact that the other “monsters” are well-adjusted people while she became a murderer?

    azimbe
    Reply

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