Durarara!! – the first anime that I didn’t get bored of

Have you ever come across an anime that you can’t get enough of until the end of the last episode? I think I found one for you…

Let me start by saying that this anime was on the list of similar anime to Dorohedoro. Even if you’ve watched it, I’ll just say that it’s more unlike than similar. And here it’s easier to point out the similarities than the differences between these two works, but…who cares anyway?

All events are tied to the Tokyo district of Ikebukuro, where the main character moves. And here it is important to say that in this anime you only need to watch the first episode to clearly understand whether a black Russian sushi chef makes you smile (especially in today’s realities) or not. Somehow after watching the first episode and briefly getting to know the world, you will either become curious about who, what, why and why, or you will simply abandon it. This is not the case when after only 5 episodes you either understand that “what the hell”, or you bite into it and watch until the end.

Humor, the concept of the story, characters – all this is presented immediately as if in the palm of your hand. And what is even more pleasant – most of the things that happen between the characters are also not dragged out for 5 episodes with the clarification of the cause-and-effect relationship between the events, but are known immediately.

There are a lot of characters, by the way. There are not enough of them to get confused, but enough that they eat away at their part of the plot. What is even more interesting is that most of the anime adaptation shows certain events from different perspectives. This allows you to see the situation through the eyes of each individual character, so that as a result you can clearly understand the course of their thoughts and not ask questions about why someone acted strangely. I would say that there are many things in this anime that are annoying, as if they are polished and not annoying.

However, there are not completely no irritants here, and you will (traditionally) have many questions for the main character. By and large, what is strange is that there are no main characters as such. Everyone has their place and everyone is important. There is no clear vertical where everything is tied up.

There is no antagonist (in the broad sense of the word), so how can you call a character who is encountered throughout the series and whom everyone knows about an antagonist? However, again, that is what makes this anime interesting – it is not about the struggle of good against evil or some bright and important goal – it is about the life of a group of people within the boundaries of one area, where different things happen. This allows you to enjoy what is happening without waiting for any specific resolution, to which everything is clearly heading. In general, I would call this anime a kind of sitcom.

One of the themes that is touched upon in the anime is loneliness. The characters interact with a large number of people whom they consider their friends, but at the same time, somewhere deep down, they understand that they are missing something. I would like to say love, but love here is reflected from different sides. The antagonist says that he loves people, while creating situations in which they have to struggle with a choice or suffer. One of the characters does not love anyone, and believes that he cannot do this, for which he has his own reasons. Someone wants a better world for his friends, thereby showing love, but in some way. Love here is shown in a more explicit and perverted form (not about something erotic, but rather about advantages), but at the same time it is difficult to call the anime a story about relationships. In places I would even rather call it a “story”.

This is a story about eternal forks, where we do not always choose the right decisions and what final results our choices can lead to. When a small chat becomes a large uncontrolled community, on which most of the plot is based. Sometimes our desire to live a life in which certain things do not become commonplace leads to the fact that our life becomes diverse, but not always comfortable. It’s like looking for communication, starting to communicate with 10 people, and getting tired of their number. No matter how figurative it may sound in relation to the plot.

Durarara is an anime with a stupid name that doesn’t give much away about the plot. There’s a “Russian mafia” here, part of which is a dark-skinned sushi man, a headless horseman in a modern interpretation. Despite the age of the manga’s publication (from 2004 to 2014), it can be said that it (like Lane’s Experiments) was ahead of its time. When, with the help of a phone and programming knowledge, you can gather a large group of people with or without a common idea. The anime interestingly shows how modern technology has smoothly changed the order, and led the world to a point where an ordinary person is able to create an organization that will be so strong that even mafia groups will be interested in it. As well as the problems associated with managing a large number of people who do not have a specific goal.

There are some mythical and surreal elements that somehow weave themselves into the plot, and without giving you the feeling that you’re being shown some kind of superheroine, they diversify the characters’ everyday lives.

Nowadays, cozy movies are rare, and anime that you just watch on a whim, without thinking about what series it is, or without getting tired of the story, where you, with your head propped up on your paw, wait for the branch to end as soon as possible, are no less rare. You just listen to the story and you wonder where it will all come from. It’s so interesting that you don’t notice how quickly 65 episodes have flown by. I can definitely recommend this anime… to everyone. To everyone who is tired of Naruto and the like. Or to distract yourself from series – it’s also not the worst option 🙂

Congratulations to the anime with 5 tentacles out of 6! A very good story that you can’t miss.

Author: Sa Crea

Hellmin