Review for Durarara!! Part 2

Introduction

Volume 1 of Durarara!! turned out to be a disappointment. Not in terms of content, but rather in the technical qualities of the discs, one of the reasons I decided to import from Australia in the first place. I'd read unflattering reviews of the Beez UK release, and not finding the same about the Siren Visual release, I thought I would be safe by ordering from there. It turned out that either Australian reviewers and fans are more forgiving, or I wasn't as diligent as I could have been in seeking out reviews. While I couldn't find any problem with the audio, it seems the subtitle problems were still there, and the image suffered from edge enhancement to a degree that it was distracting when it was upscaled to an HD screen. Of course I don't particularly enjoy watching anime piecemeal anymore, and I had bought the whole of Durarara!! in one go. The prospect of the rest of the series being similarly afflicted so depressed me, that in a fit of retail therapy, I went out and bought a Blu-ray that I didn't even want. Anyway, I won't even bother leaving you in suspense until the end of the review. Durarara!! Part 2 does address all of the technical issues that I had with Part 1. Indeed it turns out that originally its release was delayed in Australia because Siren wanted to iron out certain niggles to get it as good as possible. My mind at rest, I can get on with enjoying the show.


How do you even begin to describe a show like Durarara!!? Various lives collide in Tokyo's Ikebukuro, and all kinds of bizarre stuff happens. That isn't exactly the most clear of series descriptions, but Durarara!! isn't a show which predicates clarity. It's a complex interweaving of narrative, various characters' lives are explored, often presenting visions of events from different perspectives with different meanings. The stories mix, intermingle, switch back on themselves, and jump all over the place. And in Durarara!! this is a good thing.


The nine episodes on this disc begin by concluding the arc that suddenly coalesced from the random strands of narrative at the end of the previous collection of episodes. The Dullahan Celty Sturluson's search for her missing head appeared to come to a... well... a head when she encountered a very familiar face atop an unfamiliar scarred neck. That girl, also called Celty is the girlfriend of one Seiji Yagiri, whose sister Namie is the head of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals. Seiji ditched school on the first day to find and be with his scarred girlfriend, but events conspired to have 'Celty' run away, and seek shelter with Mikado Ryugamine. With several factions wanting her back, including Seiji, and in some cases not caring whether she's dead or alive, Mikado finds himself in the middle of a whole lot of trouble. But he has unexpected resources to draw upon, as the mystery of Celty's missing head appears to come to a conclusion.


We then get a bonus episode, which begins with Dotachin, his otaku gang and Celty witnessing UFOs flying across the Ikebukuro skyline, and with three aliens taking shelter in a playground. And that's just the end of the story. It's nowhere near as interesting as how it begins.


Following the conclusion of the previous arc, we catch up with Anri Sonohara, who is now at a loose end, following the resolution of her search for Mika. Still she is the centre of male attention, with both Kida and Mikado interested in her. Not so welcome is the creepy teacher, and even less welcome are the bullies who pick on her. Celty's got problems of her own, with a new found notoriety as the headless biker bringing the attention of supercop Kinnosuke Kuzuhara. Worse, Shinra's father comes to visit. Suddenly, there is a greater visibility of people wearing yellow scarves in town. It looks like someone is unhappy with the advent of the Dollars gang. Then, just when the bullies corner Anri Sonohara, the Slasher attacks, and a new mystery unfolds in Ikebukuro.


The next eight episodes of Durarara!! as well as the bonus episode are presented across two discs by Siren Visual.

Disc 1
10. Never Before Seen
11. Storm and Stress
12. Yin and Yang
12.5. Heaven's Vengeance
13. Takes a Sudden Turn

Disc 2
14. Turmoil Reigns
15. Dumb Like a Fox
16. Mutual Love
17. Everything Changes

Picture

Durarara!! gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic PAL transfer with the requisite 4% speedup. The image is clear and sharp throughout, free of any obvious compression, and brings the show's fantastic animation and art design out to good effect. The character designs are very special in this show, while the style offers realism with a fantastic twist that really works well for the story. The animation comes across very smoothly and fluidly on these discs, and there are only the faintest signs of aliasing and shimmer. In Part 1, this was symptomatic of edge enhancement that reared its head when upscaled to an HD panel. In Part 2, the edge enhancement has been significantly dialled back. Shimmer on fine edges, and a touch of aliasing is still apparent, but when scaled up, it just stays as shimmer and aliasing, and doesn't manifest as the haloes of edge enhancement. It's still there though. Pause the image and get up close to the screen and you'll be able to discern it, and it occasionally becomes visible on high contrast images, black lines across white backgrounds, such as Shinra's lab coat. But it's still a significant improvement over part 1.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese stereo, with optional translated subtitles for the Japanese audio, and a signs only track for the English. I love the Japanese track, as that's the way I first saw the show. But the English dub has been well worth waiting for, as the translators know that they have a special property on their hands, and the actors do their characters full justice. Durarara!! is one show that you can happily watch in either language and get an equivalent experience with both. The show gets some very quirky incidental music, little off tempo riffs and whimsical melodies that counterpoint the drama, and heighten the show's absurdity. The show also gets some absolutely ripping theme songs and some new ones from episode 13, and you'll never skip a credit sequence.


The subtitles have been fixed for the release of part 2. Text captions are now presented separately from the dialogue translations, and are positioned close to the text they translate, staying up as long as the text. When more than one person is speaking, both the dialogue streams are captioned; one at the top of the screen, one at the bottom. Even the chatroom handles are translated in little text captions. With regards to the subtitles, all of my complaints about part 1 have been addressed, and everything is accurately timed, and free of error. I just wish that Part 1 could have had the same subtitle quality as this.

Extras

Durarara!! Part 2 gets a card slip cover with the indecently large Australian ratings logo on the front and back, which somehow fails to obscure some very nice artwork at the front, and the blurb at the back.

This does mean though that the Amaray case is free to showcase the show's artwork without blemish. It's a transparent case, and the inside sleeve has more art, as well as an episode listing. One disc is held on a central hinged panel, while the other is on the back pane of the case.

The episodes and language options are accessible from a slightly animated menu on each disc. This collection has trailers on disc 2 for Genius Party, Tatami Galaxy, and Welcome to Irabu's Office, otherwise there are no extras.

Conclusion

So how do you review a title like Durarara!! without spoiling it. This is a show that is just as strongly focused on its narrative as it is on character, and discussing either at length results in revealing the show's secrets. This isn't just a reviewer being reticent about doing any work, as Durarara!! really is a show that depends on the surprise and the execution. I can say this, it doesn't quite hold up as strongly on the second viewing, if you know just what its surprises are, and how they will be delivered. The pre-knowledge of its secrets does allow you to appreciate the nuances of the plot more, and the foreknowledge does help you pick up on beats and see characters and events in different ways. But none of this quite matches up to the glow of the first time. In that respect, Durarara!! slips in my estimation from utterly amazing and fantastic to merely brilliant. It doesn't quite sustain the second time around, the way that Baccano! did.


While the nine episodes in Part 1 were more about introducing the characters, and setting the scene, really only piecing together the first arc of the show in the final few episodes, this collection of episodes sets up picking up the whopping great cliff-hanger from before and running with it, as the first arc of the show coalesces into its finale. So if you want to know about the Dollars, the abductions, Celty's head, Seiji Yagiri and the mysterious scarred girl he's hanging around with, and Namie Yagiri and Yagiri Pharmaceuticals, this is where most of the secrets will be revealed, and if you've never seen Durarara!! before, it's a climax that delivers quite the head rush. Episode 11 also has a sweet cameo for fans of Baccano!


Episode 12.5 is a bonus episode that was released only on DVD in Japan after the series completed its broadcast run, although it did see a Crunchyroll airing. It's a delightful standalone episode that builds on what you have learned of the characters to this point. It sets up with its story's bizarre conclusion, and works backwards from that point to establish how that situation came to pass. It encapsulates what Durarara!! is all about with regards to its characterisations and storytelling style in a neat 25 minute burst.


If the first arc of Durarara!! focuses more on Mikado Ryugamine and his experiences in the big city, the second, briefer arc takes a closer look at the second vertex of that relationship triangle, Anri Sonohara. The final five episodes in this collection focus on her character, filling in her back story, and exploring the Slasher story that was set up in the early episodes. It turns out that Celty's arc isn't quite resolved, and indeed her story gets a little more complicated when her flatmate Shinra's dad Shingen arrives, a character that makes his twisted son look normal. Add to that the arrival of super cop Kinnosuke Kuzuhara, drafted in to deal with the legendary headless biker, the Slasher starts wreaking more and more havoc on Ikebukuro, attacking victims at random, the chatroom that Ryugamine frequents starts getting attention from a deranged poster named Saika, and rumours surface of a cursed sword. Into this increasing tension wanders a writer named Niekawa who's looking to write about the toughest guy in town. It turns out that his daughter Haruna had to leave the high school that Anri attends because of a scandal with a teacher, the same teacher who's been turning his creepy attention to Anri. From this melange of narrative is spun the unlikeliest of stories, but one that is utterly gripping nonetheless. It also has the added benefit of a great Shizuo Heiwajima scene or three.


Once again, not only is this story building to a climax over the five episodes of its arc, it also relies on plot details and character developments that have been taking place since the start of the series. Durarara!! is a show that you have to be tuned into one hundred percent to best appreciate. Because it's been throwing information at the audience almost at random, it feels like your putting together a jigsaw, but it does make the revelations of each arc all the more satisfying if you keep up.


With Anri and Mikado's stories out of the way, you won't be surprised that it leaves Masaomi Kida's tale to unfold, and the hints of his arc have also been sown to this point. His tense relationship with Izaya, the girl he hesitatingly visits in hospital, the Yellow Scarves gang... The final scene in this collection serves as one big revelation into his character, and also serves as another whopping great cliff-hanger to be resolved in Part 3. With the story coming together in this collection of episodes, Part 2 is certainly more satisfying than part 1, but having addressed the technical flaws from that earlier instalment also makes this collection a joy to experience.