Reviews

This anime was a bit confusing at first, it was hard to know where to stand as an established audience because the story is so unusual. Durarara uses an unconventional plot method where only the audience knows everything that happens, witnessing events happening to isolated characters at different times which will later become significant. This format would not work with a lot of stories, but for Durarara it is perfect, we get acquainted equally with all characters and have the benefit of sometimes knowing things they don't, though it can be confusing to remember who knows what.

Durarara's art is unremarkable. It's visually pleasing, but not particularly distinctive. In the anime, background characters are grayed out to signify their non-importance, with the occasional addition of a yellow or blue scarf to show gang-affiliation. I usually don't like this practice, but it works very well in the context of the story, as there are a lot of characters to keep track of in the first place.

In terms of the opening and ending themes, all four are well selected and fit the show well. 'Uragiri no Yuuyake', the first opening is outstanding, the kind of song that seems to have been written specifically for the anime itself. I found the second opening slightly less satisfactory, but still enjoyable. The background music in this anime is mostly scattered jazz with varying degrees of urgency, which contributes well to the mood of the night-city setting in this show. All voice rolls were well cast, though none stick out to me as being unbelievably spectacular.

As I previously said, all characters in this show are well developed. Villainy is distributed and smudged around the cast in a very fluid manner, so there's not really a fixed "bad guy", which brings out the philosophy in this show over the debate between what is good and bad. The characters are engineered well, so we care about their objectives and their emotions and struggles. Some characters are deeply lovable or easily shippable, making this show easy to be drawn into.

I watched this show in about two weeks. It was very engaging and enjoyable. It manages to be both funny and serious, without tainting either theme. It is suspenseful without becoming painful and overall a great success as a good anime.