STORY:
This anime starts spinning when Ryugamine Mikado, a country-boy, enters Ikebukuro district of Tokyo city, on being admitted in the not-so-famous Raira Academy. Apparently, he was convinced by his childhood friend Kida Masaomi to move to the city. As he begins to settle in the city, he realizes that, gradually, his absolutely normal life turns out to be not-so-normal anymore.
It starts out in pieces, with every episode presenting a new story with a different character’s point of view, and then gradually, the pieces connecting together like a jigsaw puzzle. Neither any scene nor any character is taken for granted. The creator has done absolute justice to every scene, every detail, and every character, detailing them skillfully, and giving them their place beautifully in the series. Even colors here end up playing a very important role!
Its strongest point is the progression of the story along the episodes. Its neither too fast, nor too slow paced, just about right. The amazing climaxes will keep you on the edge the whole time. There are some absolute speechless and ftw moments where all that you can do is hit you jaws on the floor \m/
The narration of the story, I give it alone a score of 11/10. Amazingly crafted, such narration is not to be found elsewhere.
CHARACTER:
Another one of the strongest points of this anime is its characters. The character building in this anime is epic, with enough attention given to each and every character. It has carefully touched many types of craziness, ranging from love to abuse. It has all kinds of people, the ones in myth to the psychopath, the strong to the sneaky, the laid back to the energetic, and the touchy to the loveless.
Starting out with a fresh introduction of the district, it proceeds to enlighten the dark side of the district, with mysterious characters lurking all around the place. The district turns out to be the hotspot for gangs and their gang wars, and somehow our three leading characters are thrown right in the middle of it. There is the legendary black rider, which supposedly is headless, and is right out of your fantasy tales (Celtic mythology actually). There also are pretty strong (REALLY STRONG) people, Heiwajima Shizuo and Simon-san, who tend to hate violence (lol). The fact that Izaya Orihara, an archenemy of Heiwajima Shizuo, is still alive goes to show how conniving he is (my favorite character.. as expected xD); a great example to prove that the pen is really mightier than the sword. Speaking of swords, you have an ethereal sword thrown in amidst all the chaos to make things all the more confusing, ...or maybe all the more interesting!
And this list of characters is still not enough!
I still am confused as to who the protagonist is… lol.
SOUND:
Both the OP songs are already in my favorite list. The backgrounds were perfect. And the voice actors did an amazing job.
ENTERTAINMENT:
This series is built on a serious note. However, there are times when Kida Masaomi tends to lighten the mood, with his too cheesy statements, apart from Heiwajima Shizuo’s crazy brawls (which I must say are my favorites). Nevertheless, two otakus are thrown in as comic reliefs, whose point of view of seeing things are quite refreshing.
OVERALL:
Its ending was a bit disappointing, considering the full blast of every other episode, failing to explain certain things, but then, what the hell, it does not deter this one from attaining almost perfection, and gaining me as a fan \m/
I give it a 9/10 [yup, pretty close to being perfect imo]
