-----------Criteria-----------
Story: 6.5
Although a new and original story, one that I’ve never heard or seen before, it seems like the story just ended at around episode 12 or 13 and then they decided to drag it out for some reason. As the description mentions it’s about a mythical Irish urban legend a dullahan “black rider” or “headless rider” which makes an appearance in the Japanese city of Ikebukuro. The story is about a dullahan and the mysterious events that unravel around the dullahan. After they confirm the mystery of who the dullahan is and who’s behind the dollars everything goes downhill, a little up and then crashes with the ending.
Ending: 5
I don’t think the ending could’ve gotten any more ‘shounenier’. It was too happy and ‘lovey dovey’ for an anime that isn’t supposed to be purely romance based (even if was romance based the romance is really bad). I at least half expected someone to die due the fact that the climatic buildup of mystery and thrill in episodes 20-23 makes you expect that someone from the main 3 characters will have a tragic or heroic end. But it all come crashing down in episode 24 with a typical ‘the love birds run off to a happily ever after’.
Solid Plot: 5
As previously stated I found that after the mystery of the dullahan gets out in the open both the plot and story seem to just drag on. In the second half of Durarara!! There are things that are either unnecessary or add an element to the plot and story that doesn’t end up getting resolved. For instance the really big matter with the dullahan’s head, they should’ve dropped it at episode 12 or 14 but decided to bring a new element of mystery to it but saying a war will be the catalysts for the birth of a Valkyrie
Moral: 9
2 really great morals touched on in Durarara the first in episodes 1-12 being that everyone is fine with the way they are no matter what deficiencies they have. The second touched on episodes 13-24 via a direct use of the dollars, is that if we all band together and act as one, we can help each other out with any task big or small.
Sense: 8
Seeing as they explain everything in quite some detail it does make a lot of sense. The background/history of the characters comes into play when trying to understand character choices and reasoning and once taken into consideration we can understand the choices they’ve made.
Music: 8
Excellent opening song and use of oxymoron’s and expressions within it. “Reality is a picture drawn on a black stained tomorrow” “Writhing and Shinning”, what this is supposed to mean I will leave up to you but many different ideas can be taken from this. Music played during happy, sad, and suspenseful and action scenes are also complementary to the mood of the scene.
Art: 8
The art style was excellent everything from character design to natural effects (fire, water, day, night). Can’t really say a lot about the art work except for the fact that it was excellent and one of the highest points of this anime.
Characters: 8.5
Possible the biggest high point yet also the biggest problem with this series. Character design to emotions to character development was amazing too amazing in fact that it can’t get a perfect 10 due the fact that I feel they focused too much on developing the characters that they neglected the most important part of any anime: story and plot development. I felt that the anime should’ve ended after episode 12 with a dramatic close after revealing one of the series biggest secrets. Unfortunately the one and only character shrouded in complete mystery and you want to know more about they leave you nearly completely clueless on, Orihara Izaya. Where did he learn to fight? How did he become so good at gathering information? What does it take to become his disciple (Saki Mikajima)? How does he know Russian? And a lot more unanswered questions.
Personal Score: 4
Like I’ve said previously I really believed that they should’ve done the same thing they did with Baccano, a nice short 12-13 episode series that has a really good story and plot to it. Though in short my personal opinion would be to watch up to episode 13 then stop, I also wouldn’t re-watch it.
:POSSIBLE SPOILERS: If you’re like me and only if you’re like me, then really nothing can get past you when it comes to secrets. The leader of the dollars figured it out by episode 6, the real Slasher got that by episode 15, and previous leader of the Yellow Scarfs got that by 16. The only thing that caught me off guard was who Harima Mika is; but even then I had a feeling she was a head or a body…. Also the biggest thing I hated about this was Mikado’s resolve for creating the dollars ‘it started off as a prank which turned into something bigger’, ‘I didn’t leave because I thought I could make Ikebukuro a better place’. But then when shit hits the fan he packs his bags and hightails it out of there thinking that if he leaves it’ll reduce the amount of ‘shit’ on the fan. Like world revolves around him? Also I don’t think they could’ve made this anime any more ‘shouneny’, if they literally took out the blood and the swearing than this anime would be suitable to watch by a 13 year old audience, though they’d find it pretty hard to understand.
------Genres-------
Action: 4.5
Very little action scenes, that only last between 5-10 seconds max when we clearly want to see more of Shizou vs. Izaya.
Mystery: 4
The only thing that didn’t stop me from turning it off even though its element was still so low. I was always waiting for that big thing or event to happen that would completely mind blow me….never came. Also unfortunately pretty much 95% of all discussed mysteries are incredibly easy to solve. 1 or 2 mysteries may come as shock but you would’ve expected half of the answer already. Some mysteries also have no relevance or a simply dropped, such as the case of the disappearing people.
Supernatural: 4
I don’t really know how Durarara passes as a supernatural genre anime seeing as there a possible only 2 elements that are ‘supernatural’. The first being the Dullahan, the second the Slasher and they don’t even qualify as being really supernatural seeing as 90 percent of the time they show both the Dullahan and Slasher and regular ordinary people.
Gang: 5
The gangs didn’t really make any sense to me. After the war between the Yellow Scarfs and Blue Squares which the Yellow Scarfs ended up winning, the Yellow Scarfs gladly welcomed any Blue Squares member to their side. Stuff like that usually doesn’t happen between gangs. They don’t become all ‘lovey dovey’ after a fight like they were ‘bros’.
Though really overall and in short if you’re smart as in educated i.e you’re able to make accurate assumption form only 1 clue, than don’t watch this coz nothing will come as a surprise. However if you’re pretty slow and don’t catch on to things that quickly (most people these days) than this is the perfect anime to keep you entertained for a good 8 hours. Personally for me I would not rewatch no matter what, some people said they found it unpredictable; I went through this anime like an open picture book; with only a few things coming as a surprise.
Overall (Average) - 5.6875
