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Durarara!!×2 (TV).

The change of pacing might be more due to the fact that this season essentially lack a main character, there's nothing grounding the story, no central point we can link event/character too. Ryuugamine worked well as an audience insert character, but he's practically non existent in this series. At the same time were being introduced to dozen of new character in few episodes along with a bunch of flash back and time rewind.

You saw a lot of little scenes of Shizuo before they tell his backstory. Same with Celty. Same with Anri. Even those expositions are much more interestingly put together than "this new character you never heard about is A, does B, happened because of C despite D".

"My line" "Your line" is basically a formulaic conversation where right after one character says his/her line the other one continues right after, no movement, no certain pauses to set up emtoions of characters depending of what they are saying in certain parts of the conversation, anything. Which can work in some conversations, but in a scene meant to be more instropective and giving us the thoughts and connection of those two characters, when it's played this auto-pilot you don't know if you actually should care. After all that talk I was "meh" and when Ruri starts crying was weird, the scene wasn't building to that and I still didn't care.

No you didn't, especially for either Anri or Celty. You didn't put anything together, because everything about them was told in 5 minutes. The mystery of the first season was how everyone was connected to this plot web and less who they are.

No I still don't get what you going on about. To begin with half conversation is just Ruri interrogating Kasuka to find out why he helped her hence why just he mainly responding (aside from his emotionless disposition which is displaying his "gasp" quirk lke everyone else). Second Ruri doesn't display much emotion outwardly during that scene because she is keeping her cold facade of a ruthless serial killer in hopes put fear in Kasuka and keep her advantage. We get plenty of her only thoughts which are contrary to her actions because she is an internal character.

If anything you seemed to not noticed any of the details about either Kasuka or Ruri that profess otherwise you have noticed that one is trying to be emotionless and while the other actual is.

You see the difference?

The characters are cold in that scene, that's clear, but the framing of that scene also was, like "don't worry, it's not an intense scene, they're just talking about stuff", and it wasn't supposed to. When you set up characters this explicitly, even when they are cold, you want the audience to feel a little about them. I wanted to feel weird when Kasuka said all that because I liked him in the first season. And just transcribing their lines without any different rythm or pacing looks like it's not an important scene, just something to see normally, which doesn't fit because they are defining both important character traits, and when Ruri cries we are supposed to care a little. We get why she does it, we don't get why the scene is done so simple and "don't worry audience".

No I still don't because we already know about Ruri before the the reveal in roughly the same manner as Celty, Anri and Shizuo, before we got into they true identity and past. She only just had much less screentime then they did. She was already established as a popular idol S1 just as Celty was rumor to be a scary headless rider before we learned what they were like. She just didn't play big yet until now.

Again you are being really vague here and you don't seem to understand why those acted the way they do despite it being establish in both how they converse with each other and the prior information and reveal Ruri. To began with if Ruri really wanted to kill him she would done so without question and without any conflicting thoughts. Kasuka is the same man who willingly almost cutoff his own hands during a situation with Yakuza isn't going to react much to having his life threaten. Him being emotionless is not an act (it's cause by a birth defect and the negative influences of his brother), just Shizuo's ridiculous strength isn't just for show or, Shinra's love for headless woman isn't fake.

This cast full of eccentrics and abnormal people who do not in society in various ways because of who there are, yet still find some way to live humanly. This something Ruri comes to understand after meeting with Celty. She not alone in not fit in and there are people who are more monstrous then she is.

Iron Maw wrote:

No I still don't because we already know about Ruri before the the reveal in roughly the same manner as Celty, Anri and Shizuo, before we got into they true identity and past. She only just had much less screentime then they did. She was already established as a popular idol S1 just as Celty was rumor to be a scary headless rider before we learned what they were like. She just didn't play big yet until now.

She only had ONE SINGLE SCENE. And it was a super short joke (Saburo likes Kaztano because he gives him entrances to her favorite idol) in episode 6. That's it. She's not in the rest of the show or mentioned even once. And I know this because I've rewatched the show recently, and she's only there. That's it. She's not even presented in these two previous episode once. You remind more all the minor characters like Kaztano, the other child inmigrant or this guy (who makes a lot of cameos btw) before her. Even if for some coincidence you remember her (which most people are not going to do, I only did a few days ago just by pure coincidence), you know absolutely nothing about her and she just comes out of nowhere without any tiny hint during the previous episodes or something, even if it is just being there so you say "oh, it's her".

Before the backstories: Celty had all those scenes, Anri had a whole lot of scenes (hell, all the Saika's arc before the twist is basically analyzing her senseless parasyte personality, so when the twist comes her personality is full-filled), Mikado had a whoooole lot of scenes during the first 10 episodes. You know who they are. Ruri no. For most people this episodes is her first appearance. It's not at all like the rest of characters.

What you don't get is, the problem is not what the characters are doing or thinking. It's the framing of the story. Imagine if when Darth Vader says "I'm your father" Luke says "NOOOO" right after, like 1/4 second after he finishes says his line. It makes sense the characters act like that?Yes. Does the film-makers care about that reveal to the audience to impact us? No. You get it now? It's not the content; it's the tone, the way the content is being portrayed.

How short her scene was or not isn't irrelevant. It and the second hand information from various characters had already estblish a bit on who she is. Yes its easy people to forget those details, but people have also forgotten characters like Anri or how Shizuo got his strength. They are all in same boat as Ruri in that area.

The majority of Celty's backstory was explained in episode 4 near the beginning which is narrated by both Shinra and Celty herself. It was no more than 3-4 minutes. The last minor piece if was the quick nightmare she had in episode 10 Showing a brief image of Shingen cutting off her head. Everything else having do with Saika was tied to Anri. That said we learned all about Ruri's personality issues and her emotions, one episode just as did Anri before she linked to Saika at the end. Nothing was hinted how Anri felt about herself until focus episode because she too is an internal character.

Um... I never got the feel that Ruri's reveal was supposed to be anything near that dramatic. We supposed to be surprised and intrigued at the fact that Hollywood isn't man, but a woman and pop idol no less who under our assumption had nothing to do with killings let alone being the masked killer herself. You're the one making a mountain out of a mole hill instead of taking this the only way one can sensibly: as real introduction to her as she really is and her circumstances.

Frankly Ruri scene with Kasuka was the most interesting part of this episode for me with what it revealed them and made want to know even more about where they will end up in cacophony that is DRRR!!! in the same way twins.

Looks like spoiler[Izaya] was a bit jealous that he missed out..