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Crunchyroll Confirms Simulcast of Durarara!! TV Anime (Update 2)
posted on by Egan Loo
The Crunchyroll media-distribution website has confirmed on Wednesday that it will begin streaming Aniplex's Durarara!! television anime series. The series will premiere in Japan early Friday morning.
The Durarara!! anime adapts Ryohgo Narita's Durarara!! "high-tension suspense action" light novels of the same name. After launching his earlier Baccano! light novel series, Narita set the "warped adolescent fantasy romance" of Durarara!! in a rowdy version of Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood in 2004. He has since written six Durarara!! novel volumes, and they have already inspired a manga series in Square Enix's G Fantasy magazine earlier this year.
Crunchyroll's Durarara!! video streams will be available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Crunchyroll's subscribed Anime Members can see each episode, in standard 480-line progressive resolution, within one hour of its Japanese premiere. Other users can see the same episode in standard definition for free one week later.
AnimeOnDVD forum user Nagato-san noted that Crunchyroll's list of anime briefly revealed this title and the Chu-Bra!! anime television series last week.
Images © Ryohgo Narita/ASCII Media Works/Ikebukuro Dollars, MBS
Update: More background information added. The series will officially premiere in Japan on Friday at 1:25 a.m. (Thursday at 8:25 a.m. PST), but Crunchyroll's press release indicates that its simulcast will be "within one hour after its Japanese airing every Saturday JST." ANN has asked Crunchyroll for clarification on the simulcast's schedule.
Update 2: Crunchyroll's simulcast is synchronized with the schedule of the TBS Television station, not the first Japanese station (MBS) that premieres this anime. The article's times have been corrected. Thanks, bayoab.
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