Durarara!!×2

Episode 5

Rokujo Chikage is a man in love with women. Not any single woman mind you, just women in general. He loves catering to women, learning about women, spending all of his time around women, and heaven help the guy who treats any woman in a way Rokujo doesn't like. This awkward gentleman is the leader of those tiger-striped Saitama bikers who kept getting the pus beat out of them throughout Durarara!! and he's finally had enough of seeing his boys get the short end of the stick in his neighborhood. Apparently unaware of the superpowered bartender's reputation, he comes after Shizuo for a heart-to-heart fight meant to force him into an apology for causing his biker gang so much trouble. Shizuo has a soft spot for the playboy thug's honesty and consideration, but can't help his own strength and puts the poor guy in traction anyway. Rokujo now wanders the streets with bandages wrapped around his punched-in face and a cadre of ladies behind him, eager to fight Shizuo again and put him in his place. There's no bitterness or vengeance in his mission oddly enough, just a little too much curiosity. Long story short, "Rocchi" is an odd duck.

Akane Awakusu is a little girl on a mission. Unfortunately, she neglected to mention this mission to her criminal syndicate family, and with no idea where she could have disappeared to, Celty is called in to find her, thanks to her connection with the shifty Shiki, (who you may remember from the reporter episodes of season one or you may not.) With no idea that her family is worried sick about her and has hired a dullahan to track her down, Akane continues her mission to find Shizuo and "make him die." Yup, for some reason this tiny, taser-wielding tot is obsessed with Shizuo, just like Rocchi, but she's more specifically obsessed with killing him than fighting him. Once again, Shizuo has no idea how to respond to this, especially because her stungun weapon of choice has no effect on his freakishly resilient body. Akane continues to pursue Shizuo around the city, asking very politely if he will let her kill him. She too is an odd duck. (An odd duckling?)

On the surface, these two new characters don't have much in common except for their antagonistic relationship to Shizuo Heiwajima, who has never met them before and has no idea how to react to any of this mess. Of course, that's just enough of a connection to draw them and dozens of other characters around them together into a new hectic plot in the heart of Ikebukuro. It has happened many times before, and now it's happening again, at the beginning of a new story arc (and presumably, book 5 in the 13-book series.)

It is difficult to talk about this show, even when discussing it critically, without turning the conversation toward which characters and their stories you do and don't enjoy watching. Durarara!! is such an ensemble-based experience, and its cast and their relationships so diverse, that not only is it a divisive show on the whole, but entire episodes or segments of episodes can be harshly divisive based on your attachment or detraction to any given character and how they interact with someone else. It's about as purely subjective and tumultuous an ensemble as I've seen in anime, so while I enjoyed the introduction of newbies like Rocchi and Akane, it's easy to see them being repellent to any number of other viewers. It's the way Durarara!! has always been, and probably the way it will always be.

So instead, I wanted to briefly examine how Durarara!!'s constant cast expansion works, regardless of who's being added to it, and why the constant addition of characters throughout feels as natural as it does. Rocchi and Akane are great examples of Narita's formula, because their introduction stories are not really their own. They haven't earned the right to their own stories yet, but they will over time. As new characters, they are each given one distinct trait that pits them up against an established character, in this case Shizuo, who has a complex personality. We don't care about Rocchi and Akane yet, but we care about Shizuo, so this makes us sit up and pay attention to them. Once upon a time, Shizuo himself was in this position against the more fleshed-out Celty and Izaya at the center of the first story arc. By the second arc, his one trait had snowballed into several more, and so it is with all of Durarara!!'s characters. They begin with simple cameos and relationships that coalesce into a larger set of complex personalities. It's for this reason that I'm so forgiving of the story's perpetual cast expansion. With rare exception, it always makes the story's world richer, even if I don't like all the characters equally.

There are a few other fly-by events in this episode. Masaomi reveals his identity to Mikado in the Dollars' chatroom along with a warning about wandering around the city late at night. It's an interesting scene because after not having seen each other for months, the two have switched roles, with Masaomi as the curt and caring friend to a casual and jokey Mikado, which is weird to see. There's also a mysterious blonde motorcyclist on a white bike after Celty's nonexistent head, decapitating her with a piano wire right before the credits, which recalls memories of Shiki grumbling about a violent woman meeting with his syndicate earlier that day. These stray events aside, this episode largely worked as an introduction to two new combatants that Shizuo has a soft spot for, which is a premise full of potential. The only way to slow Shizuo's fists is to reach his heart, after all. If Izaya joins the fray, then my wishes for a story centered around them will have come true! If not, a Shizuo-centric story is nice all by itself.

Rating: B

Durarara!!×2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Hope has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.