Durarara! – First Episode Review

Episode Summary: Mikado arrives at the train station in Ikebukuro, and marvels at how busy it is. As a child he had major misgivings about leaving home, but a friend convinced him to move to the big city to attend high school. He meets this friend, a flashy, outgoing guy named Masaomi, and the two of them travel outside the station and meet up with a couple of Masaomi's friends. The lights, sounds, diversity of people and their outgoing nature all overwhelm Mikado, who wonders if he'll ever be able to get used to things in Ikebukuro. Meanwhile, in a dark alley, a young woman is lured into the back of a van and taken away.

Mikado meets Masaomi's friend Simon, a large black man of American descent who came from Russia to work in a sushi shop. In a parking garage somewhere, the kidnappers are confronted by a motorcyclist dressed in black, who attacks them and then gives chase. They are horrified to find that the mysterious being doesn't have a head. Mikado sees the motorcyclist in passing and a feeling of awe passes over him. He feels as if a whole new world is about to open up to him.

Thoughts: I might as well get this out of the way first, since it's probably what many people are itching to know; since this series is based on another series of books from the author of the Baccano! novels, is animated by the same animation company, and features much of the same staff in identical positions, how does it compare? The short answer is that, in my opinion, it compares quite favorably.

Baccano! was an enjoyable romp through Depression-era America complete with great music, a massive cast of characters and a good sense for combining action with comedy and making it feel natural. Perhaps the only real drawback for me (and fans of Baccano! will probably roll their eyes and send me many impassioned responses as to why I'm completely wrong about this) is that the style of storytelling it employed was almost too frantic and disjointed -- it  took multiple viewings for me to get a handle on each of the converging storylines (and I'm still not quite there -- perhaps purchasing the boxed set and sitting down for another go will help that out). Durarara! trades a historical setting and various intertwining timelines for a thoroughly-modern locale adorned with characters from various backgrounds and plenty of local dialect and culture (including a few local gangs that are left unseen for the time being). Many expository scenes are relayed via interactions in a fictional internet chat room, a feature that some viewers may not entirely appreciate; the interjections are frequent in the first episode and it's not clear whether the voices behind the avatars will all correspond to important characters later on or not. To be blunt, the feature seems very gimmicky right now and my hope is that there will be more pertinent reasons to include it revealed later on.

Brains Base continues to impress with its visuals here. While I've noticed that they're not one of the most consistent studios, what I do usually observe is that they have a knack for knowing when to animate the hell out of a scene and when to use more restraint, so that all the flashy scenes aren't necessarily concentrated at the beginning and end of an anime series, but provide something to look forward to throughout its broadcast run. This show appears to be no different. While the first episode has its moments of gleefully-animated action, including most scenes of the headless rider, most of the episode is more conservative, though never seems choppy or cheap. The character designs are clean and simple without being simplistic and help to reinforce the modern look needed to compliment the storyline. I encountered a complaint somewhere online about the use of grayscale during the crowd scenes. I think that, in a show which contains a large cast of characters, any method to denote which onscreen characters are important and allows them to easily stand out from the already colorful and sometimes hectic backgrounds

This episode contains a bit of fanservice directed to fans of Brains Base's other popular series, Baccano! and Spice and Wolf. Some scenes from Baccano! are seen playing on a jumbo screen during one scene, and the characters Walker and Erika are seen toting a life-sized Horo cutout through town when Mikado and Masaomi meet them. While this sort of blatant self-advertisement could have been extremely annoying, I certainly enjoy the sentiment; having two well-received and popular series on both sides of the Pacific is quite an accomplishment, and people less critical than I am will most likely get a big kick out of glimpsing their favorite characters, however briefly.

I think that one of the best measures of a first episode's success is, of course, how much reason it gives the viewer to continue on with the series. I think that, while most viewers will be more curious about the kidnapped girl, the chat room elements or the Ikebukuro gangs, there were two things in this episode that struck me as being unusual and compelling. The first item was in regard to the headless rider, Dullahan. What's interesting to me isn't that the rider exists without a head and seems to be able to draw forth a scythe from its smoking neck cavity (though that it certainly a curiosity). What intrigues me is that the rider has an obviously female body, and whether there could be any specific reasoning behind this. This leads to my second item of interest, which is Mikado's brief encounter with a woman on the street with whom he collides. Though she fearfully runs off before he can interact with her on any level, he (or at least the viewer) sees her long enough to notice a scar around her neck, and the mis-matched color between the skin of her head and that of her torso. The probable relationship between these two very minor observations is just one reason why I'm excited to watch the subsequent episodes of this series.

For being one of the most anticipated opening episodes of the Winter 2010 season, Durarara doesn't disappoint. Fans of Baccano! should be pleased by the qualities this series retains, while those who were unimpressed or confused by the antics aboard the Flying Pussyfoot will probably find more to enjoy here as well.

Pros:

• It trades the historical setting and confusing construction of Baccano! for modern-day action that's more easily comprehended.
• Good, balanced animation that's showy when it needs to be.
• Some intriguing reasons to watch subsequent episodes.

Cons:

• The blatant Brains Base fanservice is a bit silly.

Recommended? Yes, this seems to be the most exciting, well-rounded series to debut during the Winter 2010 series, and with it being on Crunchyroll to boot, there's no excuse not to check it out.