Alright everyone, I will admit I am tired. I’ve been fighting something since Colossalcon, I’m not quite sure what it is, but it has destroyed my sleep cycle and I feel constantly fatigued. Of course, when I get tired, I also get cranky. And then when I watched Durarara!! today, it went into full swing anger mode. I have constructed most of this post from undistilled rage. Why? Mikado and Kida are unbelievably stupid.
But before that, enjoy Anri looking all adorable.
We start the episode with Anri’s capture by the Yellow Scarves. Suddenly, the Dollars swing into action. I have to say, the first half of the episode is something I have wanted to see since the Dollars meetup half a series ago. This plan shows exactly how the group should operate. They use all their unique placements and talents in conjunction with a mass messaging service to work towards a common goal. Anri manages to slip out of the old creep’s hands and get all the way to Celty. With the exception of one minor slip-up, the opperation works beautifully. Shoot, I wish things I planned for weeks went as well as this completely improvised strategy. Mikado, of course, breathes a sigh of relief when Anri has made it to a safe house. When they see what they have accomplished by saving the girl, the Dollars realize exactly what they could have done all along. In addition, they are safe as long as they continue to work together. So, armed with this knowledge, what does Mikado do. Naturally, he disbands the Dollars.
What have I told you about thinking, Mikado? It's bad for you.
Wait, wait, what? Are you serious!? You just saw how much power your network has, you just managed to save the day, and now you want to quit!? What is wrong with you? Okay, I do want to be fair to Mikado, so I understand his ridiculous reasoning. If he disbands the Dollars, then the Yellow Scarves will no longer feel threatened, his friends will be safe, and he can go back to the dull, boring life he once had. Everyone wins, right? WRONG! The existence of the social network makes no difference at all to the Scarves. They want blood, and they will get it one way or the other. All disabling the network has done is to make it so members can no longer collaborate for their own protection. Remember what was going to happen to Anri? Yeah, that’s right, she was going to get lynched. Now without any way to defend themselves it will happen to every member of the Dollars. It is all. Your. Fault. Mikado. Izaya’s sitting up in his tower with an overwhelming sense of smugness because you played directly into his hands. I once saw your idealism as refreshing, but now you’re just a child who needs a swift kick in the face. All you want to do curl up under your blankets to hide from the world and pretend everything is alright.
Meanwhile, your allies aren't going to fair so well.
Then we have you, Kida. We already knew Izaya had him in his pocket, but that’s no excuse for what you have done. I almost thought you had finally figured everything out when you saved Anri from the Scarves. However, it looks like that head of yours belongs on a donkey. You have a perfect opportunity to ask her, calmly, about the situation and the Slasher. You could have set everything straight between the two of you. But what do you do? You berate her and accuse her of trying to hurt both yourself and Mikado. Kida, she just spent the last half hour of her life being traumatized by a gang. Who runs the Yellow Scarves again? Oh, right, you! Well, at least you should, but they seem to get along just fine without you. In any case, instead of comforting this girl who is supposed to be your friend, you just drive the nail a little deeper. Then she runs away. At least in your case, you realize you have screwed up and said words you shouldn’t have, but it’s a bit late for apologies. Then you try to contact Mikado. He already went into full turtle mode, but at least you tried, and in so doing managed to redeem yourself a little. In addition, I have to give Anri props for forgiving you herself, at least to some extent.
Here we have Kida executing a flawless facewall technique.
While I’m busy raging at the two major idiots in this series, I might as well rage at the writers as well. What did you just do to Shizuo? Okay, I understand mundane deaths, or in this case attacks, occur all the time. In reality, a badass can just as likely to succumb to illness or age as he is to have an epic battle leading to his demise. Durarara suspends reality on many levels, so the mundane attack really doesn’t work for me. We are talking about the guy who took down the entire Slasher army, minus Anri, by himself. Gunning him down in an ambush seems unnecessarily weak. It’s almost like you suddenly realized you needed to remove Shizuo from the playing field but had no means to do it. Whatever, it’s Shizuo, I’m sure he’ll be back up and beating the crap out of Izaya by the end of episode 24.
Could it really end with a bang AND a whimper?
LOL, I could literally feel the rage emanating from my screen as I read your post. I love it.
As for Shizuo, I do hope he somehow survives, but having him die like that would certainly send a powerful message about the show. Kind of like in The Wire with how certain characters were killed (I refuse to spoil anything in that wonderful, amazing show).
I really don’t have a problem with killing Shizuo, even though he’s one of my favorite characters. I’d just rather have a little more thought put into it than, “Oh lol, ambush!” Shoot, show us their anger and how they set him up, and then show him actually getting shot at the very least.
Durarara!! has to be one of the better anime series in a long while
I suspected Celty will end up on the short end of things by end of it all
Izaya will pay a price for his doings, but who will do it?
Celty has actually been a bit of a disappointment to me as well, but she also hasn’t done anything particularly rage inducing.
I’ve been thinking Kadota or Simon will take down Izaya for the last few weeks. I mean, Simon has GOT to do something at some point, and Kadota is the one lying low all the time.
Selty’s too busy being in love, like Mika and Seiji. Simon has been doing a whole lot of nothing, wasting screentime this whole season, and if he doesn’t do anything I am willing to call blaxploitation.
This whole conflict is so dumb too. It’s just a handful of thugs who should be getting arrested by the police, except they are all too busy trying to catch Selty riding dirty.
…damnit man, now I want to see a Durarara AMV set to that song. Thanks so much.
Anyway, I’m not sure how much the police would really want to get involved. There’s a three front battle, between the YS who are overtly aggressive, the Dollars who are everywhere, and the Slashers who can betray you at the drop of a hat. I don’t know many officers who would willingly throw themselves into such a situation. Maybe the special police we have conveniently forgotten about, but those were called in by Izaya to stir up trouble as is…
I like to remember that I’m raging at young teenagers who have put themselves in positions of power and faux-authority. It’s fun to rage at them for being stupid, but they’re ultimately just kids being used by people who are older and more experienced than they are.
I’m not sure what to think about Shizuo’s gunning, but in this case I kind of like the anticlimactic nature of it. Not every end has to be a Railgun-like chase down a highway in Transformer suits. Sometimes, even the horribly overpowered guy can meet an untimely end that pisses us off.
Yeah, I know they’re kids, but they could at least use a little common sense. They’re all overreacting to the problems in front of them. Slowing down a little in their pursuits would work wonders for working things out.
I do have respect for a well executed mundane killing. On the other hand, you have to set up your story and universe to support it. It’s one thing if you build it up to reach that conclusion, but it’s an entirely different thing to pull a situation out of nowhere to drop someone. The only reason to incapacitate Shizuo is so he can no longer participate, they’ve known this from the beginning, so give me a little build up to it, you know?
Not going to argue against you or anything. I’d be just as disappointed if I hadn’t come to expect this sort of thing from anime :)
That being said, the whole second half of the series is about the tension between Anri and the two dopes, and it wouldn’t be in-character for them to start acting intellectual now. I’m just hoping that Simon will finally play a role now that Shizuo is out of commission. Might breathe some life into things.
Haha, I could always hope for an epiphany, you know? XD
And yeah, Simon has got to move soon. I’ve been waiting all season for him to do it. Please don’t let me down Simon!
So Kida and Mikado are stupid but Anri isn’t because she is a cutie right ?
*shakeshead*
And I thought your blog was decent.
Actually, Anri is the most rational one of the three. Obviously, she wouldn’t want to tell others about herself because it’s a rather demonic power. Despite that, she’s got enough sense to talk to Celty and Shinra about things, and also the only one of the trio to realize she has got to talk to both Kida and Mikado in order to fix the problem.
She’s not been brilliant, but she’s leagues beyond her compatriots at the moment.
Well, I think Celty should have at least told Mikado about Kida, so it could give him some idea of what to do. He’s understandably panicked since he doesn’t want a bloodbath, but there little he can do to protect the Dollars from being attack because the group is too large and even people unrelated are getting involved. He also has spies from the YS in there so what ever idea he’d discuss would the Dollars be found out anyway.
Yeah, and that’s the thing. He just saw how the Dollars prevented someone from being attacked by the YS. Then he shuts down the network. The conclusion doesn’t follow from what he has experienced. They are strongest when together, and weakest when separate. I’d say even with the few spies in the network, it is more valuable than detrimental. :/
True, in his case I think he’s shuddering too much of the burden on himself instead sharing it with the group, but his idea still has some merit and might have worked if Masaomi was the one controlling his gang. This type of situation isn’t something any of the 3 are ready for yet and Izaya saw that took advantage of it.
None or, atleast Mikado and Anri haven’t had the time to grow into there positions yet so their missteps understandable, but frustrating. If they can somehow get through this it will be quite a learning experience.
Yeah, Mikado is definitely blaming himself for everything, and he’s that kind of person. He’s been doing it from the start. I don’t think Kida having control over his gang would make a tremendous difference though. He’s highly suspicious of Mikado, and I have a feeling he would just see it as the Dollars trying to evade detection.
Oh and before I forgot to talk about this.
Anri talked to Celty and Shinra because they HELPED her A LOT. Celty knew about Anri’s secret and helped her many times voluntary without asking her anything, she made Anri trust her enough to made her open her mouth. So the credit goes to Celty not Anri.
Lol a league her own my ass. She has a wonderful person on her side while Mikado and Kida have no one yet you make it sound like she did it everything herself alone.
Mikado and Kida have no one? Kida definitely has Kadota to talk to, seeing as he already has. Mikado knows Celty is available to him as well, especially since she’s one of the two people who know who he is. Both of these people HELPED their respective people A LOT. Celty saved Mikado’s butt, and Kadota saved Kida’s girlfriend. However, Mikado and Kida both chose to rely on Izaya, and they are paying it out the nose now.
Anri, on the other hand, had relied on Izaya in the past, but now is relying on Celty/Shinra. So yes, I’ve got to give her credit for being the smart one out of the bunch, even if she doesn’t know why yet. Dramatic irony is powerful juju.
Also, I haven’t said she’s done everything on her own. There isn’t a single character in this series that’s managed to remain completely autonomous, not even Izaya. Please don’t put words into my mouth.
Edit: Rather than deleting your comment, I admin-edited the information to match your aniblog account.
Celty didn’t save Mikado’s butt but they helped each other ONCE. After that they didn’t keep contact at all.
Kadota saved Kida’s girlfriend but it was out of his justice not because he wanted to help Kida or have anything to do with him. Also Kadota was Kida’s old enemy and now he is in Dollars, Kida’s new opponent and you expect him to go ask for his help more than what he did ?
Anri heard about Izaya from her children, before that she didn’t have any relationship with him ask I remember so obviously she couldn’t ask for his help.
You say Anri is smart because she chose Celty but think about it, is there anyone else for her to rely on ?
Well yet you didn’t say she did it on her own, you just “forgot” to mention Celty.
p/s: thanks for editting.
Mikado could never have pulled off his plan alone, without Celty to break up the situation, he was completely dead to rights. Even afterwards, Celty continuously wondered about Mikado’s actions and they did meet up on more than one occasion. Were they super best friends? No, but she definitely cares about him and his life.
Yes, I do expect Kida to ask him for help. For one, if Kadota truly wished him harm, he’s had a nearly infinite number of opportunities to inflict it. Second, Kadota does treat him grufly, but he also treats him like an adult. Kida knows all Izaya does is manipulate him. Given the choice between someone who wants to control me and someone who wants to help me, well, it’s not a hard choice.
Anri had had contact with Izaya at least twice in the past, in episode 3 and 10 when he beat up the goons both times. She’s also had contact with him in the Dollars chatroom, where he’s managed to influence her, though to a lesser extent than her contemporaries since they’ve lacked direct contact. Would she go to him? Hard to say, but his position as an informant would definitely be tempting.
Regardless, I believe we must simply agree to disagree. We can continue to go in circles like this, but there’s really no point in chasing our own tails like this.
Did you turn off the reply section for the last comment or did it exceeded the limit ?
Anyway you can stop if you want but I’ll continue until things are clear.
It’s true that Celty cares about Mikado but that is it, they aren’t close enough for Mikado to easily pour out his thought on her without thinking though I do agree that Mikado is stupid. Mikado couldn’t pull off his plan alone but Celty didn’t have a plan to begin with. Don’t take away his credit.
First, who said anything about Kadota mean any harm ? Second you forgot about the 3rd choice that is don’t ask for help which is what Kida is doing. Also Kida actually asked both for help if you count asking for information is asking for help.
I can’t help but facepalmed about what you said regarding Anri and Izaya. A stranger who knew her friend and she met him twice each in a few minutes and you expect her to ask him for help ? In the Dollars chatroom Anri doesn’t even know who Izaya is, not to say Celty is there for her so there is even less reason for her to go to Izaya.
You’re making me go away from my point, I’ve never said Kida and Mikado aren’t stupid but Anri is equally stupid with those 2.
5 comment nesting is the limit.
Edit: Better response. Did Anri do anything particularly stupid in this episode? No, I don’t feel she did. Since this post is only about this episode, it doesn’t reflect anything she might have done in the past. Might I go back and do another post? Maybe, if it strikes my fancy.
That’s what I should have said from the very start.
Well she finished most of the stupid doing in the previous ep, there is not much left to continue especially when being chased by some thugs.
Running away from Kida, being rescued by Celty, getting sheltered by Shinra and then decided to open her mouth doesn’t count as smart if that is what you want to say.
Doesn’t count as stupid either my dear lady, which is the point of the post.
Now quit kvetching because I didn’t pick on Anri. I’m not humoring you anymore.
Kida and Mikado are stupid partly because they’re crushing on Anri, and are in competition for her on some level. Since she’s not exactly infatuated with either of them it stands to reason that she’ll not be quite on the same level of duh.
Heh, valid point. Love can manage to blind you to even the most obvious mistakes.
If 50 Cent can survive 9 gunshots then I think Shizuo, a super-strong nearly invincible man can survive 2-3 gunshot wounds….I mean, the man was stabbed in the legs and hand with pens and didn’t even flinch. I don’t think he’d go down so easily.
I’m totally with you that Shizuo isn’t dead yet. You have to admit, though, that with him actually lying on the ground and bleeding out, things don’t look good for Ikebukuro.
I think Celty is gonna find Shizuo and take him back home so that Shinra can fix him up. Because of this, Celty won’t make it to pick Mikado up. Which means more non-communication between the Anri, Kida and Mikado.
A distinct possibility, but also kind of risky. I mean, there has to be some kind of resolution to this plot in the next two episodes. Hrm… :/
There actually was sme build up to Shizuo being shot. As soon as Izaya mentioned thye gun to Namie I knew something bad was going to happen. I didn’t realize he intended it to be used on Shizuo, but in retrospect I should have. Make no mistake: Horoda shot Shizuo, but Izaya programmed him to do it.
Wow, I completely missed that. I should know better, pretty much everything Izaya says or does holds some significance for the plot.
Okay first of all, the Dollars accomplished NOTHING. Actualy less then nothing. After all of their running helping anri get away she was instanly spotted by Yellow Scarves. And after she got away again she ran into the same Yellow Scarves these guys were suppose o deal with. Only now there are a dozen more of them. The only reason that anything was accomplished is because Shizuo was nearby at the end. Hell Kida, feeded info from Yellow Scarves over the phone was more effective in getting her safe by himself then all the dollars save Cely put together.
But by the end of the war they provoked a new asskicking of their members, so that’s good.
Onto Anri. WHere did she forgive Kida??? Nowhere, as she reflected all she did was run away from him like she does from everything and everyone else.
Also Rakuen, you say Anri is he only one that realizes she needs to talk to both Mikado and Kida? WHAT? She ran away from Kida, and refuses to talk to Mikado to the point that Celty needs to go out to fetch Mikado herself.
Kida apparantly does realise he needs to talk to them both, despite having on out to talk to one and trying to contact the other in this episode. WTF?
You also that Mikado and Izaya went to Izaya for help in stead of Celty and Kadota. Fact: Masaomi has talked to Kadota tons more then Izaya this arc. In fact the only reason he went to Izaya FOR INFORMATION, you that thing that Izaya does for living, is because Kadota gave him his number. If Kadota and the gang wanted him to go to him with his problem, they probably shouldn’t have decided that what happened to Saki doesn’t exist in their reality, decide that they suddenly don’t know who Horoda is, and that if Kida wants to fight, he can bring it. Some friends. Special mention goes to Erika who decides to rub Kida past failure in his face for good measure and actually needed to be set straight by Walker.
Kida only went to Izaya because based on what the most realible guy in the city told him, he’s the only one who knows to Dollars leader. This I can understand, or at least a damn sight more the half of what Anri does in this series.
Mikado relied on Izaya because he genuinely doesn’t know better. Izaya has helped him out on a number of occasions and made sure he doesn’t see much of his bad side.
But back to the review. Kida had a perfect opportunity to calmly sit down with Anri and talk at length about their probles because out on the streets the Dollars are being SO effective in misdirecting the YC. No, asking whether you friends is the guy that has hospitalised hundreds of people you don’t do calmly, EVER. And that’s the only question worth asking. Well, he confirmed she was the one that snuck into their hide-out. In orders, yes, she can turn into a dark shadow with glowing red eyes and a magical katana that can cut through steel pipes like that in mid-air and he already knows she has gone around hypnotising people by the dozen. Next question. If you lose your calm, you are officially an idiot. Sorry but I don’t see it. His blowing up at Anri WAS stupi but everythin he knew about the love of life just got destroyed so, I’ll let it slide. Fortunatly Anri had the good sense to guilttrip Kida in leaving her alone by reminding him that he hasn’t told Mikado either then swiftly running off.
Anyway about Shizuo, I wouldn’t worry about it. This isn’t a cliffhanger, or it wasn’t suppose to be. He’s going WALK over to Shinra’s only because Tom reminds him he might die of leadpoisoning, he’s fine.
Seriously, what crawled up into your rear end and died?
Honestly, to you and everyone else, it’s a rant post. It’s meant to be humorously angry. Quit acting like I’ve challenged your God or something.
There’s nothing rant like about your review. You complement the Dollars on their magnificient teamwork in getting Anri from Yellow Scarves group A to Yellow Scarves group B. And then A finds her again only to be saved by someone that just happened to be walking by. Annoying Shizuo and alerting Celty is the extent of the Dollars involvement in rescueing Anri.
Right, because pulling the YS off of her, herding her through the office building, stalling them, disguising her, stalling them again, and then bringing them into a dead end, all completely on the fly, was in no way impressive and accomplished nothing.
Except it made the Dollars realize the abilities they had as a group. The mistake they made was assuming she could get the rest of the way on their own. Even then, when they realized it they started pinging back and forth to locate her again.
Also, if you can’t tell it’s a rant… well then what on earth is a rant? I’m lampooning two characters and a plot decision, it has rant written all over it. I even say at the beginning that this post is written with ridiculous anger as its core.
Picking someone up when you are told they are coming toward your workplace, taking them to your dressing room, undressing your ass and sending someone on their way with your outfit doesn’t require great skill. Telling someone to go through a gate then only closing it after they pass through it, showed that the man basically knew what his job at that desk entailed.
The blond woman is the only one that did anything that required anything past minimal competence. And she made that up on the fly on her own. I dunno where you coming from with calling it an operation and strategy.
What it showed was that they weren’t a genuine gang. Distracking Horoda for second doesn’t stop him from continuing on the next second, it only gets everyone that stuck out their necks to accomplish this beaten the **** out of. Dollars still can’t defend themselves from an actual group like the Yellow Scarves (save for those special few like Shizuo, Simon, Celty and Izaya). You can only keep fooling yourself for so long until you run out of people that haven’t checked into the hospital.
I can’t say Mikado actually solved anything by his action but at least he seemed to have realised this.
It does not take tremendous individual skill. It’s a group skill known as coordination. They cannot coordinate without the Dollars network, and without everyone shooting messages back and forth with information, the plan doesn’t even start, let alone work. You are grossly oversimplifying the strategy. 5 people who don’t even know each other successfully helping a sixth they also don’t know to escape from a mob is a feat, period. I wish I could coordinate plans I write out weeks in advance to work seamlessly like this.
Also, the YS are simply looking for a brawl. I totally understand Mikado’s reasoning, but it’s naive. It doesn’t matter whether or not the network exists, they are going to continue to hunt people down. Removing the Dollars network removes any means of defense. They can’t tell each other where the YS are mobilizing, they can’t ask for help, nothing.
Except that the guy in the bunny suit was like ‘hey that’s where i am’ when it was reported that anri (who hadn’t a clue) was running in said direction and ryo was like “hey, just passing through” and ince mikado hadn’t a clue where she was by the end, it’s save to say Cely didn’t either, like kida she figured it out on her own. co-ordination would be “you be here at this time, you get anri from there to there to be picked up this guy by blabla” But no, they had a van and who knows what else but the blonde chick was the only one that went anywhere based on what her cellphone told her.
Kaztano and the guy in the bunny just worked in the vicinity and the former probably mentioned that, the blonde took note when she saved anri, that’s the extent of their coordination.
Are you familiar with improvisation? Coordination does not require a grand master plan to have been established. It simply requires everyone to work together to achieve a common goal.
When I go on stage to perform an improv show, the only thing I know is the scene, which is the overall objective. I have nothing else. I don’t know what my fellow performers are going to say, and I definitely don’t know what wrenches volunteers will throw into the act. We must literally write the script, or plan, on the fly every second.
We make it look easy, but it’s quite hard to do, and even with years of experience we fail to sync up on many occasions. Even the show we put on this past weekend had two scenes that tanked horribly because we just couldn’t pull our thoughts together. Of course, in an improv show, no one gets hurt. When you’re running from a mob… better not screw up.
Do you understand the metaphor? The ability to improvise a plan, to write it entirely on the fly, to be able to trust your comrades to pick up your thoughts and continue with them, it makes improvisation one of the highest forms of coordination.
I don’t think your metaphors work. Anri and the the bunny suit guy didn’t trust Ryo to delay Horoda. Nobody he knew he was there. He just happened to be in that hallway and decided to take some payback at a time that worked out for everyone else to. It’s not really lucky, since there just that many Dollars that you can walk down a street in ‘Kebukero and actually expect a Dollars to be there but it’s not actual improv like what you do.
The situation reported, the blonde girl is closest, Kaztano is workig nearby, this allow for an opportunity to seperate Anri from her pursuers, thi was utilised. I can get this, but after that it Anri, who was clueless running back, running into bunny guy, who heled out, ryo, who helped out, Kida who heled out. Oh wait Kida just happened to be passing through. Actually that goes for everyone.
I can’t say it was so much a strategy or operation as much as everyone promising to be a good Samaritan should they see an opportunity to do so.
I’m really butchering the English language today, aren’t I? Apologies.
No worries, I understand what you’re saying.
I think the problem here is a fundamental difference in how we view these events. Yes, they are random events, that much is certain. In an ad hoc plan, no one can guarantee anyone’s presence at any particular time. You’re looking at them as random acts of kindness, while I’m looking at them as events working toward a whole. I don’t think either view is particularly wrong. They do shade the Dollars in different lights though.
All I have to say is damn them for killing Shizuo! >.<!! well maybe he will get up and beat kida and Mikado out of their emo moods! but great episode kind of slow in some points, can't wait to see how this ends things are getting fun =)