[New][January 2015] Durarara!!x2 Shou

Japanese title: デュラララ!!×２　承
Genres: Action / Drama / Suspense / Thriller / ... (what isn't it?!)
I've watched: 1 episode

Summary: The story of Dollars, Yellow Scarves, Headless Horsewoman, Russian Sushi Chef, ... continuous
    
First impression score: 91 - Still Brilliant

Personal comments: The Original Durarara was my pick of anime of the year for 2010. It combines action thriller, suspense, drama, and literally anything you can think of into one super package that fits perfectly well together. There are many animes out there people's opinions differ, but for Durarara!!, it's has been overwhelmingly positive. It was really brilliant in every single way imaginable, literally! 

For those who have seen Durarara!!, I don't think I need to recommend you to follow up on this sequel. For those who haven't seen the original Durarara!! (or Baccano!), where have you been?! Go watch it, and go watch it now.

p.s. I'm coming out of anime hibernation for a bit, but may soon go back into it. While I'm out here, I'll share as much of my opinion as possible. 

[Ended] Durarara: The Best of 2010

Just like Baccano!, Durarara is very intricately constructed, every single piece of the clue, no matter how insignificant it looks at the time of introduction, all became useful contribution toward the grand puzzle in the end.

The early part of of the story is somewhat confusing, in fact, it's almost chaotic. However, having already seen Baccano!, I was somewhat expecting it. Instead of hopping back and forth in time, it hops between people: most early episodes were told using first person narrative from different people, in a daisy chain manner. What's more interesting is the fact they are introducing characters in a deceiving way: in the end, all characters ended up being something different as they originally seemed. In fact, in a way, the whole story is a big deception: in the beginning, it seems the story is all about headless rider and her head. Slowly, by shifting one step at a time, the story shifted its focus off the Celty and became something completely different.

Oh, yeah, one last thing to note, like Baccano!, there are lots, I mean lots, of names to memorize. What's worse (depends on your language background), unlike Baccano!, most names are Japanese. So to most English speakers, it's not nearly as easy to remember as they are in Baccano! where all people have western names.

Final scoreboard:

Drama: 93 (Lots)

Comedy: 88 (Good enough)

Action: 91 (Dark)

Art/Animation: 88 (Interesting)

Sound/Music: 90 (good)

Character: 95 (Lots, and lots)

Plot: 97 (Well constructed)

Ending: 91 (Solution for everything)

Re-watch value: 80 (Because there are so much information, you might catch some more details you missed first time)

Overall: 92 - Very Interesting

Recommendation: Well, I said it for Angel Beats!, and I'll say the same thing for Durarara: if there is one long season anime you have to watch from the first half of 2010, this would be it. Because it's getting my

Best Long Season Action/Drama for Top Half of 2010

award.

Durarara: Wow

Currently finished: Episode 18

It amazes me that how quickly and smoothly it went from a somewhat complex but still single threaded storyline to a massively complicated muti-threaded mesh. Just like Baccano!, everything in this story is so intricately crafted that they fall precisely into the right place even though almost all key events were introduced to audiences out of order. I think this is by far the best dramas from January 2010 anime season. Therefore, I'm handing it:

Drama of the season for January 2010 season

Durarara!!: Daisy Chain

Currently finished: Episode 3

Very much like Baccano!, this story takes a very unorthodox approach to storytelling. But instead of using a massive parallel layout like Baccano!, it uses more of a daisy chain approach. This is just as an effective method as the other, because the story gets into the huge cluster fuck situation just as quickly as they did in Baccano!.

Also, I thought the characters looks somewhat familiar. Then, episode 3 tipped me off with one of the character waving a Yozakura Quartet manga and talking about going to get it signed by Yasuda sensei. That's when I recognized that all characters here look just like the ones from Yozakura Quartet. It turns out, Suzuhito Yasuda, the artist behind Yozakura Quartet is also responsible for the character design of Durarara!!

[New January 2010] Durarara!!

lol, it's interesting how they advertise another anime inside an anime

Japanese title: デュラララ!!
Info: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=10947
Download: (by gg fansub) http://www.nyaatorrents.org/?page=separate&user=9001
Watch online: http://www.crunchyroll.com/library/durarara
Genres: Mystery / Action / Drama
I've watched: 1 episode

Summary: Mikado moves to Tokyo to go to high school. There he runs into an urban legend about a headless motorcycle rider.

First impression score: 82 ~ Interesting

Personal comments: This is based off another novel of the original author of Baccano! So far it doesn't seem to be in the cross-threading story telling style as Baccano! But who knows, it may start soon. This is one anime from this season I have very high hopes for.