Durarara!! – 17

Ne ne~ Wanna see Shizu-chan all Neo-like? How about Yellow Scarves’ Shogun thrown in?

If the last episode was epic, this was SUPER-EPIC! Talk about putting all the eggs in one basket yet there’s still so much to find out. Before going into detailed theorizing, let’s see what happened in the current installment of Durarara!! Expect a lot of cutting from different people with some issues being concluded while more cans of worms open.

Before getting into seriousness, let’s start with Celty who gushes like fangirl over Shizu-chan (Kakkoi~), going bonkers over the Slashers’ army:

Super speed and strength, no wonder Celty goes all weak in the knees

He’s the One! Alright!

The Slashers stop in the middle and Shizuo sends Celty to check out what was happening. She in turn gives him gloves made of her dark material to protect his hands from major cuts.

Shizu-chan without glasses, looks so much better! 😉

The Saika confrontation is all about who’s the real shiznit. Haruna can’t fathom that the real Saika was not with her but Anri. She tries to taunt her only to be reprimanded indulgently to stop her children from fighting.

Take a bow, biatch!

Haruna is livid screaming that she was the one who held back Saika’s power with her love. Maintaining a calm expressions, Anri let’s Haruna listen for a moment Saika’s words of love. Haruna hears many I love you’s.

Izaya takes over the narration, starting with flashbacks of Anri’s childhood and her family. It was not a happy family like in her dreams but a very sad one at that. Due to a failing business of antiquity he becomes violent towards his family. In actuality, her mother was the Slasher, who killed her father and herself when he tried killing their only daughter. She witnessed it all with a closed and loveless heart and was attracted to the whispers of the blade. She felt the love emanating from the blade when she touched it and since then had been absorbing its love like a parasite, not swayed by its madness.Insolent children shouldn’t play with knives

Haruna slashes at Anri quite maddeningly and repeatedly but gets scared when the blade is turned towards her. Anri tells Haruna that she let her cut her because she was going to do something horrible to her. Let her Saika takeover her mind and free the many hundreds of citizens to maintain her own peace.

She lightly pierces Haruna and let’s her Saika take over all her children freeing them from their maddening grip of love towards Shizuo.

In ‘Bukro South Park, Shizu-chan is one mean fighting machine as he ploughs on punching, kicking and karate chopping! The Slashers think that cutting him would make him theirs but even after being nicked many times Shizu-chan stands up kicking.

He has a simple theory of kicking ass rather than feeling scared. He can accept to himself that he’s the biggest coward, always thinking that he would lose control. However, he would never back down in front of the people who love him.

He rears to go off and punch the lights out of the main bully-girl but he sees her eyes turning back to normal. He wills himself to stop and for the first time in his life, his strength listens to him. Everyone wakes up wondering what happened while Shizuo falls on his ass to laugh his head off.

The pole-hugging pervy teacher is saved by Anri yet again. He tells her that he got Haruna transferred because she came at him with a knife. Seeing Celty arrive, he compels Anri to come with him. He tries to reason with her that he’s been looking out for her (oh boy!), even putting her in the same class as Harima. Anri informs him that she has already repaid him by saving him in the alleyway, chased by Celty. She initially thought that the Headless Rider was the Slasher and that is why she wanted to cut the host (refer to flashback from epi 14, I rightly guessed the one who slashed at Celty was Anri rather than Haruna in conclusion).

She clearly says that she hates him. When asked why the Rider was chasing after him and what did he do? He cowardly runs like a girl screaming. What a coward! He seriously has bad luck because after getting beaten up by fake Saika, he gets punched to Kingdom Come by Shizu-chan.

You sure deserved it, hentai!

Celty tells Anri not to apologize because she was thinking for betterment. Knocking her head off was too much but she can blame it up to Saika. She’s not having pity on her due to her situation but clearly accepting that she can’t beat her in a fight. She compels her to use her power to better the town of ‘Bukro and transports the fainted-Haruna back with her to Shinra.

As Anri stands looking at the back of Celty riding off, she realized that she had gained power over at least a hundred citizens of ‘Bukro. She could accept it because the weight of holding other people’s destiny kept one grounded. She also heard a faint whisper, ‘I can’t love you but I don’t hate you either’. She didn’t know where that voice came from but it could’ve been the new Saika absorbed from Haruna.

Mikado visits Anri in hospital after Masaomi informs him that she has been slashed. While mildly explaining that she got attacked by Slashers, she gushes about Shizuo and the Headless Rider who saved her. Specifically a lot about the Headless Rider who has saved her so many times.

I loved the reaction of Mikado who went, but she’s girl!!! Hahaaa, this series has Yaoi and Yuri tones both! I just wonder how can Anri not see that Celty’s not a guy?! Poor Mikado getting more competition! Anyway, Mikado can’t tell her the truth about Celty because he would then have to reveal his own secret of Dollars so he tells her to not associate much with it because these people are far away from their normal lives. Anri too, can’t really tell Mikado or Masaomi about what really happened but she finally knows the name of the person who was behind this all: Orihara Izaya. (Why I’m not surprised?)

The man in question is strategizing his next move in his apartment cum office, while chatting up Namie sitting on his chair about his weird name. According to him the name perfectly suited him. He prattles on about coincidence but nothing ever is. He gloats on his achievement that he was the one who sent Nasujima to Anri’s apartment when Haruna visited her. He was in heavy debt so he tried to get some by blackmailing Haruna’s parents. He owed money to the loan shark Awakusu-kai (refer to Shiki interview from epi 15), so they introduced him to Izaya on pretence of getting more info on Haruna. He took Izaya’s money and ran like the coward he is, which was his bait. He also knew that Haruna was the Slasher. The plan was to get Nisujima steal money from him and then get blackmailed to use Haruna. However, he led him to the real Saika: Anri. Shizuo didn’t die but everything else worked like a charm.

As amado said in last review, Yumasaki got Togusa a new van door with a moe neko-eared anime girl painted on it; of course, Togusa and Kadota are not very happy about it. Dotachin gang talks about the unrest that happened at the park and the reporter they left on the sidewalk, who seemed totally hypnotized not remembering anything. The brawl was chalked up to a fight between colour gangs according to the police. Like online rumours go, it’s been bragged about that it was Dollars’ doing.

Mikado sends out a feeler text to all members regarding information about Slasher. I loved Karisawa (Jigoku Shoujo?) and Yumasaki’s (Kuroshitsuji) message tones; they are such otakus continuously dropping references to different anime. It seems even they have been recruited into Dollars along with Kadota and Togusa. Celty hopes Mikado holds his horses rather than going overboard.

Izaya tells Namie that now ideally the town is divided into three factions: Saika’s army, Dollars and Yellow Scarves; the first infiltrating the latter two. He was fine with Haruna but Anri’s even more interesting. He also tells her about the middle schooler who started the Yellow Scarves (Ah! We’ve been expecting this for so long!)

Izaya can’t wait for the action to begin! :dundun

Final scene is so typical “Durarara!!” reminds me of the Mikado-scene, when Masaomi stands up to take back the leadership of Yellow Scarves.

He never wanted this to happen again, he just wanted to be a normal high schooler leading a semi-dangerous life but after this whole Slasher incident and Anri being victimized, he decided to join the ranks again to kick the butt of all Slashers and even Dollars if they had a hand in it.

He’s pissed. Be afraid, be very, very afraid!

Conclusion: Can I start gushing now? Whoa! This was epicly awesome! Finally the three main players of the series are on-ground ready to rock and roll. Of course, the smexy bastard (Izaya) is pulling the strings but I hope that these three realize this sooner or later and soil all his plans.

I like how the trio has resolved unbeknownst to each other, showing the power of their friendship. Anri knowing the identity of Izaya can play a key part because if he tries to harm her two friends she is ready to take matters into her own hands. Mikado and Masaomi being the leaders of the two biggest gangs of Ikebukro are ready to provide a lot of muscle thus playing pawns to Izaya’s war. I would like to think that because Masaomi has bowed out of liking Anri because of Mikado would stay. However, Show ▼

How Celty would fit into all this is still to be known. Not to mention Shizu-chan, who will fight for Celty off the bat? It was good to see him accepting his powers and finally put a control noose on it.

Another common factor is the colour yellow in this series, whenever an important revelation is made, it’s tinged with yellow: be it Mikado’s big reveal, Anri’s resolution about Izaya or Masaomi accepting to be Yellow Scarves’ Shogun again. I’m so looking forward to this arc around Masaomi, about time!!!

Don’t even get me started on Izaya. He has been masterminding this all along, going to such depths to get to Valhalla? Namie finally came out strong playing the mistress of the house, taking out all information from Izaya about his big plans. Would she remain faithful to him or cut her ties and run the first chance she gets? That’s still to be seen but shipping-wise they do suite each other. As she’s not really tied to anything right now, not even Seiji because he’s busy with his fake-girlfriend. Also, would Seiji play any part in the battle around Celty’s head/body? This sentence seems so wrong. We still have to wait and see.

Preview shows Masaomi punching Izaya. Yatta! Go Masaomi GO! We finally get to see the Saki scene we’ve all waited for. Seriously, I counted and we’ve been on tenterhooks since three episodes! Expect flashbacks of Masaomi’s relationship with Saki and Izaya’s involvement in it and some more typical Durarara!! craziness.

About

The Boss lady of Metanorn, who makes it all happen. An animanga enthusiast, who watches/reads almost anything that strikes her fancy. Just beware of her Death Perception and always keep her happy. Regularly found at @KyokaiTM & #[email protected].
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27 Responses to “Durarara!! – 17”

  1. Starry says:

    I love how it ended up with Anri, Mikado and Masaomi being the the leaders of the three factions! And it was all because of their friendship between each other. Really awesome! I can’t wait for Izaya’s ass to be kicked by the three of them when they realised that Izaya has been manipulating them all along. Muahahas. 😀

    For theory on Celty, Izaya mentioned somehting like, that the person will emerge as the winner in a war will be able to go to Valhalla right? Perhaps, he is trying to get the three factions to fight each other, and after they have fought each other to ruin, then he would come out and ‘kill’ the rest, thus being the winner? Then, maybe the eyes of the head will open, and something bad will happen, not something good that Izaya had thought would be. So, Celty, being the owner of the head would have to stop her head from doing something bad, and after that she would get her head and memories back. 😀

    Ok, sorry, I’m kind of rambling on. Hahas.But I really love this episode too! I love how Anri has stood up for herself and showed that she was actually strong, unlike the seemingly weak person she behaves as normally.

    • Kyokai says:

      I have been waiting so long for this to happen. The trio gearing up for the big fight! Yeyee! 😀 Hopefully they realize that they are being played and table turns on Izaya.

      Interesting theory there about Celty’s head. That is one possibility but I don’t think Izaya in anyway can ‘own’ the head. Whatever he tries it would hopefully come back to bite in his ass! 😉

      Love Anri’s development too. I was so sick of her being ‘normal’ and timid. Finally, she rises and resolves. Would love to see what she does next. ^^;

  2. oplover says:

    YESSHH!! I never expected that this anime, originally planned for 13 episodes then they change it to 24 (i think), brings us towards a more cool storyline!! :shakesfist

    Now, which faction should I joined?? :sparkle

    • Kyokai says:

      It’s confirmed that it’s gonna stay till 24 episode, rest assured. But that also means that we have only 7 more episodes to look forward to? Ah man, I’m gonna miss this!

      In case of which faction to join, Hmmm… I love the trio in general but in making a selection I might side along Anri because she has members from both Dollars and YS, so win-win! :thumb:

      • amado says:

        theoretically anri is a part of dollars since she can log in the chat trios site.
        well later at least.

        • Kyokai says:

          Hmm, if Anri and Mikado join hands, what about Masaomi? I hope he doesn’t get left behind or join Izaya for that matter! Aaah, bad thought! :sad6

  3. Joojoobees says:

    Ha ha! Shizuo’s fight was awesome! 😡 :rage: :punch:

    “I just wonder how can Anri not see that Celty’s not a guy?!”

    I’m sure she can. She rode on the back of Celty’s bike after the reporter was smashed by the van door. There is no way she could have been that close to Celty’s form-fitting black suit and thought otherwise. I think Mikado was getting the wrong idea there.

    Celty was really cool in that scene with Anri. Use your powers for good. That’s what it all boils down to doesn’t it? Now if only someone could get that through Izaya’s thick skull…

    The complications in Perv-sensei’s story really surprised me. I hadn’t realized how often we had seen him throughout the series! I’m glad Shizuo clocked him in the end. He truly deserved it.

    • Kyokai says:

      Totally kickass episode!!! Shizu-chan is love! :kyaa2:

      I was thinking the same thing that how could it be that Anri goes all blushy and gushes over the Headless Rider. In novels she finds out way late that Celty’s a she. Anyway, she is such a good hero, preaching to Anri for using her powers for the good. Almost as if she’s mentoring her.

      I’ll look forward to the rising tension and ensuing climax around the three factions. Who would you join btw?

      They should just beat up Izaya together and be over with it! :glasses

  4. nagi says:

    This is one heck of an anime! I’m actually picky at watching animes but this one’s really something. Can’t wait for the next Durarara installment! 😉

    • Kyokai says:

      I can safely say, one of the best of last year definitely! Awesomeness! :4:

  5. LuluChan92 says:

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Izaya has messed up the world, but I like it, goddamned!!! Congrats!!! The 3 leaders here are going to try and kill each other without even knowing. Hope they find out about Izaya messing up with them all and try kick his ass… but he’ll get the hell out of there unharmed, of course (it’s Izaya, after all, only Shizu-chan can kick his ass and get away with it)!!!

    • Kyokai says:

      LOL!!! Even when Izaya is the bad guy, you can’t really hate him because he’s such a smexy bastard! 😉 I so want the trio to realize that they are simply being manipulated by him which I can bet they would, most probably late though.

      Would look forward to more ass kicking from Shizu-chan and Masaomi’s back story. <3

  6. amado says:

    as ive read from some sites, they say if anri will love mikado or masaomi(I doubt masaomi though), she’ll try to cut him.
    yay for masaomiXsaki
    for some who dont think both are a good pair because she’s one of his ex, maybe next ep will change your minds(not gonna spoil next week)

  7. amado says:

    my fave pairs for durarara:
    izayaXnamie
    mikadoXanri
    masaomiXsaki
    erikaXwalker

    • Kyokai says:

      Seriously?! I hope it’s Mikado for Anri rather than Masaomi, even if cutting is involved, I think Mikado would somehow deal with it. 😉

      Saki for Masaomi is all good, I just hope she’s faithful enough. I ship the same pairs as you, Erika and Walker are just adorable and dangerous at the same time (ref to their torture bag from manga). Though Izaya/Shizu-chan are my crack OTP! XD

      • amado says:

        the most powerful proof from mikado of how much he likes anri
        warning major spoiler if you want to read
        also shows mikado being more awesome, better than revealing he’s the leader of dollars:
        http://anni-fiesta.livejournal.com/20980.html
        by the way if your wondering who’s aobaShow ▼

        and I found izaya’s twin sisters(its also my avatar):
        http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4115/omg1gl.jpg

        it gives me hope for a 2nd season

      • amado says:

        I cant post website links, why?
        anyway for more couples that wont appear in the anime(yet):
        Show ▼

        • amado says:

          never mind, it showed up….
          it didnt show up yesterday

        • Kyokai says:

          I think due to multiple links this went to spam but I rescued it! XD

          OMG! That was such a cool find of yours, Izaya’s sisters~! I’m just thinking how they would be? From all your summaries now I want a second season too! Hopefully we will get it! *keeps all fingers crossed*

  8. Flags says:

    Finally, it’s been about ten episodes and we will finally find out about Saki. Don’t forget that Shizuo is a member of the dollars, so I imagine he would back them and Celty, who is also a member, up. Unless Izaya said he was on the dollars side, then Shizuo would have some conflicting feelings. Best line of the episode:
    “I can’t lose in front of someone who loves me!”
    Great Line.
    P.S. We need to be friends naaaaaaoooooooooo

    • Kyokai says:

      Aaah, it’s such a race to decide which faction to join! :S I was all set for Anri when now you are pursuing towards Dollars! Hmm, have to think on it. I can bet Izaya would not really show himself as Dollars because he’s literally playing all of them. But I can be wrong, who knows in case of Drrr which can be so crazy!

      LOL! I think I have your email, so let’s start from there, which IM do you use?

  9. cyberpixie says:

    uwaaah kida you’re scary lol
    shizu-chan without glasses = win

    • Kyokai says:

      Heheheee! Be afraid, the Shogun’s onto you! XD
      I love shizu-chan more and more each episode.

      Btw, <3 for always commenting! 🙂

  10. Xiao says:

    I couldn’t be more happier with where this arc is heading. To be honest, Anri’s story was very interesting but nowhere near as exciting as the conflict between the color gangs will be. And the biggest problem is, all three of them don’t know they’re hanging out with the big bosses among them which will make things even more conflict-y (lack of better word due to lack of energy).

    I’m curious to know where the police will be during this time. Especially that Kinnosuke Kuzuhara who takes a joy in chasing Celty down. Maybe he’ll jump into the fray, too, I dunno. lol

    As for Izzy, he might be sitting there all comfortable in his cushion seat right now while watching his plans unfold but I can’t wait to see the reaction on his face when something unexpected jumps in at him…like…very sharply. o.O;

    Also, YAY~ for Saki~! I officially love Saki now. <333

    • Kyokai says:

      Xiao-chan~ Good to see you here as always! <3

      I feel the same, finally we'll get to see what has been Masaomi up to! Being one of the most playful characters and having extra knowledge about 'bukro (of course, not as extensive as Izaya) and the last one for the reveal – I hope it causes some OMG-seriously-s?!

      In case of Kinnosuke, his connection to Shinra/Shingen is disturbing and still not revealed (from ED sequence). Is he Shingen's puppet who would get in to sweep the floor whenever war would break out or kidnap Celty whenever he gets a chance? Being a rebellious cop, I can expect almost anything happen around him.

      Hahahaaa!!! I would love to see that! I'm banking on Anri or Celty to do just that. Somebody needs to spank him! :3

      I'm all for Saki/Masaomi, need to see next episode naaaaaaooo!!!

  11. Keta says:

    *Just a minor note, the girl on the car is Nogizaka Haruka, I believe they reference her quite often as well.

  12. stupid racoon says:

    I thought the DRRR lost very much in my eyes after this episode. Making out of three “ordinary japanese schoolkids” kings of universe and rulers of elements. How original!
    Thats what i totally hate about anime in general, its good enough for somebody still in school.
    i would have been much more satisfied with witty series about urban legends.

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