Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
slightexag
A little bit of a series retrospective here. I haven't seen Durarara since it came out and would never rewatch it. In my mind, it is one of the original massively overrated series of my childhood, with baffling storytelling and focus problems that ruin everything good about it.
Let me start with an analogy: imagine JK Rowling creates the world of Harry Potter, filled with wizards, magic, lore, history, a haunted castle, centaurs, giant spiders, elves, soul-stealing dark phantoms, dragons, etc. But as she's writing it she decides, "no, Harry Potter is too much a chosen one type and involved with interesting people, secrets, and high stakes drama. Instead, let's make Dudley the protagonist because he can learn about all the interesting stuff as a three-times-removed bystander who never act…
Read at the sourceliteraturenerd
Narita manages to catch lightning in a bottle twice...sort of.
Overview:
Durarara is the spiritual successor to Baccano and takes place in the same universe. Once again, the famous light novelist Ryohgo Narita uses the formula of having TONS of zany characters that all somehow tie together. Also like in Baccano, the story is told non-sequentially and from multiple perspectives. The question you're probably asking is, "If he was going to basically re-make Baccano, why not just continue Baccano where the first series left off?" The answer to that question is marketing. Baccano took place in the US during the Prohibition Era and played around with American cultural tropes and cliches. I believe the author stated that he created Baccano after binge watching The Godfather, Goodfellas, and The…
Read at the sourceKirik0h
To describe “Durarara!!” as atypical or multi-faceted would be a severe understatement by any measure. Narita’s creation is a rarity in that it is a show whose characters and the universe in which they inhabit are totally homogeneous – the characters are the universe and vice versa. Durarara is a piece of metafiction that primarily explores youth culture in Japan although much of its revelations and developments are relatable or can be extrapolated into the Western world. What is particularly impressive is that all this social commentary comes slickly packaged in a character drama whose comedy, romance, supernatural conceptions and eclectic cast can be appreciated even if one were to ignore the underlying purpose of them all.
However, if you’re willing to commit to Durarara, you will fin…
Read at the sourceSapphire
Durarara!! is one of those shows with a double life theme, add that with some gang drama and a headless motorcyclist, and you got yourself a mashup! Which is exactly what this is. A mashup.
Story:
Just what I said above. This is a mashup of different cliche or used ideas. The headless motorcyclist, the gangs and mobs, the secret double life of a high schooler, and two best friends who end being on the opposite end. I was a bit disappointed in the fact there was much at the beginning but silly introductions to the characters and their profile. I don't care! They could've easily done the same thing while they moved through the plot. And it was a bit hard to understand why this was considered "supernatural" minus Shizuo having extreme strength.
It was decent enough, but still had so muc…
Read at the sourceGoodnightSly
Durarara clearly wants to establish itself as the rule of cool successor to Baccano. Sadly, its just doesn’t have a strong enough cast nor a focused tone to live up to the lively setting of Ikebukuro.
Story (6/10):
Durarara starts off fairly well. It follows in the vein of Baccano in which we follow each and every character’s whereabouts and how they all eventually intervene. It establishes the characters, their relationships with one another, and their issues. And some of the characters individual stories were downright fun to watch (Anything with Shizuo Heiwajima is a blast). But due to this style, the plot is stretched out much longer than it needs to be making the viewer forget some details as well as being frustrated as to what's going on. But it all leads up to the climax that sur…
Read at the sourceYhagoPinto
The anime has a series of tags and I would add 'psychological' to better describe some scenes. The story immediately caughts your attention by the way it's told, not by the content itself. Narita, the original creator and the rest of the team, in this regard used some cool classic tricks seen on many "best seller" books. Not only that, but overall the 'sound guys' managed to capture every scene with the right OST, making this an anime very easy to marathon.
Monologues? Check.
Its quality can vary, sometimes it feels brilliant, by giving insight to what the characters are thinking or to give a better understanding of them. The problem lies in the action, sometimes it's just missing by plot constraints, which gives the (now and then) long monologues an important task. They must keep the v…
Read at the sourceArsene_Lucifer
Durarara!! or as I like to call it for fun DRRR!! is an interesting anime series. Putting a lot of emphasis into creating its characters and world were losing tons of time becomes a habit when watching the series. Capturing the chaos and mystery of the city in it’s version of Ikebukuro with soaring success. While the story being told is decent as a whole what makes it memorable and a great way to spend time are the characters themselves. No matter what flaws present themselves, the characters always manage to make it seem like those flaws don’t matter in the long run.
Mixed: Interesting story filled with questionable decisions
Durarara!! has a headless horseman, a girl with a demon sword that can possess people, a puppet master bent on creating chaos, gang leaders wanting gang warfare, a…
Read at the sourceaereldor
TL;DR watch Baccano instead
Durarara likes to rely on the 'Rule of Cool' but there's not much cool about it. It doesn't even have the complete pandemonium that makes its predecessor Baccano so great. It's not set onboard a zany animated Orient Express... It's just a normal city in Japan. They repeatedly reference a 'Color gang war', an apparently important event in the city's history, but we never learn anything interesting or important about it.
The characters aren't exception. You've a country bumpin... Who moved to the big city... To *sigh* GO TO HIGH SCHOOL.
Yoou've got a class rep with big tits with a dark secret, a dumbass pervert best friend, and oh big surprise, they're in a love triangle with the protagonist.
Side characters aren't special. You have anger issues man, slimy kn…
Read at the sourceSkeletonxf
Watched the dub so that's what I'm reviewing.
The anime often shows you seemingly useless information, and at times following the flashbacks are very hard. The first few episodes were very slow, and not that engaging, and while it finished very well, the journey to that was less engaging.
The story and character interactions are very well strung together, perhaps too well at points, the flashbacks are sometimes a little hard to follow and the un centred nature of the anime made following the plot sometimes challenging. This anime isn't something that you can really attach 'antagonist' labels to something, while it's an understatement to say it's mostly the characters messing around with each other - it's probably a good summary.
The animation wasn't particularly high quality. The greyin…
Read at the sourceIlse
I recently watched the popular show, Durarararararara!! and I have to say, it was quite enjoyable, with a few flaws/annoying parts. Durarara is a very unique show that contains a whole lot of different genres mixed together; romance, comedy, supernatural, mystery, and even some action here and there. I've never seen a show hop around all over the place, in terms of plot. In this review, I may blab nonsense, but I'll try to explain why I like Durarara.
In order for me to describe the plot, it would take forever because there's just so much happening in Durarara to a whole load of different main characters. So I'll sum it up using Mikado Ryugamine (mainest of the main characters, I think) as the focal point. Mikado Ryugamine longs for an escape from his dull everyday life and seeks somethin…
Read at the sourceLink_of_Hyrule
**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**
From its enigmatic characters, to its unhinged storyline, down to its eccentric name, Durarara!! is the definition of absurdity. Is that always a good thing? Certainly not. Is it a good thing in this case? Yes, it definitely is. This anime has everything you could ever want in a fast-paced, thrilling anime; epic plot twists, unique characters, and an exciting concept. Much like DRRR's spiritual predecessor, Baccano!, there is simply too much going on to give a good synopsis without spoilers. There are mythological figures, people with super-strength, gangsters, demonic possession, a seemingly omnipotent information broker waging psychological warfare, and much, much more. It's just downright insanity. Perfect? No. Fun? Yes.
The true allure of DRRR is that all of i…
Read at the sourceMind-freak
"Just because I like humans doesn't mean I like you personally" -Izaya
Durarara is able to to keep you entertained for each entire episode. The art isn't so good as the colors are dull and the character's faces are often expressionless. On the other hand, both openings and endings were awesome.
Simply put, Durarara!! is a show that attempts anything and everything. It seeks ensemble-based drama with enough humorous peripheral characters to lighten its load (and some romances thrown in for good measure), and in its spare moments delves into the supernatural and attempts a meta-fictional perspective on 21st century Japanese culture. The series throws development after development at the audience, fascinating one with modernized takes on Irish folk tales, introducing a myriad of strange cha…
Read at the sourceTkavatar
For anybody trying to decide on whether or not they should watch Durarara, do yourself a favor and watch it. This anime is easily one of the best I've ever seen. The story starts off a little slow with a shy and timid boy named Mikado moving to new city in Japan who has high hope to start a new life. from there the story takes off. The anime stays pretty consistent with presenting new information and ideas, and easily keeps your attention. As far as story goes it is one of the most well thought out, complex, developed, and mature plots I've ever had the pleasure of watching. When I say mature I don't mean that there are breasts bouncing around everywhere or anything else ecchi like that, but mature as in you have to have some type of common sense to keep up with whats going on, which is an…
Read at the sourceartist-retired
Ikebukuro is one crazy ass town set in one crazy ass country that produced one crazy ass series of novels that now has a crazy ass anime adaptation, now replace "crazy ass" with "entertaining".
STORY: Durarara (Or DRRR, which by the way sounds like an insult to someone when they make a stupid or obvious statement) can be described as two things: crazy and entertaining, and entertaining and crazy. Durarara is as crazy as it is entertaining, I mean what other anime has gang wars, superhuman people, super natural elements, and enough characters pushed up into like several clown cars, packed up like sardines, that start to break the hinges and screws start flying off... I can name one other but anyway, Durarara is the adaptation of light novels created by Ryohgo Narita, the creator of another…
Read at the sourceAndristian
The world of anime never ceases to come up with new and fascinating series, original and interesting storylines, or iconic and highly memorable characters. There’s a reason why this form of entertainment (and art) has attained such widespread reach over the years, and I truly believe that its decisive power lies in the near unrestrained creativity present in each and every anime series, original video animation, and whatnot. This freedom of expression and imagination has become somewhat of a signature for the Japanese animation industry, acting as sort of an assurance that anime features plenty of exclusive elements and things you won’t get to see anywhere else. Sometimes that can be a bad thing (if you know what I’m saying), but let’s face it, most of the time that’s undeniably beneficial…
Read at the sourcedaimira
I finally finished "Durarara!!" and while there were characters that I liked and moments that were entertaining, I don't think it's a series I would willingly put myself through again. I'm not even sure I liked it as a whole.
Putting aside the immediately obvious fact that the animation for this series is superb and all opening and ending songs are awesome, what's left for me to complain about is the pacing, the plot, and the nearly nonexistent character development. Oh, and the mind-numbingly boring way in which the dialogue is remarkably unsubtle, anvilicious, and pretentious.
I know this is based on a series of light novels and that there's also a manga version. But while I know a bit about both, I haven't read enough of either, and this is an anime review anyway, so I'm glad I haven'…
Read at the sourceDaichikitazawa
Right from the very beginning, something about the title, or was it the caution tape artwork that grabbed my attention. It was bizarre to me at first, to be watching an anime that featured a different character in every episode but after I warmed up to it, this anime was undoubtedly enjoyable. It was entirely unique, and refreshing, and overall, an anime with brilliant potential, but left with loose ends.
Pros:
Durarara features simply AMAZING artwork, something fans would go crazy about. The characters each had distinct personalities, some that even we as the viewers can relate to. Light-hearted at times and even sometimes comical, the creators did a great job keeping tabs on all the characters. I watched attentively as each person filtered in, adding their own touch to this gang-oriente…
Read at the sourcexXshinzoXx
As a quick introduction, I hope to write reviews to 'Inform' and to 'Educate' the mass on certain shows, whether it be deserving of more attention or overhyped, with tihs being one of the latter.
Durarara can be described in one word; Disappointing. Why? With Durarara having been constantly compared to it's predecessor, and what I believe to be the superior, turned out to be disappointing and a cheap shot by Brains Base. With this in mind, I hope to address the merits and flaws of this show through compare and contrast with Baccano.
Story- 3
Why have I given this a 3? The story was neither 'Dreadful', or 'Pathetic', but is undeserving to be rated as Decent or anything better, because It could be summed up as a cheap and literal translation from Novel to Anime, with 0 creativity put in,…
Read at the sourceLindle
From the very get-go, even from the opening title sequence, you can easily notice one thing about Durarara, and that is that it was made by Ryohgo Narita, creator of Baccano. Everything about this show besides the setting is very reminiscent of Baccano, so inevitably, it will be compared to it. So, how does DRRR hold up compared to Narita's previous work?
Well, let's just get this out of the way now: No, it isn't as good as Baccano - but then, few anime are. If you're a Baccano fan, Durarara is definitely worth watching, and even if you aren't a Baccano fan, Durarara is still worth watching, although some of the references may be lost on you, seeing as how Baccano and Durarara take place in the same fictional universe. The main difference between the two is, perhaps bizarrely given their…
Read at the sourceUnlimitedWill
This review is meant for the viewer who has already watched Baccano!, and who is contemplating watching Durarara!!. In the event that you’ve not watched Baccano!, I suggest you watch it first. After all, the two anime boast the same director, and (either consequently or not) are generally similar in the way the story unfolds, and to lesser extent, how the characters are developed and how the plot reaches full circle, AND the point is that Durarara!! is, in my opinion, a much inferior work (perhaps as a result, or not, of) being really meant for the younger at heart.
So, fellow Baccano fan, let me just say that I have never seen so many self-absorbed main characters in all my years of watching anime. And that sort of sums up this anime. Durarara!! ("DRRR") is basically a "self-absorbed" an…
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