Anime RE-Claimed: Durarara!

I'm a sucker for down to earth yet weird animes: "Tenchi Muyo" & "Burn Up W" comes to mind but "Durarara" is special. Although to be completely honest I haven't watched much of it (mostly due to life issues and free time being incredibly scarce) what I have seen of it I greatly enjoy. So let's talk "Durarara" and see what's what.

For starters it's hard to say exactly what "Durarara" is about and that's not about giving spoilers, it's about it being kinda difficult to actually assess what it's about. There are several characters who take center stage and each episode centers around them and their neck of the woods. The 1st episode is told from the perspective of Mikado Ryugamine and he's the character in which we're first introduced to the strange town of Ikebukuro. We learn from Mikado's friend Masaomi Kida that Ikebukuro is in the middle of an underground gang war by a mysterious and much mythologized gang known as "The Dollars" and there are several note worthy individuals in town. The first being the reason I started watching the series; Shizuo Heiwajima. Why is he the reason I started watching this series? Well...

Because he's beast enough to punch a dude out of his clothes.

Anyway, after getting through a few episodes, "Durarara" is revealing it's self to be a strange series as it unravels, not quite "Pulp Fiction" but not not "Pulp Fiction" either. Granted, while crime is a factor in the series it's not the main focus. "Durarara" doesn't have a central character and because each character is dealing with their own issues which may or may not intersect with another's it's really hard to assess where the story is going. I'd say this is anime equivalent to "The Adventures of Pete & Pete", "Pulp Fiction" & "Eerie Indiana", because while the series is grounded in realism there is an extremely supernatural tint to the series physicalized in the second reason I'm interested in this series; Celty Sturluson, an Irish dullahan (headless horse rider).

Not to mention she's pretty damn sexy...for a chick with no head...what?

Finally, there's what the series could pass off as an antagonist and that's the mysterious character Iyaza Orihara and he's easily my favorite after Shizuo. While Celty is fairy and Shizuo has super human strength, Iyaza seems to possess super human speed and freakish proficiency with a knife. But it's not his skill that intrigue me but rather his profession as an information broker and near Moriarty-ian desire to toy with people (which is how we're introduced to him). The reason I call him the antagonist is because enough characters seem to have a problem (Shizuo especially) and seems to be connected to enough of the characters to warrant calling him the antagonist, despite the fact that he's not outwardly evil, much like Hannibal Lecter, he just wants to see what happens if...

Seriously, he's one BAD motherf&cker.

All that said, I am enjoying "Durarara" but I feel like without watching it on a consistent bases and without having a good memory for names one could easily get lost in the plot threads and how many characters there are (side note, there are 11 characters). Because of this I feel like the anime translation will be difficult for people and the manga would be much easier to access. That being said once time becomes more relaxed I'm very much so looking forward to watch this series on the regular. This is the kind of anime I've been looking for for awhile and while it's very blotted with the many characters and plot threads, it's balance between the supernatural world and the real world is so seamless its not even noticeable until you think about it. Anyways, that'll do it for me, I'll catch you lot laters!