Anime Hajime Review: Durarara x2 Ten (3 Year Anniversary Special Part 2 of 3)

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Durarara x2. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

It has been several months since the clash between the Dollars and the Yellow Scarves. Since then, the streets of Ikebukuro have stayed peaceful. Or at least, as peaceful as possible in a city filled with amazing people.

Even under the best circumstances, tension fills the air. At any moment something can throw this town into turmoil. There are those who seek such an outcome and there are those who fight against it. Then there are those caught up in the middle.

Every day, the news tells of unbelievable events. Cars and vending machines being hurled across the sky. A small internet community is growing to become the most influential entity in the area. And in the dead of night, residents may even hear the cry of the legendary headless rider.

In Ikebukuro, there really is no such thing as impossible.

Ten Cour Synopsis

The Dollars' infighting has settled. Mikado Ryuugamine (voiced by Toshiyuki Toyonaga) has committed himself to cleaning up his group. Or as the rest of the world might call it, purging the unwanted weight.

Mikado no longer has any reservations about taking control over what he has created. Even if it means resorting to violence. Then again, this could be the true Mikado finally breaking through.

While this is going on, Ikebukuro is ready to welcome the return of one of its most dangerous residents. After being off the scene for a time, Izaya Orihara (voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya) is ready to exact his will on the city.

Two rising conflicts are taking root. Like any storm, there will be people caught up in the madness. And somethings which should have stayed underground may surface.

Ten Cour Positives

The Shou cour ended on a high note. Excitement and intrigue levels were up. Durarara had built up quite a bit of momentum going into its next chapter. With the Ten cour over and done, things have settled down. The ecstatic anticipation that was once here is gone.

Isn’t that a bad thing? Shouldn’t this series have more power going into its final leg?

I’m projecting questions. And they are the wrong questions at that. We must think in comparisons.

What did the Shou and Ten cours do the same? What did they do differently? What do those respective answers mean for this season moving forward? Once we come to a conclusion, only then can we start to consider which chapter was the stronger. Even after we do that, there’s something we need to remember.

Shou and Ten are not separate entities. They are working together, alongside the Ketsu cour to create Durarara x2. The positives and negatives of one are reflections of the entire season.

I sometimes wonder if I should have lumped these three cours into a single post. There would be less stuff to consider, that’s for sure. But that is why I chose to look at this series this way. How else can I claim I did my best at giving this show the fairest chance possible. That and I can’t reflect on these three years if I do a move past Odyssey would have pulled. Future Odyssey, the long-winded jerkweed that he is, would be disappointed.

As for those questions, my answers to them will come over the course of this review. They require more than a brief mention. We want to get to the heart of the matter. I have a lot to cover and this series hasn’t been convenient enough for me to make a clean separation of my thoughts. There is one exception though.

There is something I’m glad x2 succeeded in carrying over across the cours. It’s something this series could have lost during the interlude between chapters. Had it done that, it would have had a massive effect on the larger story. I hope I will be able to say the same thing when we arrive at Ketsu.

From Shou to Ten, this still feels like the same season.

The jump from episode twelve and episode thirteen was not jarring. The latter picked up where the former left off. A person who wasn’t aware of the release history wouldn’t notice a change from cour to cour. Even with plenty of callbacks to the first chapter. If I were watching this season during its original run, this would have been a great help. And as the marathoner that I am, I appreciate the smooth transition.

This uniformity helped to keep everything in check. Especially as this story got more and more complicated.

There is one more thing to account for. That is the question unique to the Shou and Ten cours. “Is it worth waiting a few months for the continuation?” The first time I asked that the answer I got was a resounding, “yes.” Regardless of what this current chapter did, this is an advantage I can’t stress enough.

Speaking of this current chapter, I liked the Ten cour. It, like Shou, had many outstanding qualities. And like its predecessor, it brought about its share of concerns. As well as adding to some of the ones I already had. The Ketsu cour has a lot riding on it.

From a storytelling perspective, the final chapter should go out with a bang. I’m anticipating it to be the best of the trio. With everything leading up to it, this can’t be too much to expect. This has been the reality for this season since the beginning.

From an entertainment point of view, the Ten cour was weaker than Shou. There was a noticeable dip in adrenalin. But to have this chapter’s back, there was a reason why.

Shou had to get this season going. There was a need for it to be more energetic. Ten didn’t need to worry about that. This segment had to focus on moving this season along. There could be action scenes and cool, over-the-top moments like before, and there were. Except there must have been a purpose other than looking awesome. If there was nothing more, why even bother continuing in the first place?

Anything that has a story to it will hit this point sooner or later. When this happens, a plot may have to take its speed down a notch. This is not a bad thing. In some cases, it’s a necessity. There is a critical difference between a slower moving narrative and one that drags on. As long as things remain engaging, there’s nothing wrong with the pacing taking its time. A series that has understood this well has been Monogatari.

First off, I know Owarimonogatari II is a thing and I will get to it as soon as I have the chance.

Second, a staple of the Monogatari franchise is its heavy use of dialogue. Due to this, the series still has a rather slow pace. Even if the characters speak at breakneck speeds, conversations can last a while. We are talking minutes upon minutes in multiple, if not every episode. Yet throughout the entirety of the installments I have reviewed, none of them were boring. The outstanding writing, visuals, and performances keep up the engagement.

The same is true with Durarara x2’s Ten cour.

And while Ten was much slower than Shou, it never stopped moving. Too bad entertainment value wasn’t the only thing that made this cour the weaker of the two. This chapter may have always been moving, but it didn’t always move forward. The plot didn’t go backward, which was a plus. Instead, it went more sideways. A story may have been in place, that didn’t mean we would spend much time on it.

If you consider for a moment, this is starting to sound a little unfair on my part. The things Ten did focus on were fun to watch, I won’t argue against that. As we will see in a moment, this was why this chapter was as strong as it was. That and Shou did the same thing. Except there is one major difference.

The Shou cour wasn’t coming off where the Shou cour ended. You can’t ignore that for most of the chapter and not expect people to get a little peeved. It’s like getting sucker punched in the face and then your attacker hands you a hundred-dollar bill. Sure, you walked away with something good, but it still hurt.

I’m getting ahead of myself. There are a lot of noteworthy things to say about the Ten cour. Shou may have left me more jazzed, but I would be lying if I said this wasn’t a fun watch.

Character Driven

The first half of the Ten cour was like the set up to Shou. Both chapters didn’t bother so much with an initial story. Since this chapter put advancing the plot on the back burner, what did it choose to explore deeper? It decided to go with the characters.

The amount of emphasis Ten put on its cast rivals what you would find in a slice-of-life comedy. And a slice-of-life can get away with this because the narrative isn’t usually that important in them. Durarara does follow its characters through their extraordinary lives and has slice-of-life qualities. But this is not that type of show. There are bigger things going on. There are problems that can’t get solved in a single episode.

If any other series like x2 did this kind of prioritization to the extent the Ten cour did, it would be hard to overlook. The reason I’m willing to give this chapter a much larger pass has to do with one fact. Most other shows aren’t centering themselves around the characters of Durarara. If we are going to follow anything other than the actual story, it damn-well better be this.

And the Ten cour delivered.

The opening episodes of this chapter were an absolute blast. This was more of a proper continuation to the Shou cour than anything else. Many character arcs saw their natural evolution.

Two quick disclaimers.

First, Chikage Rokujo (voiced by Yuki Ono), who was one of Shou’s top additions, wasn’t around in this installment. While a bummer, it wasn’t annoying since there wasn’t much of a place for him to do anything. It was smarter to have him not be around. Why risk forcing him in and damaging such a good character? If there’s a proper way for him to be in Ketsu, it would be nice to see him again.

Second, and this is kind of annoying, the Orihara twins, Mairu and Kururi (voiced by Eri Kitamura and Hisako Kanemoto) got sidelined. I keep telling myself there’s another cour to go, but this is the precise thing I was worried about. Why give characters a memorable introduction and then not use them?

Prove me wrong x2, I’m begging you.

That aside, there were characters who got a boost.

There was concern about never seeing Akane Awakusu (voiced by Misaki Kuno) and Varona (voiced by Mao Ichimichi) again. I was very happy to see them show up in Ten. In the Shou review, I listed them as characters that did better when paired up with someone. This chapter didn’t make that statement untrue. Even so, these ladies are now among my favorites of this series. I can only hope they get better.

Akane is still so cute. I love her to death. What the Ten cour did was give her some inner turmoil to deal with. This turmoil not only made her even more adorable, it has made her far more interesting. Before she was at the whim of whatever was going on around her. She has realized how much of a disadvantage that puts her in.

Based on what we saw and learned about her in the Shou cour, it makes sense why Akane would have trust issues. She no longer feels she can rely on the people dearest to her. She hasn’t stopped loving these people and that is where the problem lies. Nowhere was she struggling with this more than with the person she wanted to believe is not a bad guy. This is the one who saved her, Shizuo Heiwajima (voiced by Daisuke Ono).

What has made Akane special was her response to these conflicting feelings. She looks up to and cares about Shizuo. But due to the doubt, she commits herself to defeating him.

Believe it or not, Akane was actually involved in a brawl in this chapter. If that wasn’t weird enough, she managed to take a guy out too. And after doing the deed, she had the proudest smile on her face. I must have laughed for a solid five minutes. I don’t know why I found this so funny. It might have to do with the fact that in this one action, Akane proved herself to be more useful in a fight than Mikado.

Yet if you want to talk about improvement in a character, look no further than with Varona. She got an upgrade. I’m thrilled this is the direction x2 took her story.

Varona was no longer a robot. Even if this personality worked for her in the Shou cour. Because of this though, it was hard to be on her side. That has little to do with her being an antagonist in the last chapter and her going after people I like a lot more. There was an arrogance to her that didn’t register until she showed up again in Ten.

To cut her some slack, Varona did have the skills and expertise to carry herself like she was on top of the world. This made her overconfident. The moment she arrived in Ikebukuro, that inflated ego of hers got her in trouble. She saw how inexperienced she was. By that I mean, the realization smacked her across the face.

For a time, Varona was able to rationalize her being on the wrong side of this level gap. After all, she was going up against the supernatural. Anyone would have a tough time against such opponents. That justification came crashing down upon her encountering a being of monstrous strength. A being that was human.

And like it was for Akane, this person was Shizuo Heiwajima.

By the way, Shizuo himself didn’t do much this chapter. His role in the Ten cour was becoming the end goal for two other characters. There was never a need for him to display his raw strength. This was more than fine.

Then there came the moment in Ten that made me super giddy. It was a team up I didn’t even consider. But the instant such a possibility presented itself, I knew it was a thing I wanted to see. Varona and Shizuo got to fight alongside each other. Yes, I’m on board. More of this, please.

With Akane and Varona, it was good of x2 to provide more to some of Durarara’s newest additions. Yet there was something else that happened in the Ten cour that caught me by surprise. There was a segment in this chapter that turned volatile. It was an encounter that involved two characters I haven’t ever given much thought to. This pair was Namie Yagiri (voiced by Sanae Kobayashi) and Mika Harima (voiced by Mariya Ise).

These two were in the Shou cour. I also remember they both played roles in the original series. I’m not going to go into the history between this duo. I would need to explain details I don’t have a full grasp over. Details that came up back in Durarara 1. The short of it is, these women are not on the greatest of terms.

When Namie and Mika met in Ten, them crossing paths wasn’t what caught my attention. It was how they handled themselves. These two reminded me of a detail to Durarara I haven’t been respecting. You never know for sure who has the upper hand. Anyone could turn the tables at any moment. This aspect of this series has gone a long way into making everything unpredictable.

The Stalker Story Arc

During this plot line, key elements of Durarara made their return. Elements that, if you have only seen the Shou cour, you would mistake as out of place. While the last chapter hinted at heaviness, everything thus far has remained lighthearted. At most, x2 has gone as far as any dark comedy would. Don’t let that fool you. Despite the over the top nature, this series has no problem entering the realm of horror.

When it wants to, Durarara knows how to turn up the creepy. I remember there being several frightening moments in the first season. Most had to do with Anri Sonohara (voiced by Kana Hanazawa) and her connection to the demon sword Saika. Since the original series, Anri has pulled away from the macabre, but its influence hasn’t left her.

For x2 this role has fallen more to idol star Ruri Hijiribe (voiced by Saki Fujita). She was another character I highlighted alongside Varona and Akane. If I had to guess, more to Ruri’s character remains. Unlike some of the other members of the new cast though, her place in this series hasn’t skyrocketed. Although it has increased.

From what was in Shou, Ruri is part of a tragic tale. As well as the person responsible for several violent acts. In spite of this, it wasn’t hard to feel sorry for her. It was clear this story hadn’t yet shown all the details. The Ten cour, without delving too deep into anything, confirmed this.

Ruri was the victim of some of the city’s most vile players. The targets she had been eliminating weren’t random choices on her part. It’s nice knowing this series hasn’t been trying to get me to sympathize with a monster. I know this because x2 gave us its version of a monster.

The stalker that was going after Ruri was unnerving. Everything he did, sent a chill down my spine. I can only imagine what it would be like to have someone following you every day of your life. The kind of fear that would instill is something I don’t wish on anyone. This guy made obsession look tame.

Anything you can think would make a person dangerous, this maniac had. He was strong, clever, careful, and deranged. There was one moment which was brilliant in how effective it was in showing this.

This person was admiring his extensive Ruri shrine he had built for himself. He was in a room with the only light source being the glow of his computer monitors. Monitors he had plastered Ruri’s face over. He then got a call and his ringtone, as you would expect, was one of Ruri’s songs.

What was strange, if this setup wasn’t already, he wouldn’t pick up the phone. He stood there, in silence, in the dark, and was doing nothing. When you realize what he was doing, it made this whole scene that much more unsettling.

This was something that wasn’t in Shou. This was a Ten cour exclusive.

To make matters worse, this freak had someone backing him. Not only did he have the desire to hunt down Ruri, he had the means to do it too. He had access to resources to counter some of the characters that would have given him the most challenge. By the end of this segment, he had caused some damage.

This aside, the events of this storyline weren’t the only thing that worked in its favor. Here was the first time this cour was using what Shou had established. Ten was, at last, relying more on what happened in this season rather than Durarara 1. And more to the point, this chapter was doing something. It was not focusing its entire energy reserves on character development. It was moving the narrative forward. This was the jumping off point to what would become the crux of this cour.

Was this a perfect arc to follow? No, and I wouldn’t even call it my favorite of this season. Had the rest of Ten been more like this though, I would be more pumped going into Ketsu.

There is one last thing of note we need to discuss. And this happens to be the best thing to come out of the Ten cour.

Izaya Orihara

It took a while for this chapter to get to him, but once it did, Izaya stole the show. I now see him in a much different light following the events of the Ten cour.

Izaya is not a hero. He will never be a hero. He is not a good guy. The dumbest thing anyone can do would be to trust him. Even when he wasn’t telling a lie, there was a motive behind everything he did. His plans were well-crafted and thought out. Whenever something went wrong, the chances of Izaya's involvement weren’t zero.

The opposite is true too.

Izaya is not a villain. Or at least not in the sense of an evildoer doing evil things. He’s a jerk and a low life, yes. Yet if your interest line up with his, he isn’t a bad ally to have. Even though his motivations can sometimes be less than noble, he will do decent things.

There came a point in Ten where an adversary of Izaya’s went after his sisters. Due to his forethought, he was able to get the twins out of danger. He claims he had other reasons for doing this besides the girl’s safety. If I had to guess, that statement was closer to genuine than not. Nevertheless, he still did it.

After this encounter, we got one of the few moments where the three siblings were together. Having seen this, it would be nice to get one or two more of these instances before the end.

What does this make Izaya then?

He is the definition of an antagonist. In much the same way the shark in Jaws was, Izaya is a force of nature. He is not a threat so long as you don’t go in the water. In this case, the water being Ikebukuro. Once you enter his domain, you are his prey. If you are in his sights, he is going to go after you for no other reason than you being there. The only thing you can hope for is if another, more alluring target comes along to grab his attention.

Not only this, the Ten cour did something it didn’t have to do. It gave a more in-depth backstory to Izaya.

This chapter looked at when our character in question was in middle school. This flashback was from the perspective of one of Durarara’s secret weapons, Shinra Kishitaini (voiced by Jun Fukuyama). I have not had a decent chance to bring him up.

If Izaya is the purest form of an antagonist, Shinra is the poster child for neutrality. Shinra has connections to some of the worst aspects of the city. But he more or less stays out of the line of fire. He knows how to keep his mouth shut and when not to ask questions. He is a person everyone can rely on when they are in a tough spot.

That said, there is a line you do not cross with the doctor. One character, Aoba Kuronuma (voiced by Hiro Shimono), almost made that mistake. Had a certain someone not been there, Aoba would be dead. This was a badass moment from Shinra and was one of my favorites of the cour.

Back to Izaya’s middle school days, Shinra forced his way into the future manipulator’s life. Over time, the two formed something close to a real friendship. Even in the current day, these men do consider each other as such.

After an incident where Shinra got hurt, Izaya has been targeting the person responsible. In his own way, Izaya has been looking after his one friend.

Izaya may have a twisted way of looking at the world. His methods of bending people to his whim can turn harsh and overbearing. But he isn’t a heartless machine. He can feel human emotions. Never forget though, the heart he does have is tainted black.

I’m not sure what route the Ketsu cour is going to go down. The only thing I can say with any real confidence, Izaya will play a huge role in it. So, I doubt things are going to get dull.

Ten Cour Negatives

If you have read my thoughts on the Shou cour, there is a name you may have noticed I have not brought up once here. To my surprise, I’m writing a Durarara review and I haven’t brought up Celty Sturluson (voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro).

Is it a requirement for Celty to be critical to every aspect of this series? If the Ten cour is any indication, no it's not. Particularly if the story doesn’t need her in a pivotal role. As it was with Shizuo, I would rather Durarara uses its Dullahan in the best way instead of trying to force her in.

Don’t get me wrong. Celty is a major element of this show. She never became a background character. Her presence was always around. She just wasn’t center stage this time.

Good on this chapter for holding back when it needed to.

Why then am I mentioning this in the Negatives section? It’s because nothing took up the spotlight. Although I said Izaya was the best thing about this cour, I also said it took a while for him to appear. Even after he did, this story had trouble finding a direction to go in.

There was no reason this should have been this hard.

At the start of Ten, in episode thirteen, Love Thy Enemy, things picked up right where the Shou cour ended. This was promising. Seeing the aftermath of what happened at the end of the last chapter is what had me ready to go. It was a big development.

How did the Ten cour respond? Well, it didn’t. Not for a time anyway.

As I said at the top of this review, Ten went back to following the characters around. And it kept doing this. And doing this. And doing this. And okay this was fine and everything but get to the point. This chapter was filling us up with bread when the main course was already at the table.

For example, the segment I brought up about Izaya’s middle school days, it didn’t accomplish anything. I said this was something Ten didn’t need to do. It was because this was something Ten did not need to do. What we got was interesting. Too bad there were other even more interesting things going on outside of this. Focus on that. The time for this kind of backstory had passed.

Also, why did Izaya sound like his adult self when he was a kid? I know Hiroshi Kamiya, the voice behind Izaya, is amazing at what he does. He has given some of the most iconic performances in anime in recent years. He’s Koyomi Araragi from Monogatari. He’s Yato from the Noragami series. He’s freaking Levi from Attack on Titan. But did Ten not realize this was a problem in this case?

Mr. Kamiya’s voice is very distinct. It fits with the older, more diabolical version of Izaya. To hear it coming out of a visually younger version of the same character was off-putting.

I don’t mean to get hung up on this, but it was something that bugged me. And this does pale in comparison to the much larger issue at hand.

The Ten cour hardened many of the concerns I had after Shou. Everything does come down to how Ketsu will play out. Things are not looking bad for x2. Yet the massive potential this season once had, has taken a bit of a hit.

If the worst should happen and Ketsu doesn't deliver, this is where the downfall started. This will be even worse since Ten had the chance to overtake the Shou cour.

The Introduction of a New Antagonist

Izaya is a great character. He has been the source for many of the dilemmas the rest of the cast has had to deal with. He has proven to be someone who is hard to beat. Then when someone came along and did exactly that without much effort, how can you not get excited?

Half ass-ing the reveal of this person’s identity is one way to do that.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Fortunately for x2, this new antagonist’s first impression came at the end of the Shou cour. What followed was a lackluster cat and mouse chase this story failed to tell us we were a part of.

Full discloser, I knew who this person was going to be before starting the Ten cour. While getting ready for this review series, I read an article I should not have read. But since I couldn’t change what I did, I decided to be on the lookout for this character. I wanted to see what kind of person could outplay Izaya.

Had this not happened, it would not have registered with me what the ultimate reveal was trying to do. It would have been hard to see this being the outcome. In this instance, this is a negative because the story never gave us a chance to figure this out for ourselves.

Think of the following scenario. Someone gives you option A and option B. Only one is the correct choice. At your disposal, you're given a bunch of information to help guide your decision. Little do you know, you are fighting a losing battle.

No matter what you go with, the correct answer was always going to be option C. But we didn’t know option C was on the table. Welcome to the Ten cour.

Like it was with Shou, as of now, this is only a concern. It’s a big concern, except this series can still have something work. Due to such a possibility, I need to say this now.

I’m not going to say this character’s name here. However, if Ketsu makes something out of this person, getting through the next review without giving them away may prove difficult. Is this me delaying the inevitable? I certainly hope so.

Desire to Continue

I am issuing a Spoiler Warning between now and the start of the Final Thoughts section. What I want to talk about concerns why my desire to continue is not as strong as it was at the end of the Shou cour. To do that, I need to talk about how the Shou cour ended and compare it to the ending of Ten.

If you don’t want this ruined for you, please skip to the end of this review.

If you’re still here, let’s get into this.

In episode twelve of Shou, Adversity Makes a Man Strong, Izaya reflected on his most recent scheme. Some things didn’t go his way, but he was happy with the outcome. That’s when he got a call from someone claiming to be the mysterious Jinnai Yodogiri (voiced by Shunsuke Sakaya).

The man said Izaya’s meddling foiled his plans and the informant was digging into places he shouldn’t. As this conversation went on, the voice on the other end grew louder. The sound was no longer coming from the phone. Instead, it was coming from behind Izaya.

Yodogiri passed his target and told him to “go to sleep for a while”. Without ever showing his face, Yodogiri plunged a knife into the manipulator’s side. The untouchable Izaya collapsed on the street in a pool of blood.

The episode then ended with a “to be continued” stinger.

So yeah, I was a little interested in finding out where this went. This was something huge. It had not happened before in Durarara. Plus, its message was quick and clear. There were bigger fish in this city.

Now let’s look at Ten’s episode twenty-four, It Takes a Thief to Catch a Thief.

Again, the focus was on Izaya. He was deducing the identity of the person behind Jinnai Yodogiri. This was the reveal I was talking about. In essence, this was an info dump. And it didn’t have to be this way had this cour had spent more time on the story.

When it looked like Izaya was about to claim victory, his opponent played their trump card. One of Izaya’s allies jumped up and was clearly possessed by the same entity that resides in Anri’s Saika blade.

This was a decent hook. Too bad it doesn’t compare to the last one because it wasn’t new. This same character had already beat Izaya before. Had this new antagonist been better integrated, this would have been more effective. As it stands though, the shock value wasn't there like it was before.

Ten Cour Final Thoughts

Would the Ten cour make me want to wait three months for a continuation? Yes, it would. The difference between this and Shou, this wouldn’t have been a difficult wait. For me, this second chapter would have taken an eternity to arrive. As for the third, it would have come when it came.

I’ll admit, this is not the most stellar of endorsements. There were issues with x2’s second half. Getting more story would have gone a long way. Wasting time on trivial stuff wasn’t doing this season any favors.

Yet the stuff this cour did focus on were the characters of Durarara. That’s something I can live with. While there wasn’t much progress, there wasn’t any boredom. This was not a hard sit. Besides, this strategy may pan out in Ketsu.

Ten didn’t add anything to my excitement. What’s more important though, it didn’t take anything away from my confidence in this series.

We will continue our look at Durarara x2 with the Ketsu cour on Friday, February 23rd.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Have you seen this show? How would you advise Durarara x2 and the Ten cour? Leave a comment down below because I would love to hear what you have to say.

And if you liked what you read, be sure to follow me on my social media sites so that you never miss a post or update. Also, please share this review across the internet to help add to the discussion.

I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.