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Durarara!!×2 (TV).

should I give DRRR another chance?
I never finished the first few episodes of the first season, it seemed to pessimistic.
but some of the other characters seem interesting.

^ Ruri only appeared in episode 6 when they tell that Saburo wanted Kaztano to give him good entrances to her concert. Which is so minor almost everybody forget about the idol even existed or is the same as this one. She doesn't even appear in these two previous episodes, the beginning of this episode is her debut.

Stylisticly the show is still the same, it's the same team after all, and we are glad. The problem is the pacing and focus. Just check out episodes like 7 or 8 dedicated to characters and see how many gestures they do that you can see, how there are specific pauses to let sink in some emotions of the characters, and how the narration is present but moderated, to balance the classical "show VS tell". Then compare with this episode where Ruri's backstory was totally exposition (from a voice narrator I didn't even know who was) and her conversation with Kasuka was 'my line' 'your line' 'my line' 'your line' {loop}. Things like those seem minimal, but they really change your perception of some scenes and the care put into it.

Ohhhh nooooo~~

Now I'm concerned about this series, and not because of the content, but the execution. The worst way you could describe Durarara is "a bunch of scenes, that's it", but that's what I remember of this, I wasn't inmersed in the least. I didn't care about Ruri and their scenes felt so hollow and bland because her introduction was so "here's the character, here's the exposition of her backstory, here's her talk with Yuhei that is 'my turn of saying lines' -> 'your turn of saying lines' -> '...' without pauses, movement of characters or pacing depending of what they say, here's Ruri being described as happy because of being able of existing happy monsters even though the scene was 10 seconds long and you are not inmersed".

I know Durarara is very explicit and direct, but this was too much, it feels like a checklist and transcribing pages of the books instead of a passionated project. The same with the insane number of scenes to the point I don't know which one of the scenes of Celty in the motorbike happened before or after the other (Celty attacked by gangsters and a bag with a person inside, or Celty returning Ruri to home). I know this goes further with the things out of order a la Baccano, but I don't think it's a good sign to be confused in the same episode about when those happen and thinking "I dunno and I dunno if I should try to care to order them". And the rewinds are getting annoying now.

Come on team, give the special touch you gave in the first season! Don't turn this in a checklist of scenes

In terms of content, I'm also turned off by what Yuhei said about being a unfeeling man. I mean, he has that face, but I always thought that was part of the joke and he had a lot of scenes where he was honestly lovely with his brother and it doesn't look like he's the cause that he's like this (he was like this before Shizuo awakened that ability), but now they come to the point of calling him 'another monster'. Please deliver on that because that exposition talk didn't do it in the least.

The twins are spoiler[Izaya's sisters]?! No way!

That's basically how Durarara (and Baccano, for that matter) rolls man, a collection of random, separate, events and characters that are thrown at you and make no sense until the storyline brings them together later and everything clicks.

And? Most characters in DRRR are quite minor and still manage to play important roles at some point like Mika Harmina or Haruna Neikawa. This not your typical show where only a small subset characters do anything as it if world just revolves around them. It is one where any character become the a leading one depending on the situation. If you don't get this then don't understand how DRRR!! works.

Most backstories of DRRR!! are told through narrative exposition. Celty's for example was done entirely just like that as was Anri. Nothing new at all. I don't understand what you mean by the "my line and my line" or how is any different from any other conversations in this series.