Forum - View topicREVIEW: Durarara!! Part 1
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Are you female? Cause DRRR!! is certainly targetted more to the female fanbase than Baccano was. Heck, it was mainly because of the fujoshi that DRRR!! was able to sell 20k per DVD volume in Japan.
That would also explain how you and I are on the opposite sides in terms of characters. Other than Shizzy, Izaya, Dotachin/Eriko/Walker, and Celty I didn't care for the DRRR!! characters. Whereas I loved Firo, Chane, Vino, Isaac, Miria, Jacuzzi, Nice, Ladd, and Ennis. And as I said, I liked the first half of DRRR!! It was somewhat meandering but still entertaining. Where I have the problem though is in the second half, when it narrows its focus down to merely three characters for the most part. I always loved that there is no main character feel of Baccano! And if you're not female, then hey, we just have different tastes ^^ |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8467 Location: Penguinopolis |
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You seem to relate likability of fictional characters with how you might react to a person in real life. Obviously if Ladd Russo was a real life person, I wouldn't want to be his friend. He's a horrible monster of a person. However, he's also endlessly fascinating and has a weird charisma and charm to him. I indulge in liking him much in the way you might like Tony Montana from Scarface. Ladd is actually the favorite character of the writer of the novels. It also helps, for me, that Ladd had two amazing voice actors, Keiji Fujiwara and Bryan Massey, who both brought him to life and made him a fun character. I can't so much vouch for Claire. I don't like Claire as much. |
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swienke
 Posts: 245 |
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@Megiddo
Well, I am a girl, but I'm pretty leery of drawing generalizations about taste from that. I happen to love shonen, stuff with violence (so long as there's good characterization to go along with it  ), science fiction, etc. and generally really dislike romance, school comedies, and yaoi, so I honestly don't think my gender has a whole lot to do with my love for Durarara.
I also totally understand your dislike of the second half of the series: I liked the 3 central characters in that section and thought they were pretty interesting, even if Celty, Shizuo, Izaya, and Kadota's gang were slightly more interesting, but I can definitely see why some people dislike them (or at least see them as boring). Admittedly, my interest in Mikado is at least partially due to some of the crazy stuff that I've heard he does in later novels (which I'm hoping will be animated someday...), so that probably makes his character development and the situations he gets into more interesting to me than to someone who hasn't accidentally spoiled themselves on the content of some of the later novels. |
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jr240483
 Posts: 4388 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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Like hell. They was creepy,but definitely dont fit in that catagory. More like in the mello drama catagory cause they were more like emo villans than characters that people loved to disliked with JYB's role as Lelouch. And speaking of which, I have to see the whole series before I judge to conclusions on putting Bosch's new character in that catagory. BUT to be honestly, I really really do not seeing JYB out doing himself like what he did as Lelouch. Unless the AS broadcast I saw was different from the uncut DVD versions. However as in the " total bastard" role that title is a definite tie bewteen Kenta from Desert Punk & Light Yagami from Death Note. Now THOSE TWO characters were really some serious bastards that people loved to hate with a passion. Am I wrong??? |
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John Casey
 Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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Rofl. You're kidding, right? |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well I guess I do relate the two, or at least am doing it in this case. Sorry, but I just cannot see what is so admirable about Ladd and Claire, even as characters. Firo, now Firo was an interesting guy who didn't flaunt his abilities. He's as good an example of a Noble Gangster as any. But the only thing I can admire about Ladd and Claire is their strength and how they are carefree spirits. Which would be great, except they use that strength and lack or morals in utterly reprehensible ways. And this coming from a guy who believes Light Yagami was the good guy in Death Note for crying out loud. Huh. Yeah, so, to receive my stamp of "this character is morally reprehensible and their actions are completely without any mitigating factors", well that makes a strong statement.
It pleases me that I made someone laugh so hard they were rolling on the floor, but I was in fact serious. Or was my seriousness the thing that was funny? |
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crunchycat
I do Marketing for Anime Companies
Posts: 138 |
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If you have seen Durarara!! Izaya is not as insane as Light seeing as he chooses more to mind screw everyone for his own enjoyment over light who goes mad with power to fix the world. Izaya to Lelouch is again 2 completely random characters since Izaya doesn't want to kill or rule anything just do things as he pleases so it needs a particular type of character voice for this and it seems Johnny went for a more carefree douchy character which in the episodes I think were done pretty well. Crispin Freeman actually makes a really good Shizuo which surprised me since I'm in love with him |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Not sure what Key found wrong with my previous post, but whatever. I'll try to tone it down, not that I'm even sure what I need to tone down in the first place . . .
I'll try to give a brief overview of what I wrote. Penguintruth, yes, I guess I am - at least in this case - relating how much I like a character to how much I'd like them in real life. Put simply, I am the sort of person who believes Light Yagami was the good guy in Death Note, and yet even I cannot find anything to like about Ladd and Claire, even as fictional characters in a show. If there was an interesting guy in Baccano! who was good while being technically bad it was Firo. He was an example of a likeable gangster who was fundamentally kind-hearted and - despite being very strong - did not abuse his strength and skills for blatantly evil acts. Yes, spoiler[grinding someone's body parts against the railway tracks] as Claire did is torture, inexcusable torture. And Ladd was no honour-bound warrior either, he was simply psychotic. John Casey, I don't know what you found funny, but I was being very serious. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23888 |
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Well, since this has turned into a Baccano! (or as I like to call it, Succano!) vs. Durarara!! compare-fest, let me throw my hat in the Durarara!! camp. I'm with dtm42 with respect to finding Baccano! a slog. I have a somewhat different take on the violence, though (and oddly enough I had the chance to refer to this yesterday in the "What's your favorite dub?" thread in the anime forum) - I wasn't offended by it, I just felt the show tried too hard to be "shocking" and "cool." I especially found that with the Ladd Russo character. As I said yesterday, every time this bore was onscreen, I got the sense the show was pushing him on me, saying, "Ooooo, isn't he just so deliciously psychotic?? Don't you just revel in his brutality and magnificent bastardness??" Yawn. I fouhd the Rail Tracer a more interesting take on that sort of character.
Interestingly enough, even though I preferred Durarara!! more, I was never fond of what seemed to be a lot of people's favourite character: Izaya. The show was constantly assuring me how diabolically clever he was (zowie, look he plays three strategy games at once!), but I never really saw any true evidence of it. I found him to be an irritating douche bag. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18252 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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That probably wasn't me. Granted, I have been doing most of the post-approving lately, but we've gotten one of the other mods up to speed on doing that stuff in the last couple of days, so the work load in that area is finally starting to spread out. As for this Baccano! vs. Durarara!! battle that seems to be emerging, based on what I've seen so far of the latter, I am still more in the former's camp. Except for that irritating guy with the big wrench (who, IIRC, only appears in the OVA episodes), I loved just about everything about Baccano! and have found it a bit fresher and more involving. Durarara!! certainly has its pluses, too, but it has a couple more minuses than its predecessor does. |
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John Casey
Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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Actually, yes, but whatever, I'll give you a satisfactory answer. One which comes from the fanboy heart in me, cause I AM a Baccano fanboy. 1-Reason why I/we like Ladd? Simple: Sure he's an unsavory psychopath who enjoys nothing more than a good bloodbath, but in a series chock full of knife fighters who can deflect bullets, mechanics who can catch bullets, immortals, supernatural homunculi, and demons, he still manages to kick more ass than those around him. So really, how can you not be impressed? There's also the given fact that he's completely over-the-top, and as his actions have shown later in the books, he's not the irredeemable bastard everyone assumes he is. Hell, he becomes best chums with Firo and Isaac. So, is he really evil? ...A little, but he's nowhere near the complete monsters that are Szilard, Huey or Fermet. 2-Why I/we like Claire. Compared to Claire in sheer terms of violence, Ladd is like the elementary school bully. But it still doesn't change the fact that he's absolutely badass, and when not in his gory-hitman-mode, he's a cloud-headed goofball with ADD who's extremely laid-back, surprisingly friendly, and protective of those around him. So for all the ruthlessness and carnage he does, he's still a very likeable guy who's easy to get along with if you get past the quirks. Not exactly your average hitman, yeah? |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Ladd is simply a man who loves to kill. In an anime world filled with Vash and Kenshin archtypes, that is something that is quite enjoyable to me. Not to mention his ever enjoyable "Thank you! fudge you! A villain arrived" quote.
DRRR!! simply refused to show blood unless it had to. What happened when the guy got slashed by Celty's scythe in one of the opening episodes? He... just keeled over. No laceration, no wound, no blood. Nada. And yet, later in the series spoiler[we see that Celty's 'darkness' is not intangible since Shizuo wears some as gloves against the 'children' of Saika.] When a show is the successor to Baccano and it looks like Care Bears in terms of blood when compared with say... One Piece, I'm needless to say upset. And what gets to me is that I've read some of the DRRR!! manga, and while I'm not sure if it's closer to the light novel or not, but we see a lot more gruesome things, like Walker and Erika torturing some guy by having him pick his form a torture from a Dengeki Bunko book. I can't remember which book he picks, but they end up putting a soldering iron right next to his frickin eye. Why couldn't that have been in the anime? Why did they take away the seinen feel that at least the manga has? |
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John Casey
Posts: 1853 Location: In My Angry Center |
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They did show it. It was in the background inside the van - you can clearly see them poke the guy with the iron until he starts screaming that he'll talk. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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I really liked both. Don't really care how violent one or the other is, they certainly have a lot more going for them than how much blood is creatively spilled.
And I think Durarara!! was written BEFORE Bacanno (though they're both still ongoing). And Megiddo, seeing Celty getting spoiler[disected alive] wasn't grousome enough for you? |
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mglittlerobin
 Posts: 1071 |
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I bought this because Crispin was in it, I don't have enough stuff with him in animes in my collection, and he's one of my favorites, not to mention Steve Blum, Yuri Lowenthal, Michelle Ruff, Johnny Bosch and Kari Walghren. It was totally worth the high price tag because there are nice post cards, and a keychain. The second set is supposed to have music videos on it. It's worth it for me, since I haven't seen anything that's made me go "Wow!" recently, except this. The storyline is interesting and it's fun. If you're curious but don't want to risk the high price tag, borrow it off your friend if they bought it. It's not listed on Netflix or anything. As for people complaining about the high price tag, I understand, but it's selling well enough that it's not in stock online, anywhere. I'm so happy I pre-ordered. |
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