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Durarara!! ×2 The Second Arc
Episode 12

by Jacob Chapman,

How would you rate episode 12 of
Durarara!!×2 Ten ?
Community score: 4.1

Durarara!! ×2 The Second Arc's final episode left me with a very confusing emotion. I felt overwhelmed and underwhelmed all at the same time. I was just plain whelmed. Let's see if I can figure out why.

Obviously, the centerpiece of this finale is Akabayashi's decision to crash Mikado's secret Blue Blood Cell meeting. Fortunately, Mikado's head isn't so far up his own butt not to know Real Big Trouble when he sees it, and his vulnerable display of fear reassures Akabayashi that the boy is no threat to Anri. If anything, the deadly gangster has appeared to leave this dumb little group of revolutionaries with a warning. "I've been part of The Dollars for a while now," he tells them, "Even old guys like me are getting wise to you." If Mikado is serious about this, his efforts to expunge "bad elements" from The Dollars won't stop with just a few minor criminals. As The Dollars have become more legitimate, real gangsters have taken notice, which means real gangsters can join their open group and swallow it whole. This has always been the unspoken danger behind the formation of a colorless color gang, and now it's becoming a reality: one of Awakusu's most powerful men knows all their little secrets. Perhaps with Anri in mind, Akabayashi is nice enough to give Mikado time to think about what he's doing, then drops Old Man Niekawa into their midst so he can frantically question Mikado about his daughter's whereabouts.

After the meeting ends, Celty tries to talk some sense into Mikado, mostly acting as a perfect proxy for the audience's thoughts about all this. Mikado can't use violence to purify a group he never really owned in the first place. He shouldn't go to war with Masaomi over something like this, risking the loss of his best friend and even girlfriend Anri in the process. Ikebukuro is full of dangerous elements, and he's done good in the past by fighting them anonymously, but Mikado is the problem this time. There's no justice in this venture for him, only an unhealthy outlet for his own shadowy ego. This is all just "chuunibyou bullcrap."

After we all finish cheering on Celty's takedown, we get Mikado's response: a full depressing picture of how far gone he is. He knows this is morally wrong, but years ago, he thought even forming The Dollars was wrong too, and it led to a world beyond what he could imagine. He doesn't care if it's wrong or right, this is something he has to do. "When I talk to you like this, Celty, I feel like the main character in a movie." Mikado's ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality has blurred to the point of delusion, which makes him easy to manipulate, and it's hard to imagine a happy ending for him at this point unless someone, friend or foe, intervenes hard and fast. That someone probably won't be Masaomi (unless he's pulling a complex trick gambit of some kind.) The Yellow Scarves and Mikado's Blue Blood Cells are now fully at war with one another, and the fate of The Dollars and Ikebukuro hangs in the balance.

That's not all that happens, either! Walker and Izumii come face-to-face as arch-rivals. (Walker burned Izumii's face off, Izumii hospitalized Walker's best friend, LET'S RUMBLE! Okay, let's rumble later, we both have places to be right now.) Sloan, who looks more like his namesake elephant than ever before as he hunches over massive crutches, appears to warn Varona about the war of aggression brewing in the city, urging her to escape before she becomes someone else's pawn. (His new boss Izaya appears to try and sway Varona in the other direction and stop Sloan from speaking too much, cracking off a bunch of great lines in the process.) Speaking of Varona, she learns that Shizuo was arrested for supposedly attacking an innocent woman, choosing to stay in the detention center voluntarily for his wrongful arrest and tearing his assassin/love interest's heart in two. (She knows that he can break out at any time with his super-strength and finds her heart growing fonder toward him. Just kiss already, you two! Then adopt Akane! And the cat!)

So at this point, you might be wondering how anyone could be "underwhelmed" with all this excitement reaching fever pitch in the story. Well, this all seems exciting in full detail, but the actual execution seemed pretty bored by its own subjects. This entire episode is composed of dialogue scenes between characters with the show's trademark schizophrenic/lackadaisical editing tying each conversation together, the standard soundtrack beats playing like in any other episode, and then it all ends.

There are a couple great shots with the right climactic feel throughout the episode, at least. Izaya's appearance between Varona and Sloan is staged with great impact by a sneaking and zooming camera. Mikado's reflection gradually growing smaller in Celty's helmet (as he spouts his delusions of grandeur) is downright iconic. The double sneak attacks that form the cliffhanger at episode's end are well-paced and delivered. But it just doesn't feel like a season-ending episode where everything is about to change. The helium has leaked back out of the balloon. I guess we should just be grateful for the emotional highs we got in the middle of the season and pray they come back for the last cour of the series.

The last big twist of the episode comes back to that "double sneak attack" I mentioned. While walking through a parking garage with yet another old man named Yodogiri Jinnai, the mysterious secretary, Kasane Kujiragi, receives a call from Izaya. Using Nakura, some Saika-slaves, and tracing the IP behind the "Kanra" who stole his chat handle, he's figured it all out. Kujiragi is Yodogiri Jinnai, and Jinnai himself appears as any number of the dozens of old geezers she has under her thumb. (At this moment, a Saika-slave runs over her current Jinnai with a sedan and speeds off.) I love this twist, and it would be way more potent if we had seen Kujiragi more often in the story up to this point. (Given the rushed pacing here, I'll take what I can get.)

This all ties back into Durarara!!'s understated theme of shadow leadership: the neck is more powerful than the head. Images seem more powerful than reality, but the subliminal force that controls the image is always the real threat. Mikado's turn to darkness is defined by his decision to put himself at the head of The Dollars, and this theme echoes throughout dozens of little interactions in the series. (This also means that instead of tossing around Celty's sleeping head all day, maybe the dark forces of Ikebukuro should be looking out for the Real Celty.)

Of course, that also bodes ill for Izaya, an egotistical information broker who fancies himself a god above his own chessboard, mistreating his "neck" (Namie Yagiri) throughout the series without remorse. He asks Kujiragi what she's done with his favorite tool, and she makes it clear that Izaya should make peace with the fact that he's never going to see her again. You see, Izaya's not the only one in control of Saika. Did he really think she (as Jinnai) just sold that blade off without forging copies out of its shattered pieces for herself? At this moment, Sloan appears, brainwashed by her Saika, and rearranges Izaya's spine with a few seismic tosses. I guess Sloan's warning that they were all going to be made tools of war by Ikebukuro wasn't just for Varona: Izaya's Russian pawn was never his own.

With Izaya down for the count (again), the episode ends with a party at Shinra's to mirror Izaya's original Best Friends Party. It's literally the last blink-and-you-miss-it shot of the episode, but I won't be waiting "until next time" to discuss it, because "next time" is three whole months away. Here's everyone in attendance:
  • Shinra and Celty, of course
  • Shingen, Shinra's mad scientist dad
  • Emilia Kishitani, Shingen's mad scientist wife
  • Walker and Saburo, probably fresh off their resolution to avenge Dotachin
  • Seiji&Mika, attached at the heartstrings as always
  • Egor, former Russian hitman turned victim of both Hollywood and Saika, now with a fully healed and reconstructed face
  • And last but not least, Namie Yagiri, alive and well!

Where Izaya's Best Friends Club seemed like a gathering of supervillains, this meeting reads more like a safe haven for weakened souls in hiding, emphasized by Shinra's appearance in a wheelchair, bandaged from head to toe. (At the very least, we know Namie will never leave the apartment in any major way. Or will she? That one line of narration is really screwing with my expectations at this point.) Will the meek inherit Ikebukuro after all? Right now, there's not enough information to go on. We just have to wait until next year.

This penultimate cour's finale is only a rollercoaster of giant game-changers on paper. In execution, the number of shocking reveals that this finale dishes out are all completely downplayed, as if it was just another day in Ikebukuro. All I could do in between gasps of revelation was wonder how it all could have been made more exciting. It's a tragically low-key note to end the series on, but it's still better than basically all of last winter's cour of Durarara!!, so I'll deal. More than anything, this show just makes me want to read more of the novels, now that they're being released stateside. I hope they sell well enough to publish the entire run.

Rating: B

Durarara!! ×2 The Second Arc is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Hope has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.


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