Classifying Durarara on which
genre it belongs to will put the title to different categories.
Should it be considered a slice of life, Thriller and Adventure
depends mostly on how you viewed it but if you're going to ask me
I'll make a different category for Durarara and call it creatives.
Stupid as my sugesstion is,
it's the best word that I can describe for the anime. And good thing
that a friend of mine suggested me to watch it because I just missed
a quarter of my life when I didn't watched the show.
If you're used to the normal style of watching anime where everything is linear and complexities build up in the later part of the show then you probably need to embrace Durarara differently. I'd say that the most creative aspect of the anime is on how they jumbled out the sequences of the whole story and as each episode progress everything made sense at the end of the story.
You
might get discourage if you're not used to it, same to what happened
to me when I was watching Baccano (same author as Durarara) but
Durarara's lively style of modern Tokyo separates the two show away
from each other. The momentum of the show is really outstanding and
the great narration and casual conversations makes it more enjoyable.
The first three episodes would give you a solid grasp of the show as
you might get confused at first because Durarara is comprised with
crazy, out-of-this-world characters that will mislead you on
different thoughts of the plot.
The
whole series was divided into two arcs, The first centers about
Celty, the headless rider which serves as the protector of Ikebukuro.
The second arc is about the involvement of the main characters in the
story, Anri, Kida and Mikado to the strange events that were
happening in the city. Sadly the hype and enjoyment that I
experienced in the first half of the show didn't progress when the
second arc began and it was mostly about relationship, lame drama and
irritating misunderstandings which is poorly paced with no climax at
all. It could have been perfect and I hope that they do it on purpose
for the anticipation to build up if the plan to make another season
of the show.
What makes Durarara lovable is the huge array of characters and side characters where each got it's own spotlight in the show. In fact these characters are important in making the story interesting and an important part of the puzzle to understand the whole point of the story. Miss an episode highlighting a single character and you just missed a major part of Tokyo and it's significance to the show. One thing that I noticed is I like the side characters more than the major one, with Mikado as an exception. If I'll pick my favorite, I'd choose Shizuo-chan followed by Mikado of course.
Artwork
and Soundtrack is among the best I've seen. The details of the
buildings to the alleys, parks, sidewalks are of high quality and it
just makes me love Japan more. Mix it up with catchy music which
resonates in your emotion and you got yourself and entertaining piece
of work.
Durarara
is perfect for young adults but is recommendable to anime fans. To
those who wants mystery, thriller and any genre to date (even
hentai!), it's a solid pick! Durarara definitely deserves an A+