If I had to name a protagonist for Durarara!!, my answer would unequivocally be the district of Ikebukuro itself, and that as the perspective of the show jumps from character to character, we are given different ways in which to view the pulsing energy of the city, which excitedly leaps from the screen to us. During the day, people go about their normal lives, with little action to keep from getting bored. At night, the urban legends of Ikebukuro run free as the youth come out to confirm their place in the world. Nighttime shots are at least as common as daytime shots, and yet in the daytime many of the colors are washed by the brightness of the sun, while at night the colors of cinemas, motorcycles, apartment complexes, police cars, cafes, street lamps, and all other sources of human life shine in a display of neon lights, completely unsuppressed. The soft hopeful piano tracks of the day turn to jazz that is so random and so free that it sounds atonal. The night has a life and energy that are palpable.
The truth is that nailing down a distinct protagonist, plot, or even purpose of Durarara!! is a difficult exercise, as it supports an inordinate number of characters and twice as many plotlines, all going in seemingly different directions, but who all weave together and intersect in the most unexpected ways. And strangely enough, nothing ever feels claustrophobic or superfluous. Shortly into the show, everyone has already met everyone else, and so when plots crash and characters interact, everything feels normal, because Ikebukuro is simply a place where people mix together and the unexpected is bound to occur.
The other reason that the show gets away with this constant stream of happenings is that every named character plays any number of roles, whether accidentally or not, and every character manages to be amazingly memorable and enjoyable in completely different ways. If a character receives a name, the chances are they will show up again, serving a new purpose in a new context. Character designs for the most part are innovative despite being very lifelike. Few characters walk around with hair colors other than blond or black, and those that do clearly dyed them. But when a giant black man is selling Russian sushi in a broken accent, when a man who can lift vending machines and traffic signs walks around in a bartender outfit helping a loan agency, when a headless Irish fairy of death is the most level-headed character in the show while an ordinary black-haired 23 year old male with street clothes goes around ruining everyone's life, from stomping on phones to starting gang wars, character design is just varied enough to give a face to the personalities we follow.
And some characters act like forces of nature in human clothing most of the time, which turns their ordinary look into a warning sign for those nearby, the threat of turning all reason on its head irrespective of appearance, normalcy—and much of the time, physics—that the people of Ikebukuro grow to recognize and respect. Urban legends play an important role here, as the characters learn of people to stay away from, supernatural occurrences, and the exploits of people who remain anonymous to the community at large. Rest assured that every legend is resolved, every dangerous person receives their fair share of characterization and human traits, and every extraordinary element and legendary figure is meshed into the fabric of Ikebukuro. They become friends or enemies based on knowing each other personally, not their occupation. As the characters keep secrets from one another, even the protagonists will hide their pasts from us until the perfect moment, to the point that we begin to doubt what the characters are saying, while still waiting for them to amaze us from out of the blue.
The first half, filled with twists and turns and great character episodes, with the nonlinear storytelling of Baccano! and stories of all genres, is probably the more inspired and unique of the two parts, and it distinguishes Durarara!! as a fount of completely new content, and of a level of quality that is rarely seen in anime. It can seem slow at first, like nothing is actually going on, but in reality telling the stories of Ikebukuro is the purpose of the show, and it does a great job of it. Every episode, narrated by a different character, covers some of the same pieces of time from different perspectives, completely saturating certain events with lessons about life and the nature of the district. Questions are asked and left somewhat open, questions about searching for lost treasures, finding meaning in life and in death, violence, family, and many other topics, all while remaining engaging as a story. Tying everything to Ikebukuro rather than to a particular protagonist is a smart choice, as it allows for endless variations on the same events and stories to be told.
However, the second half, while more linear and less novel in terms of characters, is the part with a story to tell, much more focused than the first half in development and in meaning. One major recurring theme is that of gangs, and of the youth culture of violence versus the life of adults. Our first introduction to Ikebukuro comes with the introduction of color gangs, who wear easily identifiable colored clothing to distinguish themselves as members. This seems like a stylistic take on gangs, where the colors of their clothing are most distinct at night alongside the neon palate, providing another layer of color to the nightscape. They operate like stereotypical street gangs, hanging out in groups, hitting on women and aggressing passersby who knock into them. Their members all act like middle school dropouts, with ridiculous piercings and childish intelligence. However, they pose a threat to the everyday life of normal people, who get accosted at random, and for the gang members who are minors there are no lasting legal repercussions at stake.
Another gang is the Dollars, who have no color in the world of color gangs, and thus their actions are only known by hearsay and rumor. Ironically enough, the central rule in the Dollars is that any action they take must be attributed to the Dollars, a sort of color or mark that is invisible to the naked eye and yet makes disguising their actions and members impossible. And these notions of remaining invisible, of affiliation and loyalty, and of being united as a group all become vitally important to the second half of the show. The Dollars, who remain unseen even to one another, who have members in all corners of Ikebukuro, seep into every storyline without us noticing. Every character is a candidate for being a Dollars member, without exception. Again, even as viewers who are not privileged to live in this fantasy Ikebukuro, we look at every character wondering if and when they will reveal their membership, wondering what being in the Dollars even represents to them.
That said, I cannot help but find the second half to be much weaker than the first, simply because it tells a good moral story in a show with nothing to do with the morals of violence. The way the show harshly criticizes gangs as needless violence and death with no respect for humanity or society is interesting, and at times quite subtle. In one great moment at the very end of the show, a brutal fight is going on between the adult members of three different organizations, while the teenagers who should be most responsible for the fight are sitting on the sidelines, having done everything to start the fight and nothing to win it. When they leave, the camera also leaves, and the real fighting is left behind. However, the single-minded focus is such a huge departure from the first half that it renders any real subtlety of the argument moot, instead serving to preach a point that has been already been endlessly preached by lesser works. The wild energy of the first half is subdued for the sake of making a point, and no points are left for the viewer to form their own opinion.
It also seems odd that the author sets this gang story in modern times, as if to tell a cautionary tale to the youth of the current age. Violence and crime rates in Japan are some of the lowest in the world, with the yakuza having a much larger hand in public and legitimate affairs than in criminal activities. Even the youth gangs depicted have been severely declining since the bursting of the economic bubble in the early 90’s. While there are still issues with the motorcycle gangs of legal minors, there could have been a Goodfellas approach taken of making crime seem nostalgic while also severely condemning the results. Either way, the gangs approach does nothing to make the characters better people overall; it makes them worse people and then allows them to escape to the level of normalcy. And while using their interactions with one another as another element in the analysis of gangs, the sacrifice to the web of connections that the first half constructed so carefully is a bit too much to pay.
Even so, the second half is a strong show, and we are still left with the aftertaste of a wild ride with more potential in store. The ending does nothing to ask for a second season, and yet this is one show that wraps up everything it sets out to say while still leaving open endless possibilities to move forward. With a town like Ikebukuro, there are more characters, more stories, more perspectives waiting to happen if the camera will only give them the chance. With the second season coming around now, Durarara!! can choose to expand on the world as before, picking up new characters along the way. It can have another moral story ready to tell. Maybe it will abandon the old set of characters altogether and choose to weave more urban legends and a fresh set of faces together for a completely new take on the Ikebukuro we have grown to meet. The bar is quite high, but the show could take the exact same trajectory as the first season and be on track for an even better sequel if the stellar writing and characters manage to evolve further. Rarely is a show so engaging, so incredibly fun and interesting, that even with a clear ending the audience is left begging for more.