In the first episode, a lot of the episode is seen through the eyes of a boy named Mikado Ryugamine. He's come to Tokyo for the first time, in order to attend school with his childhood friend, Kida Masaomi. During his first day in the city, Kida warns Mikado about the people he should avoid: a violent man who dresses like a bartender, an information merchant, and the "Dollars" (who are supposedly some kind of mysterious gang). Mikado also witnesses an urban legend called "the Black Rider," which is supposedly a headless rider on a black motorcycle. Also during his first day in Tokyo, Mikado meets a tall Black Russian man named Simon Brezhnev, Walker Yumasaki, and Erika Karisawa.
As part of the narrative, you will occasionally see an online chat screen, and hear some of the characters. However, they are using online aliases. For these scenes, Mikado is "Taro Tanaka" and Kida is "Bakyura." Even the "Black Rider" appears in these scenes, under the online alias of "Setton."
I have to admit that while watching the first episode, I found the story to be a little hard to follow. However, when I came to realize the significance of the Internet chat sections and who the speakers in the chat were, it did start to help make more sense of the episode. If the first episode is any indication of how the rest of the series will go, then storylines that involve different groups of characters should find ways to intersect with each other.
When it comes to content, there is definitely some violence included, and I did see at least one shot with some blood in it. I watched the English dub of the first episode, and there was one scene where some swear words were censored; however, this dialogue censoring may only be in the broadcast version of the series. With the visual content and some of the concepts included in the series, I would not recommend this series for younger viewers. Personally, I would recommend Durarara!! to anime viewers who are 16 or 17 years of age and older.
| Durarara!! | 26 | 2010 | Takahiro Omori | Brain’s Base | Aniplex USA |
