Durarara!! | BroEl's First Impressions

Given the fact that this will be the only series I will be following this season, it appears as if I will be doing my own first impressions of this series as well.  Upon hearing that this series was done by pretty much the same talents that brought us Baccano!, it was an absolute must that I check out this series.  Heck, it's an absolute must for anyone who liked Bacccano!

Mikado's comments upon hearing of the Russian-African-American who works for a Russian Sushi store in Tokyo.  One of the series' most amusing moments, amongst many.

Basically, if you haven't been able to tell by now based off of the comments above, this first episode was full of plenty of amusing, hysterical, and just plain fun moments.  Pretty much all things you would come to expect from the Baccano! guys.  The way the plot has set itself up based off of this first episode is much, much different from the way the first episode of Baccano! set up it's insanely, wildly structured plot, so it probably won't be quite as insane as Baccano! was in that aspect.  It's definitely a lot more straightforward, and you actually know what's going on this time around, even if everything about it has set itself up in a very shady way with a lot of mystery and intrigue about it.  So we don't know very much about anything at this point, basically, but it is easy enough to follow at this point.  Even still though, the episode was full of it's fair share of very wacky and crazy moments.


Much like JayGee already said in his post, Some of my favorite moments had to come with the winks and nudges at other Brains Base productions.  They blasted out onto the scene with Baccano! in 2007, followed up with Spice and Wolf in early 2008, and latter in 2008 cemented their excellency as an animation studio with Natsume Yuujin-Chou.  And now with Durarara!! they are quite impressively working their way up as one of the greats.  So it's really quite the enjoyable site to see them making references like these at this stage in their development.  It especially fits in a series like this, which is sure to have more and more of these kinds of wacky moments in the future, especially if it's anything like Baccano!.


Despite what I said above about the kind of mystery and intrigue this episode sets up though, I will also agree with what JayGee said in the sense that it didn't really pull me right in right off the bat.  Although also like he said, neither did Baccano!.  Sort of in the same light as Baccano!, given the fact that we don't know much about what's going on right now, so given that fact it is naturally that hard to be drawn into it at first.  Yet at the same time it's not quite in the same light given that in this case it's more of a shady, mysterious and intriguing rather than a really confusing, yet really interesting way to start the series.  I will say though that if Durarara!! has anything going for it in it's first episode that Baccano! didn't, that would be just how wacky and amusing it's been right from the start, whereas Baccano! didn't really get into that until it's second episode.


I'll also be one to pretty much agree with everything said about the OP and ED.  Once again the ED is nothing special (though a bit more catchy and upbeat than the Baccano! ED), but the OP being cut and animated in the same light as the Baccano! OP was, it's sure to be an instant classic in my book.  Not quite as well done as the Baccano! OP in my opinion, and the song not quite as great as Paradise Lunch's jazzy Guns 'N Roses tune, but a good catchy rockin' J-Rock song that has me liking it quite a bit.


Definitely looking forward to more of this series, and hoping it'll turn out to be every bit as excellent as Baccano! was.  If it does, we may very well already have one of 2010's best series this early in the game. (With Despera still to release this year, of course.)