Durarara!!×2

The biggest pitfall of the new Durarara!!x2, as it has been since the second half of the first season, is that all the subsequent stories and storylines are nowhere near the quality of the treatment of the initial story regarding the founding of Dollars. Although the audience’s hearts will flutter with nostalgia when they see the old familiar characters in old familiar situations after having waited for five years, they will gradually discover that the new endeavors of Takahiro Omori and co. in creating another complex story, have missed the mark yet again. While the amount of new characters has considerably increased, and plot lines are present in abundance, compared to the first season, I was not too impressed with the sheer tangle of storylines, and the faster pace of the narrative, which rather damaged the season as a whole, and gave me the impression that the creative team behind it have not managed to keep their work so tidy this time around. Some of the storylines and characters are somewhat underused (like Kida), so some of their significance fades away a bit in retrospect (Ruri for example), other characters have a lot of screen-time but the audience never really gets to know them, (e.g. Aoba, Izaya’s sisters), and this, as well as the poorer quality of the animation and artwork, is somewhat disappointing. I did not notice any new songs in the already good and well-known soundtrack, the opening did not impress me much, the ending, on the contrary, was very interesting.  Nevertheless, overall, it is an anime that I enjoyed despite the aforementioned shortcomings, and I was happy enough to laugh with my favorite characters again, although not nearly to the same extent as in the case of the first season. I am therefore curious to see how the July episodes build on this first run, and whether it will somehow make me reassess my overall opinion of the second season. So far, an average 3 stars. (23.05.2015)