Durarara!! - Episode 21

As if Masaomi, Mikado and Anri weren't already deeply enough intertwined in Ikebukuro's goings-on, the assault by a handful of Yellow Scarves members on their school mate Takiguchi only serves to accelerate the breakdown in communication between the three as they all find themselves having to live with their own perceived parts in what has happened.

In Kida's case, that means disappearing from the lives of his friends entirely for the time being, as he desperately tries to keep control of the Yellow Scarves to stop any violence from escalating... something which is looking increasingly like a fruitless task as unrest amongst his "troops" grows.


Elsewhere, Mikado is having similar issues (albeit even less control over his own group), as he sits and watches Dollars members bemoaning his lack of action and the increasing violence they find themselves party to. This leads him to question whether the group should even exist any more... not that such a nebulous group can exactly be disbanded. Indeed, of the three it appears that Anri has the most control over her "followers" (for obvious reasons), a facility which she uses to try and stop attacks being committed by the Yellow Scarves. Although this seems like a sound strategy on one level, it is in fact playing right into Izaya's hands, creating yet more unrest and tension between the various factions at play here. This particular snowball shows no signs of getting any smaller, despite the best efforts of Selty and others to try and nudge things in the right direction.

As episodes of Durarara!! go, this was certainly a tightly focused instalment, and to be honest it was all the better for it; allowing us to witness at close hand the distance growing between what are now the main three characters while their actions bely that distance by becoming an increasingly desperate race to save one another. It's also interesting to note that the very same Mikado who was singled out as being so perceptive seems to be almost crippled by a lack of just such perception here (I'm torn as to whether this is actually something of a plot hole or not), as he seems not to have noticed Anri's distress in particular, while he also occupies a place as the least clued-in of this trio (unlike Kida, who now seems to have a full picture of who is who, or rather who is what). Still, no matter how you slice it this was yet another great episode that kept me hooked while also sprinkling in a seasoning of humour to round things out a little. Even if it turns out to have a terrible ending, you can't deny that Durarara!! has been a hell of a ride.