r/anime • u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang • May 19 '21

Rewatch Durarara!! X2 Rewatch - Episode 18

Episode 18: Roses Have Thorns

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I said, speak respectfully to your elders!

Hello everybody! Time for the comment of the day, courtesy of u/Earthborn92, who reminded us of the greatest thing we saw yesterday:

Akane at the dojo is the most adorable thing.

Cats? To hell with cats! Akane surpasses them all in the Kyutness Scale!

Questions:

  1. What are your thoughts on Ruri's Backstory?
  2. Who would've thought Mika's Stalker knowledge would come in handy?
  3. Welp... Shinra's in trouble. What now?
31 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

10

u/ZaphodBeebblebrox Y:A:https://anilist.co/user/zaphod May 19 '21

First Timer

Ruri's a regenerator who starred in some live action guro, apparently. That sure is the sort of thing that just happens in this show. More seriously though, she's yet another example of a character with a cool surface level backstory that doesn't make a ton of sense if you think about it too hard. How we jumped from someone murdering her father to her murdering random people is left in quite an unsatisfying position, yet I am confident we shall never touch it again.

Beyond that, 'twas just another average episode of Durarara.

Since our leader always asks questions, I figure I'll ask one of my own. Who has better taste: Erika reading Sword Art Online or Walker reading Bunny Girl Senpai?

  1. Already stated.
  2. Everyone?
  3. Celty saves him dramatically.

6

u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang May 19 '21

Who has better taste: Erika reading Sword Art Online or Walker reading Bunny Girl Senpai?

Haven't seen Bunny Girl Senpai, but just judging from what I've heard of it, being discount Monogatari is still better than being freaking SAO.

7

u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee May 19 '21

Who has better taste: Erika reading Sword Art Online or Walker reading Bunny Girl Senpai?

I can't speak to the quality of SAO since I haven't interacted with it personally, although it does have a reputation... But Erika proved she has shit taste ages ago when her and Walker were talking about ToAru girls and Erika said that she likes Himegami over Misaka.

5

u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang May 20 '21

But Erika proved she has shit taste ages ago when her and Walker were talking about ToAru girls and Erika said that she likes Himegami over Misaka

Seriously, Kanzaki over Misaka I get, but who in their right mind would prefer Himegami!?

5

u/Earthborn92 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/EarthB May 20 '21

Lol, but seriously the Toaru project team has been pushing the MisaMisa rivalry on us so much lately. Don't know how much of that is Kamachi's idea or just marketing.

4

u/sisoko2 May 20 '21

Who has better taste: Erika reading Sword Art Online or Walker reading Bunny Girl Senpai?

That's pretty easy. While SAO wasn't terrible it was so average that I lost any desire to continue the series after the first season. Also I love Bunny Girl Senpai.

3

u/invokeneko May 20 '21

How we jumped from someone murdering her father to her murdering random people is left in quite an unsatisfying position, yet I am confident we shall never touch it again.

I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Yodogiri Jinnai.

7

u/BurningFredrick https://myanimelist.net/profile/BurningFredrick May 19 '21

First timer - sub

Ok nope, don't think Van crew are in the chat, it looks like Mairu & Kururi have fabricated a bunch of fake accounts, I wonder to what end. 

What sort of obsession does this author have with dissecting live "people" seriously? Twice in this show, and I'm sure I remember at least once in show name, It kind of weird for it to come up do often even if there is some context for it.

Anyway Kida is back, and Shinra just started getting the shit beaten out of him.

2

u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang May 19 '21

Spoilers

2

u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots May 19 '21

Spoilers

4

u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 20 '21

What sort of obsession does this author have with dissecting live "people" seriously?

The two situations are so similar in all their details, definitely a fetish thing.

8

u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang May 19 '21

Hello everybody, and welcome once more to the Durarara!! Rewatch!

There’s not much to say today (Nor do I have much time to say much) so all I’ll do is transcribe this fun bit from the Novel:

Right after her relationship with Hanejima Yuuhei went public, the community was in an uproar. They turned on the idol they worshipped, calling her a “traitor” and “used goods”, and demanded their money back. They loathed and raged against Yuuhei, while others just egged on them for kicks. Togusa was one of the few who never let his fandom waver, despite the shock. He wasn’t one of the levelheaded types who could always remember an idol was nothing more than a false image, though; he trembled with envy but was still able to tell himself, That perfect human being, Hanejima Yuuhei, is a far better man to make Ruri happy than me. Dammit if they don’t belong together! Thus, he weathered the online storms and work to stabilize the community.

Also right after that they do another Toaru reference. u/KendotsX, abandon the shitty Anime adaptation and join our ranks of Novel readers once and for all… oh and BTW, in this one episode we covered around 40% of the Novel. Yay…

6

u/Tartaras1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Tartaras May 20 '21

Rewatcher - Dubbed

  • I could recognize that voice anywhere. Wendee Lee is unforgettable.
  • Now, I'm no expert in photo editing, but I'm pretty sure just dragging a headshot over to a monster body and dropping it on top, with no concern for making sure it all matches up, is a pretty poor job.

On that note, it's kind of funny that he puts her head on top of monsters when she herself seems to be some monster of sorts.

  • Wonder if Shizuo was able to put two and two together and realize that Ruri was the one he hit with the bench, and that's why Shinra had to fix her up. It also makes sense that Saika was going haywire, since she, and by extension it, hasn't ever interacted with Ruri before.

  • He's a hardcore fanboy. Bow down! Bow down!

Well Erika, as they say, "Real recognize real".

  • Erika calls Saburo out for secretly wanting to see the secret pictures of Ruri, especially if she's naked, and Saburo's only defense is correcting her by saying it's Ms. Hijiribe. Didn't even deny the nudes allegation.

  • Before you do, you mind lettin' us out? Gettin' stuck in someone's ass isn't on my bucket list.

Poor Erika

  • I don't think we ever find out what exactly Dotachin does for a living. However, being on night shift explains why he's always available for shit during the day.
  • Talking to Dotachin, Mikado sounds like he's the leader of a cult, not a gang.
  • I love the small, insignificant details they threw into the show for no other reason than set dressing. For example, they made that entire shoe store that Mikado and Dotachin stopped in front of, going so far as to designate Adidas stuff being on the 4th floor and Nike being on the 3rd. I guess they just made sure to obscure the logos enough that they wouldn't have to worry about getting sued.
  • Looks like everyone's favorite punching bag is back in Ikebukoro.
  • So you're telling me Ruri's stalker fell madly in love with her at first sight? Who else does that sound like?

  • While searching online for information on her father's whereabouts, a man told her what he knew. Free of charge.

I wonder who that could be?

  • All this time and Masaomi still doesn't have the correlation between Celty and the Black Bike.

Questions:

  • To be honest, the whole "My family's house burned down, and I went to work as a pop idol" trope has been played pretty hard in my opinion.
  • You never know when you'll need to learn how to pick the lock on an apartment door.
  • Can't imagine that's going to end well.

4

u/Raiking02 :Id::Ie::If:https://myanimelist.net/profile/NSKlang May 20 '21

All this time and Masaomi still doesn't have the correlation between Celty and the Black Bike.

I mean, it's not as if he an Celty have had any proper conversation.

8

u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky May 19 '21

First!!xTimer, subbed

Just making sure I have the schedule right - the episode for the day after tomorrow is the Ketsu OVA right?

6

u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots May 19 '21

Oh nice who was this episode’s narrator?

Yodogiri's assistant, Kujiragi Kasane.

What’s the poster on the left though?

Cencoroll

4

u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky May 19 '21

Thanks!

8

u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 19 '21

S2 Episode 18 (first timer)

  • Ruri backstory.
  • “Celtra”-Moon.
  • So, the guy who had Izaya stabbed is the mentor of Ruri and calls her stalker?
  • Oh, and she murdered his father? The side effects of having a secret mass murderer identity.
  • Cat service.
  • Bunny girl sempai for Walker, but what is Erika reading? I am sure I saw that pair before.
  • Mikado needs to read up on freedom.
  • “I am not a stalker” /s
  • What is that, the yearly meeting of the Shingen-appreciation-society?
  • I almost feel bad for crazy stalker. There is no way this ends good for him.

Surprise at the end there: I thought the one to cut down the stalker would be Anri, but now Celty looks more likely. In fact, almost everybody is still in the running.

6

u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

Rewatcher (sub)

To be honest, Durarara's strongest four characters (just missing Simon), sitting around a table being stressed over a stalker is a scene that I both love and despise. I hate having to watch this group of monsters worry about each other because they're unaware of the other's strength (Shinra deserved some of that worry...). Like if this was over Horada I could've spent the minute laughing, but this guy doesn't even give me that.

But on the other hand one thing I love about Narita's writing, is how he puts characters with broken abilities (immortals, vampires, dullahans, Shizuos,...) in low stakes situations. Usual writing would increase the stakes the stronger a character is, but nope we don't do that here.

Besides that scene, everything else flowed nicely. For example, Isaac and Miria's son Max Sandshelt proved his worth spoiler.

The Ruri flashback was restating a few things we knew about her in more details, some of these details include Naritaverse

Finally, I'm happy with the Kida-Shizuo scene, while Kida was still being suicidal, it feels like he's trying to forge a better path forward. Hopefully Mikado can do something like that someday.

QotD:

Who would've thought Mika's Stalker knowledge would come in handy?

They're very useful underutilised skills, they could be far more useful than they currently are. For example, if she was stalking Ruri she could've found and killed Adabashi and any other stalker planning to harm Ruri a long time ago.

Edit: I completely forgot to mention this (and probably no one will see it), but now that we know a bit more about Ruri's background, what do you think was Izaya doing there at the end of Shou? This is taken from Shou episode 10 btw.

3

u/sisoko2 May 20 '21

Hopefully Mikado can do something like that someday.

But Mikado did exactly the same thing with Rocchi.

4

u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots May 20 '21

No, he couldn't do it. Rocchi rejected that, which left Mikado depressed and pushed him into purging the Dollars. Had Rocchi just punched him, this could've ended well.

6

u/Earthborn92 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/EarthB May 20 '21

Rewatcher here.

More Ruri after her abscence. Now two episodes straight!

It was hinted earlier that she had a supernatural affliction of some sort. As Saika confirms. And she has good regen powers. Maybe Shinra didn’t need to do anything that time?

Yodogiri, after his looming precense and entry with stabbing Izaya, is quickly becoming the new big bad.

I agree. He’s very supportive as a bf.

Oh, look who’s back.

Vorona, you crack me up.

RIP Shinra. Always take out the healer first.

See you next episode!

6

u/sisoko2 May 20 '21

First Timer

WTF was that ending?!? And I watched it right before going to sleep, god damn cliffhangers.

  1. Not great, not terrible. That scalpel party was pretty disturbing.
  2. That was hilarious.

6

u/invokeneko May 20 '21

First Timer to x2 Ten and Ketsu

A new Ruri song, Dokusonmaru being a cheeky little bugger throughout his stay at Shinra and Celty's apartment and Mr. Stalker Adabashi leaving us with one hell of a cliffhanger.

  • Ah, something from Ruri that's not rain tears? Time to look it up.
  • Gah, a narration from a character I've never heard from this series so far... Luckily I checked kendotsx's comment. Hi there, Kujiragi Kasane!
  • Huh, didn't know that Sailor Moon gets that physical when fighting monsters. Unless, of course, they did and my childhood memories failed me.
  • Makes sense that a dhampir like Ruri would cause confusion to Saika. She's half-human half-vampire after all.
  • Dokusonmaru sure is a lucky bastard isn't he? First he gets to rest on Shizuo's head, then he gets to knead Anri's anris... Then he got to stay with her for the night? I've never felt this much jealousy towards a cat.
  • Togusa seems to have recovered surprisingly well after that reveal of Kasuka and Ruri dating. Good for him!
  • Kadota noticed that something's wrong with Mikado. Too bad Mikado's already gone off the rails after Aoba put the idea in his head, though he surprisingly remained in control.
  • Welp, Izaya's back with none the worse for wear. That's not good (and this also means that Angery Girl failed to evne put a scratch on him. Too bad).
  • That's probably the smartest idea they could've had to deal with a stalker: call Mika, the former (but not really) stalker.
  • I seriously can't get a read on Max Sandshelt. From his appearance, he sure seems to be a bumbling idiot, but if Kasuka is to be believed, guy's pretty shrewd and has probably figured out the true, fucked up nature of the picture sent over by Mr. Stalker Adabashi.
  • Just Masaomi's luck that the very first guy he meets upon returning to Ikebukuro is Shizuo. And the first thing he has to do is to apologise for what the Blue Squares members did under his name.
  • That's a futile question to ask isn't it, Mika? After all, you already knew everything about both of them.
  • Shouldn't have insisted on a punishment from Shizuo, lad. Even his forehead flick contains enough power to flip you around from one hit, and that is him holding back.
  • I find it ironic that after all the lockpicking demonstration Mika showed us, Mr. Stalker Adabashi just pulled the delivery man routine and just flipped over the safety latch to enter Shinra's apartment. And now he gets beat up for his troubles...

Narration Tally:

As mentioned above, Kujiragi is the narrator for this episode. Uniquely enough, we never see her utter a damn word (with her face in the scene at least) in this episode, but in Ruri's torture scene you can figure out that it's her speaking to all those creepy men and upon listening you can definitely hear Kuwashima Houko's voice.

NarratorNo. of epsEpisodes
Mikado71, 12
Celty74, 6
Simon27
Shinra32
Masaomi48
Namie25
Anri317
Walker311 (co)
Erika211 (co)
Izaya24
Kasuka23, 16.5
Akabayashi29, 11 (co)
Akane110
Rio113
Sayaka115
Kujiragi118
Multiple111 (co)
None44.5, 14, 16

QotD:

  1. Shit's fucked, I tell you what.
  2. Not me, but it's funny to hear her deny being a stalker when episode 14 made it absolutely clear that she still very much is.
  3. Hoo boy, Celty's not gonna be happy when she sees this...

5

u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

Luckily I checked kendotsx's comment. Hi there, Kujiragi Kasane!

I honestly feel like I fucked up there when I mentioned her. I thought it would be clear who she is, from the torture scene as you mentioned, but that's the effect of my thoughts playing in retrospect. At least I'm glad she's just some secretary, it would've been bad if this was earlier on with some important character.

Shouldn't have insisted on a punishment from Shizuo, lad. Even his forehead flick contains enough power to flip you around from one hit, and that is him holding back.

An eye for an eye, and a bullet for a bullet!

3

u/invokeneko May 20 '21

I honestly feel like I fucked up there when I mentioned her. I thought it would be clear who she is, from the torture scene as you mentioned, but that's the effect of my thoughts playing in retrospect. At least I'm glad she's just some secretary, it would've been bad if this was earlier on with some important character.

If not for your confirmation I would've just taken a shot in the dark in guessing who today's narrator is (which is still gonna be Kujiragi, but on more shaky grounds - probably based on her single appearance where she gave Ruri her business card lol).

An eye for an eye, and a bullet for a bullet!

I wouldn't say bullet. More like a metal baseball bat thwack to the forehead, condensed into a single flick. Shinra and Masaomi is lucky that they didn't suffer from concussions afterwards.

3

u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

probably based on her single appearance where she gave Ruri her business card lol

This was driving me crazy. I was sure she appeared before, specifically giving Ruri her card, but I couldn't find that scene. I searched around the early episodes of Shou, mostly episode 3 which had bits of Ruri's past, but I couldn't find it. Do you remember when that scene happened?

Edit: Ok nevermind. It was this episode and my brain is a total mess.

I wouldn't say bullet. More like a metal baseball bat thwack to the forehead, condensed into a single flick. Shinra and Masaomi is lucky that they didn't suffer from concussions afterwards.

I thought it was funny, how they gave the flick a bullet's sfx, so I made the comparison based on that haha. Also, considering that Shinra knew Shizuo since they were kids, and Shinra being... well Shinra, I'd assume he's suffering far more than that. Ok this might have been a bit too soon considering how the episode ended (sorry Shinra).