Durarara 15-17: The Mother of em all

EPISODE 15: A Fool May Give Good Counsel

Ever since his unfortunate meeting with Shizuo, B-magazine reporter Niekawa Shuuji has been wanting to know more about this man known as the "strongest" in Ikebukuro. His research work leads him first to Simon of Russia Sushi, who points him to a yakuza group, who in turn point him to Izaya. Izaya, of course, is only too pleased to give the information desired and Niekawa ends up talking with the Ikebukuro legend herself, Celty. But Niekawa meets an untimely accident when the Slasher attacks him from behind. The next day, a seemingly brainwashed Niekawa stalks Anri home. At the same moment, Kadota's gang, who have been earlier instructed by the Dollars leader to watch over Anri, notice Niekawa and intervene. Shizuo then appears and distracts Niekawa, who turns against him instead. Meanwhile, Saika appears in the Dollars chatroom, saying over and over that she loves Shizuo and wants to cut him. Upon learning this, Celty immediately leaves and arrives at the place just in time to stop Niekawa. While everyone is confused by what just happened, Niekawa recovers and starts once more so Shizuo pulls out the door to Saburou's precious van and rams him against the wall with it. With Niekawa unconscious, Celty is able to take the knife from him, believing it to be the demon blade Saika.

EPISODE 16: Mutual Love

The episode begins with a scene showing a happy Anri with her perfect family. The scene is a lie and Anri wakes up to tell us that both her parents died after a robber broke into their home. She adds that ever since then she has closed her heart to everyone and describes herself as a parasite. Meanwhile, Celty shows the blade she took from Niekawa to Shinra. However, it turns out that the blade is made in Japan in 2009, which means that the real Saika is still unaccounted for. While they are only realizing this, Anri receives a most strange visitor in the person of Niekawa Haruna. It is then revealed that Haruna was in love with her teacher. At first, she was only content on keeping her feelings in but after she was possessed by Saika, she was led to show her affections in the only way that a demon blade could: by cutting. Now that the same teacher seems to be interested in Anri, Haruna wants to take her out. Before she can do so, however, the teacher shows up in Anri's doorstep. With this unexpected visit, Haruna goes after him and leaves Anri to fend for herself against a hundred possessed people, all expressing their desire to cut.

EPISODE 17: Perpetual Shifts and Changes

Having figured out that Saika has many "daughters," Shinra and Celty concoct a plan to lure them all out in order to find the original. Meanwhile, Shizuo, who somehow got it in his mind that Izaya must be behind all this, crashes into his building, looking for a fight. Izaya is only too willing to give it to him but their battle is cut off by Celty who tells Shizuo of the plan. Forced to leave his ultimate confrontation with his nemesis for another day, Shizuo goes with Celty to the park. The possessed all say that they love Shizuo because he is strong and want him to be part of their army. To Celty's surprise, Shizuo seems pleased by this and immediately throws himself into the ramble with great gusto. Meanwhile, Haruna catches up with the teacher and would have cut him then to express her love when Anri shows up, miraculously unscathed. She pulls out a blade out of thin air, thus revealing that she has in fact the real Saika in her possession. Anri then reveals that although Saika possessed her, the demon blade whose only desire is to love is unable to manifest itself in her who profess to be incapable of love. It is likewise revealed that Anri's family was anything but perfect. Her father, a failed antique dealer, took out his anger at his family and that it was her mother, possessed by Saika, who killed him right before killing herself. But it was Haruna who sowed the Slasher incidents and turned many people into possessed automatons. To stop her, Anri taps into Haruna's brain, thus gaining control of all of Saika's "daughters." In doing so, everyone at the park snap out of their haze in time for Shizuo to stop his onslaught. In the end, Anri gains an army and finally realizes the value of her friendship with Mikado and Kida. But her decision not to reveal her secret to any of them might be a problem in the future as Kida, revealed to be the "General," reluctantly revives the Yellow Scarves to fight the Slasher and the Dollars.

THOUGHTS:

Oh wow, complications. :) This anime is so interestingly random that I can never get bored. More Celty x Shizuo love please! heh I love how Celty raved about Shizuo to Niekawa and was all in awe at seeing our Shizzy-chan fight off the bad guys. Too bad she's too committed to weird guy Shinra for anything to progress in that department. Oh well, there's always fanfiction. 

The suggestion that Anri is les is not as wild as Mikado makes it to be. After all, Anri's thing for Harima Mika could very well be some kind of girl crush. But anyway, it's beside the point and really not an important fact. What IS important is that it looks like Izaya's plan of turning Ikebukuro into a war zone is working. Shizuo seems to be on to him but it's more based on instinct than anything specific so I doubt anyone would take him seriously, although they definitely should. 

Wow, this is really becoming more and more interesting. I can't wait for the next one. 

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