Durarara!! x2 Shou – 03

Later than planned, but couldn’t be helped.  Anyway this episode was mainly concerned with the identity of the ‘Hollywood’ serial killer and mostly takes place at the same time as the events of the previous two episodes.  I do love how Durarara!! has so many things happening simultaneously – inevitable when you have such a large cast I suppose.

So our serial killer is none other than the idol the Otaku Quartet’s van driver is obsessed with – Ruri Hijiribe.  This is another thing I love about Drrr!! it rarely introduces named characters that don’t end up having some involvement in the story somewhere.  In this instance it is a seemingly throwaway idol who ends up being a serial killer with a talent for special effects make-up, and who may have some supernatural affliction which drives her to kill, if Shingen and Celty are to be believed.  It is such a random revelation that it could only happen in Durarara!!

Having read this novel a number of years ago I already knew that Hollywood was Ruri, but I can’t really remember what it is that is special about her bloodline that causes her to kill people in such a horrific manner (her victims are stripped of their flesh).  I do find it somewhat interesting to see how she is treated so sympathetically in the story though – I mean the girl is responsible for a large number of murders, but is still presented in a fairly positive light.  Can we really be expected to forgive Ruri just because she’s a cute girl with a troubled past?

Kasuka certainly doesn’t seem to have any problem overlooking the whole serial killer thing….although Kasuka is pretty weird in general.  Picking up people who fall out of the sky and are probably wanted killers isn’t really normal, even if you have experience of strange phenomena as the younger brother of Shizuo Heiwajima.  Kasuka’s absolute calm is nearly unnerving, nothing seems to faze him and indeed he comes right out and asks Ruri if she is Hollywood with little regard for his own safety.  But right from the start he operates in a manner that will protect Ruri’s identity from the mass media, calling Shinra to tend to her rather than take her to a hospital and crafting a believable cover story that the two idols are in fact dating.

Kasuka really is a strange one, he is the polar opposite of his hot-headed brother in nearly every conceivable way.  Indeed Kasuka goes as far to say that he became an actor in order to piece together a complete range of human emotion, implying that his dead-pan demeanour is more than him being unusually placid, but something more deep-seeded.  You really do have to wonder how the mass of volatile emotion that is Shizuo ended up with a younger brother like Kasuka – amazing how different family members can be.

Rather less surprising is how deranged Shingen continues to be – really not hard to see where Shinra got his twisted personality from.  Shingen has always been in the background of the story whenever anything supernatural is in play.  Here we discover that Shingen hired the tall Russian dude (Egor, a former colleague of the Russia Sushi duo) to capture Ruri so he could experiment on her.  Of course Shingen instantly loses interest in Ruri once he hears she was handily beaten in a fight – seems Shingen is only interested in those supernatural beings who are particularly powerful.

I do wonder how Shizuo has escaped his attention – maybe it is that Shizuo’s phenomenal strength is entirely natural and so Shingen isn’t interested in it?  But you’d still think he’d be intrigued by a man capable of taking on a powerful supernatural opponent like Ruri and the man Shingen hired to take her down, and wiping the floor with both of them.  Perhaps Shinra is hiding the full extent of Shizuo’s strength from his father or maybe Shingen has left the study of the strongest man in Ikebukuro up to his son (Shinra has always been somewhat fascinated by Shizuo’s strength and healing ability).  Whatever the case the Kishitani family sure is fecking weird, but delightfully entertaining to watch.

Other stuff of interest in this episode:

• Orihara twins continue to get themselves involved in everything.  They ask their brother for information on Celty (her name being on the envelope of cash they found), but Izaya isn’t willing to give them any details yet.  The twins then not only pay for Shinra to treat Egor, but wind up involved with Dotachin’s group after attracting the attention of the biker gangs after Celty’s bounty thanks to their public displays of affection.  Seems that building up a large web of connections is in the Orihara family genes.
• Interesting to note that Shiki (the yakuza member who barges into Shinra’s apartment) is interested in what Ruri Hijirube is rather than how she is involved with Shizuo’s brother.
• Mikado ends up being confronted by a trio who claim to be Yellow Scarf members who saw him at the factory fight with the Black Bike.  Again I have to wonder how people took note of Mikado there since he didn’t play a massively visible role.  Anri was surely much more distinctive given her looks and the massive sword she as swinging about, but the Yellow Scarf members completely ignore Anri and zero in on Mikado.  Will be interesting to see how Mikado responds given Aoba and Anri’s presence.

So another episode of Durarara!! with lots going on – looking forward to the next one!