Recap

Kasuka Heiwajima rescues the girl in a zombie costume his brother roughed up in the last episode and asks Shinra to patch her up. Later that evening, our favourite shady back-alley doctor heads on over to Russian Sushi, where Mairu and Kururi have brought the mysterious man they found bleeding out on the streets.

Aqua’s thoughts

A different episode from last week’s carnival of madness, this third episode was a quieter, more character-focused affair delving deeper into the psyche of two characters who remained mostly off-screen during the first season. Because I got spoiled on the Hollywood killer’s real identity, I’m rather glad Durarara!! revealed it so early and offhandedly. We’ve just (well, five years ago, but still) had a whodunit in the Saika case, so despite the similarities, this arc takes the serial killer chase Ryogho Narita loves so much in an entirely different direction.

While I can understand some people’s frustration at this arc focusing on two new and not exactly conventionally entertaining characters, there is a twisted kind of hilarity and profundity to the heroic romance between two people devoid of any emotions — two people with an innate apathy, nourished in Kasuka’s case by growing up next to the all-emotional Shizuo and in Ruri’s case by having to put on a show 24/7, who bond over seeing the other as a version of themselves done right. Two popular idols suffering from a bizarre approximation of sociopathy? Now who’s saying that Durarara!! isn’t realistic?

Another thing Kasuka and Ruri have in common is the fact that both characters are centered around a theme of masks. While Kasuka is a blank slate who wears mask for a living, in the hope that some of the characteristics of his characters will rub off on him, Ruri wears literal masks — dressing up like Hollywood monsters and slaughtering people because that’s what monsters like her should do. She describes herself as a half-baked monster, too human-looking to be Godzilla or a zombie, but too apathetic to feel truly at home in her human body. Throughout the episode it’s implied that Ruri doesn’t kill out of her own volition, and is thoroughly appalled by it, but on the other hand she goes out of her way to provide herself with a twisted motive: monsters kill people because that’s what monsters do.

It’s no surprise then, that Ruri is, in fact, a supernatural being, begging a question even the show itself seems to have no finite answer to. How do we judge Ruri? Is she unaccountable for acting according to her nature, or a reprehensible sociopath with no redeeming values? Kasuka seems to end up somewhere in the middle. He’s obviously weary of what she really is, but only holds her responsible for neglecting the human side she also obviously has. If he — and Celty, for that matter — have managed to temper down their monstrous nature by appropriating human behaviour, so can she. It’s this warped aspect of their relationship that I’d love to see Durarara!! develop in this arc that is obviously about them, but knowing the series, it’s obviously going to get a lot more complicated than that. This episode alone rounded up a nonlinear puzzle plot that existed seemingly only for the heck of it, so there’s no telling what will happen when Durarara!! cuts loose completely.

Random observations

• In a macabre move that was probably totally hilarious in 2010, Ruri is voiced by Saki Fujita, best known as the voice of a certain teal-haired virtual idol.
• Egor, the man Mairu and Kururi rescued, is indeed the same man Shingen was doing business with back at the karaoke parlor. Given that he was there when Shizuo punched Hollywood into the stratosphere, it’s impossible that she’s the one who left him to bleed out in an alleyway later, because she was with Kasuka from the moment she landed. Nevertheless, boss Shiki mentions that it was Hollywood who roughed up ‘one of his guys’, probably referring to this Egor. Is this a chronology error, is Shiki mistaken or is there something else going on here? (Iro’s Note – She could have roughed him up in the fight prior to when Shizuo punched her across town and he wandered for a while before bleeding out)
• This episode features the glorious return of the stereotypical, over-the-top gangsters Durarara!! is known for, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Yo, yo, yo!
• Mikado and Anri are in this episode for all of five seconds, if only to further keep up the illusion that they’re the main characters of this show. More interesting, however, is that there seems to be an informal reunion of the Yellow Scarves going on. Looks like true gang wars do indeed never end.