English Dub Review: Durarara!!x2 “Harmony Is the Greatest of Virtues”

One thing I’ve gotten from Durarara!!x2 is that the show is hip.  Everything, from the art concepts, to the opening theme, to the animation of Celty riding her motorcycle or flying through the sky on the motorcycle-glider, it just screams hip. It’s something I don’t get to say about anime titles very often nowadays. I even enjoyed the way how Shinra did the flashback scenes near the beginning of the episode.

Speaking of Shinra, I really love how Yuri Lowenthal is able to make himself change from Sasuke in Naruto, to Shinra. Yuri is slowly becoming my favorite voice actor, because he is able to change himself so much from show to show. If you really want to see a change, see how different he sounds between Afro Samurai‘s Kuma, and the title character in Ben 10. You won’t be disappointed.

Another person that needs a bit more attention is Johnny Yong Bosch. I gave this man a lot of shit during Knights of Sidonia and Bleach for not being able to show any range. However, you see a difference in him with Durarara!! Instead of playing the guy who needs to overcompensate to be the best he ever was, he’s playing what I can assume to be the antagonist of the show, and he’s doing a damn good job. Izaya is not over the top, and he’s different from almost anything I’ve seen Bosch do previously. Another good example is Sasori, from Naruto Shippuden.

One thing that grates my nerves is the chatroom scenes. It would make sense to try and post some sort of subtitle, or overwrite the chat blurbs instead of a frantic talking scene with the silly chat bubbles. I didn’t mention it last week, because I thought it would be a one time thing. But these things get rather annoying, rather quickly.

The glaring problem here is that “Harmony Is the Greatest of Virtues” seems to be doing more of the setting up from “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.” Not a whole lot was going on until the second half. First, Anri Sonohara’s eyes glow red when a man walked past her. Then she meet’s Shinra’s father. This awakens Saika, the inner power Anri possesses. I think this is about to get a bit more interesting.

I could go on about how “Harmony is the Greatest of Virtues” could be two different episodes, but I think it’s more of a great gateway for what would be going on further down the line in Durarara!!x2. This is all because of the Quentin Tarantino style way of telling “Harmony is the Greatest of Virtues”‘s story. The amount of going forward and backwards is rather confusing, yet if you take your time to pay attention, you will get what’s going on. I think it’s a step up from “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words,” but not by much, so far. The action and plot are finally meshing together, and the show may actually take off from there.