English Dub Review: Durarara!!x2 “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears”

 

It seems like even stone cold killers can have a story that tries to touch your heart. Well, Varona and Sloan are the recipients of such a story. We got the start where she first killed a man, moving up from a burglar, to drug dealers, all the way up to corporate espionage. All of this was for her father’s company to stay on top. That’s all well and good, but how did Varona meet up with Sloan, and how did they make it to Ikebukuro? We aren’t going to find out this week, that’s for sure.

That said, Izaya and Mikado are trying to figure out what problem The Dollars are, and how the gang got to where they are. That didn’t last very long, either, because Varona found out what Anri is up to with her sword, up until Celty comes for vengeance like the devil itself. She actually kind of resembles Ghost Rider in this scene. “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears” seems to suffer from a slight case of character schizophrenia.

And we get to the root of the problem with “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.” Nothing presented this week has made me want to actually stop and and get invested. Whoever wrote the second half of the episode seemed to have a mild case of ADD, because we didn’t stick on one conflict for more than a minute or so before the scene jumped somewhere else. Then at the end of this Celty / Varona / Sloan / Anri debacle, Varona shoots a gun that seemed to alert every single person to what’s going on. If there was ever a magic bullet scenario, it would be the single gun that every person in a city can hear.

I can deal with some plot devices, but the aneurysm inducing, speed infused scene cuts drive me up a wall as much as haphazard non-linear storytelling. I was stuck thinking “what the fuck is going on, because nothing is making sense to me.” I’ve said it numerous times, and I’ll say it once more today. I can make sense of almost any plot. I almost understand Yurikuma Arashi, for fuck’s sake. Get your notebook handy, kids, because Durarara!!x2 is going to make you need a lot of it just to cover the last couple of episodes.