Durarara x2 Ten – Episode 17 [Stalker]

We’ve had enough character focused episodes for a bit. Now it’s time for Duarara to do what it does best, jerk us around between multiple characters at a time and force us to put everything together on our own. At least there doesn’t seem to be any time skipping going on in this episode, except for the flashback to the time that Aoba went to visit Shinra and Celty.
The major players in this episode are Mikado, Anri, Shizuo, and Ruri.

Ruri has a stalker that is apparently in the Dollars, we get to see him briefly in this episode attending the same gym as Akane and one of the Orihara twins. He licks and eats her picture, his gym bag is also full of pictures of her. I am almost at a loss of words for how creepy this is, even by this series standards of love.  So Kasuka asks his brother to help them out, since all the digging he can do into the dollars links Shizuo to them.
Now as we know, he quit in the end of the last cour of this season. So he’s pretty out of the loop, not that he seems like he was very in it in the first place. His solution is to bring them to Shinra’s place, along with the cat….dog…the animation isn’t too clear about what kind of animal this is. The ears flop like a dog, but it’s got whiskers like a cat…

Meanwhile, Mikado and the remnants of the Blue Squares are going around town, taking out ‘problem’ members of the Dollars. Ones that are using it’s status to extort or hurt other people. Of course, the rumor that Ruri’s stalker is in the group hits them and they decide that they need to take him out. Which looking at him and how strong he is, doesn’t seem like it’s going to be an easy task.

ALSO meanwhile, Sonohara goes to Shinra and Celty to talk to them about Mikado. Asking if Celty had noticed anything really different about him lately. He’s seemed too happy, less confident in his friends and more confident in his own abilities. Not Mikado like at all. Celty remembers Aoba’s visit to them and suspects that it may be connected.
Holy damn, I have never seen Shinra act like that before. I seriously thought that he might kill Aoba! He also compared him to Izaya, which Aoba hated. Though I can imagine that Izaya would hate it as well. It’s interesting isn’t it though? How Aoba is so similar to Izaya and yet I can barely stand his character but I adore Izaya?
Is it the way that they present themselves? Is it because Izaya is more eccentric about it rather then Aoba playing it a little more sinisterly? It’s fun to think through shows like this what our favorite characters say about us as people.

The last part of the episode switches to Masaomi saying that he will be returning to Ikebukuro and many new people joining the Dollars chat room. Well, the plot is advancing nicely.

Next episode it seems as if we will be returning to some character focus, by taking a look at Yodogiri Jinnai. Well then, let’s learn about you so I can draw my way into this anime and kill you. I can’t think of much else that really stood out this episode for me, I did like seeing a part of Shinra that we don’t see too often in that flashback. We so often see the kind, sort of goofy guy and forget that he is actually a rather dangerous underground Doctor.
I mean, with Shingen as a father he does have to be at least a little off his rocker.

~Midnight