Durarara!! (デュラララ!!) Episode 11 Thoughts

SNAPSHOT OF THE EPISODE

Episode Title: "Storm and Stress"

As we are nearing the end of this cour, things are getting quite exciting, I'll have to congratulate those who have been following this series up to this point. ^^ I'm confident that we will be rewarded with each new episode and hopefully the ending will blow us away! Episode 11 did just that with...
giving us a background on Mikado: he's the founder, a leader if you will, of the infamous Dollars!

Surprisingly, my guess about how almost everyone is in Dollars came true in this episode, minus my guess about Izaya being the leader of Dollars, but I still have a feeling that Izaya still had an important role in establishing it. My guess of who is NOT in Dollars has to be Kida and Anri (plus, the people involved in Yagiri Pharmacy but who cares about them? ^^;). Kida must be part of one of the colored gangs for sure. I'm still not sure about Anri, but I have a really bad feeling about her. A possible yandere?

Other revelations in this episode: Shinra's proposal to Celty, and we see that Isaac & Miria are in Dollars! The possibility of seeing Celty in a wedding dress is probably slim, but I certainly wouldn't complain if that's how this series ended - with their wedding. Sorry, it's my inner slice-of-life thinking. Hehe. The important question though is will Celty get her head back? She came face to face with Mika in this episode and went absolutely crazy, shredding through Yagiri Pharmacy agents like butter! Also, that scene where Celty rode down side of the bulding was the highlight of the episode for me.

Other highlights of the episode: ringtones of the otaku gang, especially of Saburo's VOCALOID. I should have expected that from an Idol Otaku. ^^; We also see Shizuo trying to consult his thoughts of existence with Simon. Of course, Simon could careless and Shizuo gets angry, and he vents by picking up a nearby vending machine and trying to smash him with it for not listening.

Complaints for this episode has to be the inconsistent animation and Seiji himself. The animation of the town folks in particular looked really sloppy. Seiji is probably the villain of this series so I have a natural hate against him, and I'm sure most other people feel the same way. At the end of this episode, he appears out of nowhere and blitzes towards Mikado with what looks to me as a key (or perhaps a small surgical knife?). This is probably the first true cliffhanger for this series and I really can't wait to see the next episode! The preview enhanced this feeling because it showed Izaya holding Celty's head. Wow! Excited to find out how this cour will end.