[Kafriel]

Marathoned the series in 4 days, one cour per.

Let's start off with the good stuff: this started out as SoL with a touch of supernatural and ended up being full-scale gang wars and monster mash, so there has definitely been a lot of development (or at the very least changes) in Ikebukuro as a whole. The characters are easy to remember, either by their appearance or their actions and the plot is actually pretty interesting, when you take into consideration how small everything that happened truly was.

Anri takes the cake for most normal female character in the series (Tom takes the respective male one). By the time the third cour was over, I was 100% certain that every single character in DRRR!! was infected with some kind of madness. Let's take a look at this:

Spoiler for Character list & evaluation:

- Mikado is self-explanatory, in the end I really didn't get just wtf he was trying to do, pulling a gun, shooting Masaomi and then killing himself. Complete nutjob...and I never understood why he didn't get Izaya for messing with his precious Dollars in the first place - he should have known who was going around spreading invitations to hoodlums, but decided to direct his wrath on them, instead of going for the mastermind.

- Masaomi was more emo than anything, although his behavior was justified by all the shit he took from Izaya.

- Anri has an inferiority complex, serving as Mika's "accessory" friend at first and rarely standing up for herself later on. At least she became conscious of her own feelings and desires.

- Shizuo: always angry, always breaking stuff. Yet, for all the people he sent to the hospital, he only got sued once - and that was a framejob! That's what you get for letting him go for so long

- Kasuka is the exact opposite, having a very passive face...but his personality is actually pretty standard and he learns through his work, so he's cool.

- Izaya is a self-destructive man who wishes for the world to end. Nothing truly benefits him (except Shizuo's misfortune), but he revels in others' misfortune as if he hit the jackpot, when in fact he's just making more and more enemies for himself. For a smart guy, he sure is stupid.

- Mika, Seiji and Namie: One is a super-stalker, the other is a materialist, with eyes only for a head and the latter is a brocon slave.

- Izaya's sisters: probably just cute little trolls trying to have fun...dangerous kinds of fun.

- Mikage: I seriously don't know what to make of her. Izaya did bad stuff to her, but she proceeds to rescue him AND become his personal bodyguard. Dafuq!?

- Walker & Erika: reality escapists (walker is also clearly an arsonist).

- Togusa: idol fanatic, to the point of wanting to kill Ruri's stalker himself.

- Shinra: obsessed with Celty's body, courtesy of Shingen. Definitely a dick for holding Celty down to him, he's basically doing with her body what everyone else did with her head.

- Samya & Dennis: While sober and the voice of reason for the most part, they did use military-grade equipment right in the middle of the city. WHY ARE THEY NOT IN JAIL YET!?

- Niekawa x Nasujima: OTP of the series, best ending unlocked. I imagine Nasujima got Saika'd and they just kept grinding on each other's blades forever.

- Aoba and Ran: crazy people be crazy, especially the hammer-wielding Ran. I still wonder on what terms he got out of jail so quickly and who was in charge of his probation (assuming he appeared just as his sentence concluded). Aoba loves Mikado's crazy side, that automatically makes him one of them.

- Varona: goes from down-to-earth assassin to inexplicable Shizuo tsundere.

And now for the bad stuff...

First of all, pens in this series are bloody sharp! Seiji stabbed Shizuo and caused intense bleeding on his legs, Mikado actually pierced Aoba's entire palm with one. Are they made of vibranium?

As much as I enjoy Kuzuhara Kinnosuke as a character...he spends most of his time chasing a shadow monster because its shape-shifting ride has no license plates and lights. Comical? Most certainly. Crazy? Hell yeah. I don't remember if he ever asked for Celty's I.D.

The dragon zombie gang was entirely useless. They could have remained outside of the series with absolutely nothing changing. Same goes for Mikado's final rally that only managed to block the streets. Where did all those bikers go afterwards, what did they do? Who the hell cares? We should though, it was portrayed as a "big move".

The ever so useful chat room became obsolete when everyone learned of each other's alias. People even entered the chat room when they were side by side (Mairu & Kururi, also Masaomi & Saki...and Izaya & Izaya with his double account).

Ruri didn't get proper closure. I really didn't like how her plot was handled...in the end, was Kasane the source of her misery, since she was controlling the Yadogiris? Why, to what goal? Why did Kasane want to sell monsters sooo much, when she could make an infinite amount of cash via possession? Why did the last few episodes focus so much on her nonexistent love life? I liked her as a character, but her plot felt, like Ruri's, half-baked.

Despite all that, it was a good run and I suppose it's safe to assume there will be more of this sooner or later. Overall rating so far: 8.5/10