Literature / Durarara!!

The Cast.^{who's who}Left side, bottom to top: Mikado, Anri, Izaya; Right side, bottom to top: Kida, Shizuo, Shinra; Top center: Celty.

"Durarara is a show about a magical fairy who rides a motorcycle and saves people. This is both the most literal and least representative description of the show that I could think of."

— Disorganization XIII, Spoiler: The Panel 4

Three "ra"s, by the way.

Ikebukuro, a district of Tokyo. A young man named Mikado Ryugamine has moved there from "the sticks", clueless as to how things work in the big city. Reunited with his childhood friend Masaomi Kida for the first time in years, Mikado is shown the way around town as he tries to adapt to the hectic ways of the busy metropolis and discovers its many dark secrets. Mikado learns of people like Shizuo Hewajima, a bartender with inhuman strength and a bad temper. He learns about Izaya Orihara, a shady Knowledge Broker who seems to know way more than a normal broker should. However, what attracts the most attention is the mysterious "Black Rider". This unknown individual rides around on a bike that makes no noise, committing acts of vigilante justice in a spectacularly violent fashion. Mostly notably, the rumors also claim that said rider has no head.

Which, as it turns out, is true. The rider's name is Celty Sturluson, and she's a dullahan from Ireland. Two decades ago, Celty had her head stolen from her, which inflicted her with amnesia. After years of searching, she's tracked it down to Tokyo. Desperate to regain her head and potentially regain her lost memories, Celty works as a transporter looking for any lead he can find.

Celty being a real, flesh-and-blood fae is just the tip of the iceberg of the weirdness in town. As it turns out, Ikebukuro is becoming a hub for supernatural and violent acts, which Mikado and Celty soon become aware of. When events begin spiralling out of control and violence seems to consume the town, Mikado and Celty find themselves working together to make things right and keep the people they love safe.

Durarara!! is a series of thirteen light novels published by Dengeki Bunko from 2004 to 2014 and written by Ryohgo Narita, the creator behind Baccano!, with art and designs by Suzuhito Yasuda of Yozakura Quartet fame. The series chronicles the innerworkings of Ikebukuro from a number of perspectives, jumping between viewpoints every chapter. The cast of the series is massive, and new characters are added in for every story arc. The series has a strong neo-noir atmosphere to it, and incorporates gang violence, Irish folklore, urban legends and supernatural happenings into a delicious cocktail of insanity.

An anime adaptation aired in Japan from January through June 2010, running for 24 episodes, with two additional episodes on the DVD release. The anime adaptation was directed by Takahiro Omori and animated by Brain's Base, the same studio/director combo that adapted Baccano!. Aniplex picked up the series for North American distribution, and the DVD releases were done in three groups in January, March, and May 2011. The show aired on [adult swim] starting June 2011.

A second season, Durarara!!x2, was announced as part of the 10th anniversary of the franchise at the Dengeki Game Festival in March 2014. The season was divided into three cours: Shou in Winter 2015, Ten in Summer 2015, and Ketsu in Winter 2016.

An official English translation can now be bought in the U.S., translated by Stephen Paul. A sequel series, Durarara!! SH (Snake Hands) as part of the ten year anniversary celebration, came out April 2014, continuing from the final novel after a Time Skip of a year and a half. SH was licensed by Yen Press in October 2020.

Yahiro Mizuchi, a student from a distant hot springs village in Akita, listening to the advice of a tourist, has moved to Ikebukuro and transferred into Raira Academy. He wants to see the Urban Legends that have become mundane and more importantly, can he, with the strength and instincts of a monster in battle, fit in with them? He gets tangled with new rumors and mysteries such as the kidnappings by the Headless Rider and her public disappearance or the help for hire group that will resolve anything, Snake Hands.

Durarara!! is part of an overarching Verse of light novels and serialised works of fiction written by Narita Ryohgo that also includes the following:

• Vamp!
• Baccano!
• Etsusa Bridge
• Hariyama San
• Wednesdays Smiling with Otsuberu
• Pandora Shark

There is a crossover light novel with A Certain Magical Index called A Certain Magical Index VS Durarara!! and one with Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens called Durarara!! x Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens.

Check out the character page if you have time. Not to be confused with Toradora!, or Josuke Higashikata's Kiai.

Shizuo Heiwajima, the aforementioned bartender with inhuman strength, was chosen to represent Durarara!! in the crossover Fighting Game Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax by Sega, with Celty Sturluson and Izaya Orihara as support characters. All three also became summon-able allies in the Japanese release of Devil Survivor 2.

Warning!! The examples below may include spoilers for both the light novels and the anime. Proceed at your own risk!

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Durarara!! provides examples of:

A-C

• Abbey Road Crossing: On the cover of this Blu-ray set.
• Abusive Parents: Anri's father. He was willing to kill his daughter just for insurance money.
  • Aoba and Izumii's father breaks the latter's nose after the former framed him for setting his room on fire.
• Academy of Adventure: Raira Academy, especially during Shizuo and Izaya's attendance.
• Actor Allusion:
  • At one point, Shizuo was referred to as a butler due to his bartender outfit. Interestingly enough, he shares the same voice as Sebastian from Black Butler.
  • Patrick Seitz (Simon Brezhnez in the English dub) actually lampshades the fact that "[He's] played black guys and [he's] played Russian guys, but never at the same time".
  • Ruri Hijiribe is probably better known as another idol singer. So did her English voice actress.
  • Crispin Freeman must have had some serious Deja Vu playing a character that enjoys pounding the living tar out of Johnny Yong Bosch.
  • A somewhat subtle one. After meeting up with Masaomi and the Yellow Scarves and finding out that they weren't responsible for Kadota's hit and run, Walker mentions that he's glad that "Asuna didn't go up in flames". The joke is that Yellow Scarves leader, Masaomi, shares the same dub voice as Kirito.
  • In the OVA, Dufufufu!!, Erika and Walker compare's Kadota's voice to Tatsuya Shiba from The Irregular at Magic High School and Kyousuke from Oreimo (both whom share Kadota's voice, Yūichi Nakamura).
    • The dub changes this with Steve Blum's (Kadota's dub voice) characters: Spike from Cowboy Bebop and Dingo from Expelled from Paradise.

• Adaptation Expansion: To make this easy let's just say that Episode 2, and the events between Kida finds out that Mikado is the founder of the Dollars and Kida goes to the Yellow Scarves hideout alone are all anime-only.
• Aerosol Flamethrower: Walker makes use of one at the climax of Volume 6. The narrative helpfully points out that this is stupidly dangerous and as likely to set Walker on fire as anyone else, but that Walker's doing it anyway on account of being Walker.
  • Walker has it again when he's fighting Izumii, revealing that fire is his preferred weapon of choice.
• Alien Autopsy: In one episode, we see Celty watching a documentary on one of these in the background while Shinra speaks on the phone. Celty, as it turns out, is terrified of aliens (and given her experience with Dr. Kishitani probably autopsies too).
• All There in the Manual: Ignoring the Light Novels, the Japanese DVDs come with written short stories.
• All Wishes Granted: In the final arc, Masaomi, Anri and Mikado are reunited with each other as friends, the Van Gang avenges Kadota, Celty finds her head, Shinra doesn't lose Celty, Shizuo finally rids Ikebukuro of Izaya, Kujiragi gets her freedom, Mika and Seiji get to be together (well, not exactly in a healthy romantic way, mind you), and the Dollars are finally destroyed. On a much darker note, Haruna gets to express her love to Nasujima.
• Alternate Character Reading: A few of the episode titles.
• Anachronism Stew: Due to time discrepancies between light novels and anime releases, the series is peppered with small and amusing inconsistencies, mostly about the release dates of some gadgets and stuff. For note, IIRC, the official date of the events in light novels is 2002, which leads to:
  • Izaya having an iPhone three years before its official release even in the US (2005).
  • Mikado's PC having an AGP port (normal for 2002), but sporting a Windows 7 sticker (released in 2009), and so on.
  • The dates on computer screens and cellphones make it clear that the anime is supposed to be set in 2010. His PC is obviously a brand name bought pre-assembled (and that sticker was on the box), but then, there are indications that this was while he still was in junior high. Looks like someone was having fun with the details.
• Animal Motifs: Aoba is commonly compared to a shark, both in personality and appearance.
  • Two Russian assassins in X2 go by the aliases "Vorona" and "Sloan", which are Russian for "crow" and "elephant" respectively.
  • Snakes for the sequel series Durarara!! SH
• Animation Bump: The anime is already gorgeously animated and has a highly detailed art direction, but there are instances where things are noticeably more fluid and detailed.
• Anime Accent Absence: Averted. Even if the accent is wrong, you can't say they didn't give all the foreigners an accent. They even went all the way and made a couple of tourist girls in Episode 3, an entirely one-shot pair of characters, speak heavily accented, but otherwise perfect, Russian, complete with subtitles.
• Art Evolution: Hell yes. Suzuhito's earlier artwork for DRRR!!, while decent, was kind of awkward and a little stodgy. It has since developed and become much more fluid, with better colors and characterization in general. Compare the volume one cover◊ to the cover of volume ten.
• Asshole Victim:
  • The three ganguros who bully Anri end up getting attacked by the Slasher in Episode 13.
  • Horada is such an arrogant Jerkass that no one ever sympathizes with him.
  • Professor Nasujima gets clocked by Shizuo after coming at him with a knife and demanding his money. Nobody cares.
  • Earthworm. Has tortured many people in the past and her latest victim was Izaya, but since he's Izaya it turns out that he knew what was going to happen all along. He gets Ran Izumi over, who promptly breaks her legs, hits her fingers repeatedly with a plastic hammer, shoves a linen bag soaked with lamp oil into her mouth and lights it on freaking fire. He also threatens to rape her, but luckily Mikage stops him.
• AstroTurf: In-universe example: During the formative days of the Dollars, the founders pose as different people to spread the word about the group. Mikado even mentions posting as multiple people on the Dollars' own website to pad the member count. Things ultimately take on a life of their own once Izaya starts spreading the password, however.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: When the Blue Squares get utterly dominated by Mikado, they wonder if Izaya has any idea the asskicking he's unleashed.
• Badass Army: The Yellow Scarves when competently led. The Dollars are mostly composed of Guile Heroes, but they have enough muscle and achieve enough awesome to qualify.
• Badass Crew: Kadota's sub-division of the Dollars, composed of himself, Togusa, and Walker and Erika.
• Badass Pacifist: Simon. Also, many members of the Dollars prefer Guile Hero tactics (i.e. nonviolent methods), as best displayed in Episode 22 of the anime.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The anime's second opening implies that Kasuka and Kinnosuke get a lot more screentime than the ever do. They do end up getting due focus in the later novels, but those weren't animated...
  • Seemingly averted in X2 since it covers the chapters where they do get their focus, especially Kasuka.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Invoked by Chikage in the sixth volume when he intervenes on a fight between Vorona and Anri.
  Chikage: Not that I don't enjoy a good Cat Fight between girls every now and then... but wouldn't it totally defeat the purpose if you hurt each other's beautiful faces and bodies with knives like this? I'd suggest you go with mud wrestling.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: How did Tom get on Shizuo's good side? By showing him some basic human decency.
  • This is also part of the reason that Izaya considers Shinra his only friend—because Shinra came right up and talked to him when no one else did. Oh, and Shinra also took a knife wound for Izaya once, but that's no big deal or anything.
• Beneath the Mask: An on-going theme, applied to almost all of the main characters as well as Ikebukero itself.
• Berserk Button:
  • Shizuo has about a million of them, but Izaya's continued existence rises above them all.
  • Do not scratch Togusa's van.
  • Do not hurt women in close proximity to Chikage.
  • As of late, threatening the lives of his best friends causes Mikado to get pretty damn upset.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The more friendly someone is in this series, the more likely it is that they're a complete and utter freak. Good god, Mikado can switch on the niceness off and on at will intentionally to dominate other people's wills. The truly scary thing, that makes his flashes of coldness all the more scary, is when he's nice... he means it.
• Big Brother Bully: Ran Izumi and Izaya Orihara. Said bullying seems to have had some serious effects on the targets—especially for Ran's little brother, Aoba.
• Bilingual Bonus: At the end of Episode 8, Celty speaks Irish (with a Japanese accent). She says: Tá mé anseo, anseo (I am here, here).
  • Also, Simon delivers a whole "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Izaya in Russian in Episode 24.
  • Simon in general speaks fairly good Russian. So do the two tourists who ask him for direction in episode 3 (although all of them have a very noticeable accent). Weirdly, the two tourists thank him by saying "Toda Raba", which does mean "Thank you very much"... in Hebrew.
    • They're probably meant to be Israeli tourists. Israel has a (proportionally) large Russian-speaking population. More information from the Other Wiki for the curious.
• Bilingual Backfire: In one episode, Simon breaks from cheerfully advertising sushi to warn/threaten Izaya with a Russian proverb. Izaya immediately replies in Russian with another proverb.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Tons in Episode 11. Mikado owns a Mindows 7 desktop computer that runs wbunte and uses it to visit the websites Yohoo! Japan.came, Amezon.shop, Niru Channel, Yo!Tube, Nixi, and NSM, among others.
    • That computer is a stew of Bland Name Products, let's see... It's supposed to be an NEC computer (possibly a Shout-Out to the PC-98), using a Phoenix Award BIOS and the motherboard itself is Energy Star compliant. The hard drives are a Seagate and a Maxtor (to the extent that they never bothered to change how their model numbers work), and to top it off, it has a Sony DVD drive.
  • In a flashback in Episode 18, it's shown that Masaomi first met Saki and Izaya in an "HWV" store.
  • In episode 21, Kadota buys Mikado an energy drink called Red Snake.
  • In the later episodes, an ad can frequently be seen in the background for a KFC-like restaurant, which appears to be a mix between Colonel Sanders and Forever Alone Guy.
  • In Season 2, Akane is shown using a search engine called "Doogle".
  • Averted in one instance; Shizuo and Tom seem to enjoy eating at Lotteria a lot.
  • Several chapters of SH feature Twittia as a way to comment on the events of the novel.
• Blatant Lies: Izaya.
  "No way! I'm not that bad a guy!"
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Aniplex USA's localization team strikes again with the dub for the anime series. Rio Kamichika's online username is "Magenta", but in Japanese the pronunciation sounds somewhat like "Mazenda." Cue the voice actors actually pronouncing exactly the same despite the "Magenta" being shown on-screen several times.
• Blood Is the New Black: Shizuo manages this with a good portion of his fights, though Kida pulled it off when he fought with his old gang.
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Simon is occasionally guilty of this, due to his breathtakingly poor Japanese. At one point when Kadota's gang are eating at Russia Sushi he addresses Kadota as "Kadota-shachō" — and Kadota is rather confused. The intention might have been to call him "boss" in an affectionate sense, but said idiom doesn't really work since shachō (社長) specifically means boss/president/manager of a company.
• Book Ends: The anime begins and ends with the same narrator, Mikado.
  • The second special ends with an insecure and excited teenager arriving in Ikebukuro, just like Mikado in the very first episode.
• Brain Bleach: What Shinra reaches for when he tries to walk in on Celty in the shower and instead gets a good look at his gas mask-wearing father's naked ass.
  Shinra: I have seen the face of hell.
  • Celty says that just thinking about the Izaya/Shizuo pairing makes her want to vomit... which is probably physically impossible for her.
    • At one point in the novels, she runs to Shinra and he realizes that she's crying.
• Brains Versus Brawn: Izaya is an intelligent and well-read information broker who has a mutual hatred with Shizuo, a debt collector with inhuman strength who can shake off being hit by a car. In the final arc, the two have an all-out death battle, pitting Izaya's brain against Shizuo's brawn, as the former uses traps and schemes to kill, and the latter simply comes after Izaya with nothing but his fists. The fight culminates in Izaya attempting and failing a Xanatos/Thanatos gambit and neither die.
• Breaking Speech: Breaking people with words is Izaya's speciality.
  • He delivers one to the two suicidal girls upon his introduction in the novels and manga. He also gave one to Rio, his sisters, and Earthworm.
  • Izaya later gives one to Kida, at which point Namie lampshades it:
    Namie: Geez, he really goes on...
  • Namie delivers one to Mikado. Mikado shuts her up when he reveals that he holds superiority in numbers.
• Breather Episode: Or rather Breather Novels. Volume 4 takes a break from Izaya's machinations for a Hyperlink Story involving motorcycle chases, a supernatural serial killer, a pair of Creepy Twins, and a missing envelope with 1,000,000 yen inside. Volume 7 is more or less a series of vignettes that take place while Izaya's in the hospital for the stab wound he received at the end of the previous book.
• Brick Joke: You know that old dog that Togusa sent out to find Kaztano in the early part of Episode 6? He did manage to track them down, albeit a little too late.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Namie likes Seiji a bit too much. And by a bit too much we mean that she is willing to murder someone and go to jail on his behalf just to make him happy.
• Buffy Speak: Aozaki of Awakusu-kai occasionally slips into this.
  Akabayashi: ..."That computer thingy"...? Aozaki-san, what kind of era do you think you're living in?
• Bust-Contrast Duo: A very weird example. The Orihara twins, Mairu and Kururi, intentionally created contrasting personalities after Izaya told them one should just die if they were going to be exactly alike. Thus, in grade school they decided on their personalities- Mairu would be the outgoing one while Kururi would be the silent one. As they grew up, Mairu ended up flat-chested and Kururi became far more endowed.
• Butt-Monkey: Nasujima-sensei seems to fall into one unfortunate mishap after another, and they only seem to get worse. He kind of had it coming though.
• Call-Back: In the first book, Mikado comments that one of Kida's jokes is so bad he can only award it squareroot 3 points. At the end of the third book, when Bakura first appears in the chatroom, Mikado PMs him to ask if he's Kida. Bakura doesn't respond directly, but instead he awards one of Izaya's jokes squareroot 3 points.
• Calvinball: Izaya apparently plays some bizarre, single-player hybrid of chess, Shogi and Reversi on a Go board in his spare time, possibly symbolizing that he's not playing by anybody's rules.
  • Shogi = Yellow Scarves; Chess = Dollars; Reversi = Saika...
  • And then he sets the whole board on fire.
  • Cards = Those he calls 'main players.' King = Shizuo (he burns that one first), Queen = Celty, and by the time he gets to thinking about who the Joker is, he just goes "Aw, who cares?" and tosses all the cards into the fire.
  • This instance of Calvinball is apparently especially random, since Izaya contradicts all of the above in Episode 21 by having Anri be the black queen and Yellow Scarves be black Reversi pieces.
• Cassandra Truth: The guy who says "Maybe The Black Rider's with the Dollars?" Kida responds, "Yeah, whatever."
• Cast Full of Crazy: Well, not at first, though the farther and farther the anime and light novels get the characters show just how insane they actually are. Except for maybe Celty, everyone in Durarara needs some therapy.
• Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Almost every male character in Durarara is a Bishōnen. Yes, there are exceptions, but there are many pretty guys.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Especially important to keep the many characters as visually distinct as possible. Extras are grayed out with vaguer outlines to prevent distracting focus from the significant characters, and prevent exhausting the distinct features possible.
• Casting Gag: Doug Stone was previously playing another character who has a respirator on.
• Central Theme: Love as something that motivates everyone, even if for some people it becomes rather cracked and twisted. Whether it's good or evil, selfish or selfless, sane or insane, one-sided or mutual, everybody's in love with someone or something, and even if you're a freak or an outcast there's probably someone out there capable of loving you.
  • The intersection between myth and reality. Rumors are a huge driving force behind many of the series' conflicts, and the series draws parallels between normal situations that are blown out of proportion by rumors and legitimate supernatural occurrences to show how human perception of events can be manipulated by the rumor mill. Celty, the main character, embodies this the most, being a literal Dullahan with legitimate magical powers who nonetheless is a relatively normal person. The Dollars are another example of this, with the group being an Urban Legend who eventually become real through enough people believing that they actually exist.
  • On a similar note, the series makes a repeated point about how initial appearances aren't everything. Literally every single member of the main cast and a substantial portion of the supporting cast have hidden elements of their personality that no one would be able to guess upon first seeing them. Examples like Shizuo's incredible Super-Strength despite his lack of a Heroic Build, or Izaya's Handsome Lech appearance hiding his manipulative personality grin particularly come to mind. Then there are the more serious examples, like Mikado's founding of the Dollars and his hidden Lack of Empathy and Yandere tendencies, or Anri's quiet schoolgirl persona hiding her swordfighting abilities and possession of an Evil Weapon.
• Chekhov's Gun: A literal one. Early on in the third arc, Izaya makes a passing reference to some guns that were smuggled into Tokyo and then subsequently stolen. Four were retrieved, but one's still missing. That gun becomes important later when Horada shoots Shizuo with it.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Kinnosuke Kuzuhara the traffic cop who, despite being in the second opening, is only a major character for one episode and makes a minor cameo later on. In the last episode, though, he shows up to catch the villains as they are desperately trying to escape from Celty and Shizuo in their car.
• The Chess Master: Well, more like Chess/Shoji/Reversi/Playing Card Master, but the trope still holds.
• City of Adventure: Ikebukuro is just brimming with possibilities.
  Masaomi: Who knows? Anything and everything can happen in this town.
• Cliffhanger: X2 Ten ends with Kasane Kujiragi being revealed as the true leader of the Yodigiri Shining Corporation (as well as the second wielder of Saika), Mikado and Masaomi preparing for a war between their gangs, and Celty coming home to see Walker, Saburo, Mika, Seiji, Namie, Emilia, and Shingen in her apartment, all invited by Shinra for an unspecified reason.
• Clothing Damage: Shizuo can inflict the whole-body version with one punch.
• Color-Coded Characters: Mikado and the Blue Squares = blue and colorless, Masaomi and the Yellow Scarves = yellow, Anri and Saika's children = red. Also the idea behind the color gangs, gangs that identify themselves by wearing certain colors. The Dollars are an interesting take on this, as their color is colorless or "transparent".
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • Both Shizuo's rampages and Walker/Erika's, ahem, less savory pastimes are mostly played for laughs.
  • Izaya's machinations as well, at least until about Episode 18.
• Comically Missing the Point: Walker, upon discovering that Kaztano did not, in fact, break a plate: "That email wasn't about breaking a plate... It was about breaking a bowl!" This is based around some Japanese wordplay: the character in question, a foreigner whose Japanese is relatively terrible, was abducted, and sent an e-mail off to a friend in desperation: however, he said "sara wareta" ("I broke a plate") instead of "sarawareta" ("I was kidnapped"). Upon discovering his trashed and empty room, everyone realizes the mixup... except Walker, who dramatically holds up a chipped bowl.
• Conspicuous in the Crowd: Invoked by Mikado. He attempts to force Namie into turning herself in for trafficking people to be used as test subjects and her hand in Mika Harima's murder. Unsurprisingly, Namie laughs at him and refuses, only for Mikado to reveal the crowd around them is made up of Dollars members by sending out a mass text which causes everyone's phones to start ringing, making Namie and her henchmen stand out as outsiders amongst them and forcing the woman to flee.
  Orders - Anyone not looking at their cell right now is an an enemy. Don't attack them. Just watch quietly.
• Continuity Cameo: In episode 8, among the requests the blonde tourist has gathered, there's a doodle of two girls searching for Hanejima Yuuhei - the Orihara twins from the novels. They actually show up in the last episode/second OVA and don't have much plot importance.
  • There are occasional mentions of Yagiri Pharmaceuticals being at risk of being bought out by an American company called Nebula — The same Nebula that constructed the Flying Pussyfoot in the 1930s.
  • The Dollars website password? Baccano!.
  • "Hey, Isaac..." "What is it, Miria?"
  • There are also an instance of a clip from Baccano (specifically the fight between Ladd and the Rail Tracer atop a train) playing on a big-screen TV on the side of a building, and again, in the background of one shot was a poster of the Rail Tracer. Both of these instances cause a slight contradiction to the theory that both series are in the same continuity, since Baccano appears to be a TV show or movie in the Durarara era. However, given the existence of Isaac and Miria and Nebula, it could just be a non-fictional movie. But who really knows?
  • Ennis from Baccano! again shows up on a big screen in the background during the second OVA/episode 25.
  • In volume 5, Shizuo briefly mentions that he once got into a fight with a very-difficult-to-injure foreigner. Bonus Material suggests that the man in question is Nile
  • In volume 8, Saki mentions meeting an American kid that has suspicious resemblance to Kasuka Heiwajima/Yuuhei Hanejima. The kid in question is Charon Walken, Chane Laforet and Claire Stanfield's great-grandson.
• Conveniently Seated: Mikado gets the standard "second seat from the back along the windows", which allows him to stare outside (also at Anri) when necessary. He is also seated in front of Mika's empty desk, which allows Anri to stare past him whenever it's convenient. Once Mika and Seiji return to class, the former sits in the front row to be next to Seiji; this puts her in the same row as Anri, allowing them to exchange meaningful looks on occasion. Incidentally, Kamichika Rio is also seated alongside the windows, allowing her to give listless gazes outside during her focus episode.
• Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: When Kaztano is kidnapped, he claims he is a Japanese citizen (and thus his disappearance will be noticed by the authorities), but his birth certificate was destroyed in a bombing raid in World War II. His kidnappers scoff at this, pointing out he was too young.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: In one episode, Celty worries that the meal she cooked was bad, so she throws it out and later goes with Shinra to the Russian sushi place. They are served various dishes (like hamburgers) "sushi style", which considerably bothers Shinra. The restaurant itself still seems to be rather popular (and opulent), so Simon's Running Gag of a failure as a hawker apparently doesn't bother them much.
• Corner of Woe: Celty goes into one at the beginning of Volume 4 after a particularly bad run-in with Kuzuhara. Because of her powers, she literally dims the room.
• Covers Always Lie: The second OP hinted with the inclusion of Tom, Kasuka, Kinnosuke, Mika (her name at least), and Shingen that they would play a rather large role in the second arc of the anime. Sadly, it was not to be.
• Cranium Chase: Celty the Dullahan traveled all the way from Ireland to Japan in search of her head. It's her body that is fully sentient, while her head is in a deep sleep.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Many characters have this as a running theme.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: So far, at least one of Erika and Yumasaki's elaborate wild-guessing theories has been right. Word of God says that doesn't apply to Erika's BL fantasies, since they both have to think it for it to be true. Walker... isn't really fond of Shizaya.

D-L

• Darker and Edgier: As the novel goes on, the plot gets darker and more serious. The injuries some characters sustain is just jarring in comparison to the anime.
  • The second season of the anime decides not to slouch on this as blood, broken bones, scars from fire, and smashed faces frequently show up.
  • Durarara!! x2 continues this with new characters' and their backstories being increasingly darker and fights are much more violent as it goes on with several characters retaining heavy wounds after brutal conflict.
  • Just compare how eclectic and sometimes upbeat the two first volumes of the soundtrack "Psychedelic Dreams" and the Shou OST are and then take a look on how tense and angsty became the music in the Ten soundtrack.
  • "Ketsu" starts with a very comedic lighthearted episode and as the season progresses, it gets more and more chaotic and infuriating.
• Day in the Limelight: Episode 6 for Kadota and his gang.
• D-Cup Distress: Not played for laughs. Anri's big breasts, combined with her borderline depersonalization disorder and general meekness have made her a frequent target of sexual harassment which she is too ashamed (and socially awkward) to talk about to anyone. She also has a hard time buttoning her pajamas.
• Deadly Closing Credits: Volume six ends with Izaya being stabbed by a rival and passing out before he can contact anyone for help. He lives, thanks to someone noticing the bleeding man on the street and calling the paramedics, but relying on formal medical care comes at a cost—his stabbing was reported on the news, which gave out both his name and the hospital he was recuperating at. Now any of his many, many enemies could watch that broadcast and head over to finish him off. He starts going a little stir crazy when this realization dawns on him. It happens to him again in Volume ten. At this point, we have no idea if he is dead, alive, or possessed by Saika. Also, Kadota was rendered unconscious, and the other members are noticeably (and perhaps murderously) upset...
• Defeat Means Friendship: Kadota and Chikage; though they were already sort of friendly before and while beating each other up, everyone mentions this trope when talking about their face-off. Here is how random Blue Squares member Gin summarizes it:
  "Let me see—after an awesome fight, they realized The Power of Friendship..."
• Deliberately Non-Lethal Attack:
  • While it is perfectly capable of killing and has done so before, Saika tends to non-fatally slash people to make more of its Children, though its victims usually require a trip to the hospital as a knife wound is still very serious.
  • Near the end, Mikado shows Masaomi his gun, causing his friend to panic at the thought that Mikado has actually used the weapon and has gone completely insane. Masaomi attacks him to knock away the gun, only for Mikado to fire a second weapon into Masaomi's leg to disable him. However, horrified that he could willingly shoot his friend, Mikado prepares to take his own life.
  • Kujiragi has a special electrified glove she utilizes to knock people out without killing them. To deal with Haruna, she morphs Saika into wires and uses it as a conductor to immobilize the girl and prevent her from attacking.
  • Shizuo really does try to limit the extent of the damage his rampages cause, but his super strength and massive temper don't help much. Thus, on the occasions he has the presence of mind to control himself, he usually makes an active attempt to not do anything too nasty.
  • While saving Mikado from a thug, Izaya takes out his switchblade and uses it to shave the guy's head, humiliating the thug and forcing him to run off.
  • Anri takes Haruna's blows as a way of apologizing in advance before she uses the original Saika to make a small cut on her neck, which doesn't kill her, but allows Anri to control her and the Saika zombies. She also attempts the same on Izaya, but fails.
  • Kururi and Mairu typically resort to attacks that won't kill, but will hurt like all hell, with Mairu using incredibly questionable techniques that include thumbtacks and Kururi using pepper spray. Mairu also offers to teach it to Akane.
• Dhampyr: Ruri Hijiribe has been confirmed as one as of the fifth volume of Vamp!.
• Diagonal Cut: Performed by Anri on a pair of gigantic warehouse doors.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: As one poor bastard learned, flattery will only get you thrown across the skyline if used on Shizuo.
  Gin: Give me more time, I'll pay it back!... Say, you're pretty handsome. You look just like that actor...Um, Yuuhei Hanejima! That's it!
  Shizuo: ...(Growls)
  Gin: Er, my mistake. You don't look like that asshole at all.
  Shizuo: (Uproots and throws tree)
• Distracted by the Sexy: Anri is STACKED UP. It becomes something of a plot point as when several people are looking for her, they're only able to identify that she's a student wearing glasses that has big breasts.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Mikado's voice actor sings the opening song for Durarara!!x2 Ten.
• Don't Explain the Joke
  Kida: Get it? CLImatic and CLIche?
  Mikado: The fact that you had to explain the joke just shows how lame it was.
  • Whenever Walker and Erika are making references to other anime and manga, the other will shout out loud what the reference is even if it is dead obvious. Justified since DRRR!! has popularity with the non-otaku crowd as well.
• Drama Panes: Namie flees to Izaya for protection after Mikado sicks the Dollars on her. While mocking her for her arrogance, Izaya takes out the object he made her hand over- Celty's head. He monologues about how he theorizes Celty is really a Valkyrie that could save him from the Cessation of Existence, and holds the head against him while he stares out the window, plotting the events to set up the Yellow Scarves arc.
• Dramatic Chase Opening: The anime episode "Anarchy" starts with Anri desperately running away from members of the Yellow Scarves gang and trying to hide in an alley.
• The Dreaded: Shizuo Heiwajima. Deliberately pissing him off is enough to get you labeled "Too Dumb to Live" unless your name is Izaya Orihara.
  • Izaya is this to a lesser extent, since you're only at risk with him if you're somehow connected to the weird goings of Ikebukuro.
• Dynamic Entry: Flying vending machines are Shizuo's special way of saying hello.
• Dysfunction Junction: Hoo boy. Namie, Seiji, Mika, Celty's friggin' head, and the weird-ass Yandere love square they've got going on, just for starters.
  • It's telling that the only characters with anything resembling a healthy relationship are the mad scientist and the decapitated fairy.
    • And the two Ax-Crazy otakus. Can't forget that.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Many of the characters from later arcs of the novels (such as Kasuka or Saika) are introduced in the first arc of the anime.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Big time for everyone in the finale:
  • First of all, resident Karma Houdini Troll Izaya is finally out of Ikebukuro. He attempts to end his rivalry with Shizuo by killing him but when it fails and receives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown for his troubles, he goads Shizuo into killing him to finally prove that he is a monster. Luckily, Vorona prevents this, and a wounded Izaya leaves the city, preferring that he die without giving his enemy the satisfaction of seeing him pass on.
  • Celty has regained her head, but decides to leave because of the chaos that came to be because of her presence in the city. Shinra manages to get her to stay and give her head up with his newfound possession of Saika. Celty agrees to let her head get sent to Chicago and live the rest of her days with Shinra.
  • Seiji and Mika decide to follow Celty's head to Chicago. Seiji admits that he still does not love Mika romantically, but has come to love her like family. Mika is aware of how Seiji's presence will hinder her own plans of destroying the head, but accepts it if it means being with him.
  • Vorona returns to Russia, but promises Shizuo that she will come back to Ikebukuro one day.
  • Kodota identifies Nasujima as the person responsible for his hit-and-run-induced coma, and runs him over in a bit of Laser-Guided Karma. He wakes up to find himself the captive of Haruna.
  • Aoba is threatened by Akabayashi to stay away from plotting anything related with the Dollars and the Blue Squares, lest he deal with the Yakuza.
  • Lastly, Mikado recovers from the traumatic events of the previous night, and reunites with Masaomi and Anri. With their secrets shared with each other and the business with the Dollars done with, they can finally live a normal life together, something which Mikado has come to accept.
• Easy Amnesia: Celty, due to losing her head.
• Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo: Deliberately invoked by Mairu and Kururi Orihara. They literally flipped a coin to decide which one would be which. In this case, Mairu the Genki Girl and an absolute chatterbox, while Kururi is laconic and typically inexpressive. They behave the opposite on the chatroom, though.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Chikage might be a ruthless gangster, but he Wouldn't Hit a Girl, and respects Masomi and Kadota despite being a nominal enemy to both of them.
  • The Yakuza gangsters are almost all shown to be polite, Affably Evil, professionals.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Shizuo and Shinra went to elementary and high school together, and Izaya was in the same class as Shinra in junior high. All three of them went to high school together, along with Kadota.
• Evil Weapon/Empathic Weapon: Saika.
  • With regards to Anri, it's an odd case; most Evil Empathic Weapons feed off of their host's emotions, but this particular host claims that she feeds off of the emotions of the blade, unable to experience love otherwise. They have a weird kind of codependent relationship.
• Eyes Always Shut: Walker, and you can only hope that he'll never open them because of you.
• Eye Scream: This almost happens to a thug when Togusa hands him over to Walker and Erika for interrogation. They planned to solder a "contract mark" into his eye a la Ciel of Black Butler.
  • Ayakabashi's backstory involves this: When Anri's mother was posessed by Saika, she stabbed him in the eye. To resist infection from The Virus, he immediately ripped it out of its socket.
• Faceless Masses: Grey and unmoving. Their gang colors might show up but that's it. This is an important plot point in Episode 11. All those grey people? They were Dollars all along! ...which gives new meaning to the Dollars being "colorless".
• The Fair Folk: Well, we've got a Dullahan, but she's much nicer than the Fae are supposed to be. Some characters speculate that this is due to her missing head. Shinra expresses fear that if Celty ever found it, she could become an entirely different person, and leave him.
• Fakeout Escape: Shingen fakes Celty out by sending the elevator to the bottom floor while he hides. He then tries to make a dramatic exit using the same elevator, and the scene cuts while he's still waiting for it to come back up.
• Fake–Real Turn: The Dollars.
• False Camera Effects: Shinra's video footage in Episode 4.
• Fanservice:
  • Celty showering in Episode 4.
    • And some equal opportunity fanservice; Shinra and Celty in swimsuits in Episode 24.
  • Mairu and Kururi kissing in the second OVA.
  • Not from the show, but this official bonus poster. Anri in a tiny swimsuit? Check. Shizuo, Masaomi and Mikado shirtless? Check. Izaya shirtless and possibly pantsless? Check check check.
  • This concept art of Masaomi Kida features a picture of him lifting up his shirt slightly for no apparent reason besides the obvious...
  • Erika groping Anri, which makes Anri laugh as she's ticklish.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Naked woman? Okay. Headless naked woman? Er... Yeah, I can deal with that (and more). Headless naked woman being vivisected by a four year old when the anesthesia doesn't work? Do not want!!!
  • Naked Shingen might also count. Shinra certainly thinks so, at least. He really hoped to peep on Celty then. His father's ass at such time is indeed a major disappointment.
    • The disservice is taken up to eleven when you consider the fact that he's still wearing that freaking gas mask!
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Things confirmed to exist in the Naritaverse include The Fair Folk, the Grand Panacea, homunculi, Eldritch Abominations^note both of the humanoid (Baccano) and the sentient black hole (Vamp) variety, succubi, Empathic Weapons, vampires, and werewolves^note Celty confirms the latter two's existence in Volume 5
• Faux Affably Evil: Izaya is a fairly friendly-seeming guy, but one of the first things we see him do in the anime is construct an elaborate kidnapping and rescue scenario to mess with a suicidal teenage girl, apparently just For the Lulz. He's kind of a massive douchebag.
  • To end the series in A Sunset for Izaya Orihara, he manipulates a man to murder his coworker just to hear him collapse in rage and confusion.
• Faux Fluency: If the English accent instead of the Russian one didn't tip you off, when you hear Simon trying to talk to some Russian tourists in Russian it becomes very clear that his voice actor has no experience with Russian at all. Neither do those of the tourists in question, and Simon's later conversation with Izaya is no less painful on either end.
• Film Noir: Almost constant taciturn atmosphere, private-eye monologues, tons of mysteries and intricated plots, darkly atmospheric music with elements of jazz, dark commentary on social modern issues, moral ambiguity, gangsters, street gangs, city lights, black comedy, lots of smoking (well, mainly Shizuo and others characters)… “Durarara!!” may not be a noir at its whole, but it has a lots of elements of the genre, and many people considers it as a one of the very few examples of anime with noir elements.
• Firearms Are Cowardly: Guns are not viewed highly in this series and often used and associated with the most dishonorable, cowardly, and downright rotten of characters. Examples include the following:
  • Horada getting ahold of the Awakusu's missing gun and shoots Shizuo with it while obviously scared shitless. He then falsely claims Masaomi ordered the hit and flees, hoping Shizuo will come after the boy for him.
  • Downplayed. Izaya using the Awakusu's gun to taunt Anri over her belief that she is a parasite incapable of love, threatening to shoot random people just to upset her. He also makes several underhanded jabs at her relationships before running off without ever actually attacking.
  • Mikado getting a gun and shoots up a police station and a yakuza boss' home as part of his plot to dissolve the Dollars. Despite being heavily injured with a broken leg, Masaomi easily beats the crap out of his friend to get the gun away, only for Mikado to pull out a second gun.
• First-Name Ultimatum: "IIIIIIZAAAAAAYAAAAAA!"
• Flanderization: The anime plays up Mikado being a nice normal kid more than the original novel. It also plays up Kida's guilt concerning Saki's injury, as while he did feel guilty, it wasn't to the extent the anime made it out to be. And to a lesser extent, Izaya's asshattery was toned down and his trolling was amped up. He was also a little more feminine.
• Flat "What": Vorona, when she realizes that Shizuo just kicked a car at her (she's new - she's allowed to be surprised). For bonus points, she lapses into Russian.
• Fluffy the Terrible: The headless, undead horse/motorcycle that Celty has? His name is Shooter.
• Food Porn: Whenever a scene takes place inside Russia Sushi, expect a few closeup shots of the entrees◊.
• Foreshadowing: Celty's narration in Episode 2 on Mikado and Masaomi.
  Celty: Even those two, who look like people you'd see anywhere on an ordinary day, have secrets.
  • Pay close attention to the Slasher attack against Celty and the Yellow Scarves in episode 5. On first viewing, it's made out as if both incidents were done by the same person, but once you've seen further into the Saika arc, a keen viewer will note that the Slasher that attacked Celty is clearly Anri, but the one that attacks the Yellow Scarves thugs is Haruna.
• Four-Star Badass: They aren't military officers, but Masaomi is the metaphorical equivalent of this for the Yellow Scarves and Mikado is this for the Dollars, though only a few know about the latter.
• Freaky Is Cool: Shinra and Mikado.
  • And Seiji for his true love for Celty's head... between him and Shinra we have one body.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In Episode 6, in the beginning when the Otaku gang are chasing after the kidnappers, you can see Kaztano cowering in the van for a brief moment.
  • In episode 23, Kyohei can briefly be seen amongst the Yellow Scarves.
• Friendship Moment: Turns out that Izaya of all people really cares for Shinra especially during flashbacks of what happened in middle school.
• From Roommates to Romance: Celty and Shinra have been roommates since Shinra was four years old. Celty eventually reciprocates Shinra's long-held romantic attraction.
• Funny Background Event: Simon's increasingly ridiculous attempts to advertise Russian Sushi during a news broadcast in the second OVA. Culminating in him kidnapping the film crew, since they were trying to film Celty. Kasuka being Kasuka, he just went with it.
  Kadota: I can't believe they're still filming this.
• Funny Foreigner:
  • Simon, through no fault of his own, as well as most of the other immigrants who appear in the series
  • The Russian tourists were fine, even spoke heavily accented though otherwise almost-perfect Russian.
  • Emilia Kishitani thanks to her lethal cooking and terrible Japanese.
• Fun with Acronyms: SH officially stands for Snake Hands, but in the afterword of volume 1, Narita mentions that it could be anything under the reader's interpretation like Sonohara's Hall or Super Hard.
• Fur and Loathing: Izaya and his fur-frilled coat.
• Gambit Pileup: By Volume 6, Izaya's Mob War has managed to drag in, at some point or another, the Dollars, Blue Squares, the Yellow Scarves, Saika's knife-zombie army, a biker gang by the name of Toramaru, two separate Yakuza groups, and at least four former members of The Mafiya.
• Gangbangers: Parodied in Episode 3, with a gangster who hams up all of the popular gang banger stereotypes and cliches. "Yo! Yo! [crotch grab] Yooooooooo! Hey man!!" Mikado and Kida comment on how strangely refreshing it is to see someone act in such a cliche stereotyped fashion.
• Gang of Hats: We've got the Yellow Scarves and the Blue Squares, who are traditional gang members who simply (wait for it) identify by what they're wearing. Then we've got Dollars, the newest and biggest kids on the block—a gang formed over the Internet. Some members know each other in real life, but mostly only know each other by their online selves, and are summoned by PDA; many are extremely hardcore Otaku (but not all). To everyone else; they're an Anonymous group that uses no visible colors to identify themselves, congregate out of nowhere, and scatter into nowhere. Their "Hat" is that they have no Hat. Yes, they're a Weaponized 4chan. Be very afraid.
• Gas Mask, Longcoat: Shingen wears a doctor's smock and a gas mask at all times whenever he visits Tokyo, due to his fears of Tokyo's air quality. He even wears his gas mask while showering, as Shinra discovers to his horror (he was trying to peep on Celty). His second wife and Shinra's step-mother, also a doctor, wears a smock and a gas mask as well when she visits, though in a form of Goggles Do Nothing she wears it as more of a hat than for its intended purpose.
• Genre-Busting: Officially, Durarara!! and ''Durarara!!x2" are considered to be Slice of Life Kishōtenketsu, but it plays with everything from mystery to urban fantasy to action shonen tropes, and pulls them off seamlessly.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Anri delivers one to a rather paranoid Masaomi after he interrogates her from her reason for spying on the Yellow Scarves to how she's been "tricking" him and "sucking up to Mikado."
• G.I.R.L.: Further muddling the issue is the fact that the anime randomly shuffles voice actors for the chatroom segments until who is who is revealed in the plot. To make matters simpler, here's everyone's screen names: "Setton" is Celty, "Taro Tanaka" is Mikado, "Bakyura" is Masaomi, "Saika" is at first Saika-infected individuals then changes to Anri, and the main perpetrator of being a G.I.R.L., "Kanra," is Izaya.
  • Discussed in Volume 9 of the novels: Bakyura and a new member of the chat-room theorize that some of their companions might be this. And that new member passes for a girl, but seems to be Aoba.
• Glamour/Charm Person: Not much attention is called to it, but Celty's head seems to have some kind of similar power; note that three of the known people who've seen the head (the unnamed portrait painter of Episode 4, Namie and Seiji's uncle, and Seiji himself) became obsessed with the head the moment they first saw it. The portrait painter even saw Celty's whole body and her head, but still became obsessed with just the head; so much so that he says seeing it was the most important event of his life. He is also incapable of drawing the head or even describing its most basic details, feeling that each time he tries he fails to capture it properly. ...He has spent years trying to successfully draw the head, and never once has.
• A Glass in the Hand: In Volume 5, Shinra serves Shizuo his tea in a steel cup in hopes to make this not happen. One bad joke later, and said steel cup instantly becomes a tiny, crumpled ball of foil.
• The Glomp: Kida sure likes getting physical with Mikado.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom/Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • The Slashers/Saika's children. And it's not just some thing for the viewer's convenience; Kadota actually points out the red eyes.
  • An odd case occurs with Anri, in which her eyes turn red after she reveals she is Saika. However, she isn't physically violent at all, and while she talks very threateningly, she seems very calm, composed, and in control. In fact, she's not even quite evil...
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: When interrogating thugs, Kadota is the good cop and Walker and Erika are the bad cops (although given methods, it's more like Bad Cop, Worse Cops).
• Gratuitous English: ROAR OUT LOUDER!/BLOW UP LOUDER! depending on which you prefer (the latter is correct, but most fans use the former due to misheard lyrics. It's also hilarious).
  • Kida's dialogue is full of Gratuitous English, to the point that Mikado mutters, "I wish you'd just speak Japanese..."
  • Episode 12.5 of the anime is chock full of these.
  • Max Sandshelt's dialogue, despite him supposedly being American, is full of broken English. Lampshaded in Shou episode 1, in his first scene of the series (ignoring a cameo in the OVA episode 25).
• Gratuitous Russian: Courtesy of Izaya, Simon, and the tourists in Episode 3.
• The Greys: Don't actually exist in the Naritaverse (...probably), but that doesn't stop Celty from being terrified of them.
• Guile Hero: The members of the Dollars who aren't fighters fall into this category, though even some of them fall into this.
• HA HA HA—No: Shinra, after Izaya trolls him by handing his cellphone number to the police.
  Izaya: How was it? Gave you quite the adrenaline shot, didn't it? Did you and Celty just grow to love each other even more due to the misattribution of arousal?
  Shinra: Ah hah hah. Go dive chest-first in a clay ice shaver, Izaya.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Pretty much anything can set Shizuo off.
• Hammerspace: One of Celty's abilities with the black matter that forms her suit and the smoke from her neck, and scythe.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: It doesn't matter if you praise or insult Kasuka, Shizuo will beat you up either way.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Mikado and Kida.
• "Hey, You!" Haymaker: Mairu does this to a thug after he knocks her sister down in the second OVA. Only instead of punching him, she flip-kicks him in the face.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: Shinra and Celty finish their argument in the twelfth episode with a mutual example. Shinra's punch is just hard enough to knock off Celty's helmet. Celty's sends Shinra into the wall.
• Hive Queen: Haruna thinks she's this for the Saika zombies, but it's actually Anri, who has been suppressing Saika for five years. Crossed with The Man Behind the Man.
• Hot Springs Episode: Lampshaded along with the Beach Party Episode, then handily averted by Celty.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Pointed out by Walker and Erika.
  • This is mainly between Mikado and Masaomi. There's some between Mikado and Aoba as well.
  • In the anime only, Izaya has a Shizuo-complex, according to Simon. Although there's enough subtext in itself with Izaya and Shizuo's quite literal obsession with each other, in both anime and book (Izaya is constantly provoking, teasing, and manipulating Shizuo, and Shizuo constantly trying to kill Izaya (he's his No. 1 temper trigger)). It's even flat out stated by Izaya that he hates Shizuo, and his motivation for doing so means he'd never actually consider his relationship with Shizuo to be anything resembling fondness. Despite this, Izaya and Shizuo are the two most commonly shipped among fans.
  • Erika sees some between Chikage and Kadota, and Shizuo and Izaya.
  • Izaya is shown to actually care for none other than Shinra to the point that he's willing to go yandere on anyone who hurts him.
• Hot for Student: One of the teachers at Mikado's school clearly has a thing for Anri, which naturally Squicks the hell out of her. The same guy is also dating one of his former students...Or was. She doesn't like that he's changed his preferences, so she gave Anri a visit and tried to kill her.
• Hot Teacher: Takashi Nasujima. Despite the fact that he is lust driven to schoolgirls; he's older than most examples, but still counts.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Shizuo eventually develops an Intergenerational Friendship with a young Yakuza Princess named Akane. The girl just barely reaches to his waist◊
• Humanity Is Infectious: Celty wonders if living among humans might have caused her to adopt some of their values, but it doesn't bother her.
• Humiliation Conga: Horada gets an eminently satisfying one in Episode 24.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: "Leave this to me! You go on ahead!"
• I Am a Monster: Shizuo, Celty, Anri, and Ruri.
• Iconic Outfit:
  • Besides Shizuo's endless supply of bartender suits, a number of the characters' alternate outfits worn on the CD covers (particularly Kida's◊, Izaya's◊ and both of◊ Shizuo's) gained quite a bit of popularity from fans — they even get their own tags for fanart and fanfic.
  • Izaya's coat has more or less reached this status now as well.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: In the anime, they're four kanji long Chinese proverbs that have been adapted into Japanese. The second novel uses this as well; the third novel uses quotes from the dialogue.
• Idol Singer: Ruri Hijiribe, who Togusa is obsessed with, and it's because of this that he is so upset when Kaztano is kidnapped; Kaztano regularly supplied him with front-row tickets to her concerts.
  • Ruri is also none other than the serial killer 'Hollywood', not to mention 1/4 vampire.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Shizuo and Anri. Celty's had her moments, too. As well as Masaomi, who wanted to live a "normal life" without gangs, like his bro Mikado.
• I Just Want to Be Special: The Dollars' founder, Mikado. His desire to live an extraordinary life is made stronger during his move to Ikebukuro, and this kickstarts his Protagonist Journey to Villain over the course of the series. By the end, he renounces this to live a peaceful life with his friends.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Simon Brezhnev wants to assure you that his sushi has absolutely no human meat in it, only 100% fish non-human ingredients. This is probably true, as Simon is a really nice guy, but that doesn't stop people from speculating; the fact that he has on two occasions threatened several Yellow Scarves who were mugging people that he'd turn them into sushi does not help. People behave when he's around, though, so that's something.
• Improvised Weapon: Street signs, chairs, guardrails, mailboxes, trash cans, vending machines, playground slides...
  • Seiji's weapon of choice appears to be pens. Would've been absolutely awesome except he was up against Shizuo.
  • Mikado makes better use of said pen trick when he forces Aoba into signing a contract in blood—quite literally. (It's not really improvised though—he clearly had brought it there for this very purpose.)
  • The ballpoint pens in the series are made by Nebula. It's advertised as follows: "Doesn't break even when run over by a tank! The most durable ballpoint pen in world!"
• I'm Standing Right Here: Walker and Erika have their "Is Celty a Tsundere?" argument in her own apartment. When Celty learns Shinra gave them the idea (and...embellished certain aspects of their relationship), she decides she might as well live up the the archetype—with extra tsuntsun. Strangling is involved.
  Erika: See? I told you she's a tsundere!
  • Erika once goes on about an elaborate Kadota and Walker butler fantasy in front of the two guys in question. The result is special.
    Erika: Before their eyes stood, in her black dress and surrounded by black roses, the Queen—Erika Beatrice Karisawa, heiress of the Karisawa Corporation! Kadota fell in love with her at first sight... that's right, he had became the butler of love who was dying to be a slave of love even before he even earned the right to serve her...
    Kadota: Hang on...
    Erika: But one day, Kadota realized that he was not his real self, and his feelings for the heiress was unadulterated respect rather than love! And then Dotachin came to his senses. He realized that the only source of comfort for him was his one and true rival, Walker!
    Kadota: Hang on...
    Walker: Wait, Karisawa-san, please stop! Why are you fantasizing about Kadota-san and me in a Boys Love relationship!?...I say Kadota-san and I should become heroes in Galgames who win over the hearts of loads and loads of heroines! Actually, we can even do without Kadota-san! I'll be happy as long as I have this bondaged right hand blessed with the power of ancient moe-moe peoples so that every girl who sees my right hand would go "Woo ~"...
    Kadota: Guys, hang on...
    Erika: Ehhh? But wasn't Yumacchi talking about writing me and Dotachin in a master-slave relationship? How about this—Dotachin somehow becomes a girl when he gets up one morning, and finds himself in a boarding school for females...
    Kadota: SHUT. UP. YOU. TWO. AHHHHHHH!
• Incoming Ham: IIIIIII-ZAAAAAA-YAAAAA-KUUUUUUUN
• Inconsistent Dub: With Baccano!, strangely enough, as they take place in the same universe. The mega-corporation that appears in both series is called "Nebula" in the Baccano! dub, but Izaya calls it "Nebra" in the Durarara!! dub.
  • Fridge Brilliance calls for that since Nebula has been around since the thirties, and considering it has ties with people such as Huey Laforet, they may have changed their name.
  • "Nebra" could also be a Japanese mispronunciation of the English "Nebula"
• Indirect Kiss:
  • Namie will take her indirect kisses with Seiji wherever she can get them, even if she has to steal them off of his girlfriend.
  • After hearing Aoba say she's cuter than the bullies, Kururi thanks him with a kiss and immediately after, Mairu does the same, exclaiming that she finally got an indirect kiss.
• In Love with Your Carnage:
  • Saika towards Shizuo.
  • Vorona has a similar reaction when she first encounters Shizuo.
• Instant Convertible: Shizuo does this to a car in the finale with a HIGHWAY SIGN, then when the car keeps driving, throws it like a javelin.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Shizuo and Akane, as well as Shizuo and the Orihara twins
• Interrupted Suicide: Rio's suicide was abruptly stopped by Celty. So is Mikado's, in the finale
• In-Universe Camera: The fourth episode is partly "shot" through Shinra's video camera.
• Invisible Parents: For the vast majority of the characters, except Shinra, Haruna, and Anri.
  • Though partially justified in Masaomi's case, as his parents didn't really seem to care what he did, or whenever he did it.
• Ironic Echo Cut: Kaztano's kidnapping.
  Erika: Ya think maybe that he mistyped "kidnapped"?
  Saburo: Nah!
• Irony:
  • A major aspect of Celty's character is that she's often presented as the most normal and human character out of everyone in the main cast, despite being a completely inhuman supernatural creature.
  • Izaya is on the cover of the "Trust Me" single◊.
• It's Raining Men: Simon leaps down from the seventh floor of an apartment building and, of course, lands safely.
• I Was Just Passing Through: Played with in Episode 22 when all of the Dollars are doing this to help Anri escape from the Yellow Scarves. It's then subverted when Shizuo really was passing through and stops to rant about how there were too many messages on his phone going off, just in time to catch a glimpse of Horada leering at Anri. You get no points for guessing what happens next.
• Jerkass: Izaya, and Horada. Both for very, very obvious reasons.
  • To a lesser extent, Namie is a female version. Her treatment of everyone who isn't her brother is... disturbing, to say the least. She's not quite as psychotic as her brother, though.
  • Seiji is more a psychotic contender for this trope, although he got a bit better after finally getting together with Mika. To recount: He tried to murder Mika in cold blood, showed no guilt or remorse when he thought he had killed her, was willing to use the body of the girl he murdered to mount Celty's head on so he could have a physical relationship with her (which has terribly squicky implications), and used his twisted infatuation as an excuse to treat everyone who isn't "Celty" dismissively or outright attempt to kill them (failing only because everyone else is a badass while he... isn't). In other words, his personality, idea of love, and treatment of other people is very similar to his sister's. Apparently jerkassery runs in the family.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Naturally, considering it's by the same author behind Baccano!.
• Kamaitachi: Izaya jokes that he's a kamaitachi after shaving a thug's head with his knife in a split second.
• Karma Houdini:
  • If one only watches the first season of the anime, it could be forgiven to wonder if Izaya's coat is made of Uchiha-grade Reinforced Comeuppance-proof Plotanium; his character in its entirety is basically screwing with anyone and everyone For the Evulz from start to finish, and his total karmic backlash in the entire series is a black eye and stern talking-to from Simon at the end—nothing to indicate he won't continue ruining the main characters' and everyone else's lives for his own amusement. However, the novels and Durarara x2 show that things have been catching up to him lately. He has been stabbed (Volume 6 or episode 12 of Ketsu), put in a public hospital where any of his many, MANY enemies could easily find him (Volume 7 or episode 1 of Ten), kidnapped by a psychopathic Torture Technician (Volume 9 or episode 8 of Ten), and attacked by a possessed Sloan and Saika (Volume 10 or episode 12 of Ten). Although Volume 11 confirms he's still alive, his plans are starting to unravel thanks to his hospital stay. The Anime ends with him leaving town and pledging never to come back.
  • Haruna and Izumi also qualify.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Izaya becomes this in the final season and deserves every bit of punishment he gets, given he is a Manipulative Bastard internet troll responsible for causing massive strife amongst numerous characters. Within the span of only a few hours, his plans fall completely apart, his minions abandon and betray him, his scheme to kill Shizuo fails miserably and Izaya is beaten within an inch of his life before he's forced to flee Ikebukuro permanently, with not a single character giving a damn about his predicament.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": When Shinra is brought in to treat Ruri, he spends as much time begging for an autograph as he does actually treating her wounds.
• Large Ham: Shizuo, he's either shouting or breaking something. Kida, to a lesser extent, is also this.
• Laughing Mad:
  • The other users in the chatroom take user "Saika" to be this when he/she posts "mothermothermothermother" over and over again (i.e. "hahahahahahahaha" converted to kanji). No, she's actually calling for mother...
  • Izaya has a few of these.
• Leg Focus:
  • The Linda Linda pictures show off Masaomi's very nice legs.
  • Shizuo's 6'1" and all legs.
• Legion of Doom: Izaya forms one in the second half of season two.
• Leitmotif: Celty's got a subtle one in the anime, which seems to be built around the tune of "Danny Boy".
• Le Parkour: Izaya teaches it to himself to outrun Shizuo. Naturally, Shizuo teaches it to himself to chase Izaya.
  • Shizuo Also uses it to escape from the Awakusu-kai in vol 5.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Aoba frames the Dollars for attacks against the Toramaru biker gang, thus provoking their leader Chikage into hunting down some of the more prominent Dollars members and having it out with Kadota. They eventually team up to take down about twenty Izaya-controlled Dollars members together and rescue a couple of Chikage's girlfriends.
• Lightning Bruiser: In addition to being hands-down the strongest and most durable character in Durarara!!, Shizuo can apparently travel in short bursts of speed and jump further than Carl Lewis. (as evident in this incredibly character-establishing fight scene.) The only character shown to outrun him is Izaya Orihara.
• Limited Wardrobe:
  • Justified in Shizuo's case—he literally does have a closet full of bartender suits. They were a gift from his brother.
  • Celty too, to a degree—her bodysuit is really just shadow formed in a certain way, so never really needs to change clothes; in flashbacks, she's also made it into armor and a lovely black dress.
  • Shinra might be a walking Lampshade for this, as his white labcoat sticks out a lot and is occasionally mocked accordingly.
    • But that is justified in Shinra's mind. Shinra wears his lab coat, even while not working and has multiple white lab including a spare in a corner for after he rolls around on the floor . When Shizuo asked him about this, Shinra explained he dresses this way by choice because he likes the color contrast between him and Celty as it is very lovey-dovey in his mind.
      Shinra: "Ah, that's because Celty always wears her black rider suit. If I'm dressed in the contrasting color, we'll be like light and shadow, won't we? On the surface, light and shadow are polar opposites, yet, like a pair of love birds they never appear without each other! In manga and movies, they always go the Dark Side this and the Dark Side that, but that's just the Dark Side being royally tsundere. You can say that being tsundere is another form of being possessive but I won't mind at all if Celty wants to possess me, haha!"
• Lodged Blade Removal: Discussed. In the finale, Izaya is stabbed with a ballistic knife by Vorona, which stays lodged in his abdomen. He later wakes up on the way to a doctor outside Ikebukuro and notices the knife still in him with Celty's shadows around it, stopping the bleeding. Kine advises Izaya not to remove it as if he did, he would bleed out in the car and die.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Pretty much every character and the reason most of the things happen. This is like "Love Makes You Crazy: The Animation".
  • The most sane and healthy love in the entire series is between the genius borderline-Mad Scientist and the headless amnesiac Faerie, if only by the virtue that it seems like genuine love and affection rather than twisted narcissistic obsession. That said, sanest does not equal sane (especially in this series!).
• A Love to Dismember: Seiji is quite a bit obsessed with Celty's head.
• Love Triangle: Masaomi claims that there is a "love triangle" between Mikado, Anri, and himself, although he realises that Mikado is genuinely head-over-heels for her so he doesn't take it seriously (although this doesn't stop him hitting on her). Saki would like him to know that if he adds her into the mix, it makes a square!
  • The most obvious one is between Namie, Seiji, and Mika. Oh, and a head, too...
• Loving a Shadow: "I don't like you, but as long as I look at you I will never forget my love for her. So I will accept your love.". Although considering that Seiji's "love" consists of an obsession with an inanimate head and not an actual person, you could argue that he was loving a shadow from Day 1.

M-P

• Made of Iron: Izaya gets hit with a fricking trash can and stands up moments later no worse for the wear.
  • How about the Quirky Miniboss Squad that Celty apparently kills in the first episode? I mean, one dude had his head smashed against the wall with a fricking motorcycle.
  • Shizuo, eventually, after lots of painful injuries and healing. Takes getting hit by a speeding truck better than you'd normally expect, and doesn't even feel anything from being stabbed in the legs with pens. Not to mention he manages to get up on his own and walk all the way to Shinra's house unaided after being shot. Twice.
• Madness Mantra: Shizuo has one in a scene in the novel in order to hold himself back from destroying just about everything: 'Kill'em, kill'em, kill'em, kill'em ...' Might also be seen as somewhat of a Survival Mantra.
  • Saika has one of "Mother mother mother mother mother mother mother..." that it spams message boards with during Slasher attacks. Later on it switches to "Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo Shizuo..."
• Magic Plastic Surgery: The only scarring or sign that surgery even took place was the one she wanted to be there.
• Major Injury Underreaction: After getting shot in both the leg and stomach, Shizuo proceeds to stroll right on over to Shinra's place and tells him to patch him up. Then the two of them proceed to have a perfectly normal conversation all while Shinra has a set of medical pliers wedged in his leg. Then again, he is Made of Iron...
• Manipulative Bastard: One thing has managed to unite the various personalities and forces in Ikebukuro, and that is the desire to throw Izaya in front of a bus. Even Anri, the person most averse to conflict in the entire series, is tempted to stab Izaya with Saika so he'll stop being such a Jerkass. And even human-loving Saika is disgusted by him.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Celty and Shinra, respectively.
  • At one point early in the series, Shinra even asks for Celty to be "more feminine", and she storms off.
• The Masochism Tango: Celty and Shinra have a bit of this going on. Lampshaded by Walker, who concludes that they're both in a mild "Type M" relationship; though it's not abusive. Both of them enjoy messing with each other.
  Shinra: "That punch was a substitute for our marriage kiss, okay?"
• Match Cut: The opening. Also see Signature Style.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Mikado Ryuugamine roughly means "Emperor of the Dragon's Peak." Which is rather apt since he's the leader of the Dollars.
  • Izaya means "one who looks out over a crowd". It's also a reference to the biblical Isaiah.
  • Parodied by Shizuo Heiwajima, meaning "Serene Man, Peaceful Island"... Which then goes back to being meaningful once you realize he isn't named for what he is so much as for what he aspires to be be.
  • Izaya claims that the name "Dollars" (Daraazu) comes from the fact that nobody expected them to actually pull anything off at first; daradara means "sluggish".
  • Also "Celty." Think about that one for a while. ^spoilerSelkie, for those unfamiliar with Scottish folklore
• Megaton Punch: Played straight and subverted at the same time. Shizuo punches some street-punk right out of his clothes, except the punk actually gets destroyed and it's not just for laughs.
• Memento Macguffin: Shizuo's bartender suits were a present from his brother, which is why he continues to wear them despite being fired from the aforementioned job quite awhile ago. Damaging them, just like everything else, is one of his Berserk Buttons.
• Memetic Mutation: In-universe example: The Dollars.
• Minivan Fu: Togusa.
  Kadota: Hit him.
  • Also applies during a Shizuo-centric flashback in Episode 7.
• Mind Screw:
  • Episode 9. The one where the plot really kicks into gear!
  • Narita just seems to enjoy this in general. Throughout the anime, manga, AND novels, he repeatedly mindscrews his audience, ranging from Izaya epic trolling Earthworm (all of volume nine had the readers switching between "He's under the bag" and "He put someone else there," finishing up with a giant WTF) to Harima Mika of all people having the best information network EVER just to protect her precious Seiji.
• Misplaced Sorrow: Kadota's gang are devastated when they find out that Kaztano has been kidnapped, but none so much as Togusa, who even claims he can't go on without the man. Why? Because Kaztano was his source for sold-out, front row tickets to see Idol Singer Ruri Hijiribe.
• Mistaken for Insane: Inverted. Everyone assumes Mikado as a regular kid with no abnormalities, in stark contrast to the Cast Full of Crazy, with Masaomi trying to actively keep him out of the insanity happening around them. However, Aoba finds out the hard way that Mikado is deeply twisted beyond his or even Izaya's comprehension, being the creator of the Dollars who only grows more ruthless and insane as the series progresses.
• Mistaken from Behind: Happens when Anri runs after a person who she thinks is her missing friend Mika, then calls out to her and takes her by the shoulder; when the person turns around and looks nothing like Mika, she apologizes and runs off in embarrassment. Subverted when we find out later that Anri wasn't mistaken, but Mika simply had plastic surgery to look like Celty's head.
• Mob War
• Molotov Cocktail: Walker uses one on a van-full of Blue Square members. It seems to be his weapon of choice.
• Mood Whiplash: Walker and Erika as Torture Technicians. Starts out kinda goofy. Two minutes later, you realized you've stopped taking deep breaths because your brain's trying to process what just ALMOST happened. Yeah, Those Two Guys. Thankfully cut a bit in the anime... but cranked up to eleven in the manga.
  • The series itself wobbles between comedic Slice of Life complete with zany slapstick and dead-serious tales of confusion and interpersonal intrigue, with sadistic and murderous characters inflicting injuries that are played entirely straight. In some cases, this can happen in the same episode.
• Mook Chivalry: The Yellow Scarves actually Blue Square infiltrators show this to an odd degree When Kida comes to challenge Horoda. Justified in the next episode though by the reveal that many in the crowd were actually Dollars members brought by Kadota, thereby explaining why they didn't attack Kida—and presumably, the other Blue Squares/Yellow Scarves just followed their lead.
• More Insulting than Intended: Exaggerated with Shizuo Heiwajima. There are countless different ways to really make him mad given his Hair-Trigger Temper, so even flimsy insults can enrage him to the point of beating people within an inch of their life. At one point a man tries to get out of paying a debt when Shizuo comes to collect by taunting Shizuo about what his younger brother would think about his current line of work. Unfortunately, mentioning Kasuka is a major Berserk Button and Shizuo throws the man into the next building.
• Mortality Phobia: Izaya's primary goal is to avoid the Cessation of Existence he believes will occur beyond death, and has driven him to form an extremely convoluted plan in attempt to prevent it: hypothesizing that Dullahan are actually Valkyries left dormant on Earth, he decides to start a massive gang war in the hopes of creating a conflict large enough to wake up resident Dullahan Celty and hitch a ride with her to whatever afterlife she returns to. He flatly states that he doesn't care whether or not it's a hellish place filled with nothing but pain, just as long as it's not nothing. Ironically, since Durarara!! and Baccano! share a 'verse, there is a much simpler and more reliable (also arguably less insane) means for attaining Immortality that he just doesn't know about; which makes the brief appearance of Isaac and Miria, who are members of the Dollars no less, much more hilarious.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • A panicked Nasujima runs from Anri and tries to rob the first person he sees. The first person he sees happens to be Shizuo. It doesn't go well.
  • This is a depressingly common occurrence with Shizuo, where some thugs harass him only to realize who he is. Half the time they're being manipulated by Izaya, but there are times where they really are that stupid.
  • Some bounty hunters start harassing the Orihara twins for information about the Black Biker. Kadota intervenes, but barely gets to do anything before the girls take out the thugs themselves.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Slon
    Slon: I'm not moving an inch until I've solved the mystery of the male nipples! This is my war!
  • Mikado at the end of Episode 10 and as part of the lead up to The Reveal—he turns on his computer and sparks fly when he starts zooming the mouse around.
• Narrator: The character narrating changes from one episode to another.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Walker and Erika fond of this
  • In episode 6 they ask Dotachin Kadota who the heck he's talking to.
  • They once compared Kadota's voice with Mahouka's Shiba Tatsuya and Oreimo's Kyou. The three characters are voiced by none other than Yūichi Nakamura.
• Never Filled Out Official Paperwork: In the chibi manga anthology, Minidura, Shinra and Celty are appalled when establishments all over Ikebukuro start selling Black Rider merchandise without Celty's consent. They soon realize Izaya is the culprit, but when they confront him, he explains they never filed any paperwork to copyright the Black Rider image so he decided to do it himself, and due to Celty's questionable legal status, she is unable to sue him.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Mikado and Shinra. Shinra is one a bit more literally than others.
  Celty: They called me a monster.
  Shinra: How rude! I would have used the term "Naughty Lady" myself...
• The Nicknamer: Kaztano, Izaya, and Erika.
• Nipple and Dimed: Averted in the scene of Celty's autopsy since she does have visible nipples, but the context makes it Fan Disservice.
  • You can see the rise of her nipple if you look closely, there's just no colored areola...
• No Name Given:
  • One girl in the opening is conspicuously unnamed. Also, there's a scar all around her neck and her skintones above and below it are different...
  • The second OP also has an unnamed character, if you consider Saika itself as a character: That one in shadow...with the katana and the glowing red eyes.
• No "Police" Option: Part of the reason Shizuo's never been arrested for his constant, massive property damage and brawls is because his typical victims are people with criminal dealings who can't go to the police without being arrested themselves.
• Nonindicative Name: Shizuo Heiwajima roughly translates into "Quiet Man-Peaceful Island". Yep, that Shizuo.
• Non-Lethal Warfare: In Ketsu, when the Saika Army returns, the staff of Russia Sushi arm their patrons with guns and explosives. However, the only weapons they end up using are the flash grenades to disperse of the mobs.
• Noodle Implements: "I don't care what you do to him. Just don't use gasoline like you did that last time." Implied to be arson/immolation.
• Noodle Incident:
  • There's occasionally reference to an incident where Izaya framed Shizuo for a crime. What crime that might be has never been elaborated upon.
  • To say nothing about their high school days. Shinra was apparently doing a lot of damage control:
    Shinra: "Other things happened too when I was in school. There was this "The Pool of Hell Opens—Chlorine Gas Everywhere!" incident, "Real Flesh Art in the Art Room" incident, "Cultural Festival Campfire Explosion" incident and of course "Field Trip to the Shambles—the Okinawa Arc"...during the three years when we were in Raijin, gasoline drums were rolled down from school buildings as part of the routine. Really, it's hard to believe how nice and orderly this school has become these days..."
  • Also, during Shinra's first official(?) date with Celty he threathened Izaya, who had been stabbed and was bored at the hospital if he kept interrupting his date.
    Shinra: Oy Izaya! If you don't cut the heck out, I'll start telling people about that thing back in middle school!
  • There are a number of times in the chatroom where Mairu (Mai) is about to say something before Kururi (Kyo) interrupts with the statement that whatever Mairu was typing was incredibly filthy and Not Safe for Work and assures everyone that she's already smacked her and forced her to delete it before anything was posted. Sometimes, Mai's posts are also automatically censored for containing words flagged as inappropriate—thus we of course never find out what the words in question were.
  • Whatever happened on Celty and Shinra's day off, it involved Shooter as an antique carriage, a werewolf, and a coven of Vampire nuns. We only ever see glimpses of it.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?:
  • Simon was too busy to listen to Shizuo's story, so Shizuo threw a motorcycle at his face.
  • In Volume 5, Vorona starts reading a book while Slon is asking her questions about how cows grow, to why males have nipples, and so forth; eventually she just stops providing answers to his constant queries.
    Slon: "Am I...being ignored?"
• Noodle People: Pretty much the entire cast is drawn this way.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Shizuo does this twice while fighting Izaya in the second OVA—and bites the throwing knife in half afterwards.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Mikado is the leader of the Dollars.
  • Kida was the leader of the Yellow Scarves.
  • Anri is the Slasher, host of the demon sword Saika and mentally controls anyone cut with it.
  • Erika and Walker are this, to an extent. They're otakus no matter what, but their interrogation skills are a little over-the-top. Not to mention they, along with Kyohei and Saburo, are Dollars.
• Odd Couple: Vorona and Slon, oh so much.
• Odd Friendship: Shizuo and Tom. In contrast to Shizuo's violent tendencies, self-esteem issues, and general dysfunction, Tom is effectively the most well-adjusted and normal character in the entire series. And this friendship goes back to middle school.
• Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List: Shinra accidentally gives Celty the shopping list instead of the license plate number he was supposed to in Episode 6.
• One Head Taller: Shinra and Celty, a bit more literally than other examples.
• One-Man Army: Celty and Anri are good contenders for this, but Shizuo is the most badass one of them all, lampshaded by Celty herself. Heck, Shizuo is practically more of a fighting game character than an anime one.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with Tom Tanaka and Taro Tanaka, though the latter is just a chatroom handle. Justified in that "Taro Tanaka" is pretty much the Japanese "John Smith".
• One-Woman Wail: Saika's theme. Listen closely: it sounds like "Anri" being chanted over and over.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Mikado, Kida, and Anri. And yes, they're all hiding some pretty serious secrets or abilities—even from each other.
• OT3: invoked Erika has one in the form of Shizuo/Kadota/Izaya. She even calls it an OT3.
• Otaku: Togusa, Walker, and Erika.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Saika's "children" act an awful lot like zombies (they're even referred to as zombies by a few characters). They walk in an eerily undead fashion (usually in hordes), and if you suffer the misfortune of getting cut by one of them, you become one yourself.
• Pac Man Fever: In Episode 22 Celty appears to be playing Super Mario Bros. on a SNES. Though given the attention to detail, this is probably deliberate. Inexplicably, she and Shinra use Dual Shock controllers instead of SNES characteristic "dogbones".
• Parental Neglect: Masaomi's parents don't seem to care that he dropped out of school.The orihara parents are said to be normal, but would leave their kids for months at a time. According to Shinichi's report, it also played a part in Izaya's personality.
• Personal Hate Before Common Goals: It's noted that Izaya and Aoba both have similar personalities, being devious, lying, G.I.R.L., manipulative bastards who use the gangs of Ikebukuro to further their own plots, and Aoba is even able to decipher Izaya's Xanatos Gambit against Shizuo without much context because it's what he would do. However, Aoba admits it would be impossible for them to get along or work together simply because people like them hate their own kind.
• Petty Childhood Grudge: Izaya apparently doesn't really let go of things. Izaya and Shizuo's mutual hatred began when Shinra introduced them in high school and they took an immediate disliking to each other, proceeding to fight constantly for the rest of their time there. They continue to hold onto these grudges as adults, with the two routinely having immensely destructive battles whenever they meet and Izaya formulating complex plots to try getting rid of Shizuo. It's even acknowledged that their loathing is based off of them simply not liking one another, yet they hate each other all the same.
• Piggyback Cute: Subverted. Seiji gives Mika a piggyback ride after the latter's fight with his sister. Then any "cuteness" thrown out of the window when Mika asks Seiji if he would fall in love with her for real if she eats Celty's head, and Seiji calmly answers he will murder her if she tries to do that.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Shizuo and Celty.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Mairu and Kururi, Izaya's younger twin sisters. Different from each other but also from their brother; they adore Shizuo and even tell him that they'd push Izaya in front of a dump truck if it made him happy. Though admittedly, it's more so that they can be introduced to Shizuo's handsome younger brother. An Invoked Trope—in middle school they flipped a coin to see who would have which "positive human" traits in order to please their brother. Their goal was to "become the perfect human" as one, apparently.
• Poor Communication Kills: Well, since everyone is keeping secrets... Which counts as both a Moment of Awesome and Funny.
• Posthumous Villain Victory: Invoked and subverted. Izaya's trap to murder Shizuo fails due to Celty's interference, forcing him to flee while Shizuo comes after him with the intent to kill. Izaya runs into a large group of people and begins to fight Shizuo, despite having no chance of winning. Aoba realizes Izaya is attempting a Xanatos Gambit- if he wins, he's killed his mortal enemy; but if he dies, society will validate his belief that Shizuo is a monster and hate him. However, Vorona shows up to deal the fatal blow herself to protect Shizuo, ruining the plot. Izaya barely gets away and ultimately decides to never return, should he survive his wounds.
• The Power of Love: Inverted. When Yandere-power spreads, the only things that can stop it are the power of rage and the power of indifference.
• Precocious Crush: Shinra says that he's been attracted to Celty since the day that he met her. That would be when he was four. Additionally, Shizuo had his own Precocious Crush on a shopkeeper when he was around ten or so. Then he walked by her store one day, only to see a group of thugs assaulting her. She was seriously injured in his resulting psychotic episode, and Shizuo was too ashamed to see her ever again.
• Prefers the True Form: Downplayed. Celty wears a motorcycle helmet to disguise her lack of a head. However, Shinra prefers when she isn't hiding it, loving her without her head. However, Celty worries it may be that he has a thing for dullahans in general, and doesn't know what she would do if Shinra ever met another headless woman.
• Present-Day Past: Pictures in Volumes 5 and 6 show Izaya using what's pretty clearly an iPhone. In 2003. Six years before the device was available in Japan, and four years before its production was even announced.
• Properly Paranoid: Shizuo maintains that 99% of all the weird crap that goes down in Ikebukuro is completely and utterly Izaya's fault, whether it be a gang wars or hordes of knife-wielding zombies. Made-up-on-the-spot statistics aside, he's more or less right.
• Pretty Boy: Kasuka◊, Shizuo◊, Izaya◊, Shinra◊ , Mikado◊, Kida◊, Aoba◊, Seiji◊, Tom◊, Walker◊, Chikage◊, Ryo Takiguchi◊, Shijima◊ and Nasujima-sensei. Dotachin with his hair down could also count. Basically a majority of the male cast.
• Psycho Supporter: Izaya to Shinra. This is very evident during their time in middle school. Hurt Shinra and you will regret it.
• Psychotic Love Triangle: The first three Yanderes mentioned above are in one.
• Punched Across the Room: Shizuo punches a thug so hard the thug's clothes fly off.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Chikage attempts to start a fight with Shizuo by jump-kicking him in the face mid-sentence. This works about as well as one would expect.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The trio of thugs that keep doing amoral things.
  • Aoba's Blue Squares minions. Some of them have names and a little background, all of them are violent, nonsensical and hilarious.

R-U

• Rapid-Fire Typing: A curious case of where we see the keyboard as it's being done. Apparently, Celty uses her powers to type faster.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Dollars.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: The official character book, Durarara no Subete, ranks character attributes on a five-point scale (and with varying amounts of seriousness. "Single-Minded Devotion To Celty" or "Ability To Get The Point" is just as likely to appear on the stat list as "Combat Ability"). Naturally, both Shizuo's strength and capacity for destruction are listed as immeasurably high.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: "I'm asking you, Orihara Izaya: Can you actually kill people? With your own hands, can you kill them? Even with your switchblade you just stab randomly without aiming at anywhere fatal. You fool around, that's what you do. So when all's said and done... you got no tricks up your sleeves except for manipulating others. What a lowlife and coward you are. It makes me laugh. Haha."
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Shiki surprisingly mello for a gangster, when Shizuo is framed for murder of several Yakuza (by Izaya, of course), Shiki calmly and rationally deduces the fact that Shizuo was framed and lets him go.
• Recursive Canon: This series is a branch from Baccano!!, and clips from that anime appear on in-universe televisions (as do Isaac and Miria).
• Redemption Failure: Throughout the first half, we see reference to the original leader of the Yellow Scarves abandoning the gang after a turf war went bad. Then, in Part 2, Masaomi Kida is revealed as that same original leader when he retakes control of the group to defend themselves from the Dollars and the Slasher. While he was never evil, per se, he treats it like an example of this.
• Red Herring: At first, we're led to believe that Yagiri Pharmaceuticals stitched Celty's head onto Mika's body. However, it's eventually revealed that they merely gave her facial surgery to make it look like she had her head. The real head ended up in Izaya's possession.
• Red Shirt / The Worf Effect: Conversed by the traffic cop, Kuzuhara.
  Kuzuhara: I often think about how people like us tend to be weak foils in fiction that stars people like you. Whenever the psychic protagonist appeared, we'd always be lying in a pool of blood, just to emphasize the strength of the opponent. That's fine. That just goes to show how powerful people think we are. But I've always wanted to say one thing. If a monster or an evil psychic or an android or an evil Ninja really appears... There is just one thing that I'd like to say: Don't underestimate the Traffic Police Force, monster!
• Red String of Fate: Alluded in the ending theme, "Trust Me" ("We're connected by an invisible thread, so feel my warmth by your side").
• Relationship Upgrade: Shinra and Celty.
• Rescue Romance: Subverted when Mika Harima interprets Seiji's rescue of her from bullies as a sign of love, and refuses to take no for an answer. Ever.
• Rhetorical Request Blunder: Shizuo half-jokingly tells Mairu and Kururi that he'll introduce them to his brother if they can get Izaya to throw himself in front of a dump truck. He's a bit unnerved at how quickly and cheerfully they agree to it (and probably doesn't realize they've been trying to do exactly that from that point onwards).
• Ridiculously Cute Critter/Everything's Cuter With Kittens: Kasuka has a tiny Scottish Fold kitten he's named Yuigadokusonmaru. Even serial killers like Ruri can't resist the cuteness.
• Running Gag: IIIIIII-ZAAAAAA-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • Also, Simon's apparent inability to bring any customers to his shop.
• Say My Name: See above.
• Satchel Switcheroo: The whole plot of Episode 12.5.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Shinra in the second OP.
• Scenery Porn / Real-Place Background: A broken-linked set of pictures show just how accurate the anime's portrayal of Ikebukuro really is. The vending machines Shizuo throws around actually exist.
• Settle for Sibling: After a quick Heroic BSoD when Mairu discovers that her fangirl target (Kasuka) might be dating someone, she decides to go fangirl his older brother instead. Immediately. Cue the surprise Glomp.
  Shizuo: You're still after Kasuka, aren't you?
  Mairu: Yeah, but I like Shizuo-san too!
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Volume 4 ends with Celty and Shinra independently coming across the contents of the exact same million-yen envelope Celty lost during her motorcycle chase with Kuzuhara. They both chalk it up to coincidence.
• Shared Identity: A strange example with Izaya, who bought the name, Nakura, off one of his former classmates and uses it as an alias or online handle when he's committing particularly horrible deeds and doesn't want to use his real name. However, this is one of the ways he keeps Nakura under his thumb, as he can freely use the alias while doing things like pissing off the yakuza, but should anyone come after Nakura, Izaya is also the only one capable of protecting him.
• She Is All Grown Up: "Lately, I've been looking at Shinra as a man. At first I didn't know what that meant, but I'm beginning to understand the feeling."
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Mikado in regards to Anri, the typical response to which is, "You mean she's free? Sweet!"
• Shipper on Deck: Walker is such a Shinra/Celty fan that he writes fics about it. Erika goes for the Ho Yay instead, and ships Shizuo/Izaya.
  • Izaya himself seems to be a Shinra/Celty shipper judging from his conversation with Shinra in this extra valentine chapter.
• Ship Sinking: Word of God is that Erika's BL fantasies are just fantasies. Sorry Shizaya fans. As to whether that'll do anything to end the Ship-to-Ship Combat... yeah, good luck with that.
• Ship Tease:
  • Dengeki April Fools, wherein Narita writes Shizuo/Izaya slash.
  • Yasuda Suzuhito, the LN's official illustrator, frequently depicts Namie wearing Izaya's coat and has made several artwork of the two together.
• Shoot the Medic First: That crazy stalker guy that's obsessed with Ruri? Well, he decides not to hurt her and goes after the people closest to her. Moving down the list, after failing to kill Celty, the first person he decided to kill is Shinra. Thank god Celty saved him.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: Teenaged characters are almost universally shorter than adult characters, usually by at least 5 cm.
• Shower Scene:
  • Celty has one in Episode 4. Shinra enjoys the view.
  • Shingen has one in Episode 14. Shinra needs Brain Bleach.
• Shown Their Work: The aforementioned Scenery Porn videos.
  • Horada's use of a Tokarev pistol. This is the most commonly used firearm for Japanese gangs that don't mind using small arms. Usually, arms dealers bring them to Japan from Russia, China, North Korea or parts of Eastern Europe.
  • The first episode of x2 Shou shows a witness on television with her voice distorted. Japanese privacy laws require all television stations to do this.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Mikado delivers one to Namie.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Shizuo and Kasuka & Mairu and Kururi.
• Signature Style: The openings make it very, very obvious that the people behind Baccano! made this too.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Celty and Shinra. Well, more Slap Slap Hug given Celty's headlessness, but Shinra still counts it.
• Slasher Smile: Shizuo is fond of sporting one of these right before he's about to hurt someone. Also, Walker and Erika when they're, uh, working.
• Sleep Cute: Walker and Erika in Episode 24.
• Something Only They Would Say: Izaya outs himself as "Kanra" when he calls Mikado "Taro Tanaka" in person. Also, after Kida leaves, Mikado wonders if he may be the new member of the chatroom. His guess is confirmed when Bakyura responds by grading Kanra the square root of three points, referencing something Mikado said in a previous episode
  • Although as an alternative interpretation, Taro Tanaka is a generic Japanese name, akin to John Smith. Since Izaya was saying who the founder of Dollars was, he could've been offering Mikado a courtesy by not saying his real name to anyone who might've been interested.
• Soul-Cutting Blade: The saika, which possesses the wielder and can cut souls.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: "Shit" is censored often in the Adult Swim runs. It's quite hilarious during moments like "Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh shit!" which are made into a long bleep.
  • Captions listed that as "Crap! Crap! Crap!".
• Sparing Them the Dirty Work: Near the end of the first novel series, Vorona witnesses Shizuo face down his mortal enemy, Izaya, and interrupts the fight by stabbing Izaya with a knife, then attempting to finish him with a gun before Shizuo can deliver his final blow. When Shizuo tries to stop her, telling her not to become a murderer, Vorona shrugs off his concern since she's a trained assassin who has killed many people before. She is, however, foiled by Simon, who threw a stun grenade at their midst, incapacitating her and allowing Izaya to escape the encounter.
  Vorona: "I have, from the very start... been a beast that enjoys killing."
• Spiritual Successor: The anime is pretty obviously meant to succeed Baccano!. Along with the obvious similarities in writing and tone, it's got a similar musical style and opening sequence, not to mention several references to it sprinkled throughout. The novels series isn't so much a "successor" since both series are still running.
  • Others would see it as more of a successor to Boogiepop Phantom.
• Spoiler Opening: Of sorts, since it's really fleeting, and you won't realize the significance of it until you've watched the whole thing. In the first opening, when Anri turns around, something comes out of her hand and "slices" the screen as a transition into the episode clips from previous episodes.
• Stalker with a Crush: "Funny" example early on turns out to be really unfunny when it turns there are monsters out there. (No, not Celty).
  • To specify: Seiji's stalker goes just a smidgen too far when she breaks into his house and sees something that she definitely wasn't supposed to. Now she's considered dead.
  • Shizuo has his own Stalker with a Crush in the form of Saika, who can be seen shadowing him in Episodes 7 and 13.
• Stalking is Love: Spoofed. When Anri hints that she's stalking him, Mikado's mind zig-zags the everliving hell out of this trope—complete with scenarios from Mikado's Inner Puppet Theater—before Anri lets him know she's joking.
  Mikado: "Oh, crap! Is she a stalker? Wait. If she's cute it's okay, rig—No, this is bad. It might go like... She might stab me! Or set my house on fire! And what if she takes my parents hostage?... But, maybe she has a nice personality. Then it would be okay, right?... Wait. If she did, she wouldn't be stalking me!"
• Staredown Faceoff: In an OVA, Shizuo and Izaya start duking it out all over the city and eventually come stand head to head with each other. Naturally, Shizuo takes the opportunity to try punching the other man, who dodges.
  • Masaomi prepares to fight Chikage and the two engage in a stare down. Just before initiating the brawl, Masaomi grins, believing he can easily win. He quickly finds out he was very, very wrong.
  • Mikado stares Aoba down as an intimidation tactic after stabbing him with a pen while negotiating. This demonstrates he is not really the nice, normal kid he appeared to be and is either suffering from Sanity Slippage or fell off the deep end long ago.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Celty agrees to be vivisected in return for a place to stay. Turns out human anaesthetics don't work on fae.
• Such A Lovely Noun: "...But no problem, you still have two cute little sisters. I think they're called Kururi-chan and Mairu-chan, if I'm not very much mistaken? My friends are going to pick them up now. I'm sure you're looking forward to seeing them, being the loving older brother you are. Am I right, Izaya onii-chan?"
• Suicide Dare: In the second episode Izaya Orihara talks a girl into committing suicide using what can only be described as reverse reverse psychology. Celty saves her at the last second.
• Super-Strength: Shizuo, Simon and Celty, with Shizuo officially being according to Izaya's data. Idol Singer and serial killer Ruri Hijiribe also has superhuman strength, inherited from a grandparent, who is theorized by Nebula to have been a Dullahan.
• Supporting Leader: Kadota and the Van Gang.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial
  Setton: No, I'm not saying aliens are scary, or anything like that.
  Setton has left the room.
  • Also:
    Simon: It's okay. Our sushi is made out of fish. No human, not even on half-price days!

  It doesn't help that he keeps threatening to make sushi out of troublemakers.

• Swivel-Chair Antics: Izaya, of course.
• Taking the Bullet: In Volume 9, it's revealed that this is what really happened in Shinra and Izaya's no-longer-Noodle Incident. Izaya didn't stab him—Shinra took a knife for him.
• Tantrum Throwing: Shizuo often throws impossibly heavy things when somebody makes him mad (usually Izaya). Vending machines are pretty popular with him. He first discovered his super strength while attempting to throw a refrigerator at his brother.
• Tap on the Head: Averted when a goon beans Shizuo in the head. It completely fails to knock him out, instead leaving him bleeding. Shizuo then verbally deconstructs it by pointing out how you only go for the head when you want to kill someone. Then he punches the goon out of his clothes.
• Telephone Polearm: One of Shizuo's favorite weapons, right along with vending machines. Sometimes it's telephone poles, sometimes it's roadsigns or guardrails. Once he uprooted an entire tree, roots and all, with a person in the tree.
• Tempting Fate:
  • When Kida first shows Mikado around Ikebukuro, he warns him about three people (Shizuo, Simon, and Izaya) that he should stay away from before assuring him that he'll probably never meet any of them anyways. Naturally, they both end up running into all three. At once.
  • Also, Kida's inner monologue in Episode 5 sure seems to hit home in recent episodes:
    Kida: The things happening in this city may look like their unrelated, but they're probably connected somewhere. They probably carry a distorted truth unfathomable in our minds. But... I only realized this just now, but I seem to like our current relationship. Even if the points begin to connect someday, and that reveals something we can't see right now, I firmly believe our relationship won't change.
• Theme Naming: All of the members of Kadota's gang are named after light novelists.
• There Are No Therapists: There's no indication that Shizuo's ever even been offered medication to control his fits of rage.
  • And while we're on that subject, about 90 percent of the cast is off their rocker, with accompanying situations that are as hilarious as they are frightening.
    • Partially justified in that most of the characters seem to consider their problems their own and for one reason or another don't want to (or feel like that can't) rely on anyone for help. Additionally, how do you treat someone for something like having a codependent relationship with sentient sword?
• The Revolution Will Not Be Villified / The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Zigzagged. At first, the Dollars a group of idealistic anarchists with "no color or rules" who communicate through the internet and have members throughout every sector of the population, are presented in an overwhelmingly positive light. Despite often not knowing each other in person they gather up and work together to do good and bring down corrupt organizations which appear to have far more power and resources than them. As the series goes on, however, the inherent problems to such an organization begin to be highlighted: for example, with nobody actually being in charge, no one can do anything to stop it if the organization as a whole decides to collectively turn to crime, violence or terrorism. Furthermore: since they can't be handily recognized, people seeking to hurt the organization are forced to turn to simply hurting random people on the street just in case they might be members (mirroring the way in which the police in countries ravaged by terrorism often find themselves forced to perform mass arrests of people who are mostly innocent)
• There Was a Door: Anri slashes through a steel warehouse wall with Saika in Episode 24 when she and Mikado rescue Kida from the Yellow Scarves.
• They Would Cut You Up: There's an organization doing this to kidnappees. Celty doesn't like them.
  • After Celty's public reveal, Nebula decides that they wouldn't mind having Dullahan test subjects. As for who they sent to fetch one, let's just say Shingen has reasons for his objecting to his son's infatuation with one...
• This Is the Part Where...: Kida doesn't even have time to finish before Mikado grabs the girl and runs for it.
• This Is Reality: Kida, when Mikado tells him about the supposedly amnesiac girl he "rescued" from Celty earlier that day
  Masaomi: This could only make more sense if you were also Late for School...Oh! And if she was also a New Transfer Student. Also if she turned out to be a queen and your childhood friend! That would be awesome. Are you getting how I'm being sarcastic here?
• Threesome Subtext: Aoba/Mairu/Kururi. Also a little Mikado/Kida/Anri, but not much.
• Time Skip: SH starts two years after the original series's ending in volume 13.
• Title Drop: The episode title is dropped in Episode 19. This is obscured due to the fact that Crunchyroll translated the phrase differently on the title card ("Anarchy") and during the episode ("The sky has fallen").
• Token Competent Minion: A good chunk of Izaya's minions are either ineffective, batshit insane or waiting for an opportunity to backstab him. Out of all of them only a few are good at their jobs, with Namie performing amazingly well as a secretary despite her distaste for her employer, and Mikage being a brilliant martial artist capable of taking out numerous opponents at once. However, only Kine, arguably the sanest of Izaya's minions, actually remains loyal to him while the rest either betray him or defect.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Though, to be fair, New York was already taken up by immortal gangsters and homunculi.
• Tomato Surprise: It turns out that the leader of the Dollars is actually the Ordinary High-School Student Mikado.
• Tongue Suicide: Discussed by Izaya, who mentions that if someone were to bite off their own tongue, it wouldn't be blood loss that kills them but the swelling which would cause them to choke.
• Too Dumb to Live: Verona, of the "would be dead if not for circumstances beyond their control" exception to the Death Trope rule. She and Slon agree to kidnap a Yakuza Princess, Akane. The Awakusu ambush them, Knee-capping Slon and disarming then knocking out Verona. It's stated outright the only reason they don't shoot her or torture her to death was her Arms Dealer father made a deal with them.
• Torture Technician: Walker and Erika, who use their mountains of Light Novels as inspiration. Also, Mairu, with her trusty box of thumbtacks.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Shizuo of all people manages this in Volume 5 when a ten-year-old runaway confesses to him and Shinra that she tried to kill him because Izaya told her that Shizuo was going to kill her father. Shizuo, against all expectations, simply smiles at her and assures her that it was all a misunderstanding which he will go about correcting immediately before leaving the room. When Tom meets him at the door and congratulates him for his uncharacteristic maturity in the situation, Shizuo simply says this and heads off to Izaya's place:
    Shizuo: Thank you, Tom. If it's okay, I have a favor to ask: If I get arrested for murder today, tell Mr. Manager to just go about things as if I were fired yesterday.
  • Also, Mikado has his own moments too in the light novels.
  • Walker's face is always that Slasher Smile. If he's angry, he'll probably snap his chopsticks in two, slam them right in front of your face, or set a car on fire with gasoline and a match. All that, he still smiles all the way.
  • Shizuo has another one at the end of Volume 12. Izaya decides to finally end his rivalry with Shizuo and attempts to kill him (from afar), only for Vorona to save him, getting severely injured as a result. As Shizuo attempts to tend to her wounds, Izaya calls him and taunts him about it, from which Shizuo falls uncharacteristically silent as Izaya continues to talk. When his rival finishes, Shizuo simply tells him "Goodbye," in a calm, peaceful tone and hangs up. It should be noted that Shizuo does not use the traditional sayonara, but rather the more cultural version abayo, which means goodbye... forever. The next volume, not once does Shizuo raise his voice, nor does Izaya continue with his usual taunts as they have their Final Battle.
• Transplant: Episode 11 would like to inform you that Isaac and Miria are now in Japan and are members of Dollars.
• Tsundere: Invoked by Walker and Erika in both Kadota and Celty's case. Walker then gets into a big argument with Erika over whether Celty is a "true" Tsundere. Celty is not amused. Walker feels that Celty is too even-tempered, and that Shinra mostly deserves the ass-kickings he gets.
• Tuck and Cover: Shizuo to Akane (shielding her from a rain of knives). Shinra also instinctively does this to Celty when he hears a flashbang go off. The fact that Celty is a nigh-unkillable faerie only dawns on him after the fact, and he refuses to talk about it out of embarrassment when Celty later brings it up.
• Twincest: Mairu and Kururi, Izaya's younger sisters, who are both searching for Hanejima Yuuhei in the second OVA. They get along together really well, are very protective of each other, (and they even share a kiss at least twice (though the second time was an Indirect Kiss... sort of).
• Two Guys and a Girl: Mikado, Kida, and Anri.
• "Uh-Oh" Eyes: Izaya and Shizuo have brown eyes in the anime, but are often given red and gold eyes respectively in the official art drawn by Suzuhito Yasuda, as well as in fanart.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny:
  • Erika and Walker, being the two resident otaku, do this on occasion. However, the better in-universe example is the theme of Episode 16: "Who is the strongest person in Ikebukuro?" Most people answer "The Headless Rider/ Celty", Simon, Izaya or Shizuo. But mostly Shizuo.
  • Izaya has a few others on his list: Mikado—the leader of the Dollars, Kida—former general of the Yellow Scarves, and Anri—the possessor of the original Saika.]]
  • Shuji directly asks Celty the "who would win in a fight?" question, which causes her to burst out laughing. It's Shizuo against an unkillable fae with the ability to give make solid blades out pure darkness— Of course Shizuo would win.
• Unseen Pen Pal: This is basically Izaya's Establishing Character Moment. He uses the internet to be a sympathetic ear for a depressed teenaged girl named Rio Kamichika and talks her into a mutual suicide, then has her kidnapped and rescued, then tells Rio what he did, and then he tries to lure her into committing suicide for real by saying not even he cares if she lives or dies. All for shits and giggles. She's saved by Celty, but barely.
• Urban Fantasy: A city with a dullahan, a possessed sword, and possibly more monsters lurking about.
• The 'Verse: Baccano!!, Vamp!, and Durarara!! are all set in the same universe, although due to being set in very different locations and concerning very different supernatural entities, there isn't too much overlap. Not that there isn't overlap:
  • Isaac and Miria? They're Dollars.
  • And the company that bought Yagiri pharmacies, Nebula? Yes, the same company that built the Flying Pussyfoot.

V-Z

• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Celty uses it to store a wad of money from Izaya in Episode 4.
• Villains Out Shopping: At the end of volume eight, Izaya amasses the more evil/crazier characters under him for purposes yet to be explained. Their first order of business? Hotpot (Izaya's still sore about the hotpot in Volume 4).]]
• Voice of the Legion: Saika, when it finally gets voiced during the chatroom sequences.
• Voices Are Mental: Celty and the girl with her head are played by different people at any rate. Well, it only LOOKS like her head...
• Wham Episode: Hooh, boy.
  • Episode 11. You know Mikado, right? The sweet, Naïve Newcomer, curious about the world of gangs—the mysterious "Dollars" in particular? Turns out he's actually the leader of said group, and is quite the vocal Badass. Or, alternatively, episode ten, where his Wham Line would lead many a fan suspicious:
    Mikado: "I have all the pawns I need..."
  • Episode 16. Goodness, all that news about Saika sure sounds scary, right? I sure hope that...wait...wait, what!? The "real" Saika is actually the slightly dull Shrinking Violet Anri Sonohara!? Wait... why is her mother cutting open her own stomach!?
  • To a lesser extent, the aptly titled Episode 17; "Everything Changes." So, what about those other gangs? Have we forgotten about them? Is the show ever going to bring them up again? Don't worry! It turns out that the Yellow Scarves are led by none other than Masaomi Kida, and it turns out he was a complete Stepford Smiler this entire time. Of course, it's 'to a lesser extent' because we got some foreshadowing on that part.
  • Episode 22 ends with the love triangle finally beginning to confront each other, Mikado dissolving the Dollars, and Shizuo face down in a rainy gutter after being shot three times.
  • Volume 6 (episode 12 of Shou) has a few instances of this. By this point, we've learned Mikado's not all he appears, but he's still a lovable and nice guy. You know, until he stabs Aoba with a freaking pen and a crazed look. Aoba notes that that's probably nowhere near Mikado's true nature...
  • Volume 7 (episode 2 of Ten) would like to inform you that Stalker with a Crush Mika Harima possibly knows more about the goings on in Ikebukuro than the Magnificent Bastard Izaya Orihara himself. Oh, and Namie makes out with her.
• What Does She See in Him?: Several couples but most notably the Psychotic Love Triangle.
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Is the question Namie asks when Izaya puts up a fake "We've moved!" notice on his apartment door with his "new" address being an undiscovered murder scene. The answer is, of course, Shizuo.
• Wasted Beauty: Discussed. Izaya and Shizuo are considered fairly good-looking, but according to Shinra, girls wouldn't approach them during high school because Shizuo's strength and temper were terrifying and Izaya was too shady. However, Izaya manages to manipulate some girls into becoming his devoted 'followers' (which included Mikage, though she broke away after an incident and dropped out). Deconstructed with Shizuo, since his tendency to scare people off left him with very low self-esteem and a belief that he could never be loved.
• Weirdly Underpowered Admins: Played with. Izaya has the normal privileges one would expect a chat room admin to have, yet finds himself unable to deal with a user named Saika, who repeatedly enters and spams the chat with disturbing messages. Every time he bans them, they reappear and continue their spamming, with no one understanding how it keeps happening. It turns out that the chat is being accessed by multiple Saika zombies, who just re-enter every time she's banned.
• Wiki Walk: Vorona, in Volume 8. For bonus points, her speaking style even makes it sound like a derailed wiki article.
  Vorona: Siberia. The correct pronunciation of which is Сибирь ([sʲıˈbirʲ]), may denote a Federal District of Russia or a wider area. The meanings are many-layered. And in Japan they also call a certain kind of dessert Siberia. Explanations vary as to how the name originated, among which a theory exists that it comes from the delicious fillings inside the Castella resembling the tundra and railways in Siberia. The Castella is said to be the first cake variety to be introduced to Japan. After that the Japanese developed their unique cake culture under various influences from different countries. The variety called the shortcake is also uniquely Japanese. At Christmas the Japanese are especially big on cakes, and on the streets all kinds of cakes send tantalizing smells to my nasal cavity.
  Shizuo: ...Are you craving some? Cake, I mean.
• Ukefication: Parodied In-Universe—a gaiden written by Ryohga has Kadota's gang watching Izaya and Shizuo fight, while Erika talks over the brawl and transforms it into a yaoi in which Izaya bottoms, successfully squicking out the whole group as well as Celty. Hilarity Ensues.
• Word Purée Title: The title "Durarara" itself. Ryohgo Narita ran out of time and gave it a random, meaningless name, which his editor loved.
• Worf Effect: Kinnosuke Kuzuhara admits most fiction's portrayal of cops as Worf compared to rebellious protagonists, but takes it as a compliment as it means that they are considered strong enough to be considered obstacles.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Subverted by Izaya ("I don't like hitting girls...Which is why I instead make it a hobby to stomp on their cellphones!")
  • Played straight by Shizuo ...except when Vorona stabs him, thus reminding him of Izaya.
    Shizuo: ...I'm not interested in beating up women... nor do I want to do that.. BUT I GUESS YOU'RE AT LEAST READY TO HAVE THAT EXPENSIVE-LOOKING HELMET CRUSHED TO A PULP IN THESE HANDS, ARGH?
  • Chikage would never hit a girl and will give anybody a beatdown for trying.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Anri's parents died when her father became addicted to Heaven's Slave and her mother killed him when he tried to murder Anri in a fit of insanity. Heaven's Slave was originally founded by Izaya and Nakura in college as an Experimental Legal Drug club, which Shijima took over and turned into Heaven's Slave after graduation. However, Anri was about eleven when her parents died, and Izaya is about eight years older than her, which would have made him nineteen at the time, which makes the timeline incredibly odd.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Erika. Ships include Shizuo/Izaya, Kadota/Chikage, Fans/Trolls, CDs/DVDs...

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