This rant will include spoilers. Just warning again.

11/12 episodes were kind of mediocre. Some were slightly better than others, but this first half of the second season seemed to suffer from similar flaws as the latter half of the first season. That being said, my largest gripe with x2 Shou is the lackluster animation quality. I've come to accept the fact that anime shows in general, aside from a few exceptions, have some painfully underwhelming animation quality in regards to their fight scenes, and as such I've come to get used to them, though they still bother me from time to time. x2 Shou however seems to suffer from this flaw even more than the average anime, especially considering that the quality of season 1 was relatively solid. While the average scene was bearable to watch, the fight scenes I found incredibly cringe worthy just because the animation seemed to lack any sort of impact and/or choreography and the frame rate skipped around more so than the usual anime, making the production feel surprisingly lazy at times.

The plot itself also feels uneventful. The scope of the problem at hand doesn't seem to be that big of a deal in comparison to S1. But I'll get to the plot in a moment.

I think people should know by now that Durarara's main faults stem from the fact that it tries to balance a wide variety of characters within a long singular time frame, which in turn sacrifices character development and forces the writers to make every character unique in order to compensate for the interest lost due to the existence of static characters. As such, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the longer Durarara goes, the weaker it gets simply because characters remain the same and the uniqueness of the cast wanes off over time. x2 Shou tries to remedy this by adding new interesting characters and shifting camera time away from those that received a lot of attention in S1 (for example, Kadota and his group receive significantly less screen time in x2 Shou in comparison to S1). But, as one might imagine, this is only a band-aid to a persisting problem, and a rather loose one at that.

So, with that being said, episode 12 was the real game changer of x2 Shou.
For starters, we finally get some kind of continuation and explanation of the existence of the Russian mafia in Ikebukuro. We're never really explained in any real level of detail why Simon and the other Russians are stationed in Japan, even in season 1. In addition, unlike other characters, it's never explicitly revealed what their role is in the city. While x2 doesn't go into tremendous detail, it at least shines some light in this scenario in the form of Vorona, who is in my opinion one of the more interesting new characters of this season simply because she's a new member of the city. It also seems to be implied that Vorona and the role of the Russian mafia will be further expounded upon in later episodes as it's revealed that they have connections to the Yakuza, which is nice since we've seen very little of Simon in x2 Shou, and I'd like to see a reappearance of Vorona and her possible integration into Ikebukuro. We also finally see for the first time Akabayashi Mizuki after seeing his name pop up in the opening. Hopefully this implies we'll see more of him and the involvement of the mafia in the second half of x2.

Second, for the first time ever in Durarara, Izaya has finally been outsmarted and possibly outmatched by an opponent who can actually pose some level of threat on to him. Now that's very exciting because for an entire 24 episode season and a half, we've almost never seen Izaya have a moment of weakness, and it always seems that nearly everything that happens in the series is within the palm of his control. Here, we're finally seeing a massive shift in theme where the controller of Ikebukuro is no longer solely Izaya, (hopefully) implying major changes in the new season concerning the new role/conflict of Izaya and all the characters connected to him.

Third, on a more minor note, we're reassured at some level that some characters who were really unexplored despite being new to the series will have more screen time in the latter half of x2. I'm mostly referring to Izaya's sisters and the relationship between Hewajima Kasuka and Hijiribe Ruri, who we saw a bit of in the first few episodes of x2 but never again lol.

Fourth, and the most important point, we see a change in Ryuugamine who, I would say, is the MC of Durarara. See, now this is cool because along with Izaya, this change finally signals moments of character development in what is normally a stagnant cast, and of all people we see it in Ryuugamine who, despite obtaining one of the most powerful positions in Ikebukuro, really does jack shit compared to the rest of the cast. It's exciting because Ryuugamine is constantly portrayed as an everyman who tries to integrate himself into the madness of Ikebukuro, and the end of x2 it finally shows a different shade of Mikado and an expansion of who he is as a character.


So with that all in mind, it's difficult for me to rate x2 Shou because for the most part it feels like exposition and an important transitory segment into the x2 Ten portion of season 2 rather than being its own stand-alone story. If x2 Ten is shaping up how I think it will, it's better to think x2 Shou as part of x2 Ten rather than treating them like different stories.

My main concerns for x2 Ten are two-fold. One, I'm really hoping the animation quality of x2 Ten will be a lot smoother and better than x2 Shou. I know a different studio than season 1 is tackling x2, but there really shouldn't be any excuse why the quality is as poor as it is. For anime that advocates action and epicness, the animation sure doesn't reflect it at all and it seriously detracts the integrity of Durarara. Two, it looks like x2 Ten is going to feature some big changes concerning some of the bigger characters of the series, and a part of me worries that the writers won't know how to deal with new changes and revert back to how it was or, even worse, attempt to take a new shift and fail miserably at it. Hopefully this won't be the case, but previous seasons don't seem to provide much reassurance.

That being said, I have high hopes for x2 Ten and depending on whether or not they can pull off the cliffhangers they left for x2 Shou, it could turn out to be either the best or most disappointing portion of the Durarara series.