Ladies and gentlemen: I have found my show for 2010.


















From the wikipedia:Durarara!! (デュラララ!!, Dyurarara!!?) is a Japanese light novel series written by Ryohgo Narita, with illustrations by Suzuhito Yasuda. As of July 2009, six volumes have been published by ASCII Media Works under their Dengeki Bunko imprint. A manga adaptation by Akiyo Satorigi started serialization in the shōnen manga magazine Monthly GFantasy on April 18, 2009. An anime adaptation began airing in Japan in January 2010.[1] The series is about a Dullahan working as an underworld courier in Ikebukuro, an internet-based anonymous gang called Dollars, and the chaos that unfolds around the most dangerous people in Ikebukuro.



Now this may not read like much, but the show so far is, in technical terms, a damned hoot and I for one find the shout-out to Ikebukuro to be quite refreshing. While Shinjuku and Shibuya get more love thrown at them than a discount bukkake actress, Ikebukuro is often looked down upon as the downtrodden and grimy urban center of northern Tokyo from which nothing good may come.



While IM’s staff won’t say that this isn’t the case, we LOVE Ikebukuro (“ee-kay-boo-ku-row”). Ike is always a lot of fun and functions as a vital crossroads for Tokyo’s working class where foreigners, drunks, salarymen, hype pushers, weirdos, prosties, fujoushi and j-rockers hang out until they get their ghetto pass into Kabukichou or head back into Saitama. All of these archetypes and characters are currently being explored in Durarara!!, and I for one am smitten by that.



Plot-wise the series seems to follow the interconnected adventures of a group of people who hang in and about Ike. These charm school grads range from high school students with dark sides, surprisingly well-written and interesting foreigners (BONUS POINTS!), super-natural mischeif makers, and a bartender by the name of Shizuo who loves throwing vending machines at people.



Seriously.



Vending machines.



I would consider it to be a failure of my rational and logical facilities if I could not convince you of how hard this show works to entertain you. This in itself is a nice change compared to scores of empty moe shows who desperately attempt to make me “care” about a bunch of disposable emotional cripples. Episode 1 already has Baccano in-jokes and a group of otaku pondering the name of the ostensible main character as being commiserate with something you’d find in a shonen manga. The young transfer student (no shit… REALLY?) is baffled by this, because it’s Japanese animation and that is what young transfer students do in such shows so he can have things explained to him (read: to us) by his wise-acre over-acting goofy friend.



Then some weird teenage with a deathwish gets abducted via a pedo-tastic van.



Then something rad happens.



Roll credits.



Funny-to-creepy-to-awesome in 20 minutes, I kid you not.



Another great thing about the show is its attention to detail and the stab it makes at architectural veracity. The show designers have seemed to put a premium on making sure that you know that you’re in Ikebukuro, all the way down to the signs and exits in that mind-bender of a train station they have there. Tokyu Hands is prominently featured, although the name is changed for the sake of not offending some corporation, and even the reflecting pool at the local park shows up, replete with its trademark brown tile. It’s not exactly something you’d notice if you weren’t familiar with the area, but in an age where Tokyo equates to “high buildings, small apartments”, it’s a nice little touch.



Then again, you might appreciate it more if you signed up for a tour… hint… hint… hint…



Below is the opening for the show.



Ladies and gents, let the squeals of nerdy over-reactive media arts students rise from every coffee house and Borders bookstore in the land: Temple University has established a summer program at its Tokyo campus with Japanese pop culture gurus Patrick Galbraith (HE'S ONE OF US INTERMIXI-TYPES!) and Roland Keats as instructors.


Aimed at undergrads and running from May 24 through July 28, the program features several courses, all of which provide credits towards a degree. The course descriptions are as follows:


Undergraduate students enroll in three of the following courses, for a total of nine or ten credits.


Anime in Japanese Popular Culture (Asian Studies: 3 credits)
This course critically examines the themes and representations in anime works in relation to the historical and socio-cultural contexts of postwar Japan, in order to gain insights into how and why it has gained global significance as a subculture. Topics to be covered include the historical development of the production and reception of anime, in relation to media, visual arts and technology; the themes, characters and representation in major works; and their symbolic meanings in the Japanese as well as global context.