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"Mature Content Warning!" |
Ok so as of right now, I'm going to take a break from proposing characters from BSD. Today I'm gonna be proposing the most memorable and likable character from DRRR!! IIIIIZAAAAYAAAAA!. This about both the anime and OG source material. Also, I'm also doing a proposal for his old pal Shizuo on the IA wiki. So, let's do this. There is some s*icide talk further down though so if you're sensitive about that, this is a warning.
What's the Work?[]
Durarara!!, also shortened as DRRR!!, is a Japanese light novel series written by Ryohgo Narita (who's also known for his most recognizable yet underrated work Baccano!) and illustrations by Suzuhito Yasuda lasting from 2004-2014. It received an anime adaptation in June 2010 and a second season, titled Durarara!!×2, broadcasted from January 2015 to March 2016. There's also a sequel series called Durarara!! SH that started back in April of 2014 (WHICH needstogetoffofanhiatusandneedsananimeadaptationpleaseandthankyou).
Durarara!! is a story that fallows the normal lives of VERY abnormal people in Ikebukuro (at least that's how I describe it). The series is filled to the brim with colorful characters whose lives intersect to create a greater plot line for all of them to get involved in. We got Yakuzas, an Info broker who knows the ins and outs of the city, a Dullahan looking for her head, a girl welding a demon sword, a bartender with superhuman strength, color gangs, an underground doctor, you name it. The story doesn't have one main character unlike other stories. In fact, people who watch and read DRRR!! consider the story's setting, that being Ikebukuro, as the main character.
Who Is Izaya Orihara?[]
Izaya Orihara is the main antagonist of DRRR!!. He's a sleazy, sketchy, and manipulative info broker in Ikebukuro who claims to love the human race (excluding Shizuo Heiwajima). Despite claiming that he loves humans, Izaya's "love" for humanity is basically just his obsession over how unpredictable they are. Because of that, he spends majority of his time putting people in chaotic situations that range from harmless to very dangerous just so he can see how they react to the situations they're in, thus leads to him making enemies of almost everyone in the series, and what's twisted is that he doesn't care how much people hate him, he'll keep on loveing them as people
However, there is one human that Izaya can't seem to rap his head around and just straight up detests to death and that is his archenemy Shizuo, a man with superhuman strength that he hated the moment he met him back in high school. Izaya loves to provoke and/or attempt to kill Shizuo out of spite and jealousy for being able to form better genuine connections with other people better than him and one of his goals from the beginning and end of the series is to kill him or have people view him as a monster.
Is He Heinous Enough?[]
Now, the thing about Izaya is that he's the type of person who would go on social media as an anonymous user to post a picture of a pile of money and tag its location, watch as everybody goes to that location and fight over the money, and will be like "huh, interesting" with a smirk if someone were to pull out a gun to shoot a person dead or give them a hospital injury.
Anyway, to simply it lol, Izaya will do something like trolling people online, but that will lead to a major incident they'll get into all because he pushed them to make a move that'll lead them to their detriment. Izaya's heinousness mostly stems from the fact that he's responsible for some of the actions of other characters in the series. He's one of the founders of a drug called Heaven's Slave, which was something that Anri's dad was addicted to and led to him abusing her and her mom resorting to killing him. He's the reason Masaomi's girlfriend got her legs broker by the Blue Squares' leader, Izumi, because he told her to get herself abducted to end the gang war between the Yellow Scarves and the Blue Squares, and Masaomi called him multiple times for his help only but purposefully ignored his calls knowing what it's about. What's worse is that he showed his miss calls to Saki (Masaomi's girl) and laughed. This leads to Masaomi distancing himself from her out of guilt.
Izaya also has a hand in the Dollars growing EXTREAMLLY large as a group by leaking the password online, gathering up members that commit criminal acts. In fact, the Dollars grow to the point where half the city is the group in the present day of the series, and he reveals that he's the one who secretly recruits people. He then uses it to his advantage by having the Dollars and Yellow Scarves get into conflict, he also gives Haruna the information she needed to start her attempted blade zombie invasion. all so he can attempt wake up the head of Celty, a Dullahan who came to Ikebukuro looking for her head. (Trust me all of this is a lot more complex than how I'm explaining it).
There are also some occasions where Izaya will just make Shizuo's life a living hell, rather he frames him for a crime he didn't commit, encouraging thugs into jumping him, attempting to kill him himself, or luring him to get run over by truck-kun during their high school days and even (and I'm not BS'ing here) paying the person who ram into him BY ACCIDENT.
Anime Only[]
In the anime, Izaya's introductions is him chatting with a depressed girl online vie the alias Nakura. He asks her if she wants to commit suicide with him and she agrees. She goes to meet up with him, but he arranges for some human traffickers to kidnap her and for Celty to save her, all so he can see the look on her face when he reads her like a book about how she doesn't really want to die. When he makes his leave, she tries to prove him wrong by jumping off the building she's on (which is the same spot other suicides happened at), only for Celty to save her. Celty later asks Izaya if he was responsible for the past suicides that happened there, which he denies (and I believe him) but also says that and I quote "who am I to tell them that they can't".
I wish I could type up more he's done but that'll take forever. I'd recommend ya'll watch the anime or read the novels, they're pretty good. All I'm doing is talking about the major things he's done.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
The thing about Izaya is that despite everything, he's more human than he thinks. He's a piece of crap, but at the end of the day, he's lonely and that can be seen as sympathetic, especially when near the climax of the series, Shinra talks about how he has a fragile heart which is why he resorts to manipulating people from the shadows and observe their personalities from afar rather than forming genuine connection with them.
Izaya has two younger twin sisters named Mairu and Kururi and despite how much he claims he doesn't like them because of how conflicting they can be, he displays some affection for them given how he sends Celty to stop some thugs from picking of Kururi. Now he does say it was only a distraction for another job he was doing, he also has someone save Mairu from another group of thugs that wasn't work related, showing that he actually does care about his sister even though he's not the kind of role model they should be looking up to.
The only genuine friend that Izaya has in his is Shinra, someone he's known since middle school. Even though they'll have some moments like Shinra not carrying abought the fact that Izaya ended up in the hospital after being stabbed, or Izaya giving him the cold shoulder after learning that Shinra got beaten to a pulp, the two of them see each other as friends, with Shinra, despite knowing how sketchy Izaya can be, understanding Izaya on a deeper level, and Izaya considering Shinra as his one true friend and not some other "human to observe". He even sends his gang to capture the guy that injured Shinra and lock him up in his apartment. And something that even caught Celty off guard was that back in middle school, Izaya purposefully took the blame for a stab wound that another classmate caused so he can make said classmate regret it and keep them under his thumb even as they got older.
Despite how unhealthy his relationship with Masaomi's gf was, given how she always believed he was never wrong and said she'd jump off a bridge if he told her to, he does have some attachment towards her since she's one of the only characters that actually doesn't hate him despite everything, even being grateful to him for being the reason she and Masaomi are together. After finding out that she was cutting all ties to him to be with Masaomi, he was both sad and happy for them both at the same time, giving both of them his blessing.
For non-pragmatic reasons, he saves Anri from a group of bullies from her school that were harassing her, which is his infamous phone smashing scene where he repeatedly stomps on the one of the girls' phones and laughs like a mad man scaring them off.
Verdict[]
I'm the type to let the people decide down below.