#I wanted to touch on Simon's talk with Izaya after the Punch(tm)

[izamationbroker]

My current job is pretty laidback about us having phones out and listening to music as we work sorting archaeological artifacts in a lab, so I've started binge-rewatching Durarara!! from the very beginning.

I've already finished the original run yesterday and just started x2 Shou, but some thoughts I had:

At least in the anime adaptation, the original run was meant to be pretty self-contained in the event they weren't able to continue (which to be fair was true for quite a while before x2 got greenlit), so rather than consider the original run a "phase one" of Izaya's grander scheme to start a gang war and awaken Celty's head it makes a bit more sense to think of it in the context of a failed first attempt.

In that context, it makes me wonder how he felt about it, his first grand failure. Grand enough that he felt the need to step back and lay low so he could go back to the drawing board (see: his initial conversation with Shizuo in ep 25).

I honestly bet he picked a fight with Shizuo just to take out his frustrations on it all. He managed to create a messy three-way conflict and get Celty roped into it as Anri and Mikado's friend, but the head gave narry a stir. Not to mention, Celty was able to help them resolve things pretty easily by just getting these dumb kids to actually talk to each other.

I don't remember the episode number because I just binged the whole thing, but Shingen at one point suggests that rather than rope Celty into a conflict, Izaya should try to center the conflict around Celty herself. Izaya claimed he was doing just that, but I don't think he really succeeded in the initial run. Sure, Celty was involved, but more as an independent third (fourth?) party than as a focal point. She was in the Dollars and friends with both Anri and Mikado, but she didn't really have much of a stake in the squabble itself. That was just a big messy of miscommunication between three high schoolers completely unrelated to her. That must have been frustrating, honestly, getting so close but falling just short of what he needed.

Then, on top of everything else, he wasn't even really involved in the resolution of the fight itself, either. He says in his theory that he needs to create a war only HE can win, right? I'd imagine that's why he was fucking around with a bunch of kids rather than the bigger leagues like the Yakuza that he works with regularly: it's a lot easier to insert yourself as an authority as the only adult. He'd be able to take control of that situation so easily, but Celty took that role instead, so he never even got a chance to win the war.

And to blow off steam from his initial failure, what does he do? He deliberately picks a fight with Shizuo, someone he generally tries to avoid when he can help it, by fucking with his brother's safety.

I wonder if he needed to feel alive for a minute by reminding himself of the loom of death. Shizuo's arguably the only one that actually threatens Izaya enough to feel any sense of awe or dread. I wonder if he wanted to put himself in that position to remind himself what was at stake and give him the motivation to go back to the drawing board and try again. He really does have a Shizuo Complex in that sense.

Anyway, I might do Shou, Ten, and Ketsu individually as I finish them, but if anyone would prefer a liveblog instead, lmk. I might stop at Shou for now, tho, because Wa-kun and I are I thiiiink like halfway through Ten? And I don't wanna spoil them with my rambling.