#if there's an award for being an overall upstanding person he needs that one too

[jessahmewren]

I hope pedro pascal needs a dump truck to take home all of his loot come awards season. He deserves every single one.

[funeralfeastanon]

I would like to expand the Durarara and Baccano ask game to the rest of the questions :D

Can do, anon. ;)

Ask game is here. Questions 1, 3, 7 and 17 have already been answered here. Spoiler warning as usual.

2 - My favourite aspect of the story.

This goes for both Durarara!! and Baccano!: I appreciate the complete lack of a “main character.” Instead we have all these intertwining stories of multiple people who are each their own “main character” and are often not fully aware of how important they or everyone else are in the grand scheme of things. To spice things up, the characters have varied personalities, moral codes, motives and goals that clash with each other. It’s chaos and I love it.

The anime adaptation of Baccano! does it better in my opinion though, since it decides to have several loosely connected arcs, all with their own ensemble cast and taking place in different years, take place all at once and somehow makes it work as a coherent whole.

4 - My favourite male character.

Izaya Orihara from Durarara!! and Claire Stanfield from Baccano!, for fairly similiar reasons. Namely, they are both crazy bastards having way too much fun doing what they do best - manipulating the various people and factions in Ikebukuro for kicks and brutally murdering two groups of train hijackers respectively.

Their roles in their respective stories are interesting too, where Izaya is the closest thing Durarara!! has to a main villain/mastermind (for awhile) but Claire is a “hero” protecting his train.

5 - My favourite female character.

Celty Sturluson from Durarara!! and Rachel from Baccano!.

I was intrigued by the Headless Rider from the beginning, but what I didn’t expect was for her to be one of the few fairly sane, well adjusted and genuinely heroic people in Ikebukuro. When an immortal fae who literally lost her own head looks normal in comparison, you know your city district is a madhouse.

As for Rachel, she is also one of the more normal people in the story, as a resourceful informant who just wants to hitch a ride and stay out of trouble, but damn, does she have nerves of titanium, calmly coming to the hostages’ rescue while unarmed. It also takes a special kind of person to befriend Claire Stanfield.

6 - My favourite villain.

Uh. I already used Izaya, so I guess I’ll give some love to Mikado Ryuugamine and his slow descent into darkness. Who would’ve though the supposedly normal highschooler would set someone on fire one day?

For Baccano!, the award goes to Ladd Russo, yet another complete lunatic enjoying himself way too much.

8 - A character I think needs more love.

Hm, well I already gave some love to Rachel, so… Eve Genoard. It takes guts for a little girl to try to shoot a mafioso for killing her brother. Yeah, her brother was a terrible person and she didn’t end up shooting the guy herself, but still.

For Durarara!!, Tom Tanaka deserves recognition for being one of the other sane people in Ikebukuro and a fantastic friend to Shizuo.

9 - What I ship.

I ship the canon Baccano! pairings mostly. However, I’m a Durarara!! multishipper, though not really invested in any of them, so these are the things I lowkey ship: Celty/Shinra, Shinra/Izaya, Izaya/Shizuo, Izaya/Namie, Shizuo/Vorona, Masaomi/Mikado/Anri and Erika/Walker.

10 - My favourite canon relationships (romantic, familial, platonic, antagonistic, etc).

Celty and Shinra are the healthiest couple in Durarara!! and considering Shinra is a mad scientist in love with a headless woman since childhood, that’s saying something!

My other favourite relationships all involve Shizuo Heiwajima, ha ha. He really does try his best to be a good brother to Kasuka even if his temper and Kasuka’s emotionlessness get in the way, his friendship with Celty is adorable and his deep hatred of Izaya and general simple-mindedness leaving him immune to his mindgames, driving Izaya up a wall in turn, is very entertaining.

Baccano! has the iconic couple in Isaac and Miria, who are so attached at the hip that it’s impossible to think about them seperately and who share one big heart and one tiny braincell. Of the others, I like Firo and Maiza’s almost father-son relationship, the weird friendship Rachel has with Claire and Claire and Ladd trying to out-crazy eachother never gets old.

11 - My favourite group/faction.

I love the concept of the Dollars in Durarara!!, as a gang made up of (mostly) anonymous people from all over Ikebukuro ready to act on requests given via cellphone messages in a surprisingly coordinated manner, they have the potential to be very dangerous. Hopefully its more morally upstanding members can stop Mikado from doing anything too bad.

As for Baccano!, I love Jaccuzi and his friendly neighbourhood gangsters, they might have tried to rob a train but dammit, they will protect it from the other really bad hijakers.

12 - Most iconic scene.

Durarara!!: Shizuo hurling a vending machine at Izaya.

Baccano!: Isaac and Miria trying to steal a museum by stealing its door, while posing for the security cameras in mummy disguises. That or the scene where Firo’s finger gets cut off only to immediately regenerate.

13 - My favourite scene.

Durarara!!: I think I mentioned it already, but the scene where Mikado reveals himself as the leader of the Dollars and the faceless gray masses bloom in colour as members.

Baccano!: it’s a very unimportant scene in the grand scheme of things, but Firo taking down several men without dropping his hat never fails to make me smile.

14 - My favourite story arc (for serialised works) or favourite act (for self-contained works).

I’m having difficulty dividing Durarara!! into distinct arcs but overall I enjoyed the events shown in the first season the most. Regarding Baccano!, my favourite is the Flying Pussyfoot/Trainjacking segment. I mean, you have a violent cult trying to get their leader out of prison, a group of psychos looking for a massacre, a street gang and a pair of incompetent loony thieves all independently deciding to target the same train. Which happens to have an assassin, an informant and several immortals on board. Watch the fireworks!

15 - My favourite plot twist.

Durarara!!: I already used “Mikado is the Dollars leader” for favourite scene, so I guess “Masaomi is the Yellow Scarves leader” comes in here.

Baccano!: the Rail Tracer being revealed as the random and supposedly killed conductor who is actually Claire Stanfield the assassin. The execution was perfect.

16 - What I’d like to or would have liked to see happen.

Oh man, I really need to catch up on both series, especially Baccano! since I didn’t read past what was already covered in the anime. So, no answer for this one because for all I know what I want to happen already happened lol.