Dulalala!! ep 15

Tonight was all about shocking character designs.
I had no idea Shiki was this fucking bad ass:

And Kuzuhara without his helmet is virtually unrecognizable.

Dulalala!! x7

Naturally, Narita can't just do a short story collection. He's got to pull a Kadono, and have all the stories taking place at the same time. I wound up being pretty glad I read this right after the anime helpfully reminded me who some of the characters were; he clearly wanted to give some people who haven't played an active role in a while something to do.
On that note, the first story starts off with Namie and Mika having an epic bitch off; this eventually involves Namie dousing Mika with an immobilizing drug and attempting to pour acid on her face, while Mika cheerily reveals that she's got the entire cast's apartments bugged and their computers hacked and knows everything going on everywhere. Seiji eventually steps in and settles things as only he can.
Second story was probably my favorite, since it was cheerily out of Narita's comfort zone again; focusing on Akabayashi, one of the yakuza characters introduced in the last volume. He's such a monumental bad ass that he gets stabbed in the eye by Saika, rips his own eyeball out to stop the blade from infecting him, and falls in love with Anri's mom, who was wielding the sword at the time. All of which is a flashback woven through the story of how he uses his own Dollars membership to manipulate a bunch of low level drug dealing thugs into taking out a yakuza group that's trying to kill him.
Third story is probably the most typically Narita; as the rumors about Shizuo's activities in the last few volumes spiral dramatically out of control, a group of his victims somehow becomes convinced that Shizuo has a wife and kid, and tries to kidnap them...only to get the shit kicked out of them when the wife turns out to be the Russian assassin (now working with Toma and Shizuo) Izaya's crazy ass sisters, and yakuza kid Akane, who is still carrying around a stungun.
There's also a brief romantic interlude with Celty and Shinra, constantly interrupted by phone calls from characters in all the other stories, and a framing sequence in which Izaya, in the hospital, is visited by one of the suicidal girls he was toying with in the first volume (a bit they wound up not putting in the anime, since he drugged her and put her in a suitcase just to fuck with her head.)
And volume eight's out in June. And a new Baccano came out yesterday. It never ends!

Dulalala 13

New opening song is thoroughly vile; still has name cards in, but feels way more conventional, almost completely dropping the Guy Ritchie feel.
New ending song is also crap, but not as bad as the last one.
I love how Kuzuhara is just the dude from Wild 7.


Also, as an unrelated warning, apparently Senkou no Night Raid is the critical darling this season, but I can only assume by the same people that thought Noir was riveting and stylish. First episode managed to make superpowered noir spies boring, which should not legally be possible. So far, Anime no Chikara is doing a good job showing what is wrong with anime today. Sadly.

Dulalala!! 11

So basically any other show in the world would be thrilled to have a scene as insanely great as either "everyone is in the Dollars" or "Celty rides down a fucking building" in their final episode, and Dulalala!! has both in one episode and ends on a cliffhanger. First book finale next week.
Also:

Isaac and Milia are in the Dollars!? The world does not contain enough exclamation points.

Dulalala 10

This was definitely Mikado's big episode. A lot can be hinted at with a well drawn expression, like this one when someone else explains why they joined the Dollars:

And his transformation at the end was totally bad ass. I want a mouse that shoots sparks.

Dulalala!! 08

Nice little visual homage here.

Quite a bit of anime original content this week, which really worked perfectly; some seriously intense stuff for an intentionally low key set up episode. The writing here continues to elevate the material.

Dulalala!! Ep 07

Heiwajima Shizuo versus...the Go Nagai villains!

It's also interesting that they spent this much time setting up Kasuka...obviously, entirely in service to Shizuo backstory, since Kasuka doesn't appear till the fourth novel, which I still don't think we're going to see.

Dulalala!! 06

The Dollars otaku gang hits the spotlight this week.

I pretty much have nothing to say, but was a bit sad they cut the Missing reference along with basically the entire torture scene.
Also, HA, they've switched to spelling her name Celty.

Dulalala 05

Hell yeah, this was definitely the episode where everything started coming together big time. Which is odd, since this episode is primarily about introducing elements from the second and third novels! I guess we're doing all three books at once.

Kida's little thumbs up there was one of my favorite offhand moments. Saika, like Celty, tends to not screencap well, being mostly inky shadow. With red eyes. There's a decent amount of fan service; walking past dudes in yellow right as Kida is warning Mikado off color gangs...and I'm not sure how many people will connect the dots from the offhand reference to Haruna early on to the actual shot of her in bed at the end. I actually don't remember what role she actually played in the novels, so that one's a mystery even to me.
But yeah, everything really came together beautifully at the end there. Fantastic stuff.

Dulalala 04

Celty-centric episode. They finally broke down and gave her a voice, which keeps the flow of the conversations moving. Same voice that narrated the second episode, unsurprisingly.

I love how Shinra sits at a very Western desk while Celty sits seiza in a tatami-floored room. A lot of really nice design choices throughout the episode; the flashbacks to her time as a Dullahan were fantastic looking, and the music did a great job at hinting at a more sweeping epic score.

Dulalala!! 03

Today is all about image cropping. The big centerpiece of this episode is definitely the berserker bartender fight. Going through it to grab an image, I found most of it looked great in motion but a bit low detail and crude to grab an capture from. Then I found this.

Let's take a closer look at the corner there.

AWESOME.

Dulalala!! 02

Well, this was certainly a bold choice. Plucking a strand from the novel that would probably have been cut entirely in a more rushed adaption, and deftly spinning it into an episode long tone piece that could not be less like the bulk of the show in mood...

...while subtly explaining a few other key bits of exposition on the way. The episode appears to be focused on the new girl, Rio, neatly stitching together several bits of disconnected business from the novels into a complete story that still serves to introduce the original function, but works better as a cohesive unit.
It's easy to give credit to Takahiro Omori, who certainly does a fantastic job of making this unexpected detour come across as natural and fascinating, but Noboru Takagi is swiftly proving himself one of the best screenwriters in Japan. He really seems to understand Narita's style. I'm pretty sure the events in this episode don't happen in the novel -- and those that do, don't happen in quite this way -- but he's done such a great job matching the pieces together that it feels like they always were arranged this way. He did a bit of that over on Baccano!, which the flashback episode, but it's fascinating to seem him do that with material tonally opposed to what Narita is generally known for.

Dulalala!! 01

So yeah, pretty much the prelude to the second coming.

It's a book that has a fairly leisurely pace early on, and the first episode winds up being sort of a walk and talk, cross cut with the chat room, and with the headless rider taking out some kidnappers. Same high quality production, definitely captures the original work. I was particularly impressed with the sound design on the bike.
More importantly, they've once again nailed the opening sequence. While the song was fine on it's own, combined with the visuals, it really pops. Pity they've once again chosen a vile piece of shit for an ending theme.

Dulalala 6

Man, was this a long, intense churn. Narita is not the kind of author who generally goes for lengthy, character-arc focused writing, but in between all the sword fights and car kicking and parkour, Dulalala 6 boils down to a slow burn effort to shift Mikado's character from a passive to a proactive role in the series. Honestly, for a while there I wasn't sure he was ever going to pay it off. It's not until the last few pages of the book that the other shoe finally drops...and we have to wait till Dulalala 8 to find out where he's going with THAT. (Dulalala 7, out early 2010, is supposedly random side stories.)
While I think I tend to prefer Narita in his less ambitious crazy good time mode, I definitely dig it when he reaches a bit higher, and pulls it off.

Dulalala 5

If you're like me, you squinted at the shitty scan of this cover and wondered why Mikado was carrying a dagger; I assure you, the actual cover has him holding a ballpoint pen. Like a dagger.
So...the plan was to read this one and then go read another, but then this one ended on as many cliffhangers as possible, and I guess I'm going to have to read Dulalala 6 immediately.
For a book that seemed absolutely packed with events, it was someone surprising to realize the entire thing had just been set-up; in hindsight, it seems obvious, but there was too much going on to actually register that things weren't actually going to resolve.
Despite all the stuff happening I'm weirdly not sure how to describe it -- partly because each strand of the plot is driven by someone or several people manipulating shit behind the scenes, and a lot of them have yet to have the other shoe drop.
The most dramatic end of things is probably the attempted assassination of Shizo Heiwajima by a ten year old girl. Then a yakuza group hires the Headless Rider to protect the kid while also hiring a crazy Russian assassin to kidnap the kid and kill Celty. All of this while the remnants of the Blue Squares are picking a fight with a gang from Saitama using the Dollars name. I think the general plan is to force Mikado out of his passive observer stance and into a more active role, while also making Heiwajima into something more than violence relief. Both of these are good things. I definitely could have used more of Izaya's sisters, but hopefully they'll come into play in the second half.

Dulalala! TV trailer

Hard to argue with Shizuo Heiwajima punching people's clothes off.

That Dulalala!! trailer

Dulalala!! x4

Something of a soft reboot for the series after the initial trilogy and the year of Baccano! novels, Dulalala 4 is a massive return to form.
Headless biker Celtie is surprised by a TV crew on the corner one night; they demand to no why she has no lights or license plate. Assuming they'll never be able to broadcast it, she explains that her bike is actually a horse, and it transforms...on live television. Oops. Before she knows it, there's a ten million yen bounty on her head, and every biker gang in the area is chasing after her...while she's got a dead body in her sidecar.
Meanwhile, a Russian hitman and a serial killer disguised as monster are fighting in a park when they accidentally piss off a man dressed as a bartender, who immediately hits them with a bench. The people that stop to help them recover from their wounds send ripples out through the plot, which covers the same time frame from four different points of view, all ending in the same car chase as Celtie's.
Particularly astounding is the introduction of evil strategist Izaya's deranged twin sisters, who proceed to deal with the bullies at their new school by weaponizing thumbtacks, stealing bras, and starting fires in bookbags, before going back to loudly reading porn magazines aloud in class.
Man, the anime version can't air soon enough.

Dulalala!! anime -- from the same staff as Baccano!

So fuck yes.

Return of the Headless Rider

Dulalala x3!
While Baccano! is definitely Narita Ryohgo's best series, Dulalala! is damn near as good. Like Baccano!, it offers a berserk blend of random genre elements - the title being derived from the Dullahan in exile, working as a underworld courier, her headless mount disguised as a motorcycle. There's been a simmering plot through the series about exactly which evil group of mad scientists and otherwise psychotic puppet masters is currently controlling her stolen head, but this usually takes a back seat to Ikebukuro West Gate Park inspired gang activity. Only with evil swords that possess people. This one promised to bring things to a head; the Anonymous style internet based gang known only as Dollars, the hive mind collected created by the magic sword, and a traditional color gang are each collectively run by the three members of a high school love triangle, who hilariously have kept all this secret from each other despite the fact that their groups hate each other.
I was sort of expecting full on action, really, but it sort of wound up being heavily based on the color gang leader's angsty backstory, to the point where I got half way through the mammoth 440 page book and couldn't for the life of me figure out where all those pages had gone.
I generally think Narita is at his weakest when he's being serious, and this was quite a grim book - but this time around the serious stuff generally worked, and the wacky comedy subplot involving a mad scientist in a white gas mask generally fell totally flat as a result. I certainly missed the headlong enthusiasm that coursed through the first two books in the series, but perhaps it was necessary to resolve this set of plots, and let the Dullahan and other larger than life characters (one dude who gets shot several times, and goes to see a doctor on account of he might get lead poisoning, and then walks out the next day and picks a fight with a moving van) can fuck some shit up proper next volume.
Gosh, I sure get a lot more reading done when I'm riding the bus to work.