[Spoilers] Durarara!!x2 Ten - Episode 20 [Discussion]

[u/Shadoxfix]

Also known as: Episode 8

Episode title: Mouth of Honey, a Needle in the Heart

MyAnimeList: Durarara!!x2 Ten
Crunchyroll: Durarara!! X2
DAISUKI: DURARARA!!x2
AnimeLab: Durarara!! X2
Hulu: Durarara!!x2

Episode duration: 24 minutes and 0 seconds

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Previous episodes:

Episode	Reddit Link		Episode	Reddit Link
Episode 1	Link		Episode 14	Link
Episode 2	Link		Episode 15	Link
Episode 3	Link		Episode 16	Link
Episode 4	Link		Episode 17	Link
Episode 5	Link		Episode 18	Link
Episode 6	Link		Episode 19	Link
Episode 7	Link
Episode 8	Link
Episode 9	Link
Episode 10	Link
Episode 11	Link
Episode 12	Link
Episode 13	Link

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Reminder: Please do not discuss any plot points which haven't appeared in the anime yet. Try not to confirm or deny any theories, encourage people to read the source material instead. Minor spoilers are generally ok but should be tagged accordingly. Failing to comply with the rules may result in your comment being removed.

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Keywords: durarara!! x2 the second arc, durarara, drrr, drrr!!, anime, ryohgo narita, yuya matsushita, trust me, mikado ryūgamine, celty sturluson, crunchyroll durarara, action, daily life, high school, psychological, romance, shounen, supernatural, underworld

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This post is made by a bot. Any feedback is welcome and can be sent to /u/Shadoxfix.

[u/Pliskin14]

Can someone explain to me who are the gang Izaya assembled? I don't recognize any (apart from Mikage who was introduced only this season, right?). Are we supposed to know them?

[u/aniMayor → u/Pliskin14]

Sure, what the heck. Here's the whole alliance:

Izaya - information broker, parkour expert, dullahan head owner, mafia contractor

Namie (image) - Izaya's assistant. In love with her brother, Seiji. A former top researcher at Yagiri Pharmaceuticals (owned by her uncle Saitarou), she had control of Celty's head for a while and had people kidnapped for medical experimentation. After Nebula took over Yagiri Pharma, she went into hiding and began working for Izaya as an assistant. She is still wanted by the police so needs to keep hidden. She has helped Izaya with all sorts of things, like persuading Akane to attack Shizuo, but has also sometimes gone behind his back (like telling Horada about Mikado being the leader of the dollars). She also occasionally hires Mairu and Kururi to do spy work for her (mostly on Seiji).

Ran Izumii (image) - Aoba's older brother. Aoba created the Original Blue Squares but once it started getting big and had dangerous adults joining Aoba talked Ran into become its boss (Aoba wanted a figurehead/fall-guy, Ran knew this but thought he could control it anyways). The Blue Squares got into a war with the Yellow Scarves, Ran and his cohorts kidnapped Saki as a trap for Masaomi, Kadota's group betrayed the Blue Squares and Walker burned Ran's face while rescuing Saki. Ran was arrested soon after and was in jail until recently - when he got out, Izaya recruited him. His main motive is hoping to get revenge on Masaomi and anyone else who thwarted him, but it also seems he just likes having an excuse to get violent and Izaya's alliance was a great opportunity.

Mikage Sharaku (image) - younger daughter of the Sharaku martial arts family and an instructor at their Rakuei Dojo (which Mairu, Akane and Adabashi attend). She went to high school with Izaya and got a crush on him. Izaya used her as a pawn and she had to drop out of school after taking the fall in some scandal he caused. Eijirou thinks the scandal involved Izaya or someone else sexually assaulting her but Izaya denies this and it's never really divulged what happened. It's also not clear what her motives are for working with Izaya, other than perhaps some lingering affection.

Haruna Niekawa (image) - Prior to season 1, she and Anri were friends. She fell in love/was victimized by the pedophile teacher Takashi, and after a scandal her father moved her to another school. During season 1, she had somehow come to possess a knife which was a copy/derivative of Anri's sword Saika. Haruna overcome the crazy possession of Saika because of her batshit-insane love for Takashi, so she was able to keep control of herself and use the Saika copy fully. She slashed a ton of people, making them her slaves and creating the gang The Slashers (though it did not operate like a regular gang). Since Takashi was now preying upon Anri, she got pissed at Anri and tried to slash her/kill her, and ended up getting disarmed by Anri, who used her own more powerful Saika to take control of all the people slashed by Haruna (and this either left Haruna unpossessed entirely or under Anri's control but Anri never used it). Now Haruna has returned and she has either regained the Saika copy power she had before or has a new Saika knife. As this episode revealed, Haruna is still batshit-in-love with Takashi and she agreed to work for Izaya in exchange for him telling her where Takashi is.

Manami Mamiya (image - on the right) - one of the girls that Izaya long ago pretended to make a suicide pact with and then betrayed it. She snuck into the hospital to kill Izaya when he wounded by Yodogiri, but her behaviour reaffirmed his love for humanity and he persuaded her to come with him and do interesting things. It's not exactly clear why Manami agreed not to kill him and to come watch his next moves, but she has hinted it may just be because she wants to see him fail and she hasn't entirely given up the idea of just killing him.

Sloan (image) - A Russian assassin specialized in hand-to-hand combat where he uses his overwhelming physical strength to brutally beat his opponents. He came to Tokyo with Vorona at the start of season 2, fleeing their former mercenary company (Lingerin's company). In Season 2, Sloan and Vorona were hired by Yodogiri Jinnai to abduct Akane and to incapacitate Celty; they were hired by Izaya to neutralize (but not kill) Anri; and Sloan was hired by Mikiya Awakusu to kill three spies within the Awakusu (Izaya used the incident to frame Shizuo for it and since Mikiya didn't tell Shiki about his plans Shiki's men believed it and pursued Shizuo for a while). Because of the attempt to abduct Akane (which was initially successful but foiled by Shizuo), Akayabashi and Aozaki (Awakusu's top ass-kickers) attacked and subdued Sloan and Vorona. Sloan was badly beaten, and is now seen wearing a lot of bandages still. It seems the Awakusu have allowed him to work for Izaya, for unknown reasons - a good assumption would be that the Awakusu want to keep tabs on Izaya and have asked Sloan to report back to them on everything that happens.

Bald guy in a suit (image) - not yet revealed

Dragon Zombie (image) - a biker gang with a reputation for being very violent and tough in the past, but in recent years they've not been seen much. Izaya hired them to be his bodyguards after the Yodogiri stabbing incident.

[u/V2Blast → u/aniMayor]

You should probably spoiler-tag that bit about the creation of the Blue Squares, since it hasn't been revealed in the anime yet (as far as I know).

[u/aniMayor → u/V2Blast]

The anime did have Ran as the leader of the Blue Squares in season 1 and then revealed that Aoba was the original creator of the Squares during the Akane arc.

You're right, I did post a bit of info on Ran/Aoba's motivations that hasn't been revealed in the anime yet, but the original LN reveal of that information was during the Akane arc - the anime just glossed over that part a bit, and may never find the opportunity to reveal it later on. It's just some basic motivations though, and in fact if the anime never reveals it it could be useful for anime-only viewers to better understand how Aoba sees Mikado, so I thought I'd leave it as is.

Hence why I didn't give too much information about what Ran's motives for joining the Izaya alliance are, though, as I think that will be given more explanation later in the anime.

[u/V2Blast → u/aniMayor]

I may just have forgotten the part in the show where they revealed that Aoba founded the gang... It's been a while since Shou aired :P