Durarara!!, Vol. 1

Durarara!!: Manga #1

by Akiyo Satorigi (Illustrator), Ryohgo Narita, Suzuhito Yasuda (Co-Creator)

Welcome to Ikebukuro, where Tokyo's wildest characters gather!! Meet an ordinary boy who daydreams about the extraordinary. A naive stalker girl. The strongest man in Ikebukuro. A shut-in doctor with questionable credentials. A hedonistic informant...and the "headless rider" astride a pitch-black motorcycle!? As their paths cross, this eccentric cast weaves a twisted, cracked love story...

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Comics, Young Adult

180 pages, Paperback

First published December 26, 2009

About the author

Name in Japanese: 茶鳥木明代

Reviews

[kuristina- tabreez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love triangle between siblings and a fairy tale character's head, an unrequited love between an unlicensed doctor and that same fairy tale creature's body and soul, an impudent and hedonistic informant that has his fingers tied into everything in the city of Ikebukuro and finally a boy new to this city who simply wishes for the extraordinary to happen... his wishes will soon be granted in this cracked collaboration work that crosses all barriers of publication!

Every series has its imperfections, but this one is special to me for it was something I shared with the most precious person who has passed away now. I'd give it a million stars if I could.

Edit, Oct. 24th 2016: I wanted to just flip through this book again to get the gist of things after all these years, but I ended up just rereading most of it.. This series really sucks you into it. It's so unorthodox and unique and crazy and edgy, it's just so great. And I originally shared it with one or two big groups of friends, but after about a month of trying to get into the series with my boyfriend (he loves Celty, and now he loves this anime. He pretty much sparked his own interest this time by finding the Celty figma and nendoroid. And he wanted to watch it with me, he didn't want to watch it without me), and I let him borrow my copies of the manga. We're in the beginning of season two already, near the end of season one was where I finally broke down and stopped fighting trying to keep this series exclusively special to my old group of friends. I like sharing this with him now, but it still feels a little odd. And I am sad that it took me half of the entire cycle of hype to finally get into this with him.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Volume 1 was a rather confused muddle of characters all being introduced one after another with little context besides trying to make some look badass, with mixed results. The main character, a basic small-town bumpkin who moves to the big city for some excitement with the expectation that amazing things ALWAYS happen to Ordinary Teen Bumpkins Who Go To The Big City, was pretty dull. I didn't get a clear feeling about the main Scary Dude--what's his motivation or goal? Why does whatshisname call him the Guy Not To Mess With? It doesn't feel intriguingly mysterious, it just feels like sensationalist forced badassery. The guy being stalked was interesting, but felt like a scene just randomly dropped into the story that doesn't fit with the rest. I found the Black Rider urban legend felt lame and forced ("Ooo, there's a motorcyclist who rides around all in black! How creepy!!!" "Okay, how bored do you have to be to build a motorcyclist driving around (and that's it) into a 'scary' urban legend?" "Okay, yeah, but there's this one thing-!" "So why the f did you wait until the last 10 pages to mention that, you thumb-twiddling, circular-talking time-waster?!?")
I will give it another volume to see if things improve, but if it weren't for some insistent fan-gushing I've heard, I would be happy dropping it right now based on my first impression.

[Aya Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Durarara is one and will alwais be one of my favorites books. Izaya and I have so much on comment ! eventhought he is kind of creepy and that is what I like about him. If any manga people could be my twin brother he would. But Shizuo... Shizuo is really special... I really love him... he is my favorite character, he is sweet, kind and... yeah... Different from all the guys... well it s an amasing manga that will alais be my favorite manga and book

[Ilias · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had originally given this manga 3 stars, but after watching the anime and rereading the manga I decided to bump it up with 2 extra. I failed to understand the author's message on the first read because the story seemed really lame and it was going nowhere. That's not the case. The beauty of this manga is that it's trying to portray life from different angles, with the core message of "Its okay to be weird and life is not so bad as it seems".

[Aidan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was great. The characters are so developed and everyone has a secret. It surprised me on every page.

[pilar☾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

again, good nostalgia its been ages since I watched the anime c:

[Sergio]

Have you ever want to change your boring life durarara is byRyohgo narita of a mikado yagiri who wants to change his once boring life into a wildle life.This book is good for people who like the slice of life mixed with a bit of action. Picture this a young boy named Mikado yagiri living on his own in a run down apartment in the big city in tokyo. Mikado must find out what he wants to do with to keep his life interesting. One thing that I did not like about this book is that the first volume of the book was kind of slow pasting but then it sped up in the second volume. My favorite part of the book was how it made me want to read more of this series.durarara is the type of book that makes you wonder what is going to happen next , almost like a never ending cliffhanger.
I like this book because it uses its character to build the story and plot to shape mikado yagi life and personality.the headless bike rider who is one of many mistoys in the story like the dollars, a color gang that is described as transparent. Who in the gang no one knows, not even members of the gang know who the leader is, this mystery is what makes this book a good read. “maybe ikebukuro really is a place overflowing with the wild and fantastical”. Even mikado yagiri find out how wild and crazy ikebukro.

[Zac Lloyd-Jones]

Pog

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ! blast from the past for me - i loved this anime ten years ago!!

[Wojtuś · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jest to ewidentnie coś.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the heck did I just read? Yet more proof that you can't judge manga by its cover. Or tagline. Or description. I'm glad for the chance to get to know our library's manga collection!

[Selena Pigoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is good, I think the anime is better. Some parts just translated better to the screen rather than manga.

The chatroom scenes, for instance, were really bland. It wasn't quite a wall of text, but it was a lot of black with some white text on top...

Something I did like was the stuff with stalker-girl. It appeared a lot earlier than in the anime and gave you a bit better of an idea of what was going on with those two.

The art was decent, though I did notice it tended to be a lot of either black or white, not much gray scale. I'm not as into the "all-or-nothing" kind of shading, so...

Durarara has a bit of a slow start, so I'll be picking up the next volume before I make any real judgements.

If you like Durarara, it's worth reading. (And someone! Translate the light novel please!)

[MusTii Fa · Rating 3 out of 5]

i started watching the Anime..than i found myself in love with characters and need to know more about them and why they became what they are now .the plot is twisted very nicely and i love the way how i solve the puzzles of the story.. the characters have all the human contradictions but in a supernatural frame.also you may projected your personality on one of them because there are many main characters and all are equally focused on..i advise every one who is into Anime to watch than read or read than watch..because i believe the two are necessary to be done to comprehend the plot better.....

[Mayank Agarwal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had really high expectations from it, being from the creator of Baccano!(one of the best anime ever). Was reading the manga while watching the anime as the dubbed version of anime didn't have translations of written Japanese dialogues.

Anyways was really disappointed, part of the reason may be because i was watching the anime in parallel but the main issue was it's nothing like Baccano. While they are similar in having many characters but the comparison ends there. It did have some humor, interesting characters and plots but i was not satisfied.

[Donna · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a muddled mess. I assume it was a set up for future volumes but don't care enough to continue. There's a naive boy who is starting high school in the big city, his previously on-line friend who thinks he's a lady's man, a creepy stalker girl, an obnoxious jerk who takes advantage of women - the only interesting character is a motorcycle rider without a head.

[Kseniia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Всего 4 тома... кажется, на днях я куплю остальные три.
Единственный минус в том, что в этом томике 4 разных переводчика 7 глав. Немного напрягало. Но на все остальное плевать, ибо моя любимая Дюрарарушка стоит у меня на полке. И я могу ее держать в руках! Ох...

[Z: Wizard (∩｀-´)⊃━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome! You could see the story at different characters' points, and at diffferent times, just like in Baccano!

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was weird, but fun.

RB: Rasheed

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voy a ser sincera y les diré que no pretendía para nada leer este manga. Hace por lo menos dos años que sé que existe este famoso Durarara y lo esquivé, y esquivé y seguí esquivando aún cuando sabía que tenía tan solo 4 volúmenes. Hasta que un mal día mi último manga se estancó y quedé sin nada de acción que leer (mala onda). Así que junté mi fuerza de voluntad (no sé si a ustedes les pasa pero cuando ya se me instala la idea de que NO haré algo,cambiar de parecer hace que me explote el cerebro), tomé el manga y comencé la lectura. Y ahora no me arrepiento. *NOTA MENTAL: No desartar mangas tan a la ligera*

La  trama  es sobre Ryuugamine Mikado quien llega a un colegio en Ikebukuro gracias a la invitación de su amigo Kida-kun, rápidamente es advertido por este amigo sobre la gran cantidad de pandillas peligrosas de las que tiene que tener cuidado (todas representadas con colores) y en especial de la peculiar banda de los incoloros llamada "Dollars". Rápidamente se nos presentan los diferentes personajes (bastantes) que conforman las historias y que luego seguirá este manga (juntos y por separados) y de una forma que a mi me pareció bastante dinámica, resulta que cada vez que Mikado sale por alguna razón a la ciudad se le cruza algún miembro temible de algún clan del terror, es por esto que cada capítulo tiene una mezcla de acción y comedia e incluso en más de alguno queda espacio para el romance. Así, los tres estudiantes, Mikado, Masaomi y Anri deben participar activa o pasivamente de toda la trama, hay momentos en que incluso los perdemos de vista, ya que el mangaka intenta abarcar de forma compacta todos los cruces de historia.



Además de las peleas de pandillas, hay sub-tramas sicológicas bastante interesantes, como es la adaptación de la leyenda de Sleepy Hollow o La Leyenda del Jinete sin Cabeza, un relato corto de terror, escrito por Washington Irving en 1820, en su coleccion: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon que en este manga transforman para convertirlo en una chica en moto (su casco esconde su condición) y que además es una suerte de heroína en la historia. Otro hecho al que hay que acostumbrarse es que al comienzo de cada capitulo hay conversaciones en linea por parte de los mismos personajes y que aprovechan de aclarar algunos hechos importantes de la trama.

Los  personajes  son todos muy singulares y me encantaron. En primer lugar, Mikado es un chico que desea desesperadamente no ser normal. AJÁ, como todos nosotros, pero él de hecho se va de su ciudad sólo para lograrlo. Su amigo Masaomi es un tipo que siempre cuenta muchos chistes no graciosos y está pensando en ligar con chicas, ambos se llevan muy bien porque son sinceros y amables. Luego están las nuevas personas que va conociendo Mikado, desde seiji-san, un chico que es perseguido por una compañera de clases que se enamoró a primera vista e intenta desesperadamente que la tome en cuenta (stalker) y una hermana que al parecer quiere lo mismo (esa relación es muy creepy, la tipa lo baña hasta que es grande y peludo),  Shizuo, un tipo muy fuerte, en general tranquilo pero que puede llegar a ser muy temperamental cuando ve a Izaya, siempre lleva gafas de sol y uniforme de camarero. Shinra un joven médico clandestino que vive con la heroína del manga, Celty o "La Jinete sin cabeza", ambos están enamorados. Luego está el más malo de los malos (on una cara de sicótico que no se la puede) Izaya, un tipo sin escrúpulos que en su retorcida mente die "amar a la humanidad" pero que en acciones demuestra lo contrario, es un tipo ágil y al cuál todos temen, siempre anda solo.



Aún así, Izaya es de los personajes más interesantes dentro del manga, casi más que el mismo personaje principal. Sus peleas con Shizuo son geniales y junto con Celty lograron ser mis personajes favoritos.



El  dibujo   es bastante vistoso y logra la originalidad necesaria como para recordar que aquello es Durarara. La forma de las caras y cuerpos son bastante soft como para la trama, a veces bastante violenta, que sigue este manga, pero creo que es un matiz que al final queda más bien que mal. Las escenas en general no estan atiborradas de escrituras por lo que su lectura se hace bastante fácil.

Respecto del  Anime , este manga comenzó uno en 2010 y contó con 24 capitulos y 2 OVAS. Posteriormente el 10 de Enero de 2015 se inició una segunda temporada titulada Durarara!!x2 

"En resumen, un manga lleno de comedia, acción y romance. Con un toque sicológico perverso y personajes con historias que resultan interesantes desde el primer momento, esta propuesta de Satorigi Akiyo esta altamente recomendada".

[Kelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s something odd about Ikebukuro…

Or, perhaps, it’s just the people who are odd.

A new transplant to the city—with big daydreams. An affable young man who knows everyone—and their agendas. A shy girl—who seems so forlorn.

The usual suspects.

And then, there are the real characters. The people you should stay away from. The strongest man in Ikebukuro. An information broker without scruples and a penchant for chaos.

A headless rider.

Perhaps it is Ikebukuro—what else could compel all these strange characters to converge on one town?

Regardless, for what reason have these strange fellows converged? And, what will happen now that they have?

So, this is my favorite type of story—having a cast of seemingly disparate characters whose storylines converge over time. It creates such an expansive, fictional world. There’s a sense of action and consequence going on behind the scenes. The characters truly inhabit the world in which they live.

It gives me such a reading high when I encounter stories that put an effort into resurrecting ink and words into a full-bodied experience.

Perhaps I’m being a little hyperbolic.

I was a big fan of the anime a thousand years ago and I remember how impressed I was by just how different this story is from so many other manga series. It’s such a delightfully tangled web of characters, agendas, intents, motivations, and conceits.

It’s a story that demands a lot from its readers—and I appreciate the challenge of untangling such a well-woven knot.

Highly recommend for readers who enjoy thoughtful mysteries/thrillers with lots of twist and turns and unexpected revelations throughout~

[I'mogén · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a chaotic onslaught of confusion for me. There were a lot of characters thrown into the mix so suddenly and consistently that I couldn't thoroughly keep up with all the new characters.


I couldn't help but notice that it was the headless biker that really peaked my interest... Especially when the dubious scientist started theorizing the lore and science of a Dullahan.


I did not enjoy the depiction of the one Black character. What an awful caricature. I was actually shocked to see it.


It was interesting to learn that the manga came after the light novel and the anime, so if I don't end up carrying on with the manga adaption, but still want to see where the story goes then at least I've got options (perhaps I'll get on better with the other media as the story may make more sense in those formats).


I also learned the term gfantasy,  which is cool!


Pick it up, give it a go & enjoy!

[Ashe Catlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bunch of introductions cobbled together with barely any narrative, the only thing that connects them all is they live in the same town. You have the Black Rider who's hunting people down, a guy getting stalked by a girl, another guy who wants to know the best place to buy manga and someone who's interested in the afterlife. There isn't any connective issue whatsoever, a few of them bump into each other but they don't really share any real dialogue with each other.

I didn't really like reading this, the only reason I'm not giving it a 1 star is because the Black Rider scenes where quite cool. The guy who wanted to buy manga just annoyed me, there was nothing to him. He moved to town and was just happy go lucky and fascinated by anything, I know he's the audience surrogate but I just couldn't stand him. I liked the twist with the stalker but it didn't really lead anywhere, like all of this everything felt half baked. If you took one of these stories and focused on it, it could have been pretty good. But it was just so crammed with nothing to hook you in, just felt like a wasted opportunity.

[Jeridel Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a recommendation from a friend, I picked up DRRR!! Durarara!! 1--and maybe I should un-friend this fellow. The story jumps between online chats, the main character's new life in Ikebukuro, and the lukewarm underbelly of Ikebukuro. I just can't take it serious--well, except the Headless Horseman soul rider. With that, I pretend I don't hold a grudge against Sleepy Hollow. What really rubs me the wrong way about this manga is that high school students are the center of the fold. I hate seemingly normal but not really normal high school students being the main focus of a story. Aw, well. I'll just return the volume to my local library and never touch anything from its series ever again.

[Robert Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

As expected this is as good as the light novels and the anime. Rhyogo Narita is a true talent and the Durarara!! series is the greatest example of it. The manga, anime, and light novels are different enough that they’re all worth reading, and not too different to the point they feel like an entire different series. Durarara!! is truly a masterpiece.

A quote on the back of the manga summarises so greatly why I love this series; “I think the story we call Durarara!! moves forward like a drill: a three sided machine comprised of manga, anime, and a novel that moves in a spiral, each influencing the others, and none considered more or less important than the others”

[Imogen Brand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Durarara!!! series has all ways been one of my favourite animes to watch it has all of the quirks and excitement to be developed into a wider range of stories. But although I adored the anime the manga comes across a little flat. Character development delves deeper in the anime series than the manga so we don't get the full feel of the story it feels like it has been lost in translation.

I would recommend the series to any manga fans who loves quirkiness I love the way they have combined Celtic Legends with Japanese Folklore first manga series I have seen combine the too together and make it work successfully.

[Scott Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully bizarre Manga storytelling, a slow development based on mysteries and goofy characters rather than immediate fantasy/ninja/sci-fi fisticuffs, and art that is unique while still partaking of manga sensibilities, this is a wonderful book. I can't wait to see what happens now that after a volume's introductions to the primary forms of weirdness in Ikebukuro, we seem to be developing some legitimate plotlines beyond just having Mikado voyeur around this weird neighborhood. Can't wait to read volume 2.

[Abbi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for the 2019 read harder challenge, and was my first attempt at reading manga. It is different as somewhere between a comic book and graphic novel. I definitely was grateful someone had told me that they read back to front compared to the US convention of books. Even with that though, I'm not sure I fully followed the story and who was who with many characters being introduced. It seemed interesting. Have one other I will try that I'm more familiar with (Naruto) and see how it compares.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very character-focused, but a fair amount of action too. I liked the artwork although I had some difficulty keeping the character separate; there was a huge cast introduced in a fairly small span of pages. My only issue with this was how quickly scenes shifted; if you’re not super focused it can be easy to lose track of these shifts, and if you’re like me, you’ll end up confused and will have to reread a few pages to make sure you know what’s happening.

Volume 2, coming up, though!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice introductory book for an excellent series. It did a really nice job of easing the reader into the world of Ikebukuro and establishing its characters. No blatant objectification or fanservice which is really refreshing. The art style is a little awkward at times in my opinion, (side profiles look exactly the same for all characters) but nothing that detracts from the story.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched the anime so long ago that I forgot a lot of what happened in the beginning. My main complaint in the manga is that a lot of the characters look a lot the same. And the cast is so big, it's hard to keep track of it (a big complaint in the anime too). But I so love Celty!