First Look: Durarara!!
I haven't really bothered to check out any new anime lately, but when I heard that Durarara!!, which started airing in Japan a short while ago, takes place in my favourite place in Tokyo, Ikebukuro, I couldn't help but give it a try.
It's not an incredibly original story for those who have already read or watched Boogiepop, which happens to be the light novel series that kickstarted the whole trend with Dengeki bunko getting hip anime adaptions. Durarara!! is from time to time pretty similar in storytelling, characters and feel to Boogiepop, but it counters the similarities with a better character design, a fitting soundtrack which really makes me remember the music you'd hear streaming while walking around in Ikebukuro, and a couple of references to Irish mythology.
On top of having a semi-interesting story, there's also a lot of intersting characters. I'm guessing we'll see at least a couple of doujinshi based on Masaomi/Mikado and Shizuo/Izaya before long (unless there already are some floating around somewhere). There's a girl involved with the younger guys (M&M), but she's a pretty obvious beard, probably written in by the author to prevent the fujoshi from going to wild while (re)interpreting the series canon.
Anyways, since I'm somewhat of a seiyuu buff, I couldn't help but notice that Kuroshitsujis Sebastian Michaelis (Shizuo) seems to have a beef with Natsume from Natsume's Book of Friends (Izaya). That's a really interesting combination of voice talent. I doubt anything can top the voice actors in Nabari no Oh, but I wouldn't mind being pleasantly surprised. ^^
The homepage can be found here by the way. There's a bunch of trailers and artwork there for those who want to check out the feel of the story before diving in.