Within moments of the first episode, Durarara!!'s connection to Baccano! is obvious: brightly coloured eyecatches punctuating the opening and enumerating the sizeable cast. Sharing a significant portion of its predecessor's production team, director and character designer included, it likewise refuses to be pigeon holed into a single genre instead throwing its weight behind its eclectic characters and pacing. Unlike its predecessor however, everyone introduced in the first three episodes is fascinating in isolation, but fizz with chemistry when the ensemble cast collide.

Set in Ikebukuro, Mikado Ryugamine arrives at the train station after being invited by his friend to attend the local high school. Eager to be part of the city life, Masaomi Kida shows the somewhat naive Mikado around, introducing him to friends and warning him of the dangers that the entertainment district of Tokyo holds. Weaving through the busy night time streets, they pass a girl meeting up with a man she has supposedly spoken to online. Events spiral out of her control and things look bleak until one of Ikebukuro's urban myths arrives: the Headless Rider - an enigmatic driver of a jet black motorcycle. Story threads diverge and coalesce with equal frequency as more oddball characters are introduced including a Russian giant hawking sushi, a monstrously strong bartender and a whimsically vicious young man.

Baccano!, while a technically proficient series lacked empathy for its cast, presenting them as jagged caricatures with crazy phrases or superhuman abilities rather than characters ripe for exploration. This ensured that although entertaining, it had no after taste or meaningful impact, drifting out of mind as soon as it had completed. Durarara!!, perhaps as a result of its second exclamation point, avoids this by focusing on story first and off-the-wall personalities second. The first three episodes touch upon all of the cast featured in the splendidly pitched opening, but smartly reduces many of their introductions to cameos and concentrates on grounding the story with Mikado first then gradually unfolding the supernatural undertones. This approach mitigates the overload common with a barrage of names and terminology and keeps the storytelling smooth and enticing.

First episode syndrome strikes again with a perceptible shift in narrative style from the second episode onwards, favouring a more cohesive plot as opposed to the opening episode's bite-size stories. What elevates the show over its peers though is that it never forgets how to have fun within its own setting: the deadly serious kidnapping of Magenta is in stark contrast to the blonde bartender who punches a gentleman's clothes off; the blatantly paranormal, scythe-wielding headless rider versus the freakishly strong Russian sushi tout. Entertainment is always at the fore whether that's sympathy for the continuously betrayed schoolgirl or awe at a particularly one-sided streetfight; in the first three episodes the series never strays from that approach.

If Durarara!! continues the way it sets out, it could swiftly become one of the quirkiest releases of the season. At first blush the team behind it appear to have learned from their previous project by avoiding entanglement through too numerous a cast and too flimsy a plot; however the remaining nine episodes will reveal whether a story can be both developed and completed with the same gumption the rest of the production demonstrates. The most disruptive elements of the opening three episodes - the near constant narration and the confusing internet chatroom forays - could well prove a constant niggle as the series progresses, nonetheless they stand as slight speedbumps on an otherwise superbly enjoyable introduction to the series.