Izaya Orihara

Izaya Orihara is one of the main antagonists in ''Durarara!! ''anime and light novels.

Izaya is one of the founders of Amphisbaena and Heaven's Slave, and a member of the Dollars. He is a powerful and skilled underground information broker. He usually gives information for his own enjoyment, and he claims to love the entire human race, excluding Shizuo Heiwajima.

Appearance
Izaya has short black hair and brown eyes. He is repeatedly described as a fragile-looking, handsome man with a beautiful face by other characters in the novels. However, he's also described by the same characters as appearing mischievous or otherwise unsavory.

His regular outfit consists of a black coat with brown fur lining that goes down to his hips, along with a plain black long sleeved v-neck, pants, and dark brown shoes. In the novels, he occasionally dons a longer version of his coat that reaches down to his ankles. In one OVA episode, he is shown to wear a lighter short-sleeved hoodie in warmer weather.

In the Izaya Orihara spin-off novels, his outfit design has changed somewhat. He now wears a light grey variant of his shirt and a long, black cape that fastens around his neck with a buckle, though he keeps this undone. The cape also comes with a fur-lined hood.

Personality
Izaya claims to love humanity, although his definition of "love" is much different than one would assume. What he specifically loves about humanity is the unpredictability of human nature, and he greatly enjoys putting people in enjoyable or chaotic situations in order to observe their reactions. With a thorough understanding of human behavior and tendencies, he is able to determine people's thoughts and predict their reactions with high accuracy. Izaya is cunning and charming, but his manipulative nature prevents him from making any genuine or lasting bonds with others. He has a jolly and mocking personality, speaking informally with most people as if they are close friends and often using nicknames (such as "Shizu-chan" for Shizuo and "Dotachin" for Kyouhei Kadota). He even talks like a girl on occasion, particularly online, where he actually does pretend to be female. During conflicts, he plays on both sides so that whoever wins, he will have an advantage.

He likes to play twisted versions of checkers (usually using a combination of Chess, Othello, and Shogi pieces) with himself in his apartment, often using the chessboard as a representation of the battles in Ikebukuro, giving him the fitting appearance of one who watches over the world and controls the actions of others. The rules he plays by are also beyond normal people, which seems to be a metaphor for the way he lives his life. He does not take his chess games to be a serious representation of the world, however, as he usually prefers to observe people acting as they see fit instead of controlling them, and he even once set fire to his chess set in his excitement.

Although Izaya enjoys conflict, often showing up wherever there is potential for one, he usually stays out of it, preferring to observe the fight instead of directly taking part in it. However, when provoked, he quickly puts his opponent in his place by simply proving his superiority without actually beating the other person. Therefore, he is usually seen as the one starting fights but hiding in the shadows instead of directly taking part. Volume four of the light novels shows that he is bitter when large-scale events take place in Ikebukuro without involving him.

Izaya is known to be one of the strongest men in Ikebukuro, although the title of the strongest man belongs to Shizuo Heiwajima. When he needs to protect himself physically, Izaya uses a flickblade and is skilled in parkour and freerunning. Izaya likes to start fights with Shizuo and let Shizuo chase him around. When Mikado Ryuugamine first came to Ikebukuro, Izaya was one of the people Masaomi Kida warned him to stay away from, simply describing Izaya as "dangerous," while in both the original light novel series and manga, he instead confirmed that Izaya was not "dangerous" per se, but more like "unstable." He's a person most of the characters, himself included, could never trust, because they never know what he could or would do.

Abilities
Izaya is a master of parkour. Ever since he was younger, he battles with Shizuo in the streets every day, and over the years, his parkour skills were achieved naturally.

Izaya uses a switchblade as a weapon to defend himself from other blade attacks. He uses it as an offensive weapon to threatened his opponents or victims. He also uses numberous of flickblades for long range attacks. He can swiftly and easily dodge objects that are thrown in his direction especially objects such as trash cans, soda machines, and streetlights that Shizuo hurls at him during their battles.

Trivia

 * His name comes from a combination of the biblical Isaiah and Japanese for "the one who looks over the crowd."
 * Izaya is fluent in both Russian and English. He learned Russian from an acquaintance, though it's not said how he became proficient in English.
 * His favorite food is fatty tuna. He prefers foods that taste bitter, and dislikes sweets and conserved food. Although not shown yet, his fervor of humanity observation is stated to be reflected in attempt of analyzing people through their preferences and preparation of food.
 * He dislikes Shizuo Heiwajima and eyes of dead fish.
 * It is revealed in Durarara!!x2 Ten: Onoroke Chakapoko that Izaya dislikes and fears dogs.
 * He is a light sleeper.
 * Izaya claims to have seen Shizuo's sleeping face at one point.
 * It is mentioned in the Durarara!! x Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens crossover that Izaya actually put out money as a reward for anyone that wants to die together.
 * Izaya has a 100% fee for cancellations.
 * Fans who purchased Durarara!!x9 in Ikebukuro were also given a copy of Nakura's driver's license. The driver's license claims 'Nakura' requires glasses to drive, is limited to automatic vehicles, and states that he was born in 1990.
 * The same volume reveals that Izaya is ticklish.
 * Izaya goes to various places to get his hair cut, but has also cut it himself before.
 * Izaya's nickname for Shizuo, "Shizu-chan", wasn't actually made by Izaya himself. He heard about Shizuo from a girl who used to be in Shizuo's elementary school who referred to him as "Shizu-chan". Izaya initially suspected Shizuo to be a girl until someone explained who he was.
 * Izaya is shown watching Hanamaru Kindergarten in the anime.
 * In the novel, from Mikado's perspective, it is stated that Izaya's appearance is rather odd for a man of his age, regarding style, and that he seems different, since Izaya doesn't seem to find an interest in appealing to the culture's fashion.
 * He is an atheist, stating that there is no proof that God exists. Regardless, due to following events and his plans, he takes a primarily agnostic view of afterlife later.
 * In one of the Baccano light novels, Bride mentions exchanging information with "Orihara of Shinjuku" who is obviously Izaya. Izaya had lent him the key to a church in Tokyo in the summer of 2002, and it seems that Izaya was also taking care of corpse disposal on SAMPLE's behalf.
 * Izaya's seiyuu, Hiroshi Kamiya, also did the voice acting of Hiroomi Souma from the anime Working!!, mostly known for his ability to find people's secrets and makes them to do his job by threatening them using the secret, similar to Izaya's ability to gather information and his ability to make people do as he planned, respectively. Also, Hiroomi likes to observe people ever since he was a kid, similar to how Izaya really likes human observation. In the series, Hiroomi states that "Cell phones are wonderful things," and Izaya is known to have (at least) ten cell phones.
 * Izaya Orihara's birthday is on May 4 while his voice actor Hiroshi Kamiya's birthday is on January 28. However, Shizuo's birthday is January 28 while his voice actor Daisuke Ono's birthday is May 4.
 * The two voice actors are best friends in real life.
 * Izaya is known as an Internet Troll, the series taking a strong hold of realism when it comes to societal behavior. Fans of the series comically call him Trollzaya. The Japanese fandom called him Uzaya, coming from uzai which means annoying.
 * He has been quoted to weigh himself after his daily baths.
 * Izaya has stated in the novels that he does not hold an attraction for any individual. It is hinted in the novel, however, that he may or may not have had something with Mikage in high school. Narita has been quoted saying that Izaya has normal sexual urges.
 * A fan asked Narita if Izaya had any past love experiences and Narita replied that if he answered that question, it would be a bit of a "spoiler." It's now suspected he was referring to Mikage.
 * His favorite quote is: "It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan.
 * He sang "Subarashii Hibi" in the rapping CD.
 * All of Izaya's online handles are "borrowed" from other people.
 * In the anime, Izaya's coat is about as long as his hips. However, in the novels, most of the artwork depicts his coat as reaching his ankles. In the manga, he's seen with both long and short versions of the coat.
 * Izaya has at least three safe houses, one of which housed Namie for a period of time.
 * Narita has said that Izaya likely studied Cultural Anthropology or Psychology in University.
 * Izaya, alongside Shizuo and Celty, are set to appear in Devil Survivor 2: Break Record as downloadable demons for a limited time.
 * Izaya's flip-blade appears to be based off a model from Spyderco.
 * His large knife in DRRRx2 Ketsu is possibly based off of the Boker Magnum folding kukri.
 * It is revealed in A Standing Ovation with Izaya Orihara that he is left-handed.
 * He doesn't know anything about baseball.
 * Izaya can't cook much more than stews, soups, and hot pot. Rather than cooking, he tends to eat out at fancy restaurants.
 * It seems Izaya's wheelchair has some gimmicks including a feature which allows him to propel himself more quickly in case he needs to 'run away'.
 * In A Sunset with Izaya Orihara he admitted to having PTSD.
 * His wheelchair is worth more than 3 million yen. It is a new carbon nano-fiber made electronically operated model. It is one of a foreign maker’s high quality products.
 * Volume Nine reveals through an interaction with Celty, he doesn't know much about video games.
 * Since his fight with Shizuo, Izaya has not returned to Ikebukuro.