Durarara!! Episode 19

Title: Sōten sudeni shisu (蒼天已死) - The Blue Sky Perishes

Date Aired: 20 May 2010

Live viewing from Crunchyroll

Previous Episode → 18

Next Episode → 20

Synopsis
Anri Sonohara runs away from the Yellow Scarves. She hides in a dark alley and is scared of what will happen if Kida discovers her identity. The scene flashes back to when Anri was fetched out of the hospital by Mikado and Kida. Anri is puzzled over Kida's strange behaviour and worries about causing a gang war over Saika. This prompts her to ask her "children" in Yellow Scarves who their leader is, not believing them when told it was Kida, and decided to investigate. Celty sends her a text message and rescues her.

As Celty drives away, a Yellow Scarves member throws a metal pipe at Anri, who brings out Saika and slashes it away just in time. Kida comes to the conclusion that Saika is also in Dollars. Meanwhile, Izaya fills Mikado in on the details of the gang war between Yellow Scarves and Blue Square. Kida realizes that he had only fought as the Yellow Scarves' leader for Saki, and now for his best friend Mikado.

Adapted From
Adapted from? which chapter of manga and/or novel

Referbacks
refs to previous episodes

Cultural References
The title of this episode is Sōten sudeni shisu (蒼天已死) or "The Blue Sky Perishes" which, when taken in context with the fact that the Yellow Scarves' name is a reference to The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is certainly a reference to the Yellow Scarve Rebellion's slogan “The Blue Sky has perished, the Yellow Sky will soon rise; in this year of Jia Zi, let there be prosperity in the world!” (蒼天已死，黃天當立. 歲在甲子，天下大吉. ). In the context of the original rebellion, the Blue Sky was a reference to the Han Dynasty, the Yellow Sky was the rebellion.

The first four kanji (蒼天已死) are identical to the title of the episode. In addition, these same four kanji are seen spraypainted onto a rusting iron support in the episode, just after Celty leaves with Anri on the back of her bike. At this point Kida goes over to it, and we are explicitly told by the narrator, "A phrase that means everything changes for the worse. It was a phrase from the banners of the Yellow Scarves in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Kida says "The sky ain't blue...sure as hell ain't yellow either" a clear reference to the second section of the slogan.