Izaya Orihara (折原 臨也, Orihara Izaya ) is a powerful and skilled underground informant. He usually gives information for his own enjoyment, and claims to amor the entire human race, excluding Shizuo Heiwajima. Izaya likes to start fights with him, as seen in episode 25, and then let Shizuo chase him around. He is voiced por Hiroshi Kamiya (Japanese) and Johnny Yong Bosch (English).
Personality
Izaya has the appearance and expression of one who is extremely crafty and confident. He is repeatedly described as a handsome man with a beautiful face por other characters in the novels. He claims to amor humanity, and greatly enjoys putting people in miserable o 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 despite this, women are not interested in him and he isn't very interested in women as well. He has a very 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 Kyohei Kadota). He even talks like a girl on occasion, especially online where he actually does pretend to be female. He plays on both sides, so that whoever wins, he will have an advantage.
He likes to play twisted versions of chess (usually using a combination of Chess, Othello, and Shogi pieces) with himself in his room, 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 their actions. The rules he plays por 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 actuación as they see fit instead of controlling them, and he even once set fuego to his chess set in his excitement.
Although Izaya enjoys conflict, often mostrando 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, 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. He uses a flickblade and is skilled in parkour.
Izaya is also known to be one of the strongest men in Ikebukuro, although the título of strongest man belongs to Shizuo Heiwajima. When Mikado Ryuugamine first came to Ikebukuro, Izaya was one of the people Kida Masaomi warned him to stay away from, simply describing Izaya as "dangerous."
Background
Up until middle school in Raijin Academy, Izaya was a model student: the vice president of the elementary student council, the estrella at sports meetings, and winning independent research awards, poesía awards, slogan awards, and participated in essay contests. This combined with his good looks and a respectable family made him well known, especially with his girl classmates. However, Izaya was not particularly loved o hated since he went through school life in a withdrawn state, preferring to observe everything from afar, carrying out his life philosophy to be 'neither too close nor too far' from the others.
During afternoon breaks and such, other students would talk in the classroom o play in the courtyard, but since Izaya would always be in the library, he gave people the impression that he was a loner. But Izaya enjoyed being a step away from his surroundings. He knew he was a parte superior, arriba student, however, he didn't think the people around him were idiots and didn't look down on them.
At this point, his observations are not used for ill, rather a simple hobby, but slowly it was turning más and más into an obsession.
His calm life changes after meeting fellow middle school student, Shinra, who immediately assesses Izaya's personality and tries to convince Izaya into creating a biology club. At first, he declines his offer and after that, he continued living the same life he had in elementary school, while keeping an eye on the human called Kishitani Shinra, but one día he suddenly understood: Shinra was his opposite because unlike him, he has no interest at all in human beings. This confuses Izaya who eventually agrees to become the Vice President of Shinra's club so he could study him más closely
When a club expo was scheduled, Shinra left their presentation entirely in Izaya's hands and, much to Shinra's surprise, Izaya turned the whole club into a gambling ring with one of the other members, Nakura, serving as Izaya's business partner. Shinra tells Izaya to stop but gets brushed off each time. One day, after making a bad bet, Nakura comes in brandishing a cuchillo and threatens Izaya to give back all the money he lost. When Izaya refused, Shinra jumped in the way of the cuchillo at the last minute. It is then that Izaya realizes he is extremely jealous of Shinra because of his ability to separate himself from the world because of his amor for Celty. Izaya then asks Shinra to tell everyone that Izaya himself was the attacker and promises to make Nakura pay for as long as possible for what he did. After the incident, Izaya is taken into protective custody and, from then on, continues to create an infamous reputation.
He was later enrolled in Raijin Academy High School with Shizuo, Shinra and Kadota; although, Izaya rarely attended class. He shares a passionate hatred for Shizuo and from nearly the moment they met they tried to kill eachother. Izaya claims Shizuo is the only human he does not amor and wouldn't mind seeing him dead. Shizuo tries to kill him every time they meet on the street, meaning Izaya often finds misceláneo vending machines, trash cans and other large objects flying straight at him. Shizuo finds him untrustworthy, saying whenever there is trouble, "99% of the time you're (Izaya) behind it." Izaya had often framed Shizuo for crimes he didn't commit, causing him no end of trouble. During this period, Izaya begins to collect "followers" for his own purposes, of which most are traumatized teenage girls, ranged from gótico lolitas to gyarus (though the majority of them simply took Izaya to be a fortune teller of sorts) who would do whatever he dicho and worshipped him in an almost cult-like fashion (like Saki). Most of them were usually depressed and/or suicidal and have all been victims of pretty severe levels of violence from their families o lovers. Those girls were lost and desperate for someone to believe in, making them especially easy to use. They weren't really in amor with the families o boyfriends concerned, they simply put their faith in them. All Izaya did was shift their faith to him. If he wanted them to die, they would probably have gone ahead and died, even if they had doubts. Izaya's fans conflict between the students in several Ikebukuro high schools, leading to a protracted period of unrest. Shizuo rises to local fame after he becomes the center of this conflict despite his wish to remain outside of it.
He is also a member of the Dollars. Although Mikado Ryuugamine is the leader of the gang, Izaya is the one who anonymously recruited most of their members when Mikado stopped doing it, sending out invitations saying the Dollars have no rules except that tu have to say tu are one of them. Izaya is usually seen talking about the latest rumors of gangs, urban myths, and otherwise stirring up trouble in online chatrooms while at the same time pretending to be a girl. His screennames are "Kanra" and "Nakura", and most recently "Chrome."
Relationships
Shizuo Heiwajima:
Conflict is the very core and definition of the relationship between them. From the segundo they first met in highschool, the two of them have been at each others throats. Their constant battles have become common place in Ikebukuro to the point that even the police have long since dado up trying to apprehend Shizuo for the destruction he causes simply because it happens so often.
The two of them are almost complete opposites of each other both physically and mentally. While Izaya is a calm and (mostly) collected individual who remains emotionally detached from most situations, Shizuo reacts impulsively on almost every single turn, causing him to go on a blind rampage. Where Izaya tends to use his superior agility and precise planning to get what he wants, Shizuo almost exclusively uses brute force to achieve his goals. While both methods have proven to be effective, Shizuo tends to leave a lot más destruction in his wake that causes problems for him in the long run.
While Shizuo frequently expresses a strong desire to murder Izaya in the most painful way possible, he is, ironically, the least agressive of the two of them. This is pointed out por Shizuo himself in Volume 9 of the Light novels where he explains that while killing him would be rather satisfying, he would be perfectly content if Izaya simply stayed out of his life completely. This is further evidenced por the fact that in almost all of their fights, It's Izaya who throws the first punch. Even when Shizuo is the one to attack first, it's usually because he believes that Izaya had provoked him in some way.
Izaya hates Shizuo about as much as Shizuo hates him, although he is a lot better at controlling it out in the open. It's made clear that he doesn't even consider Shizuo human por his standards, considering him closer to that of an animal than anything else. As such, he gets extremely annoyed when Shizuo actually shows some sign of intelligence o maturity. It also seems that, between the two of them, Izaya appears to be the most fixated on their rivalry. This is shown in that Izaya frequently goes out of his way to antagonize Shizuo in some way whether it be a simple prank o framing him for murder.
Shinra Kishitani:
Izaya and Shinra were classmates in Raijin Middle School. One day, Shinra approaches Izaya to invite him to registrarse the Biology Club as the Vice-President, for his interest being "human observation". Izaya at first rejects the idea, until he eventually starts observing and questioning around, finding Shinra an interesting person. After he was finally convinced, he joins the club.
Izaya thinks that Shinra is the opposite of him- Having no interest in humans unlike himself. Nevertheless, he treats him as his only friend, letting himself be seen as guilty and put on protective custody for stabbing Shinra, which was supposed to be Nakura's fault.
Their present día relationship has not been expanded on yet. Izaya believes that he isn't necessarily an important friend to Shinra as he treats Celty as his parte superior, arriba priority in life. It was shown that Shinra immediately put down the phone when Izaya tried to contact him, saying that he has been hospitalised. In return, Izaya didn't care at all when Shinra was attacked por Kisuke Adabashi.
Mikado Ryūgamine:
Izaya and Mikado met on the internet. However, Mikado does not know who 'Kanra' is in real life at first. Mikado met Izaya face to face on Mikado's segundo día in Ikebukuro. Izaya knows that Mikado is the leader of the Dollars, but promises not to sell the information to anyone, although he doesn't keep this promise and tells Kida Masaomi. In the manga Izaya tells Mikado that it wasn't a coincidence that he met him - he was looking for him.
Later in the novels, Mikado begins to rely on Izaya's information and advice. This is similar to how Masaomi depended on Izaya to lead the Yellow Scarves which eventually led to his downfall; Vol. 7 foreshadows that Mikado will be led down a dark path because of Izaya. However, in the same novel, Aoba reveals that both he and Izaya have grossly underestimated Mikado.
Mairu & Kururi Orihara:
Kururi and Mairu are Izaya's younger twin sisters. They grew up in the same house as Izaya, where all three siblings are dicho to have had "fairly normal parents." Izaya believes that their eccentricities are because of his influence on them, having told them as children that they were copies of each other and therefore had no real purpose. When they were younger, he often had to take care of them because their parents were almost always working abroad. Izaya states that aside from Shizuo, they are the only humans that he doesn't know how to deal with, which may explain why he's annoyed por them. While Mairu and Kururi are inseparable, their feelings on the elder brother are not as clear-alternately stating that they still consider him family, but also saying they wouldn't mind killing him and throwing his dead body in the garbage to meet their idol: "Hanejima Yuuhei", Shizuo's younger brother
Namie Yagiri:
Initially, Namie and Izaya had very little contact outside of what was required for their jobs. Namie even expresses some controlled, but visible, annoyance with Izaya's personality. However, she does seem to have confidence in his abilities to the point to where Izaya is the first person she turns to after the incident with the Dollars.
Once Namie agrees to work as Izaya's secretary she tries to keep a professional mood between them but it is constantly undermined due to her obvious disdain for her new employer as well as Izaya's flippant personality. She follows Izaya's schemes with reluctant cooperation but has shown a few moments of disobedience such as informing Horada about Mikado being the leader of the Dollars and giving Kururi and Mairu the link to the chatroom. She has also shown some disturbance and even fear at what Izaya was capable of doing.
Within the light Novel series, their relationship is a bit más fleshed out. From Izaya's POV he appears to be más o less indifferent towards Namie. He has stated that he vistas Namie as a horrible person and usually makes fun of her for her incestuous amor for her brother. However, Izaya enjoys teasing people so these insults are probably only half true and despite his generally low opinion of her, he states that he loves her in the same way he loves all other humans (although that isn't something she exactly takes comfort in).
From Namie's side, she vistas Izaya as an idiot and has even contemplated killing him on numerous occasions (the only reason she hasn't yet is because he signs her paycheck). However, she has shown a surprising level of patience with Izaya and has frequently been shown going above and beyond what would normally be required of her such as when she agreed to let Akane Awakusu stay with her while she ran away from home.
As the novels progress the two of them become más relaxed around each other to the point to where they frequently have cena together as shown in the ending shots of some of the novel volumes.
Personality
Izaya has the appearance and expression of one who is extremely crafty and confident. He is repeatedly described as a handsome man with a beautiful face por other characters in the novels. He claims to amor humanity, and greatly enjoys putting people in miserable o 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 despite this, women are not interested in him and he isn't very interested in women as well. He has a very 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 Kyohei Kadota). He even talks like a girl on occasion, especially online where he actually does pretend to be female. He plays on both sides, so that whoever wins, he will have an advantage.
He likes to play twisted versions of chess (usually using a combination of Chess, Othello, and Shogi pieces) with himself in his room, 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 their actions. The rules he plays por 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 actuación as they see fit instead of controlling them, and he even once set fuego to his chess set in his excitement.
Although Izaya enjoys conflict, often mostrando 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, 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. He uses a flickblade and is skilled in parkour.
Izaya is also known to be one of the strongest men in Ikebukuro, although the título of strongest man belongs to Shizuo Heiwajima. When Mikado Ryuugamine first came to Ikebukuro, Izaya was one of the people Kida Masaomi warned him to stay away from, simply describing Izaya as "dangerous."
Background
Up until middle school in Raijin Academy, Izaya was a model student: the vice president of the elementary student council, the estrella at sports meetings, and winning independent research awards, poesía awards, slogan awards, and participated in essay contests. This combined with his good looks and a respectable family made him well known, especially with his girl classmates. However, Izaya was not particularly loved o hated since he went through school life in a withdrawn state, preferring to observe everything from afar, carrying out his life philosophy to be 'neither too close nor too far' from the others.
During afternoon breaks and such, other students would talk in the classroom o play in the courtyard, but since Izaya would always be in the library, he gave people the impression that he was a loner. But Izaya enjoyed being a step away from his surroundings. He knew he was a parte superior, arriba student, however, he didn't think the people around him were idiots and didn't look down on them.
At this point, his observations are not used for ill, rather a simple hobby, but slowly it was turning más and más into an obsession.
His calm life changes after meeting fellow middle school student, Shinra, who immediately assesses Izaya's personality and tries to convince Izaya into creating a biology club. At first, he declines his offer and after that, he continued living the same life he had in elementary school, while keeping an eye on the human called Kishitani Shinra, but one día he suddenly understood: Shinra was his opposite because unlike him, he has no interest at all in human beings. This confuses Izaya who eventually agrees to become the Vice President of Shinra's club so he could study him más closely
When a club expo was scheduled, Shinra left their presentation entirely in Izaya's hands and, much to Shinra's surprise, Izaya turned the whole club into a gambling ring with one of the other members, Nakura, serving as Izaya's business partner. Shinra tells Izaya to stop but gets brushed off each time. One day, after making a bad bet, Nakura comes in brandishing a cuchillo and threatens Izaya to give back all the money he lost. When Izaya refused, Shinra jumped in the way of the cuchillo at the last minute. It is then that Izaya realizes he is extremely jealous of Shinra because of his ability to separate himself from the world because of his amor for Celty. Izaya then asks Shinra to tell everyone that Izaya himself was the attacker and promises to make Nakura pay for as long as possible for what he did. After the incident, Izaya is taken into protective custody and, from then on, continues to create an infamous reputation.
He was later enrolled in Raijin Academy High School with Shizuo, Shinra and Kadota; although, Izaya rarely attended class. He shares a passionate hatred for Shizuo and from nearly the moment they met they tried to kill eachother. Izaya claims Shizuo is the only human he does not amor and wouldn't mind seeing him dead. Shizuo tries to kill him every time they meet on the street, meaning Izaya often finds misceláneo vending machines, trash cans and other large objects flying straight at him. Shizuo finds him untrustworthy, saying whenever there is trouble, "99% of the time you're (Izaya) behind it." Izaya had often framed Shizuo for crimes he didn't commit, causing him no end of trouble. During this period, Izaya begins to collect "followers" for his own purposes, of which most are traumatized teenage girls, ranged from gótico lolitas to gyarus (though the majority of them simply took Izaya to be a fortune teller of sorts) who would do whatever he dicho and worshipped him in an almost cult-like fashion (like Saki). Most of them were usually depressed and/or suicidal and have all been victims of pretty severe levels of violence from their families o lovers. Those girls were lost and desperate for someone to believe in, making them especially easy to use. They weren't really in amor with the families o boyfriends concerned, they simply put their faith in them. All Izaya did was shift their faith to him. If he wanted them to die, they would probably have gone ahead and died, even if they had doubts. Izaya's fans conflict between the students in several Ikebukuro high schools, leading to a protracted period of unrest. Shizuo rises to local fame after he becomes the center of this conflict despite his wish to remain outside of it.
He is also a member of the Dollars. Although Mikado Ryuugamine is the leader of the gang, Izaya is the one who anonymously recruited most of their members when Mikado stopped doing it, sending out invitations saying the Dollars have no rules except that tu have to say tu are one of them. Izaya is usually seen talking about the latest rumors of gangs, urban myths, and otherwise stirring up trouble in online chatrooms while at the same time pretending to be a girl. His screennames are "Kanra" and "Nakura", and most recently "Chrome."
Relationships
Shizuo Heiwajima:
Conflict is the very core and definition of the relationship between them. From the segundo they first met in highschool, the two of them have been at each others throats. Their constant battles have become common place in Ikebukuro to the point that even the police have long since dado up trying to apprehend Shizuo for the destruction he causes simply because it happens so often.
The two of them are almost complete opposites of each other both physically and mentally. While Izaya is a calm and (mostly) collected individual who remains emotionally detached from most situations, Shizuo reacts impulsively on almost every single turn, causing him to go on a blind rampage. Where Izaya tends to use his superior agility and precise planning to get what he wants, Shizuo almost exclusively uses brute force to achieve his goals. While both methods have proven to be effective, Shizuo tends to leave a lot más destruction in his wake that causes problems for him in the long run.
While Shizuo frequently expresses a strong desire to murder Izaya in the most painful way possible, he is, ironically, the least agressive of the two of them. This is pointed out por Shizuo himself in Volume 9 of the Light novels where he explains that while killing him would be rather satisfying, he would be perfectly content if Izaya simply stayed out of his life completely. This is further evidenced por the fact that in almost all of their fights, It's Izaya who throws the first punch. Even when Shizuo is the one to attack first, it's usually because he believes that Izaya had provoked him in some way.
Izaya hates Shizuo about as much as Shizuo hates him, although he is a lot better at controlling it out in the open. It's made clear that he doesn't even consider Shizuo human por his standards, considering him closer to that of an animal than anything else. As such, he gets extremely annoyed when Shizuo actually shows some sign of intelligence o maturity. It also seems that, between the two of them, Izaya appears to be the most fixated on their rivalry. This is shown in that Izaya frequently goes out of his way to antagonize Shizuo in some way whether it be a simple prank o framing him for murder.
Shinra Kishitani:
Izaya and Shinra were classmates in Raijin Middle School. One day, Shinra approaches Izaya to invite him to registrarse the Biology Club as the Vice-President, for his interest being "human observation". Izaya at first rejects the idea, until he eventually starts observing and questioning around, finding Shinra an interesting person. After he was finally convinced, he joins the club.
Izaya thinks that Shinra is the opposite of him- Having no interest in humans unlike himself. Nevertheless, he treats him as his only friend, letting himself be seen as guilty and put on protective custody for stabbing Shinra, which was supposed to be Nakura's fault.
Their present día relationship has not been expanded on yet. Izaya believes that he isn't necessarily an important friend to Shinra as he treats Celty as his parte superior, arriba priority in life. It was shown that Shinra immediately put down the phone when Izaya tried to contact him, saying that he has been hospitalised. In return, Izaya didn't care at all when Shinra was attacked por Kisuke Adabashi.
Mikado Ryūgamine:
Izaya and Mikado met on the internet. However, Mikado does not know who 'Kanra' is in real life at first. Mikado met Izaya face to face on Mikado's segundo día in Ikebukuro. Izaya knows that Mikado is the leader of the Dollars, but promises not to sell the information to anyone, although he doesn't keep this promise and tells Kida Masaomi. In the manga Izaya tells Mikado that it wasn't a coincidence that he met him - he was looking for him.
Later in the novels, Mikado begins to rely on Izaya's information and advice. This is similar to how Masaomi depended on Izaya to lead the Yellow Scarves which eventually led to his downfall; Vol. 7 foreshadows that Mikado will be led down a dark path because of Izaya. However, in the same novel, Aoba reveals that both he and Izaya have grossly underestimated Mikado.
Mairu & Kururi Orihara:
Kururi and Mairu are Izaya's younger twin sisters. They grew up in the same house as Izaya, where all three siblings are dicho to have had "fairly normal parents." Izaya believes that their eccentricities are because of his influence on them, having told them as children that they were copies of each other and therefore had no real purpose. When they were younger, he often had to take care of them because their parents were almost always working abroad. Izaya states that aside from Shizuo, they are the only humans that he doesn't know how to deal with, which may explain why he's annoyed por them. While Mairu and Kururi are inseparable, their feelings on the elder brother are not as clear-alternately stating that they still consider him family, but also saying they wouldn't mind killing him and throwing his dead body in the garbage to meet their idol: "Hanejima Yuuhei", Shizuo's younger brother
Namie Yagiri:
Initially, Namie and Izaya had very little contact outside of what was required for their jobs. Namie even expresses some controlled, but visible, annoyance with Izaya's personality. However, she does seem to have confidence in his abilities to the point to where Izaya is the first person she turns to after the incident with the Dollars.
Once Namie agrees to work as Izaya's secretary she tries to keep a professional mood between them but it is constantly undermined due to her obvious disdain for her new employer as well as Izaya's flippant personality. She follows Izaya's schemes with reluctant cooperation but has shown a few moments of disobedience such as informing Horada about Mikado being the leader of the Dollars and giving Kururi and Mairu the link to the chatroom. She has also shown some disturbance and even fear at what Izaya was capable of doing.
Within the light Novel series, their relationship is a bit más fleshed out. From Izaya's POV he appears to be más o less indifferent towards Namie. He has stated that he vistas Namie as a horrible person and usually makes fun of her for her incestuous amor for her brother. However, Izaya enjoys teasing people so these insults are probably only half true and despite his generally low opinion of her, he states that he loves her in the same way he loves all other humans (although that isn't something she exactly takes comfort in).
From Namie's side, she vistas Izaya as an idiot and has even contemplated killing him on numerous occasions (the only reason she hasn't yet is because he signs her paycheck). However, she has shown a surprising level of patience with Izaya and has frequently been shown going above and beyond what would normally be required of her such as when she agreed to let Akane Awakusu stay with her while she ran away from home.
As the novels progress the two of them become más relaxed around each other to the point to where they frequently have cena together as shown in the ending shots of some of the novel volumes.