Durarara and the Allegation that Not Everyone Has The Same Body

How could it!? How could Durarara, which I have been keeping up with, dare assert implicitly that a variety of body shapes can be fitting for a human? I demand that it revoke this outrageous claim - only the normed body should appear! I mean, it's a crime show! Nobody has any time for some group of NON-normed characters. Like, seriously.

Hopefully, you realized I was being sarcastic. Art should show the full range of humans, a variety of characters with different body types, shapes, abilities etc. This musing came about when I was watching ep 4 of the second cour of the Durarara season two (which is currently airing). I thought about how there's such a wide range of characters. The prima facie view of a crime show is that it should be diverse but in my experience they rarely are - the normed character is usually not the sort who would end up in jail, but they are typically cast as them. (This show goes beyond just characters who are criminals, but criminals play a major role in the show. Even though the show takes place in Japan, it recognizes that Tokyo (Ikebukuro, in particular) contains quite a number of people from abroad. Two Russians work at a Sushi bar - they speak Russian with each other but Japanese with customers, reflecting an obvious blend of culture. Later in the show (as in season 2), a character named Varona, who is a Russian, is introduced, broadening the diversity of persons in Ikebukuro. However, Drrr's treatment of bodies is interesting for many other reasons. For example, one sees characters wearing bandages, a hallmark of injury and by corollary disability, and one character is missing an eye. Both give an image of weakened ability and in this case suggest a status of criminals; however, these bodies represent a stark contrast from the normed person, especially a male wearing a business suit without any sign of injury. The show tosses the viewer so many different images of humanity. One cannot simply choose a normed human (body) from among all the characters as a representative of humanity, as happens in many other works of art. While there are still many lanky males, they all appear with diversity, whether they have bandages or other misshapen components. In that respect, the Durarara series is quite refreshing. There are so many characters given attention, preventing the viewer from exclusively focusing on one type of body. Even if you created some Drrr norm, it would still be so different from capturing any one main character. From statistics, we know that simply taking an average when the standard deviation is large may not reflect the data as a group. There is the destructive Shizzy, the sly Izaya, and the mystical Celty, all of whom have different levels of strength and ability. Thus, a normed "human" can be abandoned in favor of accepting the weirdness of humanity - in that respect, the norm is meaningless. Here, someone like Shizuru - who as I already stated co-opts the eyepatch - would not stand out.