There's no shortage of bizarre characters in Ikebukuro - read the light novel series that started the anime and manga phenomenon!

"Could you kill someone? Working as an information broker in Shinjuku, just toying with all those people... But could you, Izaya Orihara, kill someone? Directly, by your own hand? Not stabbing someone with your knife just right to keep them from dying while you keep dodging the question, I mean. Well, whatever... In the end, you're the kind of guy who uses other people to do your dirty work. You're hilariously cowardly."
Tokyo, Ikebukuro. Loads of baggage from the past are starting to turn up: A boss trying to escape the past. A pair of high school girls with consciences. A boy unaware of...

The Rakian Kingdom is on the march, a thirty-thousand-strong army headed by Ares, God of War. The target of their sudden invasion is none other than the world's greatest metropolis, Labyrinth City Orario. As the armed menace approaches in thunderous lockstep, the city's inhabitants can do nothing but...continue about their completely peaceful lives A prum proposes marriage, one sweet boy becomes a bodyguard, the city girl's secret comes to light, while mortals and gods alike are swept up in romance--these are the ordinary days of timeless deities and their dazzling children in the fateful...

After encountering intelligent monsters in the Dungeon, Bell and Weine share a tearful goodbye as Hestia Familia return to the surface short one member. But not long after their parting, the Guild confirms the existence of armed monsters and immediately calls on Orario's strongest to exterminate this threat. Bell is forced to make some of the hardest decisions of his life when he's the only thing standing between a massacre of monsters and adventurers.