The funniest and most underutilized thing in BSD is the language barrier and I will die on this hill.
Imagine… You are F. Scott Fitzgerald and you didn’t bother to learn Japanese before coming to Japan to search for the book (why would you care to) and all the sudden these two seemingly teenagers manifest out of buttfuck nowhere and are rapidly arguing in Japanese to each other.
And you realize that you have to communicate your intentions to these two people who speak a language you didn’t bother to learn.
IMAGINE A VERY INTENSE GAME OF CHARADES ACROSS THE MOBY DICK AS SSKK AND FITZGERALD TRY TO COMMINUCATE WITH A MASSIVE LANGUAGE BARRIER.
Fitzgerald whips out Google Translate and Akutagawa and Atsushi stare at each other and try to figure out what the fuck he’s trying to say to them. Meanwhile, all he’s trying to say it “I will kick your asses.”
EVEN BETTER, Akutagawa knows some English because of the Mafia and has to play reluctant translator between Atsushi (who probably wasn’t taught anything at the orphanage) and Fitzgerald.
Atsushi: Tell him that I’m gonna kick his ass
Akutagawa: I don’t know how to say ‘ass’ in English.
OR
Fitzgerald: YOU TWO ARE DEAD!!
Atsushi: What’s he saying?
Akutagawa: Something about death??
I’m not a language expert so someone can come in here at any time and gimme stuff, but this concept is endlessly funny to me and is the most underutilized part of this fandom.
Uhh if you like fanfic refs you could also read Blood-Bound camellias on ao3 it’s like a friend to me kinda sorta only BSD fic with Mori where it’s like the writers gets him and stuff top 3 characterization for all them.
Fun fact I learned from drawing the SB epilogue scene:
The epilogue says Chuuya was on a road in the San'in region. I looked up where that was on a map, out of curiosity for how far away that was from Yokohama:
Then, knowing Asagiri loves references (as should be), I went on a little wikipedia hunt and found that the Nakahara Chuuya Memorial Museum was built where his father's clinic was established after the war. The house's description and what was around it in the novel's translation didn't seem to match the museum, so I ended up improvising a new place. However, using that as a reference point for where the in-world house and clinic was, we get:
an 11 to 12 hours drive to get there
Chuuya showed up on his motorcycle. Akutagawa and Higuchi were already there in a mafia car. They all DROVE there!!! Chuuya stayed for like half an hour to watch from afar before just leaving!!!!!!!