I’ve been re reading Age 15’s light novel since yesterday and theres something I noticed all throughout the book.
On many occasions the narrator insists on the fact that Dazai is a child, making allusions to how childlike, youthful or innocent he sounds or look. I think it’s actually such a great idea from Asagiri to write this way as a reminder that in this book yes Dazai is still a mere kid.
Dazai is smart, scarily so, especially for his age at that time in the story, but we need to always remember he’s still learning about the world, he’s still developing his worldview and doesn’t have it all figured out at all. There’s many things he doesn’t understand yet, oh so many lessons to learn.
This scene doesn’t even need to be introduced anymore, it has to be one of his most popular. But it’s still so so terribly important for his character. He’s talking about life and death with a « youthful innocence » that can be translated as stupidity. Adult Dazai would surely say that he was stupid to once think and say that so confidently, especially so young.
He was young, he hadn’t yet understood what life and death are all about, he hadn’t went through the experiences and met the people that would open his eyes and allow him to have an actual thought about it.
It was obvious to him that life had no meaning, but it’s a very immature way of thinking, very « innocent » like Asagiri cleverly said. We’re talking about the eyes of a child, not a grown adult that had his fair share of experiences and witnessed a shit tone of things. The reminder is important.
There’s many more exemples all throughout the book but this one in particular made me reflect.
Dazai was only 15 in this book, and Asagiri smartly makes sure you don’t forget it all throughout the story.
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I want to talk about one of the most terrifying and interesting bsd characters who almost no fan remembers.
This character nearly tore down the ADA without ever getting involved herself, yet the entire fandom has ignored her because of her terrible anime adaptation.
Who am I talking about?
Nobuko Sasaki
If you haven't read Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam, then you probably don't even know who this character is, in the anime she is watered down to the lovesick girlfriend of an actual villain, and you probably dismissed her immediately. But in the light novel, we get to see how dangerous and cunning she really is, to the point she nearly gets the better of Dazai and almost causes the ADA to be shut down. (Fukuzawa says he would have closed the agency if they hadn't caught her)
In terms of intelligence I'd put her on the same level as Mori, just slightly below the super human genius characters i.e. Dazai, Fyodor and Ranpo
The Azure Apostle
For those who don't remember, Sasaki was the Azure Apostle, a mysterious figure who challenged the agency with several horrifying cases, which would all lead to mass casualties if the agency failed to stop them. These were; uncovering an underground organ smuggling operation (which the agency failed to stop and which massively hurt their reputation) stopping a bombing of Yokohama port which could have killed hundreds of people, and preventing a commercial aeroplane from crashing into the city (this was not included in the anime)
Each of the people, who committed these crimes, had no Idea they were being manipulated and thought it was their own idea the whole time. There was no evidence that anyone else had been involved at all, and the agency had no way to connect her to any of the crimes. And she even makes the genius move of framing Dazai, the mysterious new member with suspicious knowledge of the underworld and a hidden past, as the true culprit.
In fact, she only made one mistake, challenging Dazai. If Dazai had been basically anyone else, they would have been cornered and arrested, but since Dazai's mind works on a level even master strategists can't imagine, he was able to turn the tables on her.
But even after Dazai sees through her plans, the ADA still has to act exactly the way she wants them too and stop the plane crash. Even when they know they're being manipulated, they still have to do exactly what she wanted.
Finally, after Dazai and Kunikida confront her and get her to admit to being behind all those crimes, even then they are powerless to stop her.
Even after being involved with so many massive crimes, Sasaki herself hadn't done anything illegal, so within the law the ADA is completely powerless to stop her.
They can't arrest her, and if they try then the agency will be put in even more danger as will many innocent lives. She has completely trapped the ADA, and even Dazai in a choice to follow the law and let her go or take justice into their own hands and prove they will stoop as low as she did.
In the end, there she has them in a perfect deadlock, let her continue her mission, or kill her themselves. Both are bad outcomes for the ADA.
In the end, Dazai has her killed by using a third party (Rokuzo) to shoot her, so the agency can't be blamed for her murder, though this ends her plans it deeply scars Kunikida and shakes his resolve in his ideals.
The trauma from this event still haunts Kunikida to this day, we see that when he is affected by Q's curse, Sasaki is who he sees.
So thats the Azure Apostle, a terrifying master mind who nearly brought down the Armed Detective Agency, but now lets look at the other side of this character.
Nobuko Sasaki Herself
We know several things about Sasaki as a character and her history from the light novel. That she was a brilliant criminal psychologist and was internationally recognised despite being so young
,that she was the ex-lover of the Azure King and the real mastermind behind his plans, and that she had very little motivation of her own.
That's not meant to be an insult to the character, she says herself that she never really had much direction in life, even with her incredible intelligence she never really had anything she wanted to achieve.
But the Azure King was the opposite, he had powerful drive and strong ideals, he wanted to punish criminals who couldn't be touched by the law and when he failed to change the law as a bureaucrat, she offered him an alternative.
A very important thing here is that neither of them were manipulating or forcing the other into this path, as far as we see they genuinely loved each other, each providing something the other couldn't, Sasaki her mind and the Azure King his drive.
When the Azure king died, Sasaki had no path of her own to follow, so she simply kept following his, even though she doesn't seem to have really cared about his cause.
All of this creates a very unique character, you can't say she was driven by revenge, because she wasn't really driven at all. It's more like she was running on momentum, she had chosen a path to follow and could not stop even though there was nothing pushing her down it any more.
She's a perfect antithesis of Kunikida and was the best possible villain a light novel about him could have had.
A man who brings his ideals into reality with his own hands against a woman who uses others to enforce ideals that were never hers to begin with.
Anyway, I made this because Sasaki is criminally underrated in this fandom, If you haven't read "Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam" I highly recommend it, I've only put a tiny fraction of the amazing story here.
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Anyflip links to complete bsd light novels
dazai’s entrance exam - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/vpeu/
dark era - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/pcxl/
untold origins - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/ghzd/
55 minutes - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/ppxc/
dead apple - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/wvkq/
beast - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/vaqg/
fifteen - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/msym/
stormbringer - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/gbxf/
i got a hold of these while z library was still in it’s full glory and thought i’d share! the translation on these is by yen press, if you want a site where you can download them dm me, send any complaints to my ask box :3 i also recommend checking out @/bsd-bibliophile’s website for fan translations
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someone: "Stormbringer" is not a profound work to analyze!!!
me, with red eyes and shaking hands, am holding a pile of screenshots in my hands, they fall out and jumble around, I crawl on my knees trying to collect them: you don't understand, in Stormbringer the right hand is only mentioned by humans, and the left hand only by non-humans.
I grab this man by the lapels of his jacket and shake him like a puppet: dazai at fifteen has a broken right hand, and he cancels the chuuya corruption with his right hand, listen to me carefully-
and with his right hand he reaches for the chuya during the battle with rimbaud
i am biting his head off and crawl back into my corner to reread the Stormbringer for the tenth time.
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