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cainmachado · 2 years

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A Mess That Was Meant to be an Analysis

First a few disclaimers:

I’m not a professional nor am I used to doing analysis on any kind of work, I just like to enjoy the ride and think about it as I go along, so this is my first time doing anything of the sort. Also, English is no my first language, I’m Brazilian and while I’m fairly confident in my English (and in Microsoft’s Word corrections) there may still be mistakes in this. Also also, this is more a collection of thoughts as I reread Bungou Stray Dogs, I am up to date with the manga but there are a lot of things I forgot about and am constantly reminded by my friend who is nothing short of obsessed. Pretty sure as this goes on, I will be as well. This involves the first sixteen chapters. So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

1. The Boy in Tiger Clothes or The Tiger in Boys Clothes.

Atsushi is the first one I wanna talk about, while I personally don’t dislike him, I feel as though he got a slow start. I can sort of see why the anime shoved him in what was supposed to be Kunikida and Dazais arc, there isn’t much to go on about him. He’s an orphan, he was abused in the orphanage he used to be in, although I’m not as confident in this one it looks like money is a huge deal to him, which, yeah. He’s poor, all of us broke bitches can relate. He’s a good boy, even when going against the tiger could put him in harm’s way, he still did it. He likes kids, as shown by his interaction with Kyouka and he is an empath.

And, this is where my personal opinion enters, he’s boring as shit. I like myself a protagonist like him, put the problem is who he is supposed to act out with. I will leave a more detailed look on him for the end, but Dazai by far steals the whole show the moment he shows up. Kunikida offers a fun dynamic with Dazai and shows an interesting point of view. I know Kunikidas ideals, that’s his whole thing. I don’t know much about Atsushi though. He likes good, he doesn’t like evil. And this is why I like him even if I find him boring.

He contradicts himself on a whim. He dislikes Akutagawa for all of his crimes, of which he is absolutely guilty of I am not giving Akutagawa a pass here, but at the same time is willing to work with Dazai even though he is granted the knowledge that Dazai was an Executive. Dazai’s crime records should make Akutagawa blush just by having achieved the position of an Executive. You could argue that it’s because he sees Dazai working on the side of good that he is willing to give him a chance. But that’s some bullshit. Working on the good side does not erase your sins. Again, this is why I like him. Cause like it or not, most people are like this. Not to so big of an extent, sure, but people will still forgive or let it slide when it’s convenient to them.

He is eighteen years old and lived a life of torture, even though I wish to hold him to a certain standard, I know it wouldn’t be fair. He is uncertain, jealous of everyone around him and is only now finding himself on a good enough footing to even allow himself to think about what he believes in. That’s why he is the perfect protagonist to Bungou Stray Dogs. He doubts himself; he is hypocritical to a certain degree, he will fight for the right side with all he has, and he will provide the correct perspective for the reader to see. If a protagonist can’t doubt much, there really isn’t a lot of room for the story to develop (when it depends on the protagonist that is). Dazai doubts himself, but to a much lesser degree. Thus the “true protagonist” to Bungou Stray Dogs is one that could easily carry the story, but couldn’t develop it as well as Atsushi has. Would Akutagawa be taking the steps he has without Atsushi there? As we all know, partnership is a focal point in BSD, Dazai and Chuuya, Dazai and Kunikida, Dazai and Atsushi, Atsushi and Akutagawa (that’s later on though), and a lot more. Probably with Dazai in the mix.

The reason I titled this section “The Boy in Tiger Clothes or The Tiger in Boys Clothes.” is because I believe that what we are seeing is a transition period for Atsushi. He showed up and was perfectly harmless, if you looked to that boy in chapter one could you honestly say “Yup, this kid right here is going to fight a vampire emo looking dude in a ship that’s exploding”. Hardly doubt that. Atsushi started fangless and clawless, he is learning to adapt to his powers as they come to him in times of necessity rather than out of pure control of them, even for the battle on the ship this is true. But as we progress this beast will bare its fangs. I don’t think he will suffer a complete transformation, though. Just enough to put some weight to that oh so precious ability.

Can’t think of much more, though I will surely be talking about him again in future… reviews? Ramblings? Rants? Things, I will be talking more about him in future things. Now let’s move on to the emo.

2. A Walk Through the Grove (That Is on Fire)

Now I would like to open this by stating that Akutagawa is my favorite. And if you are worried that this will be biased, don’t worry. It will be.

There isn’t much to talk about Akutagawa this early on, he serves as the evil incarnate of the Port Mafia, always dressed in black even in the sun because he is willing to suffer, his ability is one of the most aggressive we have seen this early on and even later on as others show up, he still holds his ground with versatility and damage. To put it simply, Akutagawa is a bastard, a bastard with a lot of power in his hands.

And yet it is impossible, or rather, not-advised to talk about him without mentioning the abuse that he went through both in his youngest years as well as in the hands of Dazai. Let’s address them in order then with the little information that we got from the flashback panels. Akutagawa was raised in the slums; from that we can guess several things. Hunger was a permanent friend, he saw violence on the daily and had to get good at it and he was sick, which means he was a target. Not only that, as we will later learn, he had Gin as well so the two of them had to protect each other at all times.

From that home of poverty, he was taken by Dazai into the mafia. I want to be very careful with how I word this, I don’t want to come off as brushing aside the abuse that Dazai committed but I also don’t want to put this in such a way that it looks like I’m pardoning what Akutagawa has done. So let me say this very clearly: Fuck Dazai. Love him. But fuck him. He doesn’t seem to show any kind of remorse towards what he did to Akutagawa, not a single sorry, not a look of sadness, not a word spoken to try and make amends. All he did was provoke Akutagawa on the subject, knowing very well that it was an open wound for him and a matter that was tormenting him for years since his disappearance.

Akutagawa lives to get the recognition that he never got from Dazai. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of Akutagawa’s actions up until now have been an angrier mirror to how Dazai himself acted while on the mafia. That’s just speculation though. Given that he will kill, manipulate, torture and discard anyone to get what he wants it’s easy to say that Akutagawa is one of the worst criminals as far as Bungou goes. You would also be correct to say that. The way he used Kyouka is beyond sickening and the way he just hits Higuchi like it’s nothing indicates that he has detached himself from everyone that tries to approach him and that Higuchi’s self-given quest is an arduous one.

The reason that I titled this section “A Walk Through the Grove (That Is on Fire)” is both to reference an older short story of Akutagawa the author, as well as to show that to Akutagawa everything around him is burning. He has no stable relationships aside from his sister, he has a cosmic amount of self-doubt, his answer to pretty much anything is violence, even when it seems he is plotting without involving harm to another, like when Kyouka was being used to lower Atsushi’s guard, he still solves it with violence. Let’s be fair, he could have just given a blow to his head to knock him out instead of STABBING HIM THROUGH THE CHEST. Trash boy gotta be trash, can’t do much about it.

If you want to even give a more poetic look to it you could say that Akutagawa’s lung problems are coming from the fumes of all that he burned just to get Dazai’s attention. I also feel the need to add this, since I talked shit about lord and savior back there, IT’S OKAY TO LIKE BAD CHARACTERS. Really. It doesn’t mean that you support all of their actions past or present. Just like I said, I like Akutagawa and he did all of these horrible things I mentioned and will continue to be a bad person moving forward. Sorry if it seemed like I attacked you for liking Dazai or any other character. I didn’t cast a stone, no matter how harsh my words. As a matter of fact, I of all people, can’t really judge people for liking characters that did or do bad things.

My favorites are Akutagawa, Chuuya, Dazai, Fyodor (yes, Fyodor, sucker for anything Russian) and Kunikida, in that order. If all of these people were on a wooden boat, all tied up to weights and the boat was starting to sink, I would save Kunikida and shoot holes on the boat to make it sink faster.

3. Thirty-Five Count Murderess

All this talk about crimes, ignoring one’s crimes and overall trauma, how could I leave her out? Manipulated from the very second she showed up, Kyouka is one interesting character to look at. She is responsible for the death of thirty-five people, from her own words some of them were innocent families (strikes me as odd that the mafia would attack innocent families for absolutely no reason, but I guess we won’t get any development on this), she obeyed the orders from the phone, specifically Akutagawa, in order to protect her own life until she decided against killing.

An interesting character, as one could point out she always had the choice to not kill those innocent people by refusing to do so. Dying in the process, but avoiding giving those people horrible deaths. To which I have a counter-argument. SHE’S A CHILD. How do you judge someone who isn’t really developed yet? Or even worse, someone who the law isn’t fully prepared to support? Japan’s conviction rate is 99% and while Kyoka is by no definition innocent, she isn’t fully guilty either. In a trial she could confess to being manipulated by Akutagawa, a full grown-ass 20-year-old man, there could be proof after proof that it was the Port Mafia’s doing and that she was a victim. And she would catch the death sentence nonetheless, Japan isn’t very forgiving and stories about innocent people simply confessing to their crimes to get a lighter punishment are more than common.

So how do we handle Kyouka? According to what is said in BSD she would be dead if she got caught and looking at how the Port Mafia can easily manipulate this trial to not have their name involved at all, Kyouka is legally considered a mass-murderer and a self-acting one on top of that. Why am I bringing the law into this? To show that the outcome shown in the manga (up until chapter 16) was more than forgiving and honestly the best we could hope for her. I believe that Kyouka never really had a choice despite being told she had a choice. We all like to pose ourselves as good people… Well, most of us. But honestly, if shit hits the fan? Not all of us would hold on to our morals and beliefs.

That is what makes Kyouka an interesting character for me, she has faced one of the worst situations you can find yourself in, having to choose between you or someone innocent. And frankly? I think she made the choice most people would make. Plus, again, just to stress this out, she’s a child. No matter how smart she looks or acts, she is still a fourteen-year-old.

The reason I named this section “Thirty-Five Count Murderess” is self-explanatory. That’s what she was called, that’s what she did, that’s what she will never be forgiven for and that’s what’s on the mind of a fourteen-year-old. All the lives she took under the orders of someone else.

4. You Really Aren’t Human

Don’t worry, I will be talking in more general terms about the other characters in the next section. However, it’s time for everyone’s favorite suicidal maniac, Osamu Dazai. I love Dazai and I hate him at the same time, I think that’s a feeling a lot of you can relate to. I have to open this by stating that I have a serious problem with manipulation, not in fiction, just manipulation in general. I will elaborate more on types of manipulation and how BSD presents that when rat-boy shows up. Until then, let’s talk Dazai.

The way he operates is one that could easily tick me off. Not in the “uuugh why are you doing this?” and more in the “why the fuck where you written like this?”. I don’t like characters that know everything. If anything, I love people that are incompetent at the problem that they are facing in the story, the worse the handle it, the better. But Dazai is not like that. Could be his looks winning me over. But I believe that is because of how he does it. Other people have said it before, I would link them, but all that I know from BSD tumblr are screenshots that were sent my way.

Dazai manipulates using trust. Which is what ends up saving him, he trusts that Atsushi will beat Akutagawa and save himself, he trusts that Atsushi’s kindness will win over Kyouka, he trusts everyone in the ADA to do their jobs, even Rampo who is unwilling at first. At the end everything falls into place, maybe not 100% how he wished, but it still works. All part of his plan. See how that could fail?

It’s been a hot minute since I read Bleach, but I remember vividly that after a while every time that things happened in a certain way and “Aizen planned it” I would get more and more bored. Probably from these bad memories that I got this distaste for planners in anime, or in fiction in general. They are not bad by the way, I don’t remember much from Aizen to call him bad, it’s just that for me it gets boring.

Dazai’s manipulation strikes a bad side of me mostly because of Akutagawa. You know that all you need to do is show up, give the man a head pat and say “good job kiddo” and he will start crying then and there. Yet all you do is leave him to get beat up by Atsushi after stating that Atsushi is better than him. To the emo kid with an inferiority complex? Not a good look, sis. Or however the fuck people on twitter talk. If there was even a slight chance of getting Akutagawa on your side or at least to back off, why not use it?

I’m not gonna talk about future events, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth. It’s as if Dazai is playing a very specific game, one where all his friends, colleagues, rivals and enemies are pieces. And yet he can’t find a way to get the people that he hurt to be happy.

Anyway, love this bitch.

The reason that I named this section “You Really Aren’t Human” is also kinda obvious. Dazai’s ability is No Longer Human, he despite being filled with human characteristics never really feels like one. Always above, with chains of trust linking him to his friends.

5. Cast of Misfits

God, I had forgotten how Rampo was unbearable on the beginning. I’m not asking him to be ride or die immediately for Atsushi (even though he did get along with Kyouka very quickly), but you would expect him to follow the director’s orders. There is a novel about them, haven’t read it yet, and at this point it doesn’t matter. I think he gets better with time and I personally like him a lot, but he’s such a little shit lol.

The Tanizakis… Yeah. I mean… Yeah. It’s not really on point about them, if they really are brother and sister or are just lovers in disguise. Personally? The reason that I like stories is because they slap me in the face with the unexpected. When I opened up Game of Thrones, I wasn’t expecting an incestuous to push a kid off a tower, almost killing him in the process. That was a slap in the face. When I first read BSD, I didn’t expect to see this dilemma, could be another slap in the face.

Kunikida is just perfect, could there be a man more perfect than him to pair up with Dazai? Their dynamic is what I live for, it’s really good, really fun, just recently read their novel and that was a fun read as well, they just work super well together. Even though Kunikida is one of the types of characters that I don’t personally like, with the strict ideals and all, I really enjoy him and how he acts.

Yosano is a fucking queen. Love this woman. I would also like to say that that man who asked her if she really meant that she would do… things to his thing is a brave, but stupid, man. How the fuck do you look Yosano in the eyes and just go “yep, this is a good idea, totally gonna ask this question”. The train battle was really fun to read and Yosanos personality is really, really fun.

Kenji is a nice guy and the director is also shown very little.

Higuchi and the Black Lizards are fine. We don’t see much of them for now, so I don’t really have anything to comment other than they are a loyal bunch. Chuuya is there as well. I will save him for later.

The Guild shows up, but up to chapter sixteen there’s only the battle with Lucy and other than the bond that she and Atsushi discover that they share, there’s not much else to comment… other than Mori Ougai that is. But I would like to save my comments about him for a thing just about him.

Yeah I don’t know how to end this, no impacting phrase, no snarky comment, drink water.

#bsd #akutagawa ryuunosuke #atsushi nakajima #dazai osamu #izumi kyouka #kunikida doppo #yosano akiko #ranpo edogawa #jun'ichirō tanizaki #i really started this out confident that i could control my thoughts #bad memory

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