Bungo Stray Dogs

Episode 7

These last two weeks have really belonged to Doppo Kunikida. Episode six introduced us to his lingering feelings of guilt over having provided a tip to the police that got a man killed, and this episode elaborates on Kunikida's particular personal code of honor, which he firmly roots in his ideals. The criminal responsible for the policeman's death in the past, a man calling himself the Azure King, appears to have returned and has set a bomb in an unspecified location. With Rampo out of town, it seems like there's no way that Kunikida, Dazai, and Atsushi can possibly find and disarm it, and Kunikida is growing desperate. While Rampo does eventually come through and things are resolved, it is not done without more death and bloodshed, clearly creating more ghosts to haunt Kunikida's dreams.

What's interesting about this episode is not so much the actual plot, which is really fairly basic as mystery/action stories go, but how it highlights the different world views of Dazai and Kunikida. While we do find out why they're partners in what is probably the most impressive fight scene of the series so far (largely because it doesn't rely upon powers, but instead uses actual fight choreography), their relationship remains unstable in terms of their personalities. It actually reminds me of the way that Desdemona and Juliet interact in Canadian playwright Anne-Marie MacDonald's Good Night, Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet), where the two Shakespearean heroines represent two distinct options for heroine Constance to choose from in terms of how she will go forward: fight (Desdemona) or die (Juliet). Dazai sees death as a natural consequence of their line of work, and justice as just as much of a weapon as a gun for all of the destruction it causes. Kunikida, on the other hand, views the fight as good and right, with any and all casualties a loss that can never be truly justified. Simply put, he will always choose to fight because he thinks that's the best way to make up for things, while Dazai accepts that there is an inevitable end, something neither happy nor sad, but neutral in its inevitability. He warns Kunikida that his ideals will one day drive him as mad as any of the criminals they've fought. Presumably it will be up to Atsushi, in his role of observer, to see whether one is right or if they both are.

Atsushi is actually beginning to feel like a bit of an issue for the show at this point. Seven episodes in and we still don't have a firm grasp of who he is or what he will bring to the Armed Detective Agency, apart from his role as point-of-view character and audience stand-in as far the observer role goes. He doesn't need to be an amazingly well developed character, but I would like to see him do a little more than listen as Kunikida and Dazai explain stuff to him, or to gaze wide-eyed at what's going on around him. It does look as if that might be remedied a bit next week, when it appears as if he and Akiko Yosano will be teaming up, so I'll withhold firmer judgement until then. I am hoping that the new character with the number-based powers comes back – he's not one of the confirmed dead at episode's end, so it seems possible. Thus far all people with powers have been authors, so who could this one be? Since I know that at some point Western authors will come in, I harbor a secret hope that he's Lewis Carroll, who often worked mathematics into his stories. Whoever he is, he's more important as a gifted person who is not affiliated with either the Port Mafia or the Armed Detective Agency, so his existence opens up the story's world beyond those two groups.

The episode's finale is one of the more powerful of the series thus far, not necessarily because of what Dazai says to Kunikida, but because we, having watched both this and last week's episodes, know how its events are going to affect him. Will part of the story's trajectory involve watching Kunikida unravel emotionally? It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibilities, and like the scene this week where the screen went black as shots rang out, it is an unsettling possibility.

Rating: B+

Bungo Stray Dogs is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.