Bungo Stray Dogs

Episode 8

It may have taken Dazai getting kidnapped by the Port Mafia to do it, but this week Atsushi gets to prove that he is more than just the cute sidekick of Bungo Stray Dogs at last. Not that his tendency to hang about in the background hasn't made sense. His fight with Akutagawa and Higuchi did not go especially well for him, even if he did essentially triumph in the end, and that coupled with his own low self-esteem could very easily make him want to hang back from the rest of the group. This week, however, he finds that he has no choice when a shopping expedition with Akiko Yosano gets hijacked by two members of the Port Mafia: Motojirou Kajii and Kyouka Izumi. Kajii, whose gift is “Lemon Bomb,” a reference to the sadly short-lived author's first story about a sick man who envisions turning a lemon into a time bomb, threatens to blow up the commuter train the two armed detectives are riding on unless Atsushi surrenders to him. Yosano sees Atsushi as having three options: he can give up, he can escape, or he can punch someone in the face. To Yosano's approval, Atsushi goes with option three, and the two split up to solve the problem.

Backing up a bit, the episode opens with Kyouka Izumi kidnapping Dazai on Akutagawa's orders – she's never seen without her cell phone, through which he directs her. Kyouka is clearly meant to be a parallel to Atsushi: she tells him that she's an orphan too, before mechanically listing the number of kills she has racked up since being taken in by the Port Mafia. What appears to be emotionlessness is actually suppression – Kyouka is haunted by her actions and her blind acceptance of Akutagawa's orders to commit them. It's another way she's resembles Atsushi – so devoid of self-worth and so grateful to have been taken in that she doesn't know how to handle the situation. While Atsushi overcomes that feeling this week, calling on his power and refusing to back down in a critical situation, Kyouka will now have to reach that point herself, a process that looks like it is going to begin next week.

Interestingly enough, the show appears to be setting up Kyouka and Atsushi, which I daresay history would have some thoughts about. This is not because both authors were married to other people in real life, but rather due to the fact that “Izumi Kyouka” was the penname for “Izumi Kyotaro,” a man. While my initial suspicions of Bungo Stray Dogs' Kyouka only appearing to be female may still pan out, it actually looks like they've recast her as a biological girl instead. In either case, Kyouka's hard-to-fathom personality and apparent hidden depths do speak to the real-life version's writings: they are considered some of the densest, most difficult Gothic works in Japanese literature. Generally speaking, his works used Gothic elements to critique the real world, and I can definitely see the character moving in that direction, as she is unable to control her gift, “Demon Snow,” on her own.

Akiko Yosano, on the other hand, appears to be fairly true to her original's feelings on women's rights, and parts of her showdown with Kajii are more impressive for what she says than what she does. (Although how she uses her gift “Thou Shalt Not Die” to trick Kajii before proving her own beliefs that life is always preferable to death is pretty spectacular.) More interesting going forward is how her clear beliefs that death is never the answer will affect her interactions with Dazai, who is always seeking his own end. We haven't seen much of her with the other detectives, so I'm hoping to see those interactions increase going forward.

At the start of the episode, Tanizaki announced that he would go to look for Dazai. At the end, we see Dazai chained and possibly unconscious with Akutagawa watching him, and the preview shows us Atsushi and Kyouka off on an adorable date. Presumably Dazai's capture by his former associates is going to be a major plot point now that we're past the half-way mark of the first cour, so the question becomes whether or not it will be dragged out. Much as I'm up for some cuteness with Atsushi and Kyouka, I hope that we'll be seeing more of what's going on with Dazai next week, when we rejoin our favorite authors-turned-detectives once more.

Rating: B+

Bungo Stray Dogs is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.