We get some Yosano backstory in this episode. It turns out she was an army medic and working closely with Mori, the current leader of the port mafia. They were working together during the last great war which was having a decisive battle on a strange island off the coast of Japan. Yosano was only 11 years old here but with an ability that powerful she could heal an entire room of soldiers in a moment. Mori was already cocky as hell.
Also hold on a moment. Elise-chan? Is that Mori’s wife, lover, partner we see there? Did he name his daughter after her? I don’t need sleep, I need answers. We get a bunch more lore thrown our way, some of which I’m sure we’ve heard already. Mori was trying to create an immortal unit with the help of Yosano, which is probably why he wants her to join the port mafia now. Talks about ability user wars in Europe are always neat since they imply the much more global reach of power users. Most of this story takes place on a fairly small scale but there’s probably a million ability users out there. This isn’t the first time it’s been mentioned, but with Dazai and Fyodor imprisoned in a high protection facility in Europe I can’t help but falsely hope we get to see some European ability users in the mix soon.
And of course we get the duality of the men calling Yosano an angel. All she does is turn them into fresh soldiers, unable to heal their minds from the trauma they’ve gone through. No wonder she hates Mori with a passion. I had my suspicions already from the eyes, but seeing the character write down five in that way makes me think this is Fyodor for sure. No wonder he’s gone completely mad, having to go through that. Damn, I’m getting kind of emotional watching this. Mori is such an evil man, I don’t believe we’ve ever seen him do something so disturbing before. Of course he’s a mafia boss, but he’s always seemed kind of goofy. Not anymore, the man’s a psychopath.
And I’m wrong again. The man there wasn’t Fyodor after all, since he ends up committing suicide here. I think I should just stop having theories all together. This is where the angel of death comes from. After being in solitary confinement for a long time, Mori comes to pick up Yosano again to join his new organization. At this point Fukuzawa and Mori are fighting each other after seemingly being on the same side for a while. Yosano is the reason they’re fighting, and Ranpo is on the case to save her. At this point I’m pretty certain I want to buy this manga and make sure I understand all the subtleties of this story. It feels like a lot of the first seasons were just fun story building up to something and we’re starting to see things clash and get some pay-off and with the amount of time in between seasons I’m not sure I can fully appreciate everything going on.
A small side note but I always forget how old the characters in this show are. It’s because they’re made to look pretty young, probably to appeal to a younger audience, but even the younger members are at least in their twenties and people like Fukuzawa and Mori are in or nearing their forties. We’ve had quite a few backstories of important characters now, but I wonder what Dazai was like before he joined the port mafia. He’s got to be fairly old (for anime standards) at this point as well, right?
Anyway, I once again enjoyed this episode very much. I can’t wait to see what the guild has in store for our protagonists. Dazai and Fyodor are still in prison and I really want to see Atsushi team up with Akutagawa again like we see in the opening. Thanks for reading and make sure to like the post if you enjoy this content.
Opal Kaharis 