Today we’re talking about the penultimate episode of season 5. Apparently we’re so close to the manga now that this episode covered moments from a manga chapter released this month. I’m not a manga reader (I’ve only read the first volume and two of the light novels), so I don’t know how accurate that is, but I’m curious to see what the final episode will look like. People on reddit are saying that the author has given material to the animation studio that just hasn’t been released yet, but who knows if that’s right or not. Anyway, this episode was an absolute banger and things went from bad to worse, so let’s break it down. I’m sleep deprived and full of caffeine so if today’s post is a bit more chaotic than normal, you know why.
There’s four storylines happening at the same time in this episode so let’s start with the one that has the least going on. Atsushi has been allowed to escape by Teruko and is on his way to find Bram, the vampiric sword. Bram and Aya were attacked by Akutagawa in the last episode and have been used as bait to lure Atsushi in, which works wonderfully. Atsushi tries to get through to Akutagawa but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work and he gets torn to shreds. There does seem to be some part of his old personality hidden – which is a trope I dislike in mind control stories – but it’s not enough to help Atsushi out. He ends the episode several limbs down and in real big trouble.
Above their fight, at the top of an air control tower, are Aya and Bram. Bram laments his inability to stop Fukichi. He doesn’t care about the state of the world, he just wants to sleep, but Aya has been nice to him so far and she even offered him an ipod. Her big plan is to pull out the sword so Fukuchi loses his mind control over the zombies. I’m presuming this does kill Bram – or Bra-chan – but he doesn’t seem particularly bothered about this prospect. We get a cute flashback to what is presumably Bram’s daughter and she looks like the spitting image of Aya. Again a trope I’m not a huge fan of, the sentiment could have worked if they just had similar personalities and didn’t also look like the same person. Either way, she unfortunately doesn’t manage to pull the sword out this episode, but I’m confident she’ll be able to do something before the season ends.
The third story we have running here is Fukichi trying to get control of the One Order. He has taken care of the agency members in front of him and is more or less just waiting on the votes from the United Nations. They decide to give him the one order which is just insane. Let’s trust that the mass murdering sociopath will not use the artifact that controls the army to control the army. There’s no way a massive political organization would be this incompetent…. Oh wait no, that checks out. Fukichi unsurprisingly tells the entire army under his control to attack. It’s the end of the world.
Meanwhile, in a prison in Europe, Sigma and Dazai are still trying to escape. Fyodor is safe but wounded in the central control room and Chuuya is off somewhere else. It’s not really explained how Chuuya is being controlled directly by Fyodor and not by Fukichi but maybe Fukichi can instruct individual zombies to listen to other people. Sigma and Dazai manage to get out of their room of doom, but not without serious injuries. Dazai saves Sigma from making lethal mistakes and then makes sure he gets out alive. Sigma repays this favor by going after Fyodor like he promised. He confronts Fyodor who pretends to have a split personality only to then turn around and stab Sigma. He offers Sigma the option to read his memories which he hesitantly accepts. The data coming from Fyodor’s mind is too much for him and he collapses on the floor. I wonder if the numbers coming into his brain mean that Fyodor is some sort of AI? I don’t know, maybe it’s just the way they show memories on screen, but graphics like that make me think of computer data and not a human’s memories. Fyodor then orders Chuuya to kill Dazai, which he does. Dazai laments that this is a bad way to go, being in pain, losing to Fyodor and getting killed by his old partner. With only one episode left, things look terrible for the Agency.
I’m hoping we get the initial start of a comeback in the final episode. I’m assuming it’ll take a long time before we get more Bungo Stray Dogs anime, if even the manga isn’t at the point we’ll end this season, so I hope it’s a satisfying ending episode and not more suffering. I can’t imagine having to wait years to continue off from this moment, that would really kill the momentum. I hope things end up at a decent spot, but we’ll have to wait and see. For now, thanks for reading, I’m going to take a nap!
Opal Kaharis 