If you’re still here then congratulations, you’re caught up on the entire story of Bungo Stray Dogs. Well, maybe not the entire story, since there are many novels and spin-offs, but the manga’s main story is done. Better yet, as far as I’m aware some of the things that happened in today’s episode have yet to be published in the manga. It’s been one hell of a ride and as much as I’ve enjoyed watching these episodes weekly, I think this will be my last time doing anime recaps for a little while. I want to focus more on different content, more in depth looks at certain moments in anime. I say that now, but first I need the energy to not forget to upload.
Anyway, let’s have a look at how this season resolves itself. Let’s start with Aya and Bram. I saw some people joke that Aya should just jump off the building with the table, but that’s too much bravery to expect from a ten year old. With absolutely no regard for her own safety she jumps off and pulls the sword loose from Bram, freeing all the vampires from Fukichi’s control. What an absolute badass. We resolve her story later in the episode, when she regains consciousness and Bram calls himself her knight. I wonder if we will get to see more of these two in the future. No one knows.
Let’s quickly move to the other side of the world where some of the questions I still have are answered. Fyodor makes his way outside to where Nikolai is and gets in the helicopter. There he gets stabbed in the stomach by one of the vampires under Bram’s control. We get the explanation as to how things have really gone down. Fyodor communicated with the outside through some of the zombies provided by Bram and Fukichi. Dazai admits that the big difference between him and Fyodor is that Fyodor only plans for the people and things he can control but Dazai also plans for the fact that his friends will figure things out on their end. Case and point, Chuuya was never taken over by Bram, he was pretending all along. Not only that, but because he trusted that the vampire control could be undone, he didn’t act too quickly in the prison and let Ranpo help him out from the other side of the world. Fyodor then goes out in a fiery crash. This does answer the question about how someone like Chuuya got controlled so easily. That was always something that felt strange and the answer was that he was simply pretending. That makes a lot more sense.
What still doesn’t quite make sense to me is that Fyodor’s plans to communicate with the outside world were that simple. We also don’t get to see his entire body, so I think he got out somehow. Someone on reddit theorized that the memory dump he did into Sigma is his ability to take over someone’s body or something like that. I hope not, I quite liked Sigma and really want him to somehow make it out of this mess. Our little existential crisis terrorist. Either way, Chuuya, Nikolai and Dazai make their way out of the prison. So much for the most guarded prison in the world, when three freaks can break out of it no problem. I suppose that just shows how dangerous these ability users really are.
With the vampires no longer under Fukichi’s control, Akutagawa returns to his senses and saves Aya from certain death. Now all that’s left to resolve is Fukichi himself.
Speaking of Fukichi, he’s about to destroy the world, so the gang better hurry up with taking him out. It turns out Fukuzawa had a plan all along. There was a moment of weakness in Fukichi’s plans. When he stabs Fukuzawa, his sword is in his enemy, so he loses hold of it. With the sword taken from him, he cannot use his powerful time abilities. There’s one problem with this though, this means he never got the sword back at all, since he could have otherwise just turn back time. This is why I’m not a big fan of time traveling in fiction, a lot of the time it either doesn’t make sense or it’s too complicated for me to fully grasp all the rules. It’s just not really my thing. Either way, Fukichi loses control of the sword and his One Order, which Fukuzawa promptly uses to call off all of the attacks. The world is saved.
But why would Fukichi do all this? Of course it’s for a good reason. It’s a little bit contrived, but that’s how these stories go. Fukichi got a message from 36 years in the future that the world would be destroyed in a massive war. His goal was to unify the world before we ever got to that point. To do so, we needed the destruction of the state. If there’s no state then there can be no state backed violence. To make a long story short, Fukichi was ACAB all along. Kind of. He wanted Fukuzawa to be completely in control of the armies of the world because Fukuzawa is the one person he unwaveringly trusts with that kind of power. We end the season with Teruko killing Fukichi when Fukuzawa wavers. The world is saved and Fukichi only had to sacrifice 500 lives to save 200 million lives. Not a bad trade-off, even though it’s still a bitter pill to swallow. Fukuzawa loses his childhood friend and is understandably heartbroken. But we end the season with everyone safe.
Well, that’s what it seemed like, at least. We get a quick taste of what is going on two hours later and things are not looking good. Someone very powerful is fighting against Atsushi and Akutagawa and we have no idea what is going on. Things are looking very dire though, but when have things looked good in Bungou Stray Dogs lately? Either way, this is a teaser for things to come and I personally cannot wait to see more. What happened to Fyodor? What will Fukuzawa do with the One Order? Will Sigma live? Who is this strange attacker and are they somehow related to Fyodor? Are there still things written into the page that we don’t know about? What is Dazai’s deal really? There’s so much more story to get through and I’m a bit sad that we’ll have to wait a long time, but on the bright side there is still more story being made, so all we need is patience. But that’s been me and my opinion, if you made it all the way to the end of this series drop a like or a comment to make my day. And as always, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 