I’m very tired, as I’ve talked about on here before, so I’m going to keep it short this week. Apologies for the inconvenience, I hope to have more time and energy next week. Either way, let’s dive into this week’s Bungo Stray Dogs. We left off with Chuuya saving a group of the agency members and that’s exactly where we pick up. I’m hoping to learn a little bit more about what’s going on this week.
That’s my GOAT.
We start off with a hefty sacrifice. Kunikida, whose core is being shaken by this entire ordeal, sacrifices himself to get the hunting dogs off of the chopper. I’m guessing he’s not actually dead because this show does like to keep its main cast going, but we’ll see. Two days pass. Kyouka and Atsushi are still at the crime scene, discussing where to go from here. I’m guessing if Atsushi is the member that the Port Mafia requested back, or that it’s going to be someone else. We see a flash of Dazai but he doesn’t seem to actually be there.
Miyano Mamoru’s voice for Dazai is so pleasant. I wish I could listen to an ebook of him narrating everything. I’d have to speed up my Japanese learning for that though, so maybe not right now.
With the agency hanging by a thread, the need for allies is large. Not only the port mafia, but the guild is about to get involved as well. It doesn’t seem like the guild is in a particularly good state either. Francis is currently fighting someone who I don’t quite recognize. Apparently Dazai was already arrested before, I guess I really need more sleep. Fyodor and the Decay of angels are really going strong. Fyodor is being held in Europe, I think this is one of the few times we go outside of Yokohama. Fyodor has his eyes set on the eyes of god though as it could pose a problem. It turns out Dazai knew what he was doing after all and is now taking his rightful place on the other side of the chess board, opposite of Fyodor. Things are heating up more and more.
Harry Potter and the prisoners of Europe
Dazai and Fyodor have a little therapy session together. These two have some serious screws loose. They both have a method to communicate with the outside world, but they don’t want to reveal it to each other. We go back to Atsushi and Francis trying to see eye to eye but they simply can’t. Francis is still a terrible person and nothing has changed. With how large the cast of this show is I do think it suffers greatly from the long breaks in between seasons. I don’t recognize half the characters. I don’t know who this Margaret is at all.
We still know so little about this man but he’s so central to the story. I hope we learn more about him in this upcoming arc.
We move back to Mori-san and the surviving members of the agency. He’s not quite buying Francis’ willingness to help them and thinks it’s a trap. Things are still very confusing. I thought Mushitaro was long dead, but apparently he could still be alive somewhere. Putting aside my confusion, I did enjoy this episode a lot. I hope you did too. Thanks for reading.
When the Eminence in Shadow started airing I almost didn’t watch it. An edgy isekai show with an overpowered main character who has a harem of girls fawning over him. I’ve seen that too many times for it to still be interesting. But something about the first episode kept me interested. Cid as a character seemed fairly cool so I figured I could keep watching it. It’s a good thing I did because this show is hilarious. Let’s have a look at Shadow Garden and the chaos that it’s sparking in multiple nations in this strange world.
Not going to lie, Cid was kind of insane even in his previous life on earth.
The story follows Cid Kagenou, a guy who was trying to be a hero in his old life on earth by helping people out like a batman type vigilante guy. Unfortunately he dies young and reincarnates in a fantasy world. There he quickly realizes he’s got the potential to be extremely powerful and spends his time training and getting stronger. He meets a young elven girl who he helps out and names Alpha. Now Cid isn’t a normal boy, he’s a massive Chuuni. Someone who loves to pretend to be cool and in this world he’s chosen to pretend there’s an evil cult out there that he’s fighting. This is where we start to realize how silly this show is because it turns out that the cult he made up for his pretend villains is actually real. Not only that, the girls he saves as time goes on create the powerful organization Shadow Garden whose goal is to fight against this Diablos Cult. All of this happens while Cid pretends to be a normal high school kid and only his alter ego Shadow gets all the action. He spends time setting up the mood when he meets with his underlings so he looks as cool as possible and the way he spends his free time thinking of witty one-liners really sells his character.
The A-team, the most competent people in this organization, their boss must be extremely cunning.Nevermind, I take it all back.
A show like Eminence in Shadow doesn’t work if it’s not self-aware enough. Because of how silly of a character Cid ends up being, it gets pretty hype whenever he turns things up to eleven and starts slicing fools left and right. Cid is probably one of the most powerful beings in this fantasy world and he loves showing it off under his alias of Shadow. There’s lots of subplots going on about former heroes and cultists and intrigue between kingdoms and all alongside this Cid has to balance two lives. It’s like Hannah Montana but for edgy sword fighters. That’s scarily accurate.
Let’s talk about the characters in the show. We’ve talked enough about Cid to know what kind of character he is. The rest of the characters in this show are almost all women. It’s a harem anime after all. Having said that, it’s not a bad thing in this case. These are actual characters and not eye candy like some other harem characters can tend to be. Rose, Iris and several of the members of Shadow Garden have interesting stories to them, especially Alpha and her presumed connection to a character that shows up in the second half. It also helps that Cid seems to have very little interest in romance. He’d probably only consider it if it made his made up stories cooler but not for any other reason. I particularly enjoyed the trio of Rose, Alexia and Beta and their complicated friendship.
Alpha, you’re scaring the kids.
As for the animation and the artstyle, there’s not much to say here. It’s never bad, at least not that I’ve noticed. I also wasn’t ever blown away by how the show looked. It did its job but didn’t go overboards in doing so. All things considered this was a highly enjoyable show and I’m curious where things will go from here if there ends up being a second season. I’ve heard it’s been quite popular so there’s a decent chance. If you haven’t watched this show yet and you like action comedies with a dumb plot that don’t waste your time, then this show is definitely for you. Thanks for reading.
Now that we’re at the halfway point of the season, let’s do a quick recap to see what has happened so far. We’ve seen a flashback of when Fukuzawa and Ranpo met each other. In this flashback we saw several members of Five, including the mustachioed gentleman that was with Fukuzawa initially but seems to be on the opposite side of history now. After this we went back to the present where Ranpo dealt with crime around a novelist and through this discovered that the agency is in danger. This discovery wasn’t wrong as the last episode we watched had the members of the Armed Detective Agency framed for a crime by Nikolai, the jester. But on the other hand, Nikolai seems to be dead, Fyodor is still imprisoned so even though things are pretty dire for the Agency, there should only be three main members of Five or The Decay of Angels left. And now we’re all caught up, let’s get back to it.
It turns out our favorite crazy doctor won’t disappoint.
Reality is once again bent as Ranpo is now the suspected murderer of the police chief. Things pick up rapidly with the entire Agency under threat. They’re now branded to be the decay of angels. The reality altering book is suspected to be a power even higher than that of any gifted. It has to be at least inspired by the Death Note right? Things are never straightforward in this story, but that’s what keeps it fresh. I’m curious how they’re going to get out of this predicament. A lot can happen, seeing there’s quite a few characters in the opening that haven’t yet made their appearance this season. I’m guessing we’ll see another team up with the Port Mafia before the season is over.
Fukuchi Ouchi, who I’m confident is a member of the Decay of Angels. Early prediction is that he thinks Fukuzawa is a threat because they used to work together.
There we have the leader of the Decay of Angels, It looks like the military police were the bad guys. One of the guys is called Jouno. There’s more than five though, so I’m curious if everyone in this squad is part of the bad guys, or just a few. Teruko seems mentally sound at least. The members are: Fukuchi Ouchi, Jouno Saigiku, Suehiro Tetcho, Okura Teruko and finally, not present, a fifth unnamed member. I’m starting to get confused about who is who in the story. Maybe my idea of who the Decay of Angels are isn’t as solid as I thought it was. Maybe either Nikolai or Fyodor is the fifth member of the Hunting Dogs? Either way, the Armed Detective Agency is done for.
They don’t appear to be serious villains when you see them interact like this. Makes me think that at the very leas not everyone is in on this.
I was wondering if we were going to see what happened to Atsushi. Turns out we didn’t forget him. He was still stuck where he was left after his fight with Nikolai. He’s unaware of what is going on, so he calls for help. The help instead requests permission to fire. I know it’s to add tension to the story, but there’s no way police would just shoot at a person that seems to be stuck. Well, at least not outside of the US. Luckily, Kyouka came to help. The two of them seem to be the safest right now. The rest of the gang is barely escaping the hunting dogs. I’m guessing that won’t be for long. I suppose car beats sword but superhuman beats car. I stand corrected, sword beats car as well. It looks like Tetcho has a similar ability to Ichimaru Gin from Bleach. That’s extremely dangerous.
Look at him 😀 Their savior.
IT’S CHUUYA!!!!! I’ve never been more happy to see the Port Mafia make an appearance. Of course the Agency was going to be saved, the story would probably end if half the group died on the road. How they were going to be saved was a mystery though. It turns out it’s the mafia on the orders of the boss. I’ve always been a big fan of the complicated relationship that the two organizations have. Speaking of complicated relationships, where is Dazai in all of this? Did I miss where he went, or have we not seen him in a while? Either way, I’m even more excited than I was at the end of last week’s episode. This season has been very good so far and it’s making me seriously consider buying the manga. I already have some of the books so I feel like that’s a good enough excuse to splurge on more of them, right? But that’s been me and my thoughts on this episode, as always I’d like to thank you for reading and until next week!
The exploits of the Armed Detective Agency are being properly acknowledged by the government at this point, even handing out a prestigious award to Fukuzawa. It’s honestly kind of disappointing that we only get 13 episodes at a time, but we’ll have to deal with that. On the bright side, we go back to seeing Atsushi for the first time in a while. With Kunikida released from jail, he’s now training the young man in using his power properly.
Finally getting some recognition. Things are looking good for the Armed Detective Agency
The next job involves the brutal murder of a young government official. His skin has been flayed off. There are other victims who have been killed in equally brutal ways. Ranpo and Fukuzawa explain that this is something called “The Decay of Angels.”
That guy looks like he didn’t die a painless death in the background.
These are the five signs that angels exhibit before their death. Brutal stuff. Five are probably each representing one of the five methods of decay this season. But as Atsushi points out, there’s a fifth murder yet to come.
Foreshadowing is a narrative device.
So we learn pretty quickly afterwards that the government itself has a hand in the Decay of Angels, with even the nice gentleman we saw earlier being involved. Of course these things run deep, you can never fully trust the government. And of course they’re going about it in a pretty awful way. Of course the agency’s members being criminals in their past is something that makes their existence complicated, but we as viewers know they’re good people now. Not to mention the fact that the government itself has had a hand in some of the crimes they committed. Remember kids, the law is not the same as morality. It often will overlap, but it’s not always right. In this specific case though, the law is being used for vengeance.
It’s a trap!
Of course, Nikolai, who we met the other day, is behind this particular venture. He’s used the government for his own ploys and is now luring the agency into a trap. We finally get a proper introduction of the Decay of Angels, or Five, or V. The Jester Nikolai and the Demon Fyodor are two out of five members of a criminal organization whose goal seems to be wiping out other gifted. They even have someone who can steal information from your mind. Nikolai and Atsushi square off with the latter being completely overpowered. Elsewhere, someone has stolen a page from the Death Note from chief Taneda and killed the man.
Why do I suddenly feel an urge to eat an apple?
The concept of having a book that makes what you write in it come true, but it’s required to be in the form of a novel story is fascinating. It sounds like something I might want to explore in a story at some point. Perhaps through a different artform, but it’s so cool. Death Note didn’t have particularly strict rules but this does, which makes it more subtle. In this case though, it’s used to convince everyone that the Armed Detective Agency is actually the Decay of Angels. Since it was written down that they were the ones under the white hoods, it became so. I do wonder if Nikolai is actually dead. That would be a commitment to the bit for sure. I’m definitely intrigued and curious as to what is going to happen next, and what their eventual goal is. Is it the elimination of the Armed Detective Agency or is that just a step towards getting rid of all gifted somehow? I guess we’ll learn soon enough. Thanks for reading.
This voice actor (Takehito Koyasu) has such a fantastic range and as always is amazing at playing crazy roles. (He’s known for DIO from JoJo, Excalibur from Soul Eater and Zeke from Attack on Titan)
It’s that time of the week again. I’m excited to see more of Ranpo getting himself into bad situations with no proper plan to get out of them. Or perhaps he’s grown since the last time and he now knows what he’s doing. I’m doubtful, but we’re here to find out. Let’s get to it then.
I just love this shot of the Gifted Detective Agency.
Seeing the opening play once more with all of the characters instead of just Ranpo and Fukuzawa definitely increases my excitement for this season. I’ve missed some of these characters. There’s also a coffin there, which I’m sure isn’t there for no reason. We see Chuuya and Ango from a previous season as well. It looks like a lot is on the line this time around.
The person on the left looks familiar to me but I can’t place them. I’m guessing the person on the right is Nikolai, whom we see towards the end of this episode.
We get a quick recap of what’s happened while Poe tries to find a clue to help Ranpo. What a good friend and rival. Poe is scared by his own phone, which instantly makes it the most relatable character in the series. We jump back to Ranpo figuring everything out with ease. At this point he’s let his passenger in on the fact that he’s aware of what’s going on, and not just some random kid taking the same taxi.
Poor Poe, being surprised by his own loud ringtone. I loved this scene both because it’s very funny and because it’s painfully relatable. I get scared from phone calls too Poe.
It turns out Ranpo was the one who called Poe, and the police heard everything that was going on. Both the murderer and the getaway driver will be arrested. Except that’s not what’s going to happen. These guys are professionals. Ranpo left his phone in the car though because he still had a plan. You can’t outwit Ranpo. My early guess is that Ranpo uploaded the story to his phone and made him read that or something? It turns out I’m right. To be fair, that wasn’t hard to guess, we’ve just seen Poe with the script on him. Every week I watch this anime, I want to go back and watch it from the start again, or perhaps read the manga. It’s so good. Ranpo says he’ll have the guy turn himself in though, we’ll see how he does that.
He figured that out pretty quickly. Is he watching the show too?
Here’s the big reveal. Yokomizo wasn’t killed by our perpetrator. He committed suicide. It was assisted suicide, but it was part of the plan all along. That’s pretty hardcore. I’d rather not live out the things that happen in my stories. Although I am currently working on one that’s pretty peaceful, that might be fun, but some of the others just feel stressful. Putting that aside, Ranpo is pretty smart to figure this out, but we knew that already. It was a mystery that leaks into the real world. Of course there’s more to the story. The author was terminally ill and asked his only friend to kill him as part of the story. Again, that’s pretty hardcore. And I’m guessing what Poe saw were tears. He didn’t want to kill his friend so he cried afterwards.
I like how this is brought as a sad moment, but it’s also absolutely an insane thing to do.
And with a proper amount of manipulation from Ranpo, the perpetrator gives in. But on his way to being detained, his car gets attacked by a stranger calling himself Nikolai. He’s obviously one of Five’s members and it’s not looking great for our murderer. No loose ends allowed. What a terrible ending to such a great episode. At least he managed to get a message across to Ranpo. Things are heating up fast and I’m just excited to be here for it. I’m guessing the huge job they’re about to get is to deal with Five, and that’s not going to go well. I wonder if we’ll see some serious losses on the side of the agency this season? So far they seem to be mostly scott free, but the author has shown before that he’s willing to kill off important characters when the story calls for it, so who knows. Anyway, I hope to see you all here again next week for the sixth episode. The title is called Tragic Sunday and I’m happy to inform you that I recognize the kanji for “day” now. My Duolingo practice is paying off. Thanks for reading.
Here’s Nikolai, seemingly one of the members of the five organization. I’m guessing he’ll play a big role this season?
Alright, we’ve made our way to volume 4. It’s going to be February by the time I’m posting this, can you believe how fast time flies. I still remember deciding on this idea for 2023 and beginning to read the volumes like it was yesterday. It’s a good way to get my fill of One Piece because the pacing in the anime seems to be getting worse and worse to the point where I’m just bored when watching it. But the same can’t be said for the manga. Even though I think Usopp’s introduction arc is one of the least interesting arcs in the story, it’s not bad. It had all the building blocks of a good arc and I love Usopp’s backstory. It’s just that Kuro doesn’t feel like he belongs in the One Piece universe. Spoiler alert, when this arc is over we never see him again. I don’t even believe he’s mentioned again. He’s probably the only villain of the Romance Dawn arc that we’ll never hear about again. Well then, time to dive into this volume then.
I forgot to add this image when I uploaded this post initially. It’s been a long day. But Oda was a funny guy from the very start, he often says stuff like this in his interviews and Q&As.
Like we talked about before, Usopp is a mix of Pinochio and the boy who cried wolf. The village no longer believes his calls about pirates arriving when it actually happens and they’re really in danger. So Usopp teams up with the Straw Hat crew to deal with the problem himself. Merry almost gets killed by Kuro, but manages to squeak by. This is going to be a running theme throughout One Piece, characters that should, by all accounts, be dead but aren’t. It’s one of the biggest criticisms people have of the story and I can’t really argue against it. Having said that, here it’s not a big deal at all. Let’s move on to the meat of the story
The Black Cat pirates consist of Captain Kuro, Django, the Meowban brothers and the unnamed underlings. Kuro fights with claws and high speed, Django is a hypnotist and the Meowban brothers are tricksters. Outside of Kuro and Django, no one on the crew is really noteworthy and even Django, outside of his unique talents, is pretty lackluster. Unfortunately, Usopp and friends are waiting on the wrong side of the island. Luckily, everyone on the straw hat crew is highly intelligent and definitely not directionally challenged. Nami and Usopp manage to stall the Black Cat pirates enough for Luffy and Zoro to show up, so there’s that.
I’ve talked here about unfortunate or bad translations before, but pussyfood maneuvers? Come on, I can’t think of a less cool name for a mobility attack. Name it a catlike agility or something like that. I really feel like early translations weren’t given to very experienced translation agencies. Having said that, you have to start somewhere and seeing how far we’ve come it’s forgivable.
The story is now reaching the climax of this arc. Luffy is squaring up against Captain Kuro, Zoro is dealing with the remaining half of the Meowban brothers and the kids are going to help save Kaya from Django. Even though it didn’t end up working out, I have to respect the kids for just hammering their pots and pans into Kuro’s face in an attempt to stop him from getting back up. Imagine if that just worked and they did knock him out, that’d be really funny. But alas, we have to wait another few chapters for that to happen.
The good aspects of this arc are still good. Usopp’s story, his bravery knowing he’s a coward at heart, and the early signs of the crew’s famed teamwork. Or should I say infamous. Django is a fun villain and the plot is interesting to an extent although I’m not too interested in it. If only Kuro wasn’t such an unlikable villain this arc would be pretty good. He’s just an asshole for no good reason most of the time. He threatens his own crew for no reason and is just generally mean. His motivations are just pure greed and disdain for others. That’s fine for motivation but it is the most basic boring villain motivation there is. At least Buggy wanted to just have a good time with his crew and party. But I’ve been rambling for long enough now. I’m going back to catching up on this season’s anime, since I’m perpetually behind. Let me know if you enjoyed this fourth Volume of One Piece and I hope to see you here again next week for the next volume. Thanks for reading.
I picked up a lot of shows at the start of this season. There were even too many and I had to drop some of the weaker pilots. One show that was on the edge of being eliminated was Buddy Daddies. A different take on Spy x Family is what it looked like. I wasn’t super impressed by the synopsis and although the first episode was far from bad, it didn’t sell the concept to me. It would take one or two more episodes for me to get hooked.
Look at this adorable little pipsqueak. She’s so happy and excited to see santa. Who definitely isn’t a hitman in disguise.
The plot of Buddy Daddies, although in ways just as silly as Spy x Family, is a bit less convoluted. There’s no mind readers or future predicting dogs (so far), and there’s no fake marriage and massive plot to broker peace between the east and the west. Instead we get two hitmen who live together and accidentally kill a young girl’s father. Well, the killing wasn’t accidental, but them getting stuck with the four year old Miri was definitely not planned.
When Rei actually does his hair and dresses up for the occasion the difference between that and his normal demeanor is jarring. He’s so handsome.
Small spoilers incoming for the series, but in the third episode they “resolve” the problem of Miri’s real parents not being around for her. Well, I did mention one half of them were killed. Now our two hitmen are stuck with this young girl that treats them like her two dads. Miri is adorable and much more annoying than Anya. She behaves much more like a child. I have nothing against Anya from Spy x Family, but Miri stole my heart a lot quicker. She’s such a bundle of energy.
Hold on a second, where did the handsome man from the last episode go?
The two hitmen in this story, Kazuki and Rei, have vastly different personalities but work well together. They’re not ready to deal with a child though. Early on in the story we get glimpses of each of their backstories and they seem like they might be tearjerkers. Both Kazuki and Rei’s personalities are fun, Miri works great and is cheeky as hell and it seems like an all around solid show so far.
I don’t trust you. Not one bit.
So if you’re interested in a fun show with a solid premise and over the top plot then I recommend you don’t sleep on Buddy Daddies. Also, the informant is named Kyuu, which is a cool nod to James Bond, so there’s that. A bit of a short post today since the one I prepared in advance wasn’t very good and I have a bad headache. I’ll see you all again next week with a longer post, hopefully. Thanks for reading.
I do think the title of this series sounds a bit lame, but the show itself is good. Also, the opening bops.
Before we dive into the present time (that’s present continuous kids, since it’s still going on. If it were a habit or a fact it would be the present simple. How many times am I going to have to explain this?) I’m sorry, my inner teacher leaked out, it’s been a very busy start to the week. I even had to cancel Dungeons & Dragons because I felt like crap. I’m doing a bit better now, well enough to quickly recap what has happened in the story so far before starting on what I presume is the next big arc.
That is our mustachiod friend from the previous episode in the middle right? Then is that Fyodor on the right and the hat guy on the left? It’s hard to say with these silhouettes. I also want to say that the second guy from the left is Chuuya, but I’m not confident about that.
Fukuzawa has left his murderous past behind. We don’t know much about this, but what we do know is that he met Ranpo at some point early on. The two solved a mystery together that involved the organization called V, or Five, as a guy on a nearby rooftop explained. He had a nice hat, remember hat guy from last week? I think I need sleep. Either way, we jump back to the present time after finishing this arc and as I expected, the opening visuals reflect that. No more gray tones of Ranpo and Fukuzawa, but instead the full color of the cast we’ve come to know and love. I’m excited! The song is also definitely growing on me. Music does that a lot, I rarely like a song the first time I listen to it. We see five guys standing in the background over some abstract landscape. I’m putting an early bet on the fact that they’re five. Some of them even have hats, so that checks out.
Let’s add some early predictions for this upcoming arc. For starters, there are a ton of characters that I probably should recognize but I won’t. We’ll see more of Fukuzawa’s past and the guy with the mustache in the opening, that we briefly saw in the first few episodes, is a big villain. He might be the leader of this Five organization. I’m talking a lot before the episode starts but it’s good to get some early guesses in. We have about ten episodes to go including this one so a lot can happen.
This is that’s really hiding in the stuffed toy animal people in Amagi Brilliant Park. It’s just the characters from Bungo Stray Dogs opening a theme park because business is slow.
I was about to ask why Kunikida is in jail but the show was good enough to remind me what happened. I remember what happened but I didn’t remember that the death of the young girl had made Kunikida a suspect. Ranpo agrees that he shouldn’t have been in jail. I was hesitant to mention the name Fyodor earlier on in this post, but that is the hat guy from last episode. Presumably he is one of the members of Five. After not breaking out Kunikida, Ranpo goes on to bully Poe. I’m kind of debating rewatching the early seasons since there’s a lot of depth to this show but I think I remember the most important things.
This is the scene of a murder by the way. This chaos shows off perfectly how crazy this show can get.I do feel kind of bad for Poe. He’s trying to be a good friend to someone who very clearly either doesn’t appreciate it, or has no clue how to show his appreciation. As much as Ranpo is an exagerated character, they really nail some of his characteristics. I find his lack of social skills 100% believable.
Ranpo still being a child at heart is always great to watch. He is impatient to a fault and very childish. They talk about a murder mystery but those conversations are rarely fun with Ranpo since he always knows the answer. Except not quite always. The evidence destroyer being thrown off of the roof of Tokyo Tower was definitely a surprise. Then again, it doesn’t take him long to figure out the elaborative plot set by the actual evidence destroyer. I know a lot of these stories have mysteries that get elaborate because they’re stories, but I did find myself chuckling at the absurdity of this one. It’s extremely far-fetched and relies on Ranpo being smart enough to figure out where to look at the right time yet not smart enough to figure out the trick behind it. It’s great that he still relies on his glasses that activate his gifted abilities. The ones he definitely has and isn’t a lie that Fukuzawa told him. Oh no, our guy has a powerful ability that counters out any proof of crime. He leaves Ranpo unable to solve the mystery. After the episode card in the middle, we jump back two months to the start of this plot. Here we get a quick explanation as to why this man was working with Fyodor.
That’s the look of confidence you wear when a plan is coming together without issue.
The upside of writing these recaps every week is that if I have to remind myself how the previous episode ended I can just go back to the last paragraph I wrote last week. I forgot that the episode ended with Ranpo in trouble. I’m sure he’s not actually in trouble, but he wasn’t in a great place. I think I’m watching too many shows this season. I have trouble keeping up with some of them. I’m no longer a teenager with unlimited free time. There’s enough going on that when I turn on an anime episode I don’t want to be confused. Next season I’ll have to be a lot more selective about what I watch. Putting that aside, let’s dive into this week’s episode and see where it takes us.
Ranpo and the police officer have a battle of wits, each of them thinking they are smarter than the other. Except one of the two is correct in their assumption. Now I don’t know what Ranpo has planned for when the police officer will do something violent, assuming that happens, but when it comes to wits he’s definitely superior. Ranpo explains the details of the crime and when the police officer says the stagewright was responsible he gets told he’s wrong. The stagewright was probably murdered before everything started. It was all a set-up for something bigger. Check-mate, Mister So-Called Officer, who smells of organic solvent.
Are we there yet?
We cut back to Fukuzawa who is starting to get worried about his new gifted friend. One thing that I always wonder about when we have subtitles is how names are decided. I talked a little bit about Zoro being named Zolo in the official translations in my One Piece Wednesday post from this week. A lot of the characters in Bungo Stray Dogs are named after real authors. Edogawa Ranpo being one of them. Yet the subtitles translate his name as Rampo. When I listen to Fukuzawa pronounce his name I can hear it with an ‘n’ but perhaps that’s because what I expect to hear. Either way, Ranpo left behind a clue for Fukuzawa. And when I say he left a clue, he straight up told him the answer. Ranpo follows evil cop Mitamura into an abandoned building. Remember kids, All Cops Are Bastards. Now that we’re looking at this scene, doesn’t Fukuzawa have a cane in the main storyline? I wonder if it’s the cane they find here.
It’s pretty impressive that Fukuzawa opted to look there so quickly.
Ranpo is in deep. There’s five armed soldiers in the building so he has no real way of getting out easily. This is where they were going to bring the gentleman with the cane. Miitamura has disappointed his superiors and to make up for it he caught Ranpo. They’re asking him to work for them. He still hasn’t explained who ‘they’ are though. Fukuzawa talks to Oda, who’s still imprisoned. He reveals the organization of ‘V’ kills people ritualistically. This is giving Fukuzawa some serious flashbacks to his own killings. I wonder if he was working with V or just doing similar work. If ‘V’ is the group that’s holding Ranpo that’s pretty bad news. I do wonder who the mustached man next to Fukuzawa is in this scene. This show is always full of small mysteries. That or I’m not paying enough attention. Quick reminder that Oda has always been cool.
Mitamura is trying hard to get Ranpo to join his MLM scheme.
Mitamura is still trying his best in convincing Ranpo to join them. He really is an annoying brat. Reminds me of some of my students in a way, except smarter. Don’t tell them I said that. Mitamura already goes back on his promise of not planning to use the gun. Ranpo gives him about three seconds before he gets taken down by a badass Fukuzawa. The latter is very much unhappy about Ranpo’s irresponsible way of acting. I gotta say I love this scene. Ranpo is so well aware of how clever he is that he seems to forget he’s still just a child. Fukuzawa telling him off really hits him to the core and he responds just like a kid would. I’m actually tearing up watching this scene. The poor kid was probably scared under all that bravado.
Poor thing, give him a hug already Fukuzawa. He’s lost so much so early in his life and he just doesn’t really know how to act properly.
After all is said and done, a guy with a cool hat reveals that the organization’s name isn’t pronounced ‘V’ but it’s the roman numeral for five. Oda gets his improved food, Ranpo sees the world a little bit brighter and we end the episode there. I forgot how talented of a storyteller the author of Bungo Stray Dogs was. His light novels as well, are some of the better light novels I’ve read so far. Very compelling and hard to put down. I was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day. I read both volumes on separate flights to go visit him. Good times. I digress. This episode neatly closes off the first mystery and I’m curious to see where we’re headed next week. But until then, I still have to catch up on like seven other shows, so I’m gonna quickly go do that. As always I hope you enjoyed this little recap and thanks for reading!
I haven’t quite figured out what makes someone a leader, but I think cool hats are an important part. I will get back to you when I have more information.
Also, I’m not going to speak about it, but there is an after credits scene. Don’t miss out on it.
Very few shows I’ve seen will stick with me as much as Spy x Family has. It’s not the best show I watched last year, simply because I think there were some areas where it didn’t quite hit the mark for me. What makes this show so special in my opinion is that the points where it does hit the mark, it absolutely nails it. From soundtrack to art to animation to voice acting. There’s so much polish on this show it almost shines too brightly for me to even see it. So with that endorsement out of the way, let’s dive into one of 2022’s biggest hit anime, based on a shonen jump manga by Tatsuya Endo.
That smile. That darned smile.
One little fun fact is that the mangaka has gone on record saying he doesn’t feel particularly attached to the characters from his own manga. Spy x Family isn’t the story that he wanted to tell so he feels no real attachment to the Forger family. That’s got to be hard on your mental health after a while. I guess it’s more important to write what sells than to write what you want if you want to make it in an industry as brutal as the manga industry. Makes me wonder what a manga he does want to write will look like. Perhaps we get to see this once Spy x Family ends and he has enough recognition to take a little bit more risk. But putting aside whether the author likes the characters or not, he definitely has a knack for creating a fun story, so let’s dive into the story proper then.
I think I might be obsessed with this opening theme. It’s gorgeous and just sounds so pleasant.
Contrary to the author, I do feel a level of attachment to these characters. Loid Forger is the fake name for a spy going by the name Twilight (Tasogare). He is infiltrating the neighboring country that they have a cold war with. There is no active fighting going on, but things aren’t exactly great either. This is basically a reflection of post world war 2 Germany. The east and the west are represented and there’s tensions yet life has to go on. His target is a member of the government. To get closer to his target and find a way to convince him to broker peace between the two nations proves to be nearly impossible. Thus WISE, the spy organization he works for, devises a plan. He needs to have a child get close to Desmond’s (the target) child, so they can talk to the man through that connection. The problem is, Twilight doesn’t have any children. So he does what any reasonable spy does; he adopts an orphaned child. The child he settles on is the star of this show. Anya is adorable in everything she does. Not only that, she has a secret super power. She can hear other people’s thoughts. She uses this power to get Loid to adopt her and later on in several other situations. With his new daughter, Loid sets out to apply to Eden College, the prestigious school where his target’s son will soon enroll. But things aren’t quite in the clear yet, as the process of enrollment requires the presence of Anya’s parents. Plural. With this problem, Anya and Loid need to quickly find someone who can play the role of Loid’s wife.
What an elegant way of sitting in the tram, Mr. Forger.
This is where my favorite character, Yor, comes into play. Yor is an assassin called The Thorn Princess (Ibari Hime). She’s nearing her thirties and is still single. In a world like this one, that’s rather suspicious. She is thus on the lookout for a partner so no one will interfere with her work. Basically, Loid and Yor are perfect for eachother in that sense. They get married in the middle of a crazy action scene and neither of them figure out the other is a spy or assassin. This is where we get into the suspension of disbelief portion of the show. Because we need a bit of that. It’s really hard to believe that one of the most talented spies in the world and one of the most feared assassins are somehow completely oblivious to the other’s work and talents while living in the same house.
You can do it Anya, protect the peace in your new home by…. studying I guess?
But this is shonen anime, not a thesis on the believability of your plot. Sometimes things need to be a little bit crazy and unbelievable to make for a fun story and one thing Spy x Family always delivers on is fun. I do think that if future arcs create suspicion between the characters it would make for some more interesting story telling than just keeping them as the densest two masses in the universe for the entirety of the story. The rest of the cast of this show is pretty decent too. Damian is a great foil for Anya who is about as likable as an annoying brat will ever be. His father is rich and important so he is a bit taken aback when some people don’t immediately suck up to him. The head teacher is a great caricature of an old stuck-up gentleman with his “elegant” obsessions. Becky is a bit annoying at times and I’m not a whole fan of the “this prepubescent child is somehow madly in love with an adult man.” It just feels weird to me. Franky is an informant is great too, especially how he sort of turns into Anya’s fun uncle as time passes by.
Call it like it is, Anya.
Before I give my final verdict, there’s two things I want to talk about; music and production quality. First up; the music. The first opening and both endings are solid, fun to listen to but not amazing and unforgettable. The second opening however, is an absolute banger. Bump of Chicken has been one of my favorite bands ever since I first saw their opening Hello World play at the start of Kekkai Sensen. I’ve liked many of their songs on Spotify and they’re just so relaxing to listen to. Souvenir is the song used for the opening here and I don’t know if I can put into words how gorgeous this opening is. It sounds amazing by being upbeat yet melancholic at times as well. It perfectly fits with the top tier animation used for the opening credits. I think it’s close to being the perfect opening sequence and I can’t think of many openings that will top it that aren’t also by Bump of Chicken. It’s near the very apex of anime music for me, together with greats like Kenshi Yonezu, Aimer and LiSA. Moving on to animation and art. This also looks great throughout the show, even peaking at certain moments. Nothing that’ll absolutely blow your mind during most episodes, but it always felt fluid and fun to watch. It’s not quite on the level of something like Chainsaw Man though, but for the kind of show it is, it really doesn’t have to be.
It’s a good thing he decided to punch the table because Yor was about to murder everyone in this room without an ounce of mercy.
That brings me to my final verdict. Spy x Family is a great concept that’s not at all believable but still really fun to watch once you accept how ridiculous it is. The production is high quality and the characters are a lot of fun. I wonder how good the story is going to be at keeping its ridiculousness fun, but for these first two seasons it passes with flying colors. It made it into my top 10 shows of the year with ease and the only thing that doesn’t put it higher is the fact that the story itself has not been super intriguing so far. But with all that it has to offer, it doesn’t have to be and with the success it’s had I’m sure we’ll delve deeper into the story with future seasons. But that’s me and my opinion, now I’m curious what you think of the first two seasons of Spy x Family. Please let me know in the comments down below and as always, thanks for reading.
