Hey folks, glad to have you here. I’m feeling very under the weather right now. I think it’s a flu or something, but regardless of what it is, the room is spinning ever so slightly and my entire body hurts. If today’s post is a little bit shorter or less coherent I apologize. I do welcome the distraction of doing some writing and watching a good anime, but I don’t expect the same quality as normal. With that out of the way though, let’s dive into the second to last episode of this season of Bungo Stray Dogs.
Whenever these kinds of moments happen in a story I always wonder if there’ll be an example where they mess up and accidentally kill someone instead of just intimidate them.
We get some looks into both parties getting ready and then are greeted with Fukuzawa and Genichiro drinking in a prison cell. They’re old friends after all but Fukuzawa refuses to give in to Genichiro’s demand for surrender. The other hunting dogs are already hot on the tail of the Armed Detective Agency’s tail. They know about Lucy and are putting pressure on the cafe manager. I want to quickly point out the irony in them telling the manager to treat the Detective Agency fairly after having had multiple attempts on their lives. None of them probably successful, seeing what kind of story this is so far, but in universe that’s not relevant. Offering a fair trial at this point is probably a lie.
Excuse me? There’s a flying hovercraft casino that’s absolutely massive? That’s crazy. We’re introduced to Sigma – which is not their real name – who we’ve seen in the opening already. I was wondering when this character would show up. Taking bets on if they’re with the Decay of Angels or not. Aren’t they alongside Nikolai in the opening? We’re also introduced to what is more or less the dominator from Psycho Pass. That’s a lot of technology to introduce this late into the game. If this guy is with the Decay of Angels then him not working against Lucy is probably part of their plan. He could also still be unrelated. He looks like a goofball, but in this show that doesn’t say much. I’d also like to take a moment to say that Teruko kind of reminds me of Tanya Degurachev. Crazy little girls are terrifying.
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Metal, Plane.
So it turns out there’s more to Sigma and the casino than meets the eye. That’s not unexpected though. We shift to Tachihara spotting Atsushi. But seeing him like that right after Sigma talking about dealing with the Hunting Dogs makes me think it is probably some sort of illusion. Either way, Tachihara busts open the door to see for himself. How wrong I was on this being some illusion by Sigma. He’s back in his office being distraught at the fact that Tachihara finds his coin collection. I’m sure this is all legally obtained tender though and he shouldn’t have to worry right? There we go, it’s revealed that Sigma and Fyodor are coworkers which all but confirms that he might be with the Decay of Angels. Whether he’s one of the main five, we’ll have to see.
Do you reckon these function like those giant hamster balls you use to play soccer with and run into each other?
An explosive coin and they have tons of those. That’s a big reveal. Sigma is on that sigma grindset though. This is some epic music though. Sending an airplane full of explosives isn’t enough to kill these hunting dogs, that’s pretty insane. How are they ever supposed to be defeated? Atsushi is planning to team up with the hunting dogs. Together they’ll stop Sigma, get the knowledge of where the page is and win some faith back. We also learn that Sigma is a man with amnesia and this strange technologically advanced flying casino didn’t exist until the page was used to will it into existence. That’s a bit more logical than it just always having been there. It seems like a pretty big deal to just appear in the story this late without proper explanation.
Things are heating up inside the casino. A big casino like this is always a good place for an action story, It reminds me of that one One Piece movie.
Dazai and Fyodor talk a little bit more about things. Fyodor praises Sigma, his mediocre man who is desperate, and says he’s dangerous. As if to prove that point, Sigma makes sure everyone in the casino turns on the Hunting Dogs by promising their debts to be wiped. Tachihara gets stabbed as a result. If only you had a powerful doctor that could heal any injury. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it? Having said that, I’m sure Atsushi and them will jump to the rescue and the Hunting Dogs will have no choice but to take the help. I can’t imagine this show is ending in another episode, so I’m very curious about the season finale. I’m expecting the announcement that more is coming soon, if not it’ll be a very disappointing end to an otherwise good season. I’m going to go back to bed now, thanks for reading.
We’re closing in on the finish line with this season. This is the tenth episode already out of a total scheduled thirteen episodes. It makes me wonder if a near future sequel is in the works because I’d be very surprised if much gets resolved in the next four episodes. That would actually be pretty weird, seeing how long they spent on the set-up of this storyline. But perhaps today’s episode will change my perspective on this so without further ado, let’s get to it.
I sure hope you’re right Francis. It’s not looking great right now.
We get straight back into the frey with the agency, port mafia and the remains of the guild all converging. I have to say that the moment I saw Kenji run towards the ambulance alone I was pretty certain it would explode and what do you know. I’m sure it’s made to look like a trap from the guild but is actually someone else’s work. And there you have it, the hunting dogs and the police are back. Have they misjudged Francis’ intent after all or is there something different going on? With this anticipation in our minds we jump to the opening theme. I do appreciate how a lot of the relationships in this show are very messy. There’s no straightforward good and bad guys everywhere, but there’s morally complex people with different goals. There’s still very much bad people though, Mori-sensei.
In Dutch we say “now the monkey comes out of the sleeve” but since English is a bit less interesting we’ll just say “The cat’s out of the bag” instead.
And it gets revealed to us almost immediately that Francis did not sell out the agency after all. Real recognize real, after all. It seems like the raincoat guy is the last of the five hunting dogs that we haven’t seen yet. I wonder if it’s someone we know, since they’re making a big deal out of hiding their face. The remaining agency members split up with Yosano rapidly being found by Atsushi whose hearing picked up her footsteps. She uses her ability to help Francis’ employee with Atsushi saying that he does not believe they were betrayed. Something else must be going on here. I’m starting to wonder if the agency or the port mafia has a traitor. I’m still a little bit worried that we might lose someone here. Also, what a crazy reveal out of the blue. Seeing that necklace pop up like that has to be a crazy shock to Yosano. I wonder if this hunting dog is the guy who killed himself during the war or someone else. Ryuurou Hirotsu dies protecting Yosano and the other two port mafia people. I’m going to guess Mori will be a lot more invested after this.
I can’t help but want these interactions to just be over. Fyodor is just saying things that don’t really add much value to the story. I want to see Dazai in action, not in prison with someone from /r/iamverysmart.
Alright, this better be an illusion of sorts because there’s no way this many characters are going to get killed, right? I’m actually kind of worried and forgot to write. Sure, monologuing your backstory is a pretty surefire way to get killed in a story like this. Fyodor wonders how many members of the agency will survive against him, but I think the question is how many poort mafia members will survive. It is starting to feel like they’re being used as replacements for the tension of having characters die. Yosano can’t die here, right? I feel like that’s not the right end to her story.
Oh my god.
So before this soldier died I thought he might be related to the things happening now. Turns out I wasn’t too far off in my guess.
I saw the mannequin in an earlier scene and for a moment thought it was an onlooker. When the camera panned away from it I figured I was wrong after all. So who’s the traitor then? Is it mister suddenly sharing my backstory? That makes a lot of sense. Tachihara Michizou was the final hunting dog. And the person that Yosano desperately tried to save in her backstory was his older brother. I was wondering how everything was going to make sense but I’m very happy that it all fits really neatly. I’m going to guess that Gin isn’t mortally wounded here, losing three port mafia named members in one episode would be a bit much. Tachihara betraying them, Hirotsu dying and Gin also dying would be a bit much. I can’t believe this show is still smashing my expectations every week, even ten weeks into the wild ride. I will say, if Yosano dies I will riot. I don’t think she will though. This is why I’m always really careful when I google character’s names or backstories for these reviews. What if I accidentally read something I shouldn’t? EIther way, we end the episode on another crazy cliffhanger. Three episodes left. It’s now more or less confirmed that Decay of Angels and the Hunting Dogs are separate organizations. So we might get a conclusion with the Hunting Dogs this season, although I doubt it, but we’ll definitely not see the end of Decay of Angels for a little while longer. I do hope we get to see Dazai in action in the next few episodes, I miss him.
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!
Five volumes read, another 100 or so to go. I recognize now that this journey might take a while. Which is fine but I do worry I’ll reach a point where I don’t want to stop reading. I might have to read ahead and get back to the volumes up for discussion each week. I can live with that. But for now, let’s dive into volume five, which covers the rest of Usopp’s arc and has us delving into Baratie headfirst. Let’s get to it.
But first, I’ll have to mention something I forgot to talk about in the last volume. Chapter 35, the final chapter of volume 4, sees the first instance of a cover page that’s relevant to the story. Including the page from volume 4, we see a total of seven pages of Buggy’s adventure after he was defeated by Luffy. It tells us that Buggy is still alive and kicking and his crew members are actively looking for him. Good for Buggy!
Zoro and Usopp chase after the kids and Django but not before Zoro does away with Butchie. Once his patience runs out he’s a very scary man. After this, we get a nice flashback of when Kuro set his plan into motion. He hypnotized a marine and one of his crew to make them both think that they’ve captured Captain Kuro. That’s when the crew disbands and Kuro leaves to become a butler for Kaya’s family. Point of note, the marine that they hypnotize is Axe Hand Morgan, the villain from the arc where we met Zoro. I don’t think I properly caught this in previous times reading, so that’s interesting to note. I went back to check how the anime covered this. In the anime, Morgan’s jaw is still completely normal, so it’s easier to miss. In the manga it’s very clear that Kuro destroyed the jaw of Morgan.
Once all the trickery is gone, the remaining fights go rather easily. There’s two big things I love to take away from this arc and I’ll share them with you all. 1. This is obviously the arc where the crew gets their ship, the Going Merry (Merry Go). This is a gift from Kaya and will serve them well in their travels. 2. Usopp, for as much of a coward and a liar he can be at times, always had the makings of a brave warrior of the sea. It’s easy to miss, especially when in the anime he gets turned into a joke more often than not, how good of a person Usopp really is. His goal is to be a pirate. His friends’ goals are very different but he doesn’t hesitate for a second to tell them to chase their own goals with all their heart. He cares more about the villagers’ peace of mind than vindication for his actions. He’s selfless and brave from day one, and that’s what makes him such a good character. He’s brave and a coward all at the same time. People are complicated like that and Usopp is a fantastic display of this duality. And with a new member aboard, the crew sets off towards their next adventure.
After the crew leaves for their next destination they’re quickly joined by Johnny and Yosaku, two bounty hunters that Zoro knows. With Yosaku being unwell from scurvy, the crew helps him back on his feet while lamenting the fact that they should really go and find a cook. This is where we’re introduced to the floating restaurant; Baratie. Here we get an introduction to Captain Zedd, the Baratie cooks and most importantly, Sanji. I’ve been learning Japanese on Duolingo lately, just so I can have a good grasp of the basics if I even pursue learning the language seriously. I didn’t realize that San Ji is three o’clock. I thought it was just three with a suffix. The more you know.
Baratie is the first arc where I feel like the stakes get upped. We meet some interesting pirates during this upcoming arc and it leads into my favorite arc, Arlong Park, right after. Speaking of which, did anyone spot the cameo where we already saw a very quick glimpse of Arlong? I’ll leave you to find it if you haven’t. But that’s been volume 5, I’m excited to dive into the next volume. I will say that a lot of the early arcs are better than I remember. Maybe it’s because the pacing is much faster in the manga, so it doesn’t feel slow, but I enjoyed Usopp’s arc quite a bit and even found myself getting a bit emotional when he disbanded his crew. As always, thanks for reading!
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?
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.
We’ve made our way to Volume 3. We’re still in the early stages of One Piece and with the Captain Kuro arc coming up, which I think is one of the worst arcs in the series, we have one or two volumes to get through before things pick up and we never look back.
Buggy used to travel on the same ship as Shanks. They were apprentices on a ship. We see Silvers Rayleigh here, although at this point we still had no idea who he was and Oda probably didn’t either. Maybe the idea was there, but there’s a reason none of the other characters on this ship are named outside of Buggy and Shanks. We learn that Buggy ate his devil fruit by accident and is still mad at Shanks for being the cause. It’s obviously Buggy’s own fault that this happened, but I won’t be the one to tell him this to his face. The fight with Buggy ends on a pretty comedic note and after all is said and done, Nami joins the crew. For the time being. I think I remember Buggy being thrown in the ocean in the anime, but I’m not sure I’m right about that and I’m too lazy to check this. Either way, Buggy is one of Oda’s favorite characters as he’s said, so it’s likely we’ll be seeing more of the clown.
After getting away from Buggy and his crew, Luffy and Nami find a new island. This is where things get really silly. They find a man who’s been stuck in a treasure chest for years. His crew abandoned him and he’s been stuck trying to get to the treasure at the top of a cliff. You must be a pretty lousy pirate if you get stuck like that and don’t manage to escape after years. Regardless of that, we could have had Gaimon as our next crew member but he declined. Think of what we missed out on. We could have had epic fights like Hody Vs. Gaimon. Actually it’s probably for the best that he declined, now that I think about it. Either way, after this quick pitstop, we jump to Pinocchio’s introduction.
Usopp is the main focus of this upcoming arc. He’s the son of Yasopp, who we talked about when Shank’s crew was the focus in volume 1. He’s a liar with the ‘uso’ part of his name being the Japanese word for liar. He’s been trying to cheer up the sickly rich girl living in the mansion on the hill. He does so by telling lies. Not only that, but every day he runs through town warning of pirates coming to attack. He’s basically the boy who cried wolf in this story and the villagers know it. Luffy and companions run into him and they talk for a bit, before starting a fight with the local buttler. Before the volume ends, a strange man who can hypnotize people named Django enters the village and talks with the butler, Kurohadol (Klahadore in the official translation) about murdering the rich girl and stealing the inheritance money. Usopp warns everyone but to no avail.
I like Usopp’s story in concept, but I never could get myself particularly invested in the fights in this arc. I’ll talk more about this when we talk about volume 4, but it just felt boring to me. But negativity aside, as all volumes, this one read easily and I got through it quickly. Things are going to heat up soon and Usopp will show us what he’s made of. Seeing young Usopp again after over a thousand chapters of One Piece makes me realize how far they’ve gotten. Luffy and Zoro have always been impressive and although I’ve never liked the direction Nami’s character has taken, she definitely gets her moments. Usopp has made a complete transformation. He’s buff now, and super capable, even though he himself might not feel that way. Watching them behave like a bunch of kids again is kind of refreshing. Do keep in mind that this part of the manga is 25 years old. Can you believe that? I was 5 years old when they started publishing, that makes me, if we do some quick math, old.
But that’s this volume in a nutshell. Not much happens here that has major impact on the rest of the story except for the little bit of backstory we get of Shanks, Yasopp and Buggy. Gaimon will never be seen again (except for a filler arc in the anime), and Usopp’s story hasn’t progressed enough in this volume to have any real effect. I am excited to keep reading though, especially considering how long it’s been since I’ve read and watched some of these arcs. It’s easy to forget how good this manga is when you read it week to week. It does seem to diminish my enjoyment a little bit. Especially nowadays, when such big things are happening in the manga, but it sometimes takes a few weeks for something to actually happen. It’s much better to read in bulk and as I’m getting older I’m feeling that more and more. My attention span isn’t as big as it was and I have way more things going on in my life. But reading a volume every weekend, like I’m doing now, is quite nice. I highly recommend this approach over reading individual chapters. I can fully see myself phasing out weekly anime and manga more and more over time, switching to watching a show in a couple days or reading a volume whenever it’s released. It does help that I can afford them now, whereas teenage me could not. I feel like I’m getting distracted. Let me know what you think of this volume and what you’re expecting of the upcoming fight with Captain Kuro. Either way, I appreciate your time and thank you for reading!
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.
It’s time for another season of Bungo Stray Dogs. I’ve read some of the novels and the first volume of the manga for this one, and I’m still hoping to dive into the entire story one day but for now let’s just have a look at what this new season of anime brings us. I’m going to be covering this show weekly so follow or like if that’s something you’re interested in. Let’s get to it.
Ranpo here looks like he should be voiced by Fukuyama Jun, but maybe that’s just the glasses.
The opening True Story by Screen Mode isn’t familiar to me, but it sounds alright. The animation and style of the opening kind of reminds me of the Monogatari series. Perhaps that’s just because it feels kind of abstract. We start off this season with a younger looking Fukuzawa who, to remind everyone, is the leader of the detective agency in the story we’ve seen so far. It does seem like he’s working alone at this point. His words, not mine. He’s on his way to a crime scene where someone allegedly got pushed out of a window.
Listening to the opening again as I’m gathering screenshots to put here, I do actually really love the vocalist’s voice. It’s the song that doesn’t quite do it for me though.
After talking with one of the investigators he comes face to face with Oda Sakunosuke, the presumed assassin. We know Oda from the second season where he, Dazai and a man named Ango would come together at a bar. The second Bungo Stray Dogs novel; Osamu Dazai and the dark era covers that story as well and is told from Oda’s perspective. Out of the two novels I’ve read, that was definitely the better one, Oda was a great character.
What a clash. Things went from 0 to 100 so fast.
We have a new character enter the room who immediately turns everything on its head. He calls out the secretary for being the murderer and Fukuzawa for not figuring it out quicker. That’s Ranpo right? It’s been a while since I last watched this show because it’s been a while since it last aired. And that’s Hiroshi Kamiya’s voice right? His voice is instantly recognizable yet he does manage to make a lot of the characters he voices sound unique. To make matters more complicated, Oda has had enough of being locked up on a chair so he decides to free himself and grab his guns again. He mercilessly kills the secretary that hired him and subsequently betrayed him if Ranpo’s story is right. And Ranpo is always right.
And just like that the murderer gets murdered. Ranpo is unfazed by all of this, which should be a red flag.
I remember now how fun of a character Ranpo was. He’s basically L from death note if he never listened to an MCR album. Hiroshi Kamiya adds all the flair he needs to it. It turns out Ranpo has no parents and got kicked out of school for being a whistleblower so Fukuzawa does eventually offer him his business card. The cheeky bugger then walks to the nearest phone he can find and immediately calls him to help him out with his lack of work or place to stay. I remember why I liked this show already. Quick sidenote, is it really a thing in Japan that you can store a phone or something in the sleeve of a yukata? I think that’s a yukata, I’m uneducated on this kind of stuff, I just know they look comfortable.
Cheeky bugger
If you haven’t picked up on it by now, maybe you have that type of colorblindness that doesn’t let you see any colors, or maybe you’re a dog pretending to be a human and you can only see gray tones. This show so far is more or less in black and white. There’s a little bit of color here and there but it’s mostly grayscale. I wonder if that’s going to persist through the entire season. I have no idea what this story is going to be about, contrary to the last two anime I followed along with. Fukuzawa has decided to drag Ranpo along for the day, which he must already be regretting. Just because you’re right, doesn’t mean you’re likable. Ranpo is extremely direct to the point that it’s kind of mean.
Hello well dressed lady with glasses 🙂
If we’re going to talk about annoying characters, a pretentious actor might be right up on the list. Although his idea of what’s boring and what isn’t is something I can respect. If the audience doesn’t like it, then it’s probably not good. The rest of the actors seem to be a bit more sociable. The girl that Ranpo ends up talking to is a lot friendlier though which makes her suspicious in my opinion. Chekhov’s gun and all that. To put into perspective, a lot of the characters in this show are named after famous authors. The writer knows their stuff about writing.
Now that I’m looking at her again, she looks familiar. Is she a character we already know from a previous season?
Fukuzawa is quickly starting to realize that Ranpo isn’t just some wisecracking kid, he’s just genuinely super smart. Not only that, he somehow thinks that other people grasp the same concepts. Also, weirdly enough the flashbacks to earlier in the episode are in color. Since we’re following along with Fukuzawa, maybe this is to signify that Fukuzawa isn’t seeing the full picture, hence the lack of color. When he thinks back on things with more information given to him by Ranpo, the full picture starts to form and we see color. Maybe those literature classes weren’t wasted after all? Who am I kidding, they definitely were. Moving on.
I see your true colors shining through.
With just spending half a day with Fukuzawa, Ranpo manages to figure out his entire backstory. Fukuzawa is angry, but he was the one that asked the question. This is the first time Ranpo is shaken. Rightfully so, a grown man just yelled at him out of nowhere. And right as they agree to work together, the doors to the theater open and the performance starts. I suppose this is the start of their detective agency. All in all a very solid first episode. I liked the way it was presented to us with limited color and seeing these characters again was definitely a good time.
Spy x Family isn’t on this list because it needs its own dedicated post. The second opening ‘Souvenir’ by Bump of Chicken is easily my most listened anime song of the season. They nailed it, like they always do!
Happy New Year everyone! I know this post only goes up on the second of January, but it’s the first one I’m actually writing in 2023. It is currently 10 AM on January first and I’m going to be in that optimistic phase for a little while so I might as well make the best out of it and do a lot of writing early on. I took December off from writing, only writing a couple things here and there. So now it’s time to get back into it. Other seasons I would split my quick reviews up into a few different posts but I’ve decided to just start making one post for them each season. Part of it is because I have a lot I want to write about and I don’t want twelve Mondays out of a year to be quick reviews and another part of it is that I didn’t watch that many interesting shows this past season, so it’d be one or two posts at best anyway. Putting all of that aside, let’s dive into the anime of fall 2022 together. As usual, none of these will contain big spoilers for the shows themselves, so feel free to browse through the posts.
Bibliophile Princess
Watching the prince enjoy chatting with another woman from behind a window. Poor Eli. She doesn’t have the social skills to figure out what’s really going on.
Coming out of the gate swinging, Bibliophile Princess has comfortably made its way into my top 10 anime of the year and will be featured in that list later this month. It tells the story of Eliana Bernstein, a nobleman’s daughter who loves books. She’s been engaged to the crown prince for a couple of years in a sort of sham engagement where she gets to read the books in the royal library while he gets to fend off other suitors that he’s not interested in with a good excuse. A few years have now passed and Eliana sees the crown prince getting friendly with another girl in the palace courtyard. She laments the fact that her access to the royal library might soon disappear as the prince might find a replacement for her. To her own surprise she’s more sad about this than she expected. The story follows Eli and Prince Christopher as their romance slowly grows. Misunderstandings and intrigue never outstay their welcome and as the show continues our main characters get more depth to them. If you’re a sucker for sappy love stories that really don’t have too much substance to them, then this is the show for you. It was definitely a guilty pleasure for me this past season and it’s a shame that it’s not rated higher than it currently is.
Bocchi the Rock!
Embodying the true introvert, the idea of doing some activity every single day sounds absolutely awful.
I’m not going to be the biggest advocate for this show. Hitori (Bocchi) is a young girl with pretty solid guitar playing skills. She’d love to join a band and perform with them one day but she has the social skills of an anxious worm. She almost accidentally finds herself joining a local band and the story follows her shenanigans with her new friends. Bocchi has severe social anxiety. The show does a really good job of portraying this, both in storytelling as well as in using wacky animation to really emphasize certain situations. By all accounts, Bocchi the Rock is a good slice of life show. But I couldn’t really enjoy the show. For starters; Bocchi’s anxiety is so well done that it sometimes started to give me flashbacks to my own past. My social anxiety isn’t terrible these days, but it used to be really, really bad. It probably wasn’t too far off of what Bocchi is like in the show. That’s not an enjoyable experience to relive. At other times I also felt like the show was moving too slow and in the busy November and December months I found myself playing some of the episodes at 1.5 speed, which is something that is normally only reserved for One Piece. For those unfamiliar with the One Piece anime, it often feels like a 24 minute episode covers about seven pages from the manga and realistically, that’s not even that far off. If you like good slice of life anime, then Bocchi will probably fit your taste. I didn’t really like it the same way I didn’t really like The IT crowd. I recognize its merits, it’s just not made for me.
I’m the villainess, so I’m taming the final boss
Aileen is definitely nailing the look of villainess, I love those colors and the design of her dress here.
We’ve had a couple of Isekai anime where a girl gets transported into a visual novel and has to change the outcome of the story now and it’s a genre that’s very hit or miss for me. A great example is “My life as a villainess” which I really enjoyed until the second season started and I was just kind of bored. I think the problem with this genre is that the initial problem can be very engaging and well written, only for the story to devolve into something much more generic that feels on par with mediocre Isekai shows. This time around, I’m the villainess manages to evoke that same feeling in me in less than a season. I enjoyed the first few episodes quite a lot. Aileen has to prevent the demon lord, who is the current prince’s half-brother, from going berserk. She works together with humans and demons to try and figure out this delicate situation. After the strong start, the following arc was incredibly boring. I just couldn’t find myself caring about the characters involved most of the time and honestly the only reason I remember the characters’ names at all is because of how generic they are. It picks up a little bit towards the end but I found that at that point I’d mostly lost interest.
Reincarnated as a sword
If a strange sword starts talking to you in the woods, it might be trying to get you to join a cult. I’m just saying, you have to be wary in these situations. This particular sword is fine though, it’s just a middle aged bloke from earth.
Maybe I’m not a good judge of what anime I should be watching, but this season has been a nice big pile of mediocre shows for me. Of course I also watched a bunch of the exciting sequels, but we’re not here to talk about those. Reincarnated as a sword follows a man who, well, reincarnates as a sword. He turns into an excalibur-esque sword that’s stuck in the ground somewhere in the middle of nowhere. As he’s hoping to find a wielder, a young catfolk girl named Fran finds him and the two start traveling together. Fran’s goal is to evolve, which is something that catfolk rarely get to do. My main gripe with this story is that early on it seems slavery is a common thing but as soon as we get to the cities we see no slaves. There is no real elaboration of this system and it kind of feels like a plot device. Fran is a fine character, so is the sword itself, and the story never get particularly dull, but it also never gets particularly exciting. If you like generic Isekai stories with a twist you could consider this one, but if not, just skip it.
Shinobi no Ittoki
I wish we could have seen more of her story, she was definitely one of the more interesting characters in the show. but with a one-cour runtime, we had to mostly stick to the kids’ story
I was debating if I should talk about this show, but I decided to give it a quick mention in the end, before closing off this post. Shinobi no Ittoki follows a high school student who finds out that ninja’s are not only a real part of society, but his mother is the leader of a large ninja clan called the Iga clan. Iga has beef with the Koga clan and the story follows Ittoki and his friends as they get embroiled in a clan war between the two clans. The story has an interesting premise but pretty quickly lost me on its execution. It has some interesting characters but then there’s also some really annoying characters who picked their motivation one day and then just stopped to think about it. There’s a traitor whose betrayal is never quite explained well, there’s some strange things behind the scenes that seem to just be there to move the plot ahead and Ittoki just isn’t a very good character. All things considered, this is probably a show you should avoid. It’s interesting how polarizing this studio is. Studio Troyca, the studio that made this show, is also responsible for bangers like Re:Creators and Aldnoah Zero. On the flip side it’s also responsible for the second season of Aldnoah Zero and now this show. It seems like they have the winning formula, just only sometimes they make a show.
Just watch Chainsaw Man. And remember, it’s the quiet moments that make a loud show shine.
And that brings us to the final roundup of shows that didn’t make the list. Putting sequels aside, there’s a few shows I haven’t talked about yet. Beast Tamer was too bland to talk about. I didn’t hate it, but I’m fairly certain I’ll have forgotten it by early February. Chainsaw Man was very good, but everyone is already aware of this and if you really want to find out more about it I suggest you check out Gigguk’s latest video on the subject. Lastly there’s Isekai Ojisan, which was plagued by delays and has yet to finish. I believe we have one episode left and I will probably do an individual review on the show when it finishes, since I quite enjoyed it. Oh, and I will be talking about Spy x Family on its own later this month. There you have it. Let me know if there’s any shows I missed out on in my list that I should really check out, or if you disagree strongly with any of my opinions. But for now, I have a lot of writing to do as well as catch up on some older anime – I’m currently watching Record of Ragnarok – so I’ll leave it at this. Thanks for reading and leave a like or comment to make my day!
Opal Kaharis 