32-33- Thousands of lives risked on a gamble (and other complaints)

Welcome back to the Anti-Dazai Series!!

School starts late August this year, meaning this will be the final entry I’ll post before my classes start. But rest assured that no matter how long the gap between entries becomes, the Anti-Dazai Series is NOT dead or abandoned! So long as I never explicitly say that I’ve gotten bored of this, I will continue posting here–

Now onto what you’re here for—

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Chapter 32 has no Dazai content, since its focus is Poe and Ranpo. Meaning we’re moving right on to chapter 33–

Dazai and Ranpo have a strategist meeting to decide the agency’s next move. Dazai went into this meeting with ulterior motives: to present the idea of Atsushi infiltrating the Guild’s Moby Dick alone, as to have him team up with Akutagawa once they’ve both already boarded. With that in mind, the way Dazai and Ranpo’s conversation plays out is rather interesting. Rather than going back and forth putting multiple ideas on the table, Dazai throws in a few specific combinations of agency members to send in, knowing they’re a bad match for this mission. Ranpo knows this too, and points out why each of these combos wouldn’t work. Once those purposely wrong solutions are shot down, Dazai suggests sending Atsushi in. Since this would technically work, Ranpo approves of this suggestion and allows the agency to go forward with it.

Dazai’s tactics here are classic but effective. He suggests subtly bad ideas, knowing that Ranpo will see through the flaws in each one, and then hands him a plan that wouldn’t automatically fail, knowing it would have to be approved. It also casts the illusion that all other options were analyzed, even though only a few specific combinations of agency members were considered. In a way, it’s also a standard “make them think it was their own idea so they’ll agree”. Dazai prompts Ranpo into giving the solution he’s aiming for, so he could move his “create a rivalry-partnership” plan forward.

After Dazai’s done ensuring Atsushi will have a Very Bad Time aboard the Moby Dick, he goes to visit Ango to negotiate Kyoka’s release. Ango, as you may recall, is currently recovering from a car crash. That Dazai caused. He’s stuck in a hospital bed in a full body cast. So Dazai’s greeting of “You look lovely! ;)” just seems like rubbing salt in the wound. But let’s be real, this kind of cruel mockery is exactly what can be expected of him. 

Note that Dazai not only caused the accident to begin with, but also removed the airbags on Ango’s side of the car, to ensure he gets as injured as possible. 

I’ll give him credit for negotiating for Kyoka’s release– Kyoka doesn’t seem to have any part in his grand Atsushi-related plans, so for once he’s doing something good for someone else without it being a part of his grand schemes. However, negotiating for anything in exchange for medical attention for the grievous bodily harm you intentionally caused someone is Very Messed Up, to say the least.

And now it’s time for the long-awaited mission. 

Dazai, as per his previously stated plan, sends Atsushi into the Mody Dick alone. Atsushi is reasonably stressed about this, and being the world’s most encouraging mentor, Dazai explains that it makes sense for him to be the one chosen for this, since “[Atsushi’s] the guy who runs away the fastest.” I’m sure Atsushi found courage in that reminder.

Once he boards the Mody Dick, he discovers that the mission was misrepresented to him (in more ways than one, but we’ll get to that). Or to put it more simply– he was intentionally lied to to get him to agree to do this in the first place. He discovers that the Moby Dick is set on a course to crash in Yokohama, and the only way to stop it is to retrieve the control terminal guarded by Francis. Dazai and Ranpo were both aware that this was the Guild’s plan based on their previous conversation during the strategy meeting (“mountain?” “no, sea”). This could have easily been relayed to Atsushi to allow him an opportunity to mentally prepare himself or plan ahead. Yet they allowed this to be suddenly sprung upon him by Melville, causing more unnecessary panic in an already tense situation.

But let’s draw our attention back to the problem itself: the Moby Dick, a giant airship, is about a come crashing down upon a densely populated city. If only we knew of an ability user who could prevent this from happening– Perhaps someone who could… simply decide whether or not any object should fall in the first place? If only we knew someone like that! Unfortunately our easy solution to this problem is in the Port Mafia, and as per Dazai’s conversation with Mori in this chapter, we know that per Dazai’s request, the Mafia is not to interfere with the agency’s current mission to stop the Moby Dick from killing everyone. 

Let me reiterate: Dazai made sure to make a prior agreement with the mafia that they won’t interfere in stopping the Moby Dick from crashing–something  that could potentially kill thousands of innocent people, that a single specific mafia member could easily solve in a matter of seconds– all for the sake of putting Atsushi and Akutagawa in a situation where they would have to work together, thus forming his rivalry-partnership that he’s so invested in. THOUSANDS of people’s lives were risked for a gamble that had no guarantee of paying off. 

Atsushi is, of course, unaware of all of that. And Akutagawa thinks he’s acting on his own free will when he disobeys his boss’s orders and boards the Moby Dick. And now that Akutagawa’s here– yet another factor that Dazai orchestrated in advance, Atsushi has yet another one of Dazai’s pawns here with him to add to his ever-growing stress. 

And that’s that for this week’s entry of the Anti-Dazai Series!! Join me next week when I talk about how Akutagawa is just a traumatized child who desperately needs a great therapist and a hug. And so does Atsushi. So does everyone who has to deal with Dazai. Actually while we’re at it can we get Dazai a therapist too? He probably needs one just as much as everyone else.

Compare and Contrast: K Project vs. Bungou Stray Dogs - Part 2

Read Part 1

Story

In general, K Project does a lot better job of maintaining a consistent and focused story, especially in Seasons 1 and 2 than BSD, with almost no filler content.  There aren’t nearly as many open plot threads or divergences from the main story, and everyone introduced has a very cohesive purpose to the plot. This may largely be due to the fact that K was originally envisioned as a complete story, with the movie Return of Kings and season 2’s Missing Kings and other added materials being, somewhat, after thoughts consequently ordered due to the popularity of the show. Season 2 does offer a very decisive end to the tale, with the destruction of the Dresden Slate, mysterious source of all supernatural power. On the other hand, BSD is an ongoing serialized manga with no set beginning or ending that we, as the audience, are aware.  BSD’s author, Asagiri Kafka, isn’t telling a self-contained story with a determined beginning, middle, and end, so often times characters and plot devices are introduced which may not have bearing on the current arc of the story, they hint at things to come. This might be frustrating for viewers that aren’t interested in long-term serialized works, which does have the tendency to fall victim to filler episodes in attempt to make a certain quota or make up for any lulls in the story.

That being said, BSD, thus far, does a lot better with world.

In K, the concepts of Clans and Kings, the Dresden Slate, and the Swords of Damocles are never fully fleshed out satisfactorily, to the point that aspects of it feel completely illogical, convoluted, and conveniently there merely to move the plot forward. Fantasy stories are generally under no obligation to provide explanations for where magic abilities come from, K makes an attempt with the Dresden Slate, but overreaches with an established protocol of Kings and Clans in regards to these powers with no explanation for where or why these rules manifested or why anyone feels obligated to follow them. For example, the Red King Mikoto is not shown to care too much for being a King, or even wanting obligations to his Clan, yet he maintains it and his Clansmen show loyalty to it, and there’s no explanation beyond “well that’s just the way the Dresden Slate works”.  That would be fine, if this wasn’t established as the expectation of anyone who is “awoken” as a King. In that same vein, a lot isn’t really clarified in terms of what really happens to Clansmen when their King dies (Clansmen are shown to still maintain powers granted from their former King but that’s just speculation from viewers, and doesn’t make sense if there powers stem from their Kings) and what is meant to happen when a new King takes their place (though we do see Clansmen turn on the new Blue King, in regards to Munakata taking over Jin Hibari’s role, or choosing to continue following the new Red King, as we see in HOMRA with Anne taking Mikoto’s place). Worse, these rules are just universally known in a world that isn’t supposed to know about these Clans and Kings, leaving no one to explain these rules to newly awakened Kings although these rules are shown to be universally known and accepted by them. More questions than answers are raised.

In BSD, people being born with or manifesting abilities is shown to just be a facet of this world. It’s just one of the physical laws, much like how the sky is blue, grass is green, some people can conjure demons that kill you. This is just the world they live in, and in that sense, the people in this world are the ones that determine the rules that govern these abilities without expectation. This treats us to various different ideas and philosophies for how ability users should apply their abilities or how the users themselves should be managed. The government attempts to regulate ability users, through licensure for organizations that wish to operate as ability user specific. This provided a cool storyline where we see Port Mafia obtain its license to operate as an ability user organization during the Dark Era, through nefarious plotting on leader, Mori’s part, which also highlighted that the Port Mafia is a criminal organization because prior to obtaining this license they were operating without one. We also see the Armed Detective Agency undergo a plot to take their license away, and since they are the morally upright group, in their minds, losing their license means they will cease to exist. This places explanation firmly on the goals of their given society, something that is relatable and understandable for readers, and shifts it away from the realm of unexplainable and increasingly convoluted magic.

On the flipside of that, however, K does a much better job of balancing powers. Which brings me Nakahara Chuuya.

I’ll throw this disclaimer in here, Chuuya is my favorite character. I fell in love at first sight. Unfortunately, he gets little to no screen time, I could count on one hand his number of appearances throughout the first two seasons. He gets three episodes at the start of Season 3 that explores his history with Dazai, and I feel I’m in no way biased (**cough, cough** 100% biased) saying these are the best three episodes of the season. Then we see him maybe in two more episodes until he gets trapped in a book for the rest of the season, leaving me screaming furiously at the screen. Manga chapters that go beyond where the anime left off are not filling me with much hope for more Chuuya in Season 4. Seriously, I don’t recommend loving this character, you’ll only get your heart broken.

The problem with Chuuya that becomes rampant throughout BSD in other characters, is that he’s a side character for a rival organization and he is super OP. Since the creator seems adamantly against making him a more main character (either as antagonist or protagonist…hell, majority of his appearances have been to literally save the day for the heroes), not to mention the lack of anyone in our heroes’ corner that could reasonably take him on (even Dazai is outmatched despite his nullifying ability, because Chuuya also happens to be Port Mafia’s best martial artist) the only recourse is to leave him conveniently absent from majority of the story. Which, okay, this can mostly be explained away that he’s an Executive in Port Mafia and probably has a lot to deal with in terms of making sure their operations continue to move smoothly, but it leads to ludicrous scenarios such as the end of the Guild Arc when a whale sized airship is being dropped on Yokohama by the Guild. We’re told this ship will wipe out a large portion of the city. At this point, the Detective Agency and Port Mafia are on semi-good terms in order to stand against their common enemy, the Guild. You would think, large object being dropped on the city, Port Mafia has a powerful gravity manipulator on staff...one phone call to Dr. Mori, “Hey...do you mind sending Chuuya to take care of that whale bomb....or are you just cool with the city being flattened?” All Chuuya needs to do is parachute down, once he touches the ship, he could tear the whole thing apart and fling its pieces to every side of the ocean. They call it a day in thirty seconds, tops, back home for dinner. Yet, for some odd reason, the course of action that the Armed Detective Agency decides on is to send rookie agent tiger boy to infiltrate the ship and fight his way to a possible transponder they can use to reverse the ship’s course, despite having little experience, and no specialized abilities for the task, let’s not get started on the ridiculousness of that transponder anyways. This decision is based largely on the fact he once was held prisoner on the ship and so…should know his way around? I get that they supposedly don’t want to owe Port Mafia, but this kind of seemed like an odd time to play loose and fast with the city’s safety. The point is, Chuuya is powerful, which makes his lack of presence during crucial moments pretty heavy handed.

That being said, however, this OP situation, is a problem throughout with other characters as well. There’s no balance of powers, and characters are shown to do things that don’t fall within the realm of their abilities, may never have previously been display or given proper explanation prior to introduction, and sometimes comes across as just thrown in last minute as a plot device. A few examples, able to transform into a tiger also, somehow allows Atsushi to heal at a rapid level and regrow limbs. Forget about the implications that he’s got some “special” light attached to his ability, as well. In a recent chapter of the manga, we see a newly introduced character, one of the Hunting Dogs, slap a bullet out of the air and stop a large projectile with her bare hands. Her ability, however, is age manipulation so there’s no given reason why she should’ve been able to do those things. While it is mentioned that the Hunting Dogs are also genetically engineered, she did this to save another Hunting Dog who is duly is surprised by her actions and expresses that he could not have done the same. I’m baffled. This is to say nothing of the multiple time characters without regenerative or durable abilities are stabbed, blown up, and impaled, only to walk it off like it’s nothing. The Agency healer, Yosano, has an ability called Thou Shalt Not Die, she can heal someone but only when they’re on the brink of death, so her ability is essentially that trope in action films where the bomb is always disarmed with one second to spare. Let’s not even talk about the new revelation that Dazai can control his heart beats to the point he can use it for passing secret code. It becomes plot armor so thick that it entirely erases the stakes for our characters. They’re all treated as practically immortal, able to overcome anything thrown at them, I’m not even worried anymore when a character takes a lance through the heart, I know he’s walking it off in the next scene.

K is a lot more balanced with its abilities. None of the characters, outside of the Kings, feel so overpowered that they are impossible to stop and they’re not shown to be capable of things outside of their given abilities or established, and might I say reasonable, skillsets.  Even the Kings have their peers in the other Kings. Sure, Clansmen can dodge bullets, but if they’re hit by one it hurts and, notably in the case of Totsuka, it can kill. No one is getting impaled multiple times then walking it off. Mikoto is run through with a blade once, and as it should be, he dies. Not only does this maintain the stakes for our characters – they are at the end of the day mortal, and they can get hurt, they can be beaten, they can die – it also gives us a more complicated, and darker story with characters that we can relate to on an emotional level.

Read Part 3