How dare you, Bones, make the goofiest and silliest character pull such a forlorn face like this. Make him hold the hand of the person who changed his life, cradling it next to his cheek, with such a heartbreaking line.
How dare you make me understand the depth of how much Fyodor affected Nikolai for him to react this way. I hate feeling this sad for themmmmmmmm 😭
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one thing that struck me about today’s BSD season 4 episode (aside from the world-turning-to colour moment, which was super dope!), was the use of levels and positioning. in particular, i’m referring to ranpo’s scene here, where he makes his address to the audience.
first of all, the imagery of him being on a throne directly calls to his self-proclaimed new status as the “world’s greatest detective”. but what’s also interesting is just how high up he is.
it’s not so clear in those first screenshots, but here, you get this very clear view of how high up he is. he’s on the tallest level of the stage, above murakami, the policemen, and the audience.
this whole sequence takes place after fukuzawa hands him those infamous glasses, and tells him that he’s gifted. ranpo believes he’s an ability user, and so, this separates him from the masses in his mind, who are visually represented here by the audience on the ground (including fukuzawa, who hasn’t discovered his ability yet at this stage). and this not only separates him from them — it elevates him. putting him on, not only the stage, but the highest part, emphasises the difference in his self-perception. he is different from the regular ‘monsters’ because he is an ability user: a rarity, an urban legend of sorts.
even here, when the police officer (who is definitely not suspicious at all) comes over to compliment ranpo and fukuzawa, the concept of levels is at play. this police officer is, to our current knowledge, a regular, non-gifted human. he even expresses shock and awe at the fact that he’s in the mere presence of an ability user. ranpo is at the top of the stairs, again, emphasising his position as a gifted ability-user, someone beyond the skills of a regular human.
and ranpo’s (literal) elevation, especially in the stage scene, is also linked to the themes of the play itself, i’d argue. and like, full disclosure that i’m long overdue for a reread of untold origins since my memory is very blurry at best, so i’m just going to be basing this off what the anime does with the play (since, after all, this is a post analysing the relevance of positioning and layers/height/elevation in the anime).
at the start, it’s stated that angels are ‘gifted’ beings — and the word used here is, to my knowledge, the same as the word for ability user (please correct me if i’m wrong!). so the association is immediately established: gifteds — ability users — are strong, beyond human comprehension, and powerful enough to strike a fallen angel down. so that is to say, stronger than the normal, status quo.
there’s religious (largely christian) imagery written all over the stage. at the start, one of the fallen angels in the play is ‘murdered’, and the imagery behind is undoubtedly a nod towards the crucifixion of jesus. and this position and framing here very much reminds me of an altar. especially with murakami’s ‘corpse’ under the (white!) cloth.
ranpo’s position, above everyone, being deliberately above the cross, the centre of the spotlight — it’s almost as if he is some higher being. something there to cast judgement above all. something like… an angel. who are gifted beings, according the play, as he himself believes he is, since he’s been dubbed an ability user by fukuzawa.
indeed, the murder and the play are deeply connected — but so’s the symbolism of ranpo rising above everyone else and the concept of ‘gifteds’/‘ability users’ and the concepts laid out in the play. at least, in my view.
positioning has always been used in the BSD anime to display power dynamics and relations, and it’s a similar concept here. the subtle details make all the difference to the way we view the anime, i think. and that’s the power of visual storytelling!
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ok, i know i've done this analysis before though it has been an addition to another post of mine and most people only see the first post - soooo i'm gonna list the main points on here again
ok first i was like - this looks like fyodor, right? like the hair, the wound, the white clothes, and ofc the fact that he is nailed to a cross. fyodor sees himself as a kind of messiah, so it would make sense for him to think that he's dying for the sins of others. he also lies his actions and his life into god's hands as in "he's doing what god would want". come to think of it, fyodor's death might be fyodor's way of "cleansing the earth of sin" but i don't know if he sees it that way. anyways, i'm going to explain now why i think this is fyodor up there and why i think this scene already foretold fyodor's death.
now, there's so much to find in the light novel. we see fyodor at the end of the untold origins adaption and this might be a very obvious hint that fyodor's death is foretold in untold origins already. but the stage play reveals a lot, too.
first of all the stage play's summary is "an angel who murders", specifically an angel that kills their own kind.
that sounds an awful lot like fyodor doesn't it? he wants to kill all ability users after all. Now, i see fyodor in the murderer here, but i also see him in the victim bc of the following quote.
fyodor has been stabbed (not with a knife but yk), he fell with the helicopter, and he was poisoned. The heavy water could possibly count as strangulation but that might be me reaching. while most of this could also connect to dazai, he was shot by fyodor, not stabbed. it could potentially also relate to sigma, who fell with the elevator, was strangled by teruko and one could potentially say he was poisoned by fyodor's memories. also there is nothing unique about the ways they are murdered. fyodor sees sigma as an ordinary man. i'm kinda torn on this.
"if it was an angel, they would use the devine blade in their hand" like come on...
it's said in the stage play that there are 12 victims. someone in the other post mentioned that there were 12 apostles, though i don't know how this would make much sense in this context other than the connection to fyodor, that sees himself as jesus 2.0
ofc ofc there's also the judas x jesus dynamic between nikolai and fyodor here. nikolai being the one that wants to kill fyodor and "hires" dazai to do just that. though ofc nikolai regrets it immediately. also if we connect the 12 apostles that would be the 12 victims of the play or rather of fyodor, nikolai would've been beyond those victims, too. he was supposed to die.
also, i know this is about murakami BUT "the killer became the victim"!!!
idk if i have a final point here other than "look! this is connected!", but thank you anyways for everyone that commented on the last post, i included a lot of your points as well (if you want to be tagged, i'll do that ofc :3)
thank you for reading!
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BEST BOYS FOR BEING ABSOLUTELY CRAZY THIS SEASON
One got met with his match, came back from the "dead" (😭), was technically high while fighting his enemy, and suffered through a break up in front of rip-off KFC, then made the choice to raise the son of the man he killed by tearing a hole through his side
The other got into a prison death game, drowned his partner, dished out an emotional speech, fell down an elevator because his partner and enemy were still alive, broke his leg, dished out a SECOND speech, got shot point blank because he was too embarrassing, and defeated his enemy through the power of soukoku's homoerotic trust in one another ✨✨✨
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