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its-jijii · 5 years

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bsd girls

im gonna just uh.... warning. i didn’t expect this to be so long but below the cut is 6,745 words of me crying over girls in bsd. be warned, it is probably a long and hellish read lol. (no spoiler warning cause i think everything right now falls in realm of what has been shown in the anime)

okay hi i'm supposed to be editing photos in the car but instead i am going to rant now about how underrated the bsd girls are and why

starting out, the reason that they have so little content and attention is because there are so few female characters. in the armed detective agency the ratio of boys to girls was 8:4 (or 8:2 not counting naomi or haruno)

in the port mafia the ratio was 8:4 (counting elise)

the guild was 7:3

overall in the entire series (not counting gaiden or minor side characters), there are 40 males and 15 females*, which ends up in a ratio of 8:3.

*counting characters if they showed up in multiple different scenes or had some kind of actual role in the plot

taking this further, the number of girls with an ability are even less. elise is an ability herself, and several girls do not have an ability, such as naomi, haruno, sasaki, aya, and gin. higuchi is unconfirmed to have an ability. teruko and agatha christie have named abilities but unknown details. in the end, that leaves us with a total of ~6 females whose abilities we know of and have played a part in the plot. that is considerably less than all the males in the series, whose abilities we mostly know of- or even if we don't know all of it- the girls are still greatly outnumbered by males present and relevant to the plot.

now if we are to talk mainly about the girls relevant to the plot, there are so many reasons they should have more attention and recognition. i'm lazy so i'm just going to do them in order of who shows up on the wiki first ️✌️

armed detective agency

yosano is a wonderful character and in my top favorite characters. her personality is based strongly on her real life counterpart, who was an activist and feminist. yosano is a strong female character that has been portrayed correctly in my eyes. she is feminine, yet clearly very tough and assertive in comparison to more submissive characters or female stereotypes.

she can definitely hold herself in a fight, and has proven to be near invincible due to her strong ability. she doesn't need to rely on it all of the time, which is what makes me like her so much. some characters depend completely on their ability in order to attack, but since yosano's is a healing ability, she is unable to use it to attack. as a result, she is simply a strong and capable character. she is often shown to wield large knives or other sharp objects, and despite her slim body type, she is clearly able to handle heavy weapons with ease and still be agile. many others (males specifically) tend to underestimate her and face the consequences. by either believing she is a weak female, or believing that her ability would be useless in a fight, her enemies end up in trouble when facing her.

she is the armed detective agency's biggest weapon, with dazai landing in second place. her healing ability allows for any amount of reckless behavior or dangerous fights, because as long as her subjects are still mostly in one piece, she is able to heal them completely as if the injury never occurred in the first place. she even ends up healing her opponents after she beats them- she can bring them to a state of near death and then revive them as many times as she needs to get the information she seeks. she has no problems doing this either, as she is a doctor and is always in the face of injury and death. she knows how her ability operates, so she can stay calm in situations that would cause others to panic or struggle. she is both physically capable and mentally; there is little that can derail her, likely due to her past (vague manga spoilers mention).

as she already went through the worst of the worst when it comes to having to use her ability, and how she felt about using her ability, she has become strong and overcome her reluctance. she believed her ability to be a curse and that healing others would only bring them unhappiness. when presented with the freedom to choose, to not be forced to use her ability- she became confident and felt okay about using her ability again. as long as her ability wasn't abused like it was in the past, she was able to heal her coworkers without feeling bad about it. in overcoming her fear and unwillingness to use her ability, she became stronger in other aspects too. on top of using her ability in moderation and for good, she stands up for herself and refuses to be dominated or controlled by others. she is a doctor through and through, as she will treat injuries of friends and enemies alike. she is against meaningless death, and believes in equality between men and women.

these are just some examples regarding yosano's strength, which i respect so much. in terms of backstory, she is one of the characters who has shown growth and determination. i won't invalidate the struggles of other characters, but i believe that her progression and character should be more recognized and appreciated. she contributes and helps out more than most people realize. in the series itself, she is a desired ability user because of how useful it is. in the end, yosano chose to align herself with good. she's good to herself, she's good to her coworkers and friends, she's even good to her enemies. and i love her for all of that.

next on the list is kyouka. i apologize in advance if this seems a bit scattered; kyouka is not among my top favorites, so i haven't given her a ton of thought beforehand. (aka i am completely winging this)

kyouka as a character deserves better, and while she has shown growth, she has more room for growth still. kyouka was unfortunately pushed into a very sudden and drastic change in her life, and as a result is pretty traumatized and still has to shake off her negative mindset and bad habits. unlikely yosano, she is still very young, and has not had very long to recover from her trauma. she went from living a peaceful and happy life with her parents to being forced into the mafia after watching both of her parents die before her eyes. demon snow, her mother's ability, killed kyouka's mother and then was passed on to kyouka. kyouka could not control her own ability, and was instead forced to become an assassin for the port mafia using her ability. with no control over her ability, and having no desire to kill, it's not surprising that kyouka hated demon snow and the port mafia. upon joining, kyouka was suicidal and begged for akutagawa to kill her. when he refused and instead used her as a tool and treated her like she wasn't human, her view on life changed considerably. she could not view herself as anything more than a killing machine, a mindless and disposable tool for the mafia. upon being treated with kindness, kyouka did not know how to act. she claimed she never left because she had nowhere else to go- other reasons likely included that if she left, she would be considered a traitor and killed, and that she believed that at least in the mafia she had a purpose and use to others, even if it was evil.

kyouka found it necessary to suppress any emotions she had, probably as a coping mechanism for having to commit murder that she didn't really want to commit. she wasn't loyal or invested in the port mafia as a result of her treatment there, so when given the option to leave, she accepted with little resistance. when questioned about things regarding the mafia, she also didn't resist, and ended up willingly offering the information in exchange for food she liked.

through time spent with atsushi, kyouka has gradually grown from her original thinking and bad actions. in the beginning, she would instinctively use violence or other mafia tactics in order to get what she wanted or to defend herself. atsushi did his best to prevent her from doing that, and since then she has stopped immediately jumping to violence. she still struggles in expression emotions, but as akutagawa also stated, she has improved. she is no longer suicidal or hopeless, and feels like she has more use than just killing. she recognizes herself as a human, and that her worth lies in just her existence instead of what she can accomplish. it's okay if she doesn't use her ability, because the armed detective agency isn't about using abilities or fighting. they solve crimes and sometimes use force, but it is never required. like yosano, she has slowly begun to accept and use her ability. she recognizes that her ability, and herself, are not responsible for the death of her parents or the countless murders she committed. her ability was abused by the mafia, and her ability was given to her by her mother, though she didn't know that at first. after learning that, she has used demon snow in more reasonable situations such as defending herself, causing distractions, and using demon snow to escape situations. she hasn't used demon snow to kill anyone, and the most violent thing she has done is hold someone at knifepoint either with her own knife or with her ability.

kyouka has grown, though it isn't a sudden extreme change like with dazai and yosano- and she still has some problems she needs to sort out- but she is improving. i tend to not feel for her much because of how little she expresses emotion or opinions, but as soon as she becomes more confident i will appreciate her for more than just being a cute and supportive character. i will always love character growth, and although kyouka hasn't taken big changes regarding emotions, she still has gone far and it deserves recognition. not to mention she is still only 14, but she is doing very well in adjusting to a different life. she didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened to her, so in that i can sympathize. she was not evil by choice like some are, so her decision to completely desert her future in the mafia in exchange for the armed detective agency is wonderful. she is near fearless but protective of those she cares for, and passionate even though it isn't shown well most of the time.

port mafia

moving from the armed detective agency to the port mafia, i will begin with higuchi. higuchi is another character i think is considerably misunderstood and underrated. on the surface, yes, she can be seen as obsessive and weird, but she isn't really all of that. i believe that a big part of the hate she gets is due to shipping reasons- she is romantically interested in akutagawa, which can interfere with other ships. as a result, they end up attacking higuchi and pointing out all of the perceived flaws in her relationship with akutagawa.

i do not believe higuchi's behavior to be creepy or bad, actually. to me, she more acts like a teen with a crush. she does not stalk or harass akutagawa, nor has she done anything terrible to him. the hate she gets for crushing on akutagawa is unreasonable to the extreme for me. upon introducing them both, higuchi is shown as being overly eager to assist akutagawa. as she is his direct subordinate and cares about him, it's understandable for her to not want him to be in danger, or simply trying to make his job easier. akutagawa as a person doesn't like help, so he sees higuchi as an annoyance and trouble. he treats her (and kyouka) how he was treated- he's abusive and unnecessarily cruel, though i believe that is also learned behavior from dazai.

however, despite higuchi's over eagerness to help, she always has the best of intentions. in no way is she trying to inconvenience him or annoy him. she is just doing her job as a mafia member and helping her superior. i cannot understand the faults people find in that. i do not hate people for doing their job, even if their job is evil; it is just what they are required to do, and sometimes you can't fault that.

her "creepy" tendencies can be narrowed down to stalker-ish and obsessive. it is true that she is interested in akutagawa, but that does not mean that all of her actions are purely from a romantic stance. she cares for him, so it is natural for her to want to protect him. it is understandable for her to be concerned for him- he is not in the best of health, he's reckless, and he refuses help. she wants to avoid him being injured or killed, and not just because she is interested. i believe she also simply respects him as a person, and as her superior. in the mafia, loyalty is a strong tie, and for higuchi, her loyalty isn't 100% rooted in the mafia itself. she is more loyal to akutagawa, but that isn't unusual either. dazai was more loyal to oda, which is why he left for oda's sake. akutagawa is more loyal to dazai than the mafia, so he will respond to dazai's calls and orders. the same can be said for higuchi.

higuchi may be a bit overprotective, but again, that isn't a bad thing. she saved akutagawa's life when she realized that he was in critical danger and that the mafia would not do anything to save him. she bravely took on the task of raiding the enemies to rescue him while he was incapable of fighting back. she might have died had the black lizard not intervened, but she was willing to risk her life for the person she cared about. she also has implied many times that she does not feel that she is suited for working in the mafia, but she stays anyway because she loves akutagawa. again, that doesn't really pass into obsessive territory. if you are close to someone and love them, of course you would do these things for their sake. of course things with her seem more intense, but that is only because of their job. normally doing something for someone you love is maybe an easy task or errand. in the mafia, it can mean fighting a difficult battle in order to help your loved one(s). this is all circumstantial stuff that feels inadequately thought about.

regarding her stalker-ish tendencies, i still do not understand where that comes from. the definition of a stalker is "a person who pursues someone obsessively and aggressively to the point of harassment". higuchi does not follow akutagawa around outside of work or harass him. at work, naturally she is with him a lot and doing things for him (it's her job). however, she does not know unnatural things like where he lives or even familial ties. when she passed him on her way home from work, she appeared excited and wondered if she could offer to drive him home. not because she wanted to know where he lived, but simply to do him a favor and potentially increase his feelings for her. she also debated inviting him for tea. to people who think that is weird, i have to think that they have not experienced many normal connections. to coworkers or not very close friends, inviting people out to dinner or for a drink is not uncommon. as it was night, it would make sense for her not to think "i should take him to a cafe" but rather think "i should invite him over for tea". she wanted to drink tea with him, spend time with him, and talk to him. if shops at that time so happened to be closed, it would only make sense to invite them over. i cannot see what is unusual or wrong about that situation.

when she saw akutagawa meeting with gin, she misunderstood the situation, which again is a forgivable mistake. her thought process was not overly obsessive or weird; at first, she was jealous because she believed gin to be akutagawa's partner. from there, her overprotective side also kicked in- sure, gin could be his girlfriend, but she could also be a spy sent to kill him. not 100% of her malice at gin was because of jealousy, but she was worried for akutagawa too. when she congratulated atsushi on delivering a love letter to gin, it was both out of hope that she would have a chance again, and that akutagawa would be safe if gin was in fact a danger to him. later when she spotted gin, gin was startled and began running. higuchi picked up on her agileness and decided that she was definitely an assassin/danger to akutagawa. she was trying to harm gin, yes, but she did not know it was gin or that she was related to akutagawa. when she later learned that, she was very sweet to gin. she felt no real ill will toward her, but more concern for akutagawa taken a bit too far. i still would not say this is stalker or obsessive tendencies. higuchi is a misunderstood worrywart with a crush. i understand why some people think she is annoying, but at heart she is really just a caring and funny character. she does not deserve the hate she gets, and she also does not get the love and attention she should have. whether or not she "interferes" in your ship, you shouldn't dislike her purely on that and her interest in akutagawa. she is yet another powerful queen and she is trying her best.

higuchi’s interests aside, she is still a great character. at times she is shown to be unsure of herself or relying on others, but i would say that she is still independent and capable. she does not need others to take care of her; she can handle a weapon fine, and she is brave and selfless in fights. she is not stupid, although her hesitation in some situations can be labeled as that. however, she does not need others approval to make decisions, and she is considered a high rank. i do not know akutagawa’s direct position in the mafia, but if she is serving under him, then she is still above the black lizard. as shown when the squad came to rescue her without her having to order them to, they do have a degree of respect and care for higuchi. she is ranked above them somehow, and that position doesn’t come with ease. they are in the mafia, and i imagine that rising in ranks is difficult. while we don’t know her backstory or how she came into the position she is in now, it should be acknowledged that she did something to get where she is now.

kouyou is another one of my favorites. she is a good example of what can be considered a traditional woman while still being powerful and capable on her own. we don't know a ton about her (especially about backstory), but there is plenty of things to appreciate about her. she is loyal, caring, and protective to those she cares for most, notably kyouka and chuuya. kouyou is one of the port mafia’s five executives, and she is another mafia member who worked to get her position. being one of the five executives is second only to the boss of the port mafia. she worked to get into her position, and it is a considerably high rank. mori stated that kouyou is one of the few people strong enough to be able to leave the mafia and live. despite wanting to leave the mafia in the past, she switched her loyalties along the way and now serves the mafia well.

while golden demon is a strong ability on its own, kouyou is strong in fighting with her own sword. her appearance is deceiving, as she is not portrayed in an overtly threatening way. on the surface, she has no weapons, and her outfit initially gave me the impression that she is the type to refrain from violence or fighting. why would she get blood on her kimono, and how does she fight wearing high heels? (it seems that a lot of female characters fight in heels, which is respectable). however, kouyou is perfectly capable in fighting and defending herself both with her ability and with her own concealed weapon. considering kyouka’s tendencies and style of fighting, she was likely trained as an assassin under kouyou. it can be assumed that kouyou is a good assassin, as she certainly does not appear to be one.

there is discussion of if kouyou works in a brothel, as her voice actor apparently speaks like one. if this is the case, then it is even more likely that she and her subordinates are trained assassins. there are several things also implying this as her job, which i have no fault with. she is good at what she does if she is one of the five executives.

while kouyou may be overly negative and cynical, she is not a bad person. in the end, it seems she just wants the best for kyouka. while her idea of what is best is warped, that also cannot be faulted. she is thriving in the mafia, and she directly suffered the consequences of trying to leave. she is trying to prevent the same thing from happening to kyouka. while we can’t necessarily see growth in kouyou due to the lack of scenes with her, it can still be said that she has grown out of her initial plans for kyouka. while she likely still has the same negative mindset, she stopped projecting everything onto kyouka and encouraged kyouka’s freedom and happiness. she recognized that the best for kyouka was not necessarily staying with her, resulting with her letting kyouka go. she grew out of her possessive behavior and bad mindset and changed to do what would help kyouka and make her happy. in the end, she just wants kyouka to be safe and happy, which is a nice motivation considering her aggressive and violent nature toward enemies.

elise is going to be a short one due to lack of information and the fact that she is an ability. i do have to say that despite her existence and situation, none of that can really be helped. she is powerful as an ability, and probably is a pretty good cover for a lot of things. she can always be passed off as mori’s daughter, and her young and innocent looks do not give off any impression that she is dangerous or an ability. she has her own personality and opinions, and while they were mostly determined by mori, she is still capable of thinking and acting as she wants. it can’t be said that she is her own person, but she is certainly in charge. so far it does not seem that she is 100% bound to mori’s orders, so she is able to argue and get what she wants. a big portion of why i personally am not a huge fan of elsie is because she is connected to mori. but mori aside, not considering how he acts around her and treats her, i think she’s a good kid. she’s pretty normal considering that she’s an ability, in the mafia, and capable of murdering someone.

gin is an absolute darling and i will now tell you why. there is not a ton of canon content of her, so it is understandable that people are not really into her. in the first place, it isn’t clear that she is a girl until a good way through the guild arc. she has no ability, and no definitive backstory or personality. however, that does not mean that she should get so little attention. regarding the mafia, she is very good at her work. she is another assassin, and while her looks can be deceiving, it is also very clear that she is dangerous and deadly. right off the bat she is shown to be sly and fast, and capable of assassinating people very well. being a selective mute, she is very quiet and secretive. not talking means obviously that we cannot deduce her exact thoughts, intentions, and motivations, but based on other things we can guess some things.

to start with, despite her angry exterior, she is a sweet girl. she’s beautiful and considerate, and clearly cares for her brother akutagawa. in the past, she was the one who saved herself and akutagawa from being killed by the mafia. after joining, she rose ranks to be one of the three commanders in the black lizard. outside of work, she is still quiet, but is considerably softer and more expressive than when working. she does not wear a mask to conceal her emotions and reactions, and she is less apprehensive of speaking. she was considerate of katai when he confessed his feelings for her, not treating him in a rude manner at all.

the thing that stood out to me most about her was how much she thinks about akutagawa. noticing he was stressed about work, in an omake she was shown to have gone around asking other mafia members for things to help him relieve stress. she found problems in each solution offered, and ended up choosing what she thought best. she sat down and had tea with him, which was very sweet and caring of her. she is not always cruel and violent, and her motivations are likely along the lines of her care for her brother and her will to stay alive and in a good position in life. she is not violent for the sake of violence; she is just doing her job and what she is good at.

(i wrote a different analysis of gin here)

the guild

to start with discussions of the girls in the guild, lucy maud montgomery is first. she has considerably more content than the others, but that cannot be helped, as she has more screen time than alcott or mitchell. montgomery’s motivations and feelings are pretty open, so i cannot say that she is misunderstood or ignored. she has attention, but i do think that she deserves more (as all the girls do). at least, beyond shipping material, there is more to her character. she has improved since her traumatic past experiences, albeit in a different way than atsushi has. in the beginning, her actions and methods were confusing and not explained. however, she was just another character doing what her job required, and what she required to live happily. to her, she wanted a place to belong, and the guild was that place. when faced with potential loss of her newfound home, naturally she was willing to go to any lengths to stay, including capturing and messing around with the detective agency. montgomery is smart and capable with a strong ability to back her up. her ability, while used for kidnapping, has many other purposes as it later shows. had she initially been on the good side, a lot more people would probably like her. she was purposefully made to look and act intimidating and mean, although that is just a front she puts up. after she can be considered a tsundere, although terms like that annoy me slightly. it is weird to simplify a unique character down to a few shared traits with a stereotype- let’s just say that montgomery is flustered easily and does not know how to deal with her emotions in a positive way. by that i mean that how she acts can be perceived as bad by readers and watchers, though that is not what she is intending to do. i think that montgomery is trying her hardest and while her methods are not the best, she is still a good person who is just trying to get along in life and make close connections to people.

margaret mitchell is another character i cannot talk very much about, as she has hardly appeared in the series at all. despite her outwardly narcissistic and snobby personality, i also do not think that she is all bad. her ability, which we have not seen much of, can be decidedly negative. we have not seen a way in which she uses her ability in a positive manner, but as we do know her motivations, i can still say that she is not trying to be a bad person or anything of the sort. her reason for joining the guild and attacking yokohama was to restore her family’s honor. as we know nothing of her backstory, i cannot say why this was so important to her, but it seems to be of noble reasoning at the least. a lot of characters have good intentions or motivation and just a terrible method of execution. mitchell is one of these characters.

however, even if you were to dislike her purely based on her arrogant and rude attitude, it must be acknowledged that she is not terrible to those on her side. while threatening kajii and akutagawa, she was also shown to be selfless in defending hawthorne using her own body as a shield. now that she is stuck in a coma, hawthorne seems intent on helping and erasing her family’s debt for her, since she is incapable. that implies that she must have some kind of soft and nice side, otherwise i do not think hawthorne would consider her to be his loved one. we only saw her disintegrating his bible and arguing with him. aside from sacrificing herself, she must have done something to earn his affection and loyalty- hawthorne has gone very far in his attempts to save her.

personally i think the reason a lot of people dislike her is her stuffy attitude combined with her appearance. her complaining of others not working while combined with her wearing an over the top large dress likely contributes to the dislike or indifference i see directed at her. she is very unlikeable on the surface, nor can i say that i like her at this point.

and lastly in the guild, i will be talking a lot about louisa alcott. she is the main reason i decided to write this long ass post. alcott is in my opinion, probably the smartest of all of the geniuses in bsd. there are different kinds of smarts, of course, and it is not too hard to sort them. dazai and fyodor lie mainly in tactician. they are wonderful at predicting enemy moves and creating plans. ranpo is also shown to be helpful in that, though his strength lies in solving mysteries and analyzing evidence. dazai is also good at solving mysteries and analyzing. mori is implied to be good at a variety of things- strategizing, logical thinking, effective manipulation, and leading. he is good at making things go his way, and good at doing what is best for his organization, even if that means sacrificing others. in general, there are many intelligent characters, but the “geniuses” tend to be labeled as fyodor, dazai, mori, and ranpo. i have never seen alcott included in that grouping despite her being debatably the best out of all of them.

it must be noted that alcott’s ability is not the cause of her intelligence. rather, it simply furthers her abilities. i do not think that she would need to rely on her ability to be good at what she does; she is a very thorough tactician, and given extra time, can write out the most ridiculous plans i have seen. it is absurd how much she is able to predict and write about. “Little Women is an ability that allows Louisa to make time pass at 1/8000th of regular speed, but only while thinking alone in a private room.” nowhere does that description list that it furthers her intelligence in some way. from that, we can gather that she indeed can sit in a room for a few minutes or hours, and in real time weeks will pass. she can sit for weeks straight and simply think of and write every possibility. she can list every outcome, every action their enemies might make, all the action plans the guild can go with, and so much more. she can estimate the damage her plans provide, the likelihood of success, and compared to other plans she has written out, whether or not she would recommend it. she is shown to be cautious in her planning, since despite her seemingly ruthless plans, she always directs fitzgerald away from choosing the more dangerous options. that also shows that despite her listing very violent plans, she is against going with them and disagrees with the more violent options she came up with.

i think it is amazing how much concentration and energy she has. sure, the other geniuses may be able to reason out how their enemies are thinking and doing- but alcott is a different level. she will write packets (multiple!!) of analysis and options. i do not know how much i can stress this. these packets are hundreds of pages, written in a few hours by her. with given information, she can predict up to how other people will react to given situations, and how to manipulate the situation for the best outcome for the guild. she was able to somehow predict the reappearance of kyouka when atsushi was attacked, and how exactly to get away with capturing atsushi while simultaneously eliminating kyouka from doing anything more against the guild. she wrote up to the very specifics how that situation would lay out, and all that fitzgerald needed to do in order to capture atsushi. call the police on them! how did she know the police would be nearby and that atsushi and kyouka would turn to them? hell if i know, but that is amazing as fuck and i don’t think that the others compare in any way to that.

of course she does have boundaries, such as when chuuya and dazai teamed up against lovecraft and steinbeck in order to retrieve Q. i would say that she could not have planned that given what she knew of their personalities and how they would work together. even if they were past partners, logically it does not seem likely that they would team up, even in a dire situation. but they did, and to top that, chuuya used corruption. that was something that alcott did not plan for, likely due to lack of information she received. otherwise, she was able to take into account so many factors- timing, abilities, personality, and likelihood of events happening- and create functional and effective plans. knowing how Q’s ability works, she thought of a way to cause the most amount of destruction by combining Q and steinbeck’s abilities. personally, i would not have thought of such a method. it is brutal, but it did work out for them. most of the mafia and detective agency were occupied with dealing with Q’s curse rather than pursuing the guild. she had backup plan after backup plan. i believe that they were so detailed and complicated that without an exact copy of all of her writing, dazai and ranpo would not have been able to come up with a plan to counter what she was doing. they are good at guessing what can come next, but attempting to guess all of alcott’s thinking is impossible. to me, she will always surpass the other geniuses in the series, as she is the best of the best considering everything.

if comparing her capabilities to that of others, she covers almost all the bases. in terms of leading, mori is good because he is willing to sacrifice others for the sake of the greater good. alcott made plans that were willing to sacrifice all of yokohama for the benefit of fitzgerald solely. dazai and fyodor are good at guessing how the other will think. i would say that alcott can do the same, though on a much larger scale. given a longer amount of time, the others could likely come up with similar plans, but since they are not alcott, they cannot come up with her predictions that cover almost every base. her ability to slow down time and then sit still for technical weeks at a time thinking of every possibility is amazing. though we have not seen her solve any crimes, i would say that she is still very good at analyzing and using data to her advantage.

brains and ability aside, i think that alcott is a lovely person. though she has severe social anxiety and is very bad at talking to people, she is very kind and loyal to those she cares about. again, she can be ruthless against her enemies, but who isn’t? when not considering her position as a tactician in the three way organization conflict, she is very good. she wants to do the best she can to help others, and despite her low self esteem, feels confident enough to present her thoughts to those she is comfortable with. unfortunately she only seems comfortable with a small number of people, but she is caring and giving to those few.

i apologize for the long rant on alcott. it feels kind of unorganized and sloppy, but i honestly have no idea how to properly explain my respect and love for this character. she is never talked about or drawn or anything, and she deserves so much more than she gets. once you get past that initial barrier of “she’s too quiet, she’s a pushover, her plans are cruel and violent” you will realize that is not always the case. in reality, when consulted she is able to provide good advice and solutions to problems. she was very against fitzgerald going with her more extreme plans. yes, she thought them up since she thought up every possibility, but she strongly advised against those plans for obvious reasons.

the rest of the girls i cannot say much about. aya seems very sweet and justice oriented, and i think i would prefer to see her as an actual character rather than the odd lovechild of dazai and chuuya. chuuya did not even really show up in the manga in that scene…… anyway, i do not know enough about teruko and agatha to talk about them properly. teruko seems overly violent, but i do believe that she is just doing her job, again in a kind of bad way. unfortunately, i do not know anything of gaiden, so i cannot properly discuss tsujimura. however, i have heard that she is a sweet girl, and i would like to read more about her.

in conclusion, i don’t feel that the girls in bungou stray dogs are properly appreciated for what they are. sometimes they are misunderstood, sometimes they are ignored, but no matter the case, i think that all the girls in bsd are wonderful. slimy men? yeah fyodor, dazai, and mori. slimy women? there are none. they’re all perfect. they have their faults of course but really, none of them are incredibly evil or anything. for the most part we know their intentions, unlike some of the guys i listed. and often times those intentions are not bad at all, even if they are executed in a bad way. they tend to not rely completely on their ability, unlike a lot of the males in the series. dazai, akutagawa, and atsushi are all good examples of characters who rely heavily on their abilities to do things. in contrast, most of the girls don't rely on their abilities or other people. their abilities help them, of course, but they are plenty capable on their own. some of them don’t even have abilities- higuchi and gin being prime examples- but they are able to fight and be independent.

please give the girls in bungou stray dogs more care and attention. they are so fucking valid and i love them from the bottom of my heart

also!! i forgot to say but please reblog, dm, comment, whatever the fuck unpopular bsd opinions. i love a good rant™ and i have a lot of thoughts

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