Casually dropping I'm thinking of doing a Husk costume and going as him for carnival in front of my bf to see if he tags along as Angel (he has been talking about lowkey wanting to go as him for like a week) ☝️

Decay of Angels Theory

So, here’s a few of my theories for where the Bungo Stray Dogs story is going to be going in the future; particularly concerning the Decay of Angels. Spoiler warning for up to 91 of the manga.

The End of the Decay of Angels Arc

For a few reasons I think that the DoA arc will be ending soon in the manga, partially due to the shear length of it as it’s almost twice as long as all the other arcs combined on its own which alone isn’t very strong evidence. However, in all the past arcs we’ve had one new gifted organisation introduced per arc; the Port Mafia in the first, then the Guild, then the Rats but already in this arc we’ve had two new organisations introduced. Both the Hunting Dogs and DoA are smaller groups than any previous ones and have the same leader so it makes sense to link them in the story but it was recently mentioned in the manga that the Order of the Clock Tower would finally be entering the main story. This would make three new organisations introduced this arc; therefore, I believe that this arc will end before the order of the clock tower properly enters the story.

Speaking of the end of this arc I believe that before the end of the DoA arc Dazai and Fyodor will be freed from the prison because as the story is progressing it is becoming more clear that those two are the chess masters controlling the actions of all the other characters involved in the story so to have them out of action for so long feels wrong. I’m not so sure about this but I would hazard a guess that Chuuya has been sent to free Dazai as we see Mori with Chuuya’s hat in chapter 91 with explanation as to where Chuuya is and that Nikolai will free Fyodor simply because of how suitable his ability is for staging a prison break (although Fyodor possibly planned that Nikolai would conspire with Sigma to kill him and count on him coming to free him to get an opportunity to kill him. I’m not sure about that though).

Moving onto my thoughts about Fukuchi, I think that his death will cap off the arc. So far we have seen three already established characters fight him with only one even managing to escape alive. Again, I’m not too sure about this part of theory but I would really like to see it so I’m including it, but I think maybe we will see Soukoku fight together again to take out Fukuchi. If I’m right about Chuuya freeing Dazai then they will be on their way back to Yokohama together and presumably their first priority will be fix the mess the ADA and Port Mafia are in currently, which would need to start with Dazai nullifying the vampirism ability and Fukuchi being killed as he is currently the biggest threat to both groups. As Bram is always with Fukuchi, Dazai will eventually have to go to wherever Fukuchi is and while realistically anyone could go with him it would be nice to see Soukoku work together again. Just before the fight Atsushi and Akutagawa think about what Dazai and Chuuya would do in that situation but they ultimately failed so seeing Soukoku do what Shin Soukoku couldn’t will show how far Shin Soukoku have got left to go before they can fully take over as the new Soukoku (presuming that Akutagawa somehow is still alive after the vampirism is gone).

The True Leader of the Decay of Angels

As mentioned above I think that Fukuchi will be dead soon in the manga which for someone who is supposedly the leader of the DoA feels strange that he would die so early into the Decay being out in the open. I believe that the DoA are going to remain the main antagonists in BSD for at least a few more arcs so for them to have no leader moving forward feels like a strange choice. Of course, Fyodor could take over, but I would like to put out an alternative version of another theory I’ve seen floating around. If you aren’t already aware The Decay of Angels is named after a novel by Japanese author Yukio Mishima and before all five members of the Decay had been revealed a common theory was that Mishima would be their true leader. Once we knew all of the member’s identities this theory was thrown out mostly, but it still feels weird to have a group named after a novel without having any connection to the author of that novel. I have a few different thoughts about how Mishima could be tied to the Decay.

The first isn’t my theory but I would still like to mention it: that Sigma’s true identity is Mishima. I have a slightly different take on it but here’s the run down. As it’s unclear how Sigma was created by the Book three years before the main story as if the Decay had had possession of the Book earlier then Fyodor would have already have enacted his plan to use it to get rid of all ability users. So the theory is that Sigma already existed prior to three years ago but as a different person and three years ago someone (possibly Fyodor as we’ve seen him mess with Ivan’s mind before) did something to him which caused him to loose his memories. Sigma’s former identity could possibly have been Mishima, but I think it’s more likely that if this is true his previous identity was Chekov.

The second is that Mishima is a completely separate character from any existing member of the Decay. I have two slightly different ideas on this: one is that Mishima has always been the true leader of the DoA. There are five members of the Decay as it’s based off the 5 signs of an angel dying from Buddhist mythology but what if that’s referring to five normal members, not including the leader so Mishima could have been pulling the strings behind the scenes the whole time. Alternatively, Mishima could simply replace Fukuchi as the leader of the Decay after he dies.

Bram and the Order of the Clock Tower

This section is going to be looking a bit further ahead than the others which were more focused on the end of the Decay of Angels arc but it was an interesting thought I had so I figured I’d just stick it in here for your consideration. I believe that Bram Stoker may have originally been part of the Order of the Clock Tower, not the Decay of Angels. As Asagiri has a habit of making the gifted organisations all authors from a single country, it makes the DoA a notable exception as it is made up of three different nationalities between it’s five members. As we know that the Order of the Clock Tower is a group made up of British authors, I think that Bram was originally a member of the Order, not the Decay as IRL Bram Stoker was British author.

What I believe happened was that whatever battle that Fukuchi fought in where he encountered and ultimately defeated Bram involved the Order in some way. It’s hard to speculate because we know so little about this, but Bram was possibly kidnapped from the Order after he was defeated by Fukuchi and forced to work with him for the DoA.

I’m aware that this theory is a bit half baked but it would be really interesting to see the interactions between the Order members and Bram after they arrive in Yokohama and I’m excited to see how this story unfolds in the future. I would love to hear any thoughts anyone has on the theories I’ve mentioned here, and any discussions are welcome.