This week the plot revolving the Azure King was resolved and it raises the conflict of sense of justice between Dazai and Kunikida. Like what I suspected last week, all the new characters are in play in this episode and now I get the hang of Bungou Stray Dogs storytelling now. The new characters will get introduced, have a little bit of introduction, serve to move the plot or supporting the cast, and then get discarded very quickly and I doubt that we would hear from them again. Case in point, in this episode, Rokuzou the hacker and Sasaki the victim appear in the climax, when both of them manage to shoot each other and die, and “it was the only possible outcome”. How ridiculous is that? There are many ways where they can resolve the problem without any single one dying, or maybe I’m not that deep to understand that bit. These new characters, sadly function like a plot device to move the story forward than a real person. I will put that aside for now, because after all, their very existence is just to advance the plot and put more depth into our main characters.
But judging on advancing the plot, the action moves very fast to the point we don’t have time to process all the plot development. There will be few hints but either it’s too obvious (like when Sasaki mentions her soulmate), or too inconsistent (remember that Sasaki is the mastermind behind planting the bomb, so when the agency found out about the location of the bomb in front of her, common sense would be her tries to prevent or slow down the process, right?). Moreover, some elements just appear so randomly, like the usb that luckily contains all the necessary information, or Rokuzou shows up to the scene, or the fishing tackle store (how on earth would WE figure that out?). No this plot development moves so hurriedly that it becomes, quite frankly, a mess.
In the character’s development area, it is interesting to raise the difference of how Dazai and Kunikia view of justice. They are both have very different personalities and I believe Dazai does all that out of worry that Kunikida’s ideal and sense of justice, and a bit of guilt over the Azure King case would one day consume him. But that in itself is not the right way to treat Kunikida. For all thing, Kunikida has to learn it by himself. He has a lot more to prove and I expect to see more of this angle in the next episodes. Next week look to be more interesting as it is now Yosano’s turn, along with a new girl in red. Sounds like a promising episode to me.
~SuperMario~
I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said. The storytelling is so inconsistent that it almost becomes very cookie cutter and predictable. They made the mastermind pretty obvious imo with the previous episode. Like hmm I wonder why she was the only one sentenced to drown in a non-bullet proof tank and the others killed by poison gas? Why didn’t Kunikida shoot the glass to try and save the other people? I know there was the problem with the poison gas but with his deep sense of justice, I doubt that would’ve deterred him from trying to save them. I really don’t remember if he actually tried shooting the glass or not, but if he did why was that bulletproof and not the tank? Which again made it really obvious who the culprit would be.
On the other hand, the story tries too hard to be clever with the bomb’s location, but really I think that the bait shop is absurd. Like you mentioned, this wasn’t even revealed to us before which makes it even more irritating on how the story tries really hard to make something clever. I also think that the location of the bait/tackle shop is too convenient because I think setting up a fish shop next to an oil rig/facility is a horrible decision.
Then there’s the villain with the numbers power, who had basically no background story and too simple of motives. I doubt we’ll see him again. Maybe in the second season.
Maybe this whole first season was just made to buildup to something great for the next season but it’s hard to say how great it’ll be with the way the storytelling is going.
yeah, agree that Kunikida not shooting the glass was really out-of-character as hell. He simply can’t help them because the show don’t want him to. But then again Bungou Stray Dogs has weak writing so expect more of it will pop up in the future.