bsd enthustiast

sorry im still getting used to using tumblr + getting over the habit of lurking he/him

[mikubsdfan]

dazaipeekink knggthhh hngh hah hah hah plaplaplaplpap

[mikubsdfan]

i donttt think kunikida and dazai are good for each other. Right now actually let me explain (sits down backwards on chair)

Imagine ok its dazais entrance exam in canon. Theyre 20, not much has happened, agencys new et . We dont know whats happening with dazai but we DO know whats happening with kunikida hes. I lied we dont know whats happening. Kunikida is very strict with himself and he gets easily upset at this point. Hes also obsessively writing down everything that happens several times a say from what we get 'I ate a pear. It was not sweet.' ok girl umm for dazai we dont have anything explicit rn in canon but we can guess hes recovering- odasaku wanted him to be a good man and hes trying his damndest those 2 years he was in hiding

[blackwaves]

the last line being "feel strongly / that's what you do when you want to experience the past" is so important to me genuinelyyyyyyy like. god. god. the dead authors manga for people who are bad at living. the lack of a solid time setting when it comes to bsd in a very deliberate way. the things that asagiri is always always saying about death as a transient state through bsd. fiction and emotion and death and the aftershocks that these dead authors and their literature leave across history.

[that-one-raccoon]

I adore how we know absolutely nothing about Dazai from before he was 14 and with the mafia. Nothing. For all we know he could've been a fucking retired Odd Squad agent who quit at fourteen because he fucking hated his job then was found by mori.

[carbonateds-oda]

yes everything is about them actually

[mikubsdfan]

hoollly shit its kumikida and dazass. holy shiy holt shi

[mikubsdfan]

I think bc the bsd timeline is an alternative universe to our own w the way people dress and the tech etc i think the music is somewhere in the eighties or nineties? Personally i dont know much abt the japanese music scene around that time but i think a fukuzawa who grew up listening to the beatles is fun

[weebsh-t]

Ok. So wait. Wait so. Ok so wait

So Kunikida is clearly meant to be like... struggling SEVERELY with himself right now, yes?

You can't exactly blame the guy after what he's went through and is still actively going through, but it really does feel like Asagiri is belabouring the point that he's SERIOUSLY struggling right now. He accepts the possibility of being incarcerated for a horrific and traumatic (to him!) crime he had no hand in because it 'punished' him in his guilt. Saigaku remarks that his pulse signifies relief when Kunikida is under the impression he and all of his friends are about to die. Kunikida himself ruminates on this in the helicopter, before promptly flinging himself off the damn thing to stop Tetchou when Chuuya was right there. Right before striking him, 'Ame-No-Gozen' says that he is 'wounded' and that he has a troubled heart and hollow hopes.

At bare minimum, also taking into account how he saved Aya in her introduction, Kunikida has a bit of a self-sacrificial streak and some serious self loathing and doubts. At a stretch, the guy seems to be just as if not more readily suicidaI than Dazai.

I guess what I'm saying is. Where is Asagiri going with this? I genuinely wonder if this will be resolved as there's been so much attention put onto it.

[solanumflare]

I'm honestly pretty confused by people saying things like "we've lost the plot" in regard to bsd, or saying it's suddenly become bad. if you don't like the way fyodor acts, how have you put up with all the other antagonists in this series? if you don't like the science and physics stuff, I hope you haven't read stormbringer! if you don't like the "death-baiting," I hate to break it to you but asagiri has always messed around with characters and revived dead people. yosano's ability was literally designed for that. a few chapters that seem to drag on aren't losing the plot, we just don't have the context for them yet. 121.5 wouldn't have been as amazing as it was if we hadn't had the build-up, right?

bsd might not be what you expect from it. but we're all along for the crazy ride, and don't understand the act of giving up on it or insulting it because we can't yet see where it's going.

[solanumflare]

bungo stray dogs as a series fascinates me. almost as if by design, it makes the reader forget what it's meant to be. deathbait, the audience cries! useless chapter where nothing happened! where's dazai? where's fyodor backstory? why isn't atsushi doing anything? bsd becomes another shitty seinen in our eyes as asagiri draws us away from the point. we lose interest. we mock it. we engage with the community solely to laugh together at, not with, the series. i, myself, was beginning to hate bsd over the past few months. it felt repetitive and simplistic, and I was starting to tire of it. I thought of just... not reading bsd anymore. I would check the bsd servers I was a part of and see nothing but people insulting the most recent chapters.

and then, suddenly, in around fifteen pages that released earlier today? all of that is gone.

the new chapter is, of course, incredible. it does so much in barely any time, and it does all of that masterfully. but beyond that, I think that the way bsd readers reacted to the chapter is something. suddenly, we're all collectively screaming, getting excited, talking about bsd as if it's a series we actually love and take seriously. even just seeing incoherent ramblings about the new chapter on my tumblr dash makes me smile. because we do love this series. we did and we do. and it almost feels like making us tired of bsd, making it feel repetitive, was intentional. because now that, suddenly, it's no longer following that? we're back. we, as a fandom and as a community. the people who are bad at living are connecting again through our genuine love for this series.

but that's not all, is it? the chapter itself says to us, feel again. connect again. the last line of the chapter is directed at us. feel strongly. do you want to know what I see when I look at the bsd tag right now, or talk to my friends who like the series? I see everyone feeling strongly. I see keysmashes, cries of "sskk canon!", well-written analyses, pointing out parallels, beautiful art.

i don't know where I was going with this. but did I need to? maybe it's fun to just feel strongly, all together.

[birbleh]

"mob mob mob mob mob," my watercolour monoprint (507x370mm)

(full artwork below)

[alchemicon]

No because oda is literally the definition of haunting the narrative. His presence is felt everywhere by the viewer, because of how he dies. He's in every single kind thing that dazai does in the agency. He embodies the themes of the series and even asagiri's love for literature. His death changed the course of the story. Everyone wishes they had the impact he does.

[againwiththeturtles]

i love to read a character's stoicism as awkwardness. yeah your posture is great and you're mysteriously surveying the scene but it's because you're stiff af and don't know how to approach anyone, right?

[mikubsdfan]

kunikida but he follows the pipeline of 'strong moral compass but does what he needs to be done > does what he needs to be done for a better world > believes the world will benefit from his doing what needs to be done > does anything in his power to achieve his ideal world' im realizing this is basically the azure king pipeline lmao but imagine if after he goes through so much w fyodor (if he survives 😭) he . ya sorry there was also a character from a series i read?? i think it was bayaz from an Abercrombie novel who i was thinking itd be kinda cool if kuni went down that path

[1seaweedbrain1]

characters w/ a strong moral compass who keep getting mischaracterized as a goody goody who always follows rules/laws and does what theyre told im so so sorry they did that to you bbg

[spliqi]

thinking about this forever btw.

[zetsubou-shita]

[dicksoutforakutagawa]

'what is he, a train?' absolutely vile diss i am crying