This novel covers episodes 6 and 7 of Season 1. However, this is the story of Dazai’s entrance exam, which is something that is not covered in anime, since the plot includes Atsushi. So, a lot of scenes were omitted from the novel. The novel was from Kunikida Doppo’s point of view regarding the case of Azure Messenger, which is the first case of Kunikida working with Dazai Osamu.
The story starts with the Prologue, which was include the inner thought of Kunikida, an idealist who lives in reality and a realist who pursues ideals. This is during the time Kunikida works together with Dazai, a man with unknown origin and capabilities but obsess with suicide, after Dazai joins Armed Detective Agency.
In Chapter I, the story tells how Kunikida, was introduced by President to Dazai, a mysterious man who happened to get a job through Chief Taneda, top brass from the Special Division for Unusual Power of Home Affairs Ministry. Working only four days, the President already asked Kunikida to prepare for the entrance exam for Dazai, which is mandatory for every detective in the agency. Kunikida was mentally exhausted by Dazai, who acted like a child and suicide maniac. To Kunikida, Dazai was a disaster. However, Dazaiwas acknowledged as an intelligent and skillful person but has nothing on his past which made Kunikida and President became suspicions of him. Kunikida received an order from the President to fire Dazai if Dazai was a spy and kill him if Dazai had any signs of wickedness in his heart. Dazai, being Dazai already made a wreck by eating a poisoning mushroom (but it was not a poisonous mushroom at all). After that, Kunikida received a request to check the building from anonymous clients. With that, Kunikida paid a visit to the teenage hacker, Taguchi Rokuda to get the information. Basically, this is the same scene as the anime. Including the scene with the taxi driver, the fight at the abandoned hospital, the scene of saving Sasaki Nobuko and the killing of all abduction victims, minus Atsushi.
Some trivia from this chapter, do not let Dazai drive. Yes, Dazai’s skill is terrible (I guess he purposely drives very fast to become the wind). And we know that Kunikida wants to get married at 26, after two years of dating. Good to know, Kunikida.
In Chapter II, the story continues to the part of the missing people case, in which the agency heavily criticised about the death of the abduction’s victims. Kunikida, not discouraged at all decide to continue investigate the case. Kunikida finally found out the taxi driver was the kidnapper and confront him (as per anime, minus Atsushi). I think this is the first time Akutagawa Ryuunosuke appeared in front of Kunikida, after Dazai ran after the taxi driver who run away when the Port Mafia ambushed them. However, after they turned the taxi driver to Military Police, Kunikida received another threat about bombing which could kill over one hundred people.
In Chapter III, the Agency has a meeting regarding the threat that was just received by Kunikida (as same as anime). Unfortunately, Ranpo was in Kyushu because of the case and was unlikely to return on time before the bombing. So, Kunikida asked for Rokuda’s help. While having a discussion with Dazai regarding the case (together with Sasaki), Kunikida had a wrong impression of Dazai and Sasaki’s iteration and indicated that he was jealous. However, this story includes the scene that has been omitted from the anime the scene at the embassy. Dazai made a scene at the reception of the embassy as someone who want to seek refuge and Kunikida was undercover as a Security Police officer. However, their cover was blown. Turn out, a man of Japanese descent, Zadkiel Alamta, a bomb purveyor from the Middle East had entered Japan without being informed to Japan’s authorities. After finding all the information that they need, the foreign secret intelligent agency’s officer was very impressed with Kunikida and tried to recruit Kunikida, which Kunikida rejected.
Unlike anime, Ranpo managed to get back to the agency and help to solve the case only by looking at the documents that Kunikida had prepared. Turn out, Dazai touched Ranpo while Ranpo uses his gift and tells Kunikida that Ranpo doesn’t have any gifts at all, which impresses Dazai. He is simply too smart. Both of them went to the fishing-gear shop, as per Ranpo’s deduction to stop the bombing. There, they found Alamta’s body, with a look-like tattoo of ’00’. At the same time, Kunikida received a call President regarding the death of the taxi driver with the same of ’00’ all over his body and a call from Rokuda that the email of threat was from Dazai’s computer inside the detective agency. With that, Kunikida bring Dazai to a deserted mountain path and killed him with a gun. But after killing Dazai, the agency still gets the threat email. But all of that was just a ploy. They have to destroy the listening device naturally since the fountain pen of Dazai was swapped with the listening device during their trip to the embassy.
This scene was not animated, which is the scene when they managed to get in contact with the airplane that fell from engine failure and was purposefully sabotaged. They only have one hour to save the plane. Using the tracker, they managed to track the criminal to air-raid shelter and attack like in the anime scene. After they managed to stop the interference divide, they finally save all the passengers of the airplane from being crash at Yokohama City.
In Chapter IV, all is well. They managed to solve the case of the plan hijack and found the organisation that was responsible for the organ and weapon traffic. Kunikida decided Dazai pass the examination, even though Dazai have many problems. However, Dazai lures Kunikida out on his day off to abandon the hospital and reveal that the arms dealer was the Azure Apostle. Rokuda, who read Dazai’s email also went to the meeting point, only to find out that the person who behind the case was Sasaki. Sasaki shoot Rokuda and told Kunikida that the Azure King was her lover. Rokuda, who wants to get revenge for his father who was killed during the investigation of Azure Apostle killed Sasaki with the gun that was brought by Dazai. Indirectly, Dazai killed her, believing that she deserved it. Sasaki was dead, and so with Rokudo.
After that, Akutagawa in Chapter Interlude II was still looking for someone who has the ability to nullify others’ skill upon contact. Turn out, Dazai was Akutagawa’s mentor and former Port Mafia Executive.
In Chapter Epilogue, turn out Kunikida told this story to Taniguchi about his first case with Dazai. Since that, they became partners who can trust each other.
This story was interesting, as we managed to know more deeply about Kunikida and Dazai’s partnership. Both of them were skillful and diligent in doing their work, although Dazai can be a pain in the ass. However, I can tell that this book also told readers why Kunikida trust Dazai when they were working together, as I believe Dazai was the first person who told about there is no ideal belief and the ideal world seriously to Kunikida.
