I was trying to create powers for my oc & I began looking into the characters as not to reuse powers. But as I’m sure you know (if not, this next tidbit will be a treat), that the characters are names after authors & their powers are named after literary works of theirs. I began looking into the stories of which the characters abilities are named after & may have some possible insight as to why they may act the way they do, or possibly (please don’t shoot me, I’m making guesses) as to what may happen. This will be for Dazai & if I get good feedback, I’ll do other characters as well!
Dazai is named after an author in Japan who wrote a book called ‘No longer human’, written in 1948 & translated in 1958. The story is about a boy named Ōba, who is a ‘ troubled man incapable of revealing his true self to others, and who is instead forced to uphold a facade of hollow jocularity’. (jocularity means intended for joking). The story is written in a series of notebooks left by Ōba, who at the end of the novel, was submitted to a mental institution for what modern analysis says was ‘complex post-traumatic stress disorder’.
Now, going in order of the parts of the novel, the first chapter, referred to in the story as memoranda, this section was about his childhood. He grew up feeling different & used his facade to help build relationships with other people to cope with this feeling. A traumatic experience that could have brought this on, bc the book doesnt say, could be the fact that Ōba was abused by a female servant as a child.
Now, in chapter 2, Ōba is in school, still holding up his facade but a classmate by the name of Takeichi could see through this (Sounds like Oda to me). He befriended Takeichi to prevent him from revealing his secret. Ōba takes up art to express his feelings in ghost like paintings, and meets another classmate named Horiki, who under his influence Ōba began drinking viciously, smoking & committing heinous sexual acts, one of which was with a married woman (who I assume was swallowed by guilt at the fact of committing adultery) who he later asks to commit a double suicide with him by drowning. (sound familiar?) He survives but the woman dies, which throws Ōba into a pit of guilt.
In chapter 3 part one, he gets kicked out of uni, & has to live with a friend of his family, a single mother with a daughter whom he tries to be a surrogate father to , which he later leaves to live with the woman to owns the bar he frequently goes to. Still drinking away his pain, he falls in love with a girl who asks him to stop drinking, which he complies.
In chapter 3 part two, he stops drinking to pursue a good job as a cartoonist. But after coming into contact with Hiroki again (kinda wanna say this reminds me of Ango not only bc of the gif, but bc of the car wreck Dazai put him in) which causes him to start up again on his bad habits. While talking with ango Hiroki, he recalls his wife being sexually assaulted by a cowoker & distances himself from her. He becomes addicted to morphine and alcohol & is admitted to a mental institution & upon release moves to an isolated area to reflect upon himself.
So, with this being said, Dazai doesn’t show signs of being an alcoholic, but does show similar signs to Ōba with self destructive habits. One being his facade
Now, him moving in with the owner of the bar leads me to assume this influenced the fact that Dazai wanted Ango, Oda & himself to meet at the same bar frequently.
Ōba let down his facade in front of Takeichi, who I want to associate with Oda, seeing as how they seemed to know eachother on a level most others in the mafia didn’t & seeing as how Oda played a big part in helping him cope with his existential crisis & is ultimately the reason for Dazai leaving the mafia
On the topic of associating characters in the show with characters in the authors novel, I associate Ango with Hiroki bc when Ango was around after Oda passed away, he seemed to be more on edge? He not only pulled a gun on this guy, but also put him in a car accident. Hiroki caused Ōba to put himself into destructive habits, while Ango causes Dazai to revert back to his mafia self.
Chapter 2 correlation, Dazai doesn’t commit sexually devious acts although I would enjoy that, but he does ask women to commit a double suicide with him. Dazai doesn’t care how he & the pretty lady go, he just wants to die with them, but in the novel Ōba tried to drown himself and Dazai is caught twice trying to do the same thing.
I think chapter 3 is Dazai leaving the mafia & going into hiding to lay low before joining the ADA. The ‘mental instituion’ is him coming to terms that he doesn’t want to be in the mafia anymore & him moving to an isolated place is him reflecting on himself with not only Odas death, but his life. I think Ōba becoming a cartoonist was Dazai joining the ADA, both of them trying to make a better life for themselves.
What I think is interesting is that what caused Ōba to think about his wife being sexually assaulted & distancing himself from her was when he & Hiroki were talking about a book. A book called Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. Maybe this could be a contributing factor as to why Dazai & Dostoyevsky dont get along?
Now this part is just for kicks, and I hope this doesn’t happen, but shortly after part 3 was written and published Osamu the author took his life, and many think the book was his will, seeing as how the book’ No Longer Human’ was written with autobiographcal factors such as first person & how suicide was a common occurrence in not only the authors life, but in his literary works. Maybe Dazai really will kill himself?? Lets hope not
