#author dazai

[sockgr3mlin]

[aenishas]

The recreating of irl Dazai photo is and alway will be iconic

[dazai-wastelandbaby]

[evermorethecrow]

rip dazai osamu you would have loved the smiths

[valenteal]

I’ve been posting a lot about my thoughts on Dazai’s characterization and motivations but honestly I’ve been dedicating a lot more energy to trying to understand Oda. Dazai is an amazingly complex character but he’s a constant in the story and we know quite a lot about him, comparatively. Oda is incredibly mysterious and much harder to understand. My breakthrough earlier figuring out that Oda had the book has really helped me open my mind to another side of Oda I hadn’t yet considered.

The things is, authors have to be a bit cruel. Oda’s reasoning for not killing because he wanted to be a writer doesn’t make sense, we kill our own characters all the time. We put them through hell over and over for entertainment/to convey a deeper meaning. I think maybe one of the conditions of having the book is not killing directly, or maybe a certain level of removal from the storyline. Like, if you control reality and others lives with the book you’re giving up a certain amount of control physically in the moment.

Oda is a killer. He is friends with killers. And if I’m right about him being the author of the Dark Era he wrote the deaths of the kids. I think his reaction was genuine, I think he really felt like he shouldn’t have the book, that he didn’t deserve to be its author anymore, but I really think that he wrote the story to give Dazai the opportunity and the motivation to get a better life. I mean, I’ve made myself cry with my writing. The most compelling stories are full of tragedy.

Oda was a child assassin. He was a writer. He was a mafioso. But most of all he was Dazai’s friend.

Wait! Holy shit idea!

Okay so Natsume had the book before Oda, but he was definitely following Dazai around before he got the book so we know there’s already a connection there. I’ve been wondering why Oda was so attached to Dazai. But Natsume wrote the story he adored, the third installment which Oda finished was The Book. But what did Natsume write about? What exactly were the books Oda loved? What if it was Dazai’s story? What if Oda knows Dazai so well because he read his life story over and over and yearned to give him a happy ending? What if his whole motivation was to finish the story in a satisfying way? And everything from the orphan’s existence to Ango’s betrayal was to create an open ended story in which Dazai could potentially have have a better life?

Oda is such an incredible character. He’s full of contradictions until you actually start thinking of him as an author. We authors have strange minds, we love our characters but we put them through so much. Because we wouldn’t love them if we didn’t make them struggle, make them realistic and deep and meaningful. Oda knew the kids were going to die, he wrote it. But he got attached like anyone would. But he was done writing the story, all that was left was for it to play out. So he passed ownership of the book to Dazai and went to play his role.

Fuck I’m getting emotional omg Odasaku is wonderful. I don’t even care if the entire theory is wrong, I’ve figured Oda out with the information I was given and filled in the blanks. Asagiri himself wouldn’t be able to make me give this theory up.

Oda isn’t a good person with strong morals the way he presents himself. He does that to fill the mentor roll for Dazai and to get Dazai to make the desired decisions. He just a fan who was given control of the story by the original author and basically used all the writing tools ever to create a story in which the character he loved but who was tragically doomed and seeped in darkness could find some happiness. Just like anyone writing a fix-it fic. Accept his fix is canon.

Holy shit I’m a genius.

Don’t come at me you have no idea how proud I am of this! Either I figured out the most confusing character ever written or I have created a genius explanation that nothing will ever top (for me anyway).

[stabbyindie]

Dazai will probably die by the end of BSD.

I’m pretty sure most BSD fans already expect this.

Why?

Well, i’m pretty sure everyone is aware of how all (if not most) characters in the anime are inspired and named after real authors. Most of their abilities are also named after book written by the irl authors. (ig: Fyodor’s ability is called Crime and Punishment, an incredibly famous classic literature written by the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.)

Moreover, a few characters also are incredibly alike to their irl’s. (Not all, ig Kyouka, who is the gender bent version of the irl author Izumi Kyouka, birth name Kyotaro Izumi.)

Osamu Dazai was a man with an incredibly negative and nihilistic view towards reality, it was the reason behind his motivation to write his best seller book, No longer Human. The book, however, was also considered to be a semi-autobiographical story on none other than Dazai himself, basing itself on the depression and alienation the author felt towards society and himself.

Osamu Dazai in the anime/manga, is also a man with a negative view towards reality and living. The reason behind this is somewhat explained, but still incredibly unclear, considering we didn’t get exactly get a proper backstory on Dazai yet. His ability, No longer Human, nullifies other abilities, at least that’s all that has been said so far. (I have a slight head canon which possibly isn’t a head canon? Maybe Dazai’s ability was written out to be nullification due to his nullified response to existence, the fact that he believed he wasn’t human and was created to destroy. Quoting Oda’s words of “He was practically born to be one of them (a mafioso)”.)

No longer human, the book, was also believed to be interpreted as a suicide note, considering how Osamu Dazai had committed double suicide alongside his love interest Tomie Yamazaki soon after the book had been published.

Sound familiar?

Dazai always sings about how he too wants to go out (commit suicide) alongside a beautiful woman. I’m not sure, but maybe Tomie Yamazaki might be introduced as a character in the future of BSD (idk some people say she’s made an appearance already? I’m not sure, but do tell if she has, I’m not going to rewatch the entirety of BSD for this TT).

I really hope she doesn’t since that would just convince everybody what Dazai’s fate would be by the end of the series.

I personally have yet to read No longer Human, so can’t really go much into detail about the book itself, but considering the reaction it got, i’m guessing it explains Dazai’s character in the series a lot better.

Osamu Dazai died at the age of 38 in 1948, and BSD Dazai is currently 22. Maybe later on there might be a time skip, or the series might just end after covering several more years and many more arcs, but i feel like it will result with Dazai dying.

I seriously would hope that wouldn’t be the case, since Dazai is incredibly loved by the audience, but BSD hasn’t really held out on us has it? *cough Oda*

manga readers, where are you guys at?

But it would probably serve as good plot and will be somehow canon compliant to irl Dazai, since basically everything but the world setting already is.

Again, i really hope Dazai dies not die, man’s like my literal favorite anime character to ever be written, but there’s too much going against this right now.

[tay-is-not-okay]

I just recently started reading “No Longer Human” by Dazai Osumu and I’ve noticed some parellels between Yōzō - the main character in the novel - and Asagiri’s Dazai from Bungō Stray Dogs.

One of those would be one of the big - if not the biggest - thematics in the book (as far as I can tell). He talks a lot about how he uses jokes to hide his fear of humans, how he uses this “clowning” to fit in or rather to seem like he does. Yōzō veils himself behind a mask of constant happiness because he doesn’t know how to properly communicate with other human beings. Though I shouldn’t say “other” since it would imply that he himself is a human which he often said to not be the case. (Which also explains why the book is called “No Longer Human”)

As you might have noticed Dazai is indeed quite similar. While we don’t have that good of an insight on his thoughts, we still are able to recognize some similarities between these two characters. Osamu is someone who as well hides behind a mask of jokes and laughter, at first glance he doesn’t seem to be taking anything serious. Though abaft that is a serious and sad- no, depressed person who attempts suicide quite often. Thematising that did this qoute from the anime:

“Success is harder than failure for many things in this world, right? (…) That means I shouldn’t place suicide as my goal, but rather, attempted suicide! It may be harder to succeed at suicide, but to fail attempted suicide should be easier!” 

as well as 

“(…) It (referring to death) is a singular event in one’s life that none may reverse. That is what I desire.”

For me those quotes reminded me a lot of Yōzō, it sounds like something he would say (in a similar way).

So Dazai is very much like Yōzō when you look at the way they act. He (Dazai) as well is trying to not show his insecurities and the saddness of his core. That is something that they definitely have in common but we don’t know if Dazai also is afraid of humans like Yōzō is. I personally haven’t thought about that before: Dazai Osamu, the former Port Mafia executive who killed over a hundred people, being afraid of mankind? An interesting thought if you asked me.

What I find so cool about all of this is that Asagiri really put a lot of effort into creating Dazai Osamu as their own character. Putting details in his design that refer to the quirks of the real Dazai Osamu as well as his works. What I’ve talked about is just a small part of the detail work put in this amazing character.

That’s it with this (somewhat) comparison between those two complex characters! I might update this if I find more similarities. Please correct me if I made any mistakes content wise and feel free to add your own thoughts!