#bsd 106

[maalidoesart]

free him

[fossorinpieces]

///// BSD 106 SPOILERS /////

what if...

... he can still remember his promise that he made to atsushi. even as a vampire.

i am so done with sskk and their gay antics.

[lil-vibes]

[sad-emo-dip-dye]

He looks so tired but he’s like yeah buddy don’t worry you’re gonna be fine asigiri I can’t do this anymore

[saaraofthesand]

WAIT CHUUYAS BEEN WEARING THE ANTI-MIND CONTROL HAT THIS ENTIRE TIME WAIT WAIT

[sigmashuffle]

CAN YOU ALL GIVE THIS MAN A BREAK!?!

LOOK HOW STRESSED HE IS!!!

[fivekrystalpetals]

actually, Fyodor saying that--

surprised, not by the flooding, but by the fact that Dazai and his 7-year partner's bond was so shallow that Dazai think Chuuya's ability cannot deal with that flood // @/popopretty

--is surprising to me because Chuuya didn't really do... much for them to escape.

You see, this wasn't an incorrect fact:

Dazai is right, the walls are anti-ability and we see this in action too: (this most probably was a part of Fyodor's plan to throw Dazai off-guard and make him think that his plan was working)

Yes, Chuuya's ability doesn't work on the walls. Dazai didn't underestimate him or his ability. He looked at the facts and gave his opinions. (That's why I think his words in BSD 101 were also true, he must have really believed that Chuuya was going to drown because he had no way of knowing that Fyodor was gonna pick him for a pawn)

Getting Chuuya to break the threshold between every door was Fyodor's idea.

And it doesn't even seem like a big deal to break the threshold; it hardly took the power of a finger for Chuuya. (and no more than a slight dent in the floor should be enough for the water to flow out)

So.... why is he talking about their trust and bond and all if not to simply rile up Dazai?? It's Fyodor that Dazai should have kept an eye on (and still needs to) because once again, this conjurer is misdirecting his attention to his 'stronger' assistant here while the actual trick was all Fyodor's.

[linkspooky]

Bungou Stray Dogs, Chapter 106 Thoughts

Aya’s backstory is incredibly interesting, especially considering her connection to Kunikida. Kunikida is another character obsessed with perfection, both in himself and others. 

There’s even a running joke in the manga that Kunikida has the perfect woman he’s planning on marrying in the future written down in his journal. Kunikida’s determination to strive towards his ideals is his greatest strength, and his obsession with perfection his greatest downfall. His perfectionist tendencies hurt Kunikida the same way that Aya’s father comparing her to her perfect big sister and mother hurt Aya. 

Kunikida lives in pursuit of his ideals, and sometimes his efforts to save other people and act like the ideals written down in his journal succeeds. In Aya’s introductory story, Kunikida makes a heroic sacrifice when he can’t live up to his ideals and Save Aya and it works out for him. He manages to save her by putting his life on the line. However, in the next story that Kunikida is feature in, he ends up failing. 

When his ideal is broken, Kunikida is not able to keep on fighting with strength and determination. He completely breaks down in the face of the cruelty of the world. Watching a child die in front of him makes him want to give up everything. He doesn’t even want to keep trying, because it means he might fail again.

Ironically Dostoesvky kidnaps the same man Kunikida stopped during the train bombings in order to have him witness Kunikida’s idealism break. THe man tells Dostoevsky his pal won’t work, and Kunikida will save everyone that day without his spirit breaking just like he did that down... only to be proven wrong. 

Even when Kunikida gets the resolve to keep trying to save others after letting that child die, things only get worse for him from there. Kunikida only managed to save himself and Aya because his comrades were there that day and Akiko Yosana was there to heal bot him and Aya. Kunkida is separated from his comrades for the next narrative challenge, and when he has to fight alone he fails again to prove his ideals against  against Jono. 

Kunikida’s grand heroic sacrifice to try to prove the strength of his ideals to Jouno once again blows up in his face (quite literally) and he’s left even more helpless than he was before. When he ends up in a hospital bed without the use of his hands, Jono’s not impressed and his mind hasn’t changed, he’s actively mocking him. 

The manga itself seems to criticize more than support Kunikida’s idealism, especially since it crosses into zealotry several times. Like, in all three of these scenarios Kunikida was quite literally willing to die and threw himself into a near death situation by jumping on an explosion and it didn’t work out for him. Kunikida’s pursuit of his ideals is literally self destructive. It’s throwing himself on the grenade to stop the explosion. It’s a running theme in the manga as well. Akiko suffers from it in her backstory, her powers that can save people from near death are abused until the people she abuses go insane and one man to commit suicide leaving a note “You are too ‘Correct.’” 

The same way her father abused Aya by comparing her to two dead people. The same way that Nathaniel Hawthorne is heroically sacrificing himself for the name of his love Margaret Mitchell only ends up with him being brainwashed. NIkolai wanted to die for the sake of his ideal of freedom, and then decided he wanted to kill Dostoevsky to see if his friendship with him was a result of his free will or not. The pursuit of a perfect ideal of love or justice is only destructive in the end. This theme was touched upon in Kunikida’s light novel story as well. Kunikida encounters the wife of an idealist like himself turned terrorist, who dies for the sake of an ideal just like her husband. 

Which brings us back to Aya’s internal monologue, “There ain’t no way to be more perfect than dead people.” Aya is characterized as a normal person that people like Fukuchi would ignore beacuse they only see the world in the terms of their high and mighty ideals. Aya’s father ignores her own efforts to become good at martial arts and her ideals about justice because he’s too busy comparing her to the perfection of her older sister and mother. Kunikida is also a character who is ignoring who he does save because he can only look at the people he’s failed to save. 

If the message of the manga is that “Perfection=Death” then the goal should be to try to live in a world that’s not perfect instead of aspiring for perfection. However, Kunikida is not doing that currently, he’s trying to throw himself on the grenade. Which is why the connection between Aya and Kunikida is so important because Aya they both share this incredibly unhealthy expectation to be “perfect” that only hurts them in the end.