I'm aware we don't actually know where abilitues come from (or, like, 90% of the magic system in BSD, for that matter) aside from the hereditary stuff presented through Kyouka or Tachihara and his brother; but there are some devastating implications to the way Atsushi's ability manifested for the first time (as told in Dead Apple).
Beast Under the Moonlight came from his desperate need for survival and having no other way to protect himself. So, a breaking point. A devastating one at that. What was the breaking point for other characters like?
Sigma's main emotional wound comes from having no memories, no knowledge of his past, of his existence, no place to belong. And his ability is to exchange information through touch. Sure, this might have been written in on the book alongside everything else about him, but there is still a poetic element to it.
Or, what drove Kyusaku to manifesting an ability that only works on people who hurt them? A child who has the ability to drive those who hurt them insane. What happened to them?
What was Dazai doing before his attempt that made him end up being able to nullify other abilities, essentially making him impossible to attack via non-traditional means?
How desperate was Fukuzawa for human connection while dealing with his trauma from the war that he manifested an ability that works by bringing people together?
How much love for life does Yosano carry that her ability is to heal and revive people with essentially no limit to it?
How strong is Kunikida's resolve to bring his ideals to life, no matter how impossible they might be in practice, that he can bring objects to reality from a blank page?
What did Oda want to prevent? What did Ango want to find out?
I could (and do) think about these characters all day long ahhhhhhg
I love that Elise is not a child in the Beast universe because Mori doesn't need her to channel his caring nature anymore.
He's the orphanage's director now, his full-time job and daily life is caring for children; he doesn't have to hide his nurturing side for the sake of the mafia's reputation; he doesn't have to hide his instinct to protect and guide in favor of the violence his previous job required, or veil it in the guise of leadership; he doesn't need his ability, essentially a doll, to let his inner child free or to redirect his fatherly instincts, and he doesn't to make a lolicon joke out of it to justify the way in which she presents either.
Elise can be his assistant, plain and simple. She's a nurse, like she was during war, and she's still sassy, and she's still the one to call him Rintarou when he's known as Ougai to the world; but he doesn't need her to be the representation of innocence and frailty she used to be, he doesn't need her to pose in as what would be his daughter.
This is a man who has healed, who has found a better place to call home, who can be vulnerable again and prioritize care and comfort after prioritizing logic and war strategy for decades. He doesn't have the burden of Yokohama's (and the world, because Yokohama seems to be the center of it in this story lol) safety upon his shoulders, he's not constantly in fight or flight, or in the middle of a battlefield, or thinking about a huge criminal organization and everything that comes with its management.
This is the genuine Mori, at rest. This is Rintarou.
Akutagawa is both goal-oriented and emotionally driven. He always tries to be "logical", or at least to justify his decisions, but his feelings push and pull at him too easily, which is what makes him so volatile. But he's very determined and dedicated.
Atsushi is equally as sensitive as Aku, but he tends to react with the flight or with the fawn response, whereas Aku reacts with fight. Atsushi learns to react with fight over time, but when it comes to emotions it always takes him a bit of time to decide what to do, especially when the way he feels is at conflict with his morals.
That's the other aspect: Akutagawa doesn't really care much for morality. He has a very set view of the world, that there's some people who deserve to live more than others, that you have to have a purpose and dedicate yourself completely to it, etc.
Atsushi believes in the inherent value of human life, but struggles to apply that to himself, so he finds a way justify everyone else's value, to understand (not agree, just understand) the reasons behind their actions.
If Akutagawa realizes he loves Atsushi, in whatever capacity he is capable of doing so, he accepts it, the same way he accepts that his life will be cut short by his illness, the same way he accepts that he has to fight and struggle to get Dazai's approval. It's part of who he is, because his relationship to Atsushi has been so life-altering (through Dazai's constant comparison between them, and later finding that his purpose has been to pair up with him all along).
I think love and hate always co-exist, especially for someone like Ryuunosuke. It's not the kind of acceptance that welcomes something with open arms and blind trust, but just acceptance of its existence and of how it changes his world. Atsushi won't ever stop infuriating him, he won't ever stop trying to be better than the weretiger either, but he'll protect that fool with his life if he has to, God dammit.
Atsushi, on the other hand, battles more with the prospect of loving Akutagawa. I think he realizes it sooner but postpones accepting it way longer, simply because he already struggles to believe he is a good person worthy of the life he has, and loving someone he used to see as a monster and a murderer and a criminal (and to a degree still sees that way) doesn't really help ease those thoughts.
It's easier for Atsushi to generalize the things his love makes him want to do. As in, collaborating with Akutagawa usually serves a good purpose, and usually ends well too. But I think he also looks for validation from Ryuunosuke, be it by proving to himself that he's different from him (in his moral struggles) or by showing the man that he's strong and worthy of the things that Akutagawa denied when they first met.
Loving Akutagawa, for Atsushi, is a bigger struggle because he constantly has to reassure himself of his worldview. He constantly has to reassure himself that he deserves to live at all, and Akutagawa is both all the things he avoids becoming into and his blueprint.
Anyways, if you agree with me you should read my sskk series, Kuroyuri, where I explore all of that. That's the post.
Ryuunosuke Akutagawa: Self Concept, Grief, Purpose (As seen primarily through the Guild Arc)
Akutagawa's self concept is so interesting to me.
He uses the pronoun "yatsugare" (僕) to refer to himself and uses humble language (kenjougo) (謙譲語) when speaking.
(people have pointed out that this might be a nod to the real life Akutagawa's writing style, which I find equally as charming as the other implications for his characterization) (I'm not at the level where I can read literature and actually understand it in japanese, so no comment there)
This pronoun, beside being arcaic, can sometimes be humilliative. He literally introduces himself as "a lowly guard dog of the port mafia". But he carries himself with dignity and clearly believes he is strong, as we see him talking about "worthy oponents" and how rare they are (like when he fights Kyouka, or the separated version of his ability, or when Atsushi shows improvement in his abilities and catches him off guard).
But this in itself is not a contradiction: He's costantly obsessing over proving himself to Dazai, wondering what he's lacking or what he hasn't done (properly, or at all) to earn his pride and recognition.
If he doesn't give himself some grace about the fact that he's stronger than most, he'll break, because he believes that weak people don't deserve to live. Additionally, if everything he's done doesn't get him to the level he wants, which is Dazai's unknown, impossible standard, at least let it get him somewhere above other people. His main reason for living is unreachable until god knows when, so his second reason can at least be the fact that he deserves to be there more than someone else, because he's more capable, more powerful, more valuable to whatever fight he's involved in at the moment.
But of course that can't be his whole life, otherwise he would have been free from his wish of Dazai's approval long ago. No. Akutagawa is inherently inferior, as he needed someone to come in and give his life "a meaning", because he couldn't find it for himself; because he failed to do the one thing he had to do when he was younger, which is protecting his friends, saving their lives.
He couldn't save his friend's lives, so he has to justify the fact that some people die and some people survive.
He was the only one with an ability in that group, he was stronger, he survived. Gin lived because Dazai, the strongest person as far as Akutagawa is aware, saved her, and then she grew and she ended up in her position at Black Lizard. Akutagawa deserves to live because Dazai, likewise, saved him and gave him a purpose.
He shames Atsushi for measuring his life's worth on his ability to save others because if he accepted that philosophy he wouldn't be able to go on. Akutagawa carries so much sorrow and guilt...
But it's not about being inherently strong or inherently weak. It's about what you do about it. He saw himself in Kyouka, a child who was so helpless she just wanted to die, and thought to give her a reason to fight and become strong, in the only way he could muster, which was doing hard work for the mafia.
Akutagawa is not the only one with this "find a purpose/meaning to your life" mentality in BSD, but he has such a narrow worldview that this is the only aspect he actually considers. As in, find a purpose, whatever it is, however selfish, however simple or complex, whoever gives it to you.
He didn't take the time to get to know Kyouka and find out what else she could dedicate herself to, or how to open her up to a desire for something other than death, but instead grabbed at the first thing he could see in her, which was her ability and the convictions he saw in her ("before, there was revenge in your eyes. Revenge for life"), and made her latch onto it. Hence: "If you don't kill, you're worthless." The same way Akutagawa only wants "one simple, trivial word from a certain someone."
Akutagawa is inherently inferior because even though he had the strength of his ability, he didn't use it correctly, and so his friends died. His life has no meaning because he failed to do the one thing only he could have done, he was weak. So Dazai has to give him a purpose, or else approve of the way he has been living.
I also find the line "those who are never trusted..." so meaningful because the only thing that separates Dazai from someone like Fyodor is the fact that he trusts people (as explored in Dead Apple). Dazai trusts Akutagawa, or rather, knows him well enough to trust that he'll act a certain way and it'll culminate in his plans working out. Akutagawa trusts that Dazai has a purpose for him, even if it stays unspoken for years, so he keeps fighting and keeps showing up and following his orders above the mafia's.
This is also funny because it's the only thing Akutagawa seems to trust him on. He doesn't trust Dazai not to betray him or any organization, as seen in Dead Apple. He trusts Dazai with the direction of his life but not with loyalty (something incredibly important for the port mafia) or morality or even his calculations at times. I mean, he was fully on board with executing him as a traitor, more than once.
Lastly, there's this line by Dazai which I find particularly devastating.
Because Akutagawa's whole life since meeting Dazai has been believing he finally managed to espace the slumps, that he's better than the kid who used to drag himself through the mud in that dirty atmosphere without direction or purpose; and he believes that because he found a mentor.
But Bungou Stray Dogs isn't interested in giving an answer about how to find that direction that we and Akutagawa are constantly looking for.
As far Dazai's perception goes, Akutagawa hasn't grown enough. As far as Dazai's true intentions go, he doesn't want to be the one to give Akutagawa his purpose, but he wants the kid to find it for himself. As far as Dazai is concerned, yes, Akutagawa is part of his plans for the New Double Black, but the only one who can actually decide how he should live is Ryuunosuke himself.
But Dazai won't tell him that either. He says it to Kyouka instead, who chooses to save other people's lives above her own (not unlike Dazai after Oda gave him the will to leave the mafia), and she is able to live a full, rewarding life afterwards.
And Akutagawa?
I think Akutagawa was subconsciously trying to prove to himself that he was strong enough to take that position as someone else's guide when he took Kyouka in. And, again, his worldview is narrow, and he's very impulsive, so we know it was bound to fail. But can we blame him for attempting to rise himself to the level of the person he admires?
At the end of the day, it was Atsushi who actually managed to save Kyouka, through giving her hope. And it was Dazai who gave her that impulse not to give up that hope when she thought there was nothing left for her to do.
Akutagawa latches onto that hope given by Dazai in the same way: It's a lifeline, it's his reason for enduring hardships and continuing walking forward. But he hasn't brough himself to accept the good side, the "light"; he doesn't align with this version of Dazai, who is living by his promise to Oda to do good, so they can't see each other eye to eye yet.
But I said that Akutagawa was subconsciously trying to prove himself in helping Kyouka, and that is because I believe the reason he actually told himself came from pure empathy. The way he explains his reasoning to her is essentially "I was like you once, too, and then someone gave me a way to not get consumed by that desire for death, and I thought I could do the same for you."
Akutagawa might not understand the direction that Dazai's life took, or he might not want to accept it, to accept the change to the good side (if only because Dazai left him behind when he did it). But he cares. He's capable of empathy, and he's capable of wanting to help someone else simply because they're in a vulnerable state. He's not just the inhuman apparition we see at the beginning of the story preaching about death. He's grown.
And I think that, in a way, he knows it. Otherwise he wouldn't affirm that his intention wasn't to use Kyouka. This is a man who doesn't shy away from his crimes, if he had had bad intentions, he would have said it.
But he needs someone (a specific someone) to aknowledge it.
I wrote this in a stupor because I'm hyperfixated on this critter and I love him so so much. It's been ages since I tried to write an essay and I know there's a lot of things to correct here but I hope my point came across well. I'd love to know what other people think about this!
I also know his character arc only goes up from here, but this was the most digestible part I could grasp in the middle of hypomania, so.
So, we all know the Bungou Stray Dogs characters don't just have the real life authors as namesakes, but they're also often based off of the characters of their works.
"Dazai’s special ability is based on the real-life author’s No Longer Human novel, which dives into the meaning behind life. Asagiri said that from then on, his characters were based on research like that."
(Asagiri Kafka, anime expo 2023)
Even thought Akutagawa's ability is named Rashoumon, and much of his role in the bigger story of Bungou Stray Dogs comes from that short story (and that's another essay entirely), I think Akutagawa's storyline by itself comes from the short story Shiro.
So, let's explore that, shall we?
Shiro
Shiro (シロ), White Dog, talks about a dog (named after the color of his fur) that ignores his best friend's (Kuro) call for help when a man takes him away. Shiro runs away and, as punishment for not helping his friend, his previously white fur turns completely black (like Kuro's). As a result, his owners don't recognize him anymore, and he ends up homeless and helping other people while risking his life, since he finds no other way to fullfil his deathwish. One night, he prays to the moon to be able to see his owners once more, and the next day he wakes up as a white dog again.
The story itself is pretty straightforward: Shiro acts in a cowardly manner when his friend needed him, and he spends the rest of his days trying to atone for this neglect, until he finally does and he can go back home, to the place where he belongs and he feels safe and loved, where he has a reason to live.
In my dream, I confessed to the moon. "Dear Moon! I left my best friend in the lurch. It may be why I became black all over. I hate being a black dog. I'd rather die than be a black dog forever. I've tried
to be brave to death: jumping into the street to save a girl; attacking a huge snake for a cat; going into a deep mountain to lead the people who lost their way; rushing into a burning house to save a baby. Every time I've been ready to die. But I'm still alive. I tried to commit suicide once, but it failed. It seems death always avoids me and passes away from me. During the days I've never forgotten
my owner and his family. I have always wanted to see them. Dear Moon, I've come home all the way from the death traps. All I hope is to see the people I've loved again."
Now, Akutagawa's death wish is basically entirely unspoken until that one scene with Kyoka in chapter 49, which we'll get to. And I don't think any of us would ever imagine him saying that he hates being part of the Port Mafia, but stay with me, because I think this is such a beautiful parallel to BSD's Akutagawa. Especially his arguably healthier version in the Beast universe.
I do recommend you go and read the short story before reading this essay (shout out to @bsd-bibliophile for the link!)
Akutagawa's baseline
Akutagawa's suicidality in Beast and his acceptance of his illness in the main universe are one and the same. They both derive from his need for a purpose, from his lack of one, from his need to make sense of his survival.
Akutagawa's main inner conflict comes from his beliefs related to the importance of strength, how that marks who deserves to live and who deserves to die. Akutagawa know he's strong, but he also believes that he could be doing more, that he could be doing better, that he has more potential he somehow hasn't reached, all the time. He needs to justify his life to himself every day, and that's the way he found of doing it.
He thrives under someone else's orders and guidance (no matter if he actually follows them properly or not; he always acts in what he thinks is the most effective manner) because that way he has a purpose, a goal he has to reach. And he won't take said orders from just anyone, no, he'll only take them from a worthy mentor, from someone who is stronger, wiser, and so will lead him to where he should be. If he doesn't complete a mission correctly, that's on him and his weakness, that's the new line he has to reach to be better, stronger, worthy of living.
Kunikida puts it perfectly in Beast: "You aren't anyone just yet." And for Ryuunosuke, that is distressing. He's in the age where a healthy human being should be figuring themselves and their place in the world out, but up until either Dazai or Oda takes him in, he hadn't been living, he had only been surviving.
Do you notice that the only way he can engage with others and have a normal conversation is when he can relate the topic back to the way his life used to be? The food when he helps Kenji, his love for his sister when he met Tanizaki, taking care of younger children during Oda's assignment, the old habits from neglect when he meets Atsushi, bonding over their mentor's abuse with Atsushi. He doesn't have a life beyond struggling for food and survival, protecting those under his care, and the trauma of losing them.
The closest thing he had experienced to engaging in the human condition outside of survival had been writing, and even that was turned into a priviliege and something that could be taken away from him at any moment while living in the slumps.
Both in Beast and in the main universe, he's described as having no feelings when he was younger. He was so deep in survival mode, he was completely emotionally numb. Akutagawa has only known death and the desperate attempts to escape it. Akutagawa has no guideline for any other way of engaging with life. His purpose used to be helping his friends get along and keep living, and now said friends are dead.
And then when his emotions come pouring down, after the death of his friends, the only thing he can see in his future is even more violence and the fact that he is probably going to die in the midst of it.
Akutagawa's will to live in the main universe
So, in the main universe, Dazai takes him under his wing, and the first thing he asks for is meaning. He wants a reason to live, because up until then he had been fighting desperately to stay alive without knowing why, beyond the fact that those around him were fighting too.
And Dazai promises to give his life a meaning, but doesn't tell him what that meaning is.
Later on he says it's to form the new double black but, when he found Akutagawa he barely even knew what he was doing with himself, do you really think that 16 year old was planning that far ahead?
Either way, Akutagawa pushes forward, fueled by the hope that Dazai knows what he's doing, because Ryuunosuke himself has no idea. At all. He doesn't know what else there is to life beyond survival, so he trusts that his mentor does, and that is good enough for him.
I think at some point in the six years between Dazai finding him and the current timeline he would have expanded his horizons a bit, found things he likes and dislikes that aren't related to food and trauma (remember his conversation with Tanizaki in Beast?). Like, he has a sense of fashion now, a life to live outside of the mafia (he hangs out with Gin, at least. They talk about "coming home"), his personal philosophies are certainly more developed than those of his Beast counterpart, who we only get to know for a couple of months and was significantly delayed in his opportunity to live because he spent another four additional years in the slumps.
And Ryuunosuke himself compares his past self with his current self. He talks about how his eyes used to be filled with "revenge for life" and how they're not anymore, how his "hope for death vanished".
I'll never stop talking about chapter 49. NEVER.
"I don't fear death. What I fear is dying unable to be acknowledged by Dazai."
He doesn't actively wish for death anymore because he's got something to dedicate himself to. Remember, he needs a purpose to live. So, it's mainly getting Dazai's recognition, and sometimes it's working for the mafia, and sometimes it's little sidequests like his attempt at rehabilitating Kyouka.
He doesn't actively wish for death, but he's so familiar with it, he doesn't fear it. If he shows something similar to a survival instinct it's because he has that singular goal of being recognized by Dazai, or because there's a mission to accomplish.
But Akutagawa hasn't gotten to a point where he truly wishes for life, or where he's truly distressed by his prognosis. For him, it's not having come to terms with the fact that his life will be cut short, it's having been prepared to die since he was a child and just having a newfound goal to accomplish before that inevitable day.
Akutagawa's suicidality in the Beast universe
In Beast, Akutagawa gets to exact his revenge for the murderers of his friends firsthand, which he later described as "abandoning himself to the joys of slaughter and wasting his life away".
Again, the only things he sees in his future are violence and the end of his life. When he gives in to bloodthirst he's thinking "how many souls will I take to hell with me?" not "How many people do I need to kill to live in peace about my friends' death?" He was ready to die from the beginning.
But then he survives, and Dazai doesn't take him along. He says: "Once you figure out the essence of your own weakness, you can come challenge me again."
So, what is the essence of his weakness?
Remember, this Dazai already knows Akutagawa, because he has the memories of his other life. He was probably hoping that being the one to kill his friends' murderers first hand would change Ryuunosuke, but it doesn't. If anything, it amplifies all the things that the main universe's Dazai was already trying to correct in him: His impulsivity, his overconfidence, the lack of value for his own life, his all or nothing mentality, his tunnel vision. All characteristic that make him, himself. All things that make his biggest "villain moments" make sense. Things that Akutagawa could never get rid of by himself, because they're the momentum that keep him going forward.
During his rampage through the Port Mafia's building, both Atsushi and Gin call him out because he didn't barge in looking for his sister, but looking to get to the top to kill Dazai. GIn is right, she is an excuse. His purpose is killing the one who took her away, and then himself. If he dies before he gets to Dazai, it's all the same. If he wasn't strong enough to save his friends the first time around, he doesn't deserve to live.
Akutagawa and Gin: Atonement
I'm not saying he doesn't love Gin, but she's more of an image in his mind than his actual sister. Not unlike what Dazai is to him in the main universe: They're the goal he doesn't deserve, can't convince himself he deserves, but wishes for desperately anyways. He wants them more than anything, needs them, but they're unattainable.
And when Gin asks of him "Convince me that you had a well thought out plan, and you didn't just want to destroy this world you hated like a beast", Akutagawa freezes, because he can't find the right thing to say to her. He can't lie to her or hide the truth. Because he doesn't think his life is worth it; he thinks of himself as evil, as a beast, because the grief for his friends manifested as guilt.
Gin is the figure of what he can't lose again. At the peak of his conflict as a character, she is the reason he gives himself and others for his fighting and lashing out, for his tunnel vision. In his learning moments, and at the end of the story, she is a motivator for staying in the good side, for learning to relate to the world through what he can do and not just his past struggles, for working alongside other people and opening up to them.
"If I find the me that is good, as the detective agency members claim, then perhaps my sister will return to my side. Until the day when I can become human, I shall howl, and keep running."
(Beast, chapter 22)
Akutagawa and Dazai: Purpose
So, I've talked about this in a previous essay:
... He needed someone to come in and give his life "a meaning", because he couldn't find it for himself; because he failed to do the one thing he had to do when he was younger, which is protecting his friends, saving their lives. He couldn't save his friend's lives, so he has to justify the fact that some people die and some people survive.
This is true for both versions of Akutagawa, here's the difference:
In the main universe, he gets picked up by Dazai, who becomes his sole source of learning, support, and even his livelihood. He develops a dependency, and on top of that gets abandoned and is forced to continue learning on his own for years while still chasing his mentor's breadcrumbs. In Beast, he gets picked up by the Detective Agency, where he builds a community, learns to form meaningful connections with others, has an unconditional support group (seriously, the agency is too fucking patient), and has more time to come down from survival mode and heal a little.
What is heartbreaking is that, despite that, the main world's Akutagawa feels that he belongs in the mafia. As a "a lowly guard dog", but he has an identity there at least. Beast's Akutagawa has to essentially get shaken and drilled into his brain that "yes, you belong here, you are a detective and you can be part of the good guys."
Neither of them let go of their guilt for what happened the day their friends got killed. Neither of them ever stop chasing that approval for the fact that their being alive. Beast Akutagawa just has people around to tell him that he's strong, that his friends are still there in some comforting spiritual sense, that he is welcome somewhere, and that he isn't evil.
Beast Akutagawa shapes his identity as a member of the ADA, as someone who is working to prove he is not evil, so he can get Gin back into his life. The main world's Akutagawa shapes his identity as a member of the mafia, as a fighter and a killer, and above all, as Dazai's student, who needs to improve to get his mentor back.
The Brave Black Dog/The Silent Rabid Dog
So, how does this tie into Shiro?
Shiro gains a reputation as "the brave black dog", the dog that shows up when someone is in danger and goes away silently after getting the work done.
The story emphasizes this time and time again in the news excerpts: "Soon after that, the dog disappeared..." Shiro doesn't do what he does because he wants recognition, or even because he has a plan; he saves people and other animals because that's the only thing he finds to dedicate his life to when he's essentially been kicked out of his home.
His identity used to be, essentially, his home's dog. The white dog that lives with this family. Regular dog stuff. Then he gets kicked out and his identity starts to revolve around his guilt, whatever he can do to relieve it, and his wish to see those he loves again.
Akutagawa does whatever he can to justify his life, to spend his time on this earth as well as he can until the oh-so-anticipated day of his death. Much like Shiro, who decides "well, if I don't care about my own death, I might as well help others while I'm at it." It's just Akutagawa interprets it as "shred your enemies" and Shiro interprets it as "step into a burning building and save a baby"...
Both Akutagawa and Shiro's grief manifests as guilt. They were both present during the deaths of their friends, and they both ran away to save their own lives. Even though, realistically, neither of them could have done anything in that moment, the memory won't stop haunting them.
I tried to bark at him, "Blackie, watch out! That man is going to kill you!" But I couldn't. The man turned around and glared at me with merciless eyes as if he was saying, "Damn white dog! If you bark, I'll catch you first." I was scared to death. I just ran away as fast as I could like a rabbit escaping from its chaser.
I heard Blackie behind shrieking for help; he was caught, I thought. But I didn't even have time to look back.
"Wow, wow! Help me!" barking, I kept running.
I can't find the panel where he gets a flashback of his friends calling out to him but I hope we all read chapter 1
After his friend gets taken away, Shiro runs to his owner's home, only to find that his humans don't recognize him anymore, as his previously white fur has turned completely black. This is when the punishment for his cowardice began.
I tried to tell them I am Whitie.
The girl said to her brother again, "Come to think of it, it looks like our neighbor's dog Blackie."
"Yeah, it's all black. But I can't tell if it's Blackie's brother or not," the boy said.
"He says I'm all black?" I looked at my paws. He was right. All of my paws were black.
"What's happening? I can't believe it," I kept barking like a mad dog.
"I'm scared! This dog must be mad!" the girl cried.
"Ouch!" Suddenly the boy hit me on my shoulder with a bamboo stick. He tried to hit me again. I dodged the second attack and barked at the boy fiercely.
"Stop it! I'm 'Whitie'. Even if I am black right now, I'm 'Whitie', your dog."
"What an impudent dog it is!" the girl seemed disgusted with me. The boy picked a stone and threw it. "Go away, dirty dog!" The stone hit me on the back. At last I gave up making them recognize me, and
left there dejectedly.
"Alas! I've become homeless, a stray dog. No one will love me anymore." I couldn't help but admit that I was no longer a white dog. I sighed deeply and looked up at the sky.
Akutagawa leaves Gin behind to go seek revenge, and he gives himself in to violence.
In the main universe, this is the moment when he becomes human.
In the alternative world, he becomes a "beast".
Either way, this is a transformation from him, and it's fueled by hate and revenge. Akutagawa is no longer emotionless, he is tainted by will, by pain and anger, by loneliness.
In chapter 24.5 of the main manga, this transformation is quite literal, represented by Dazai giving him his coat:
In Beast, when the fastforward to when Oda finds him happens, the clothes he is given by the agency are black, except for the ragged coat he doesn't let go of even at the end. Mentally, the change happens from the moment he leaves Gin behind, but those four years are kinda just a blank of the same struggle for survival we're already familiar with, as far as the story cares to tell us.
Now, Shiro becomes a "heroic black dog" that saves people so often he starts appearing in the newspapers. Doesn't sound much like the main world's Ryuunosuke, right? (Although he does appear in the newspapers often, but for other reasons lol)
Now, Akutagawa isn't an antagonist because he has bad intentions, per se. Yes, he swears to kill Atsushi, but he only does so because he believes that's the only thing he can do to prove to Dazai that he's worthy of recognition. He would just as soon kill Mori or become pope for the same reason. That's why he becomes an ally over time, and why the new double black plan is plausible at all.
(Let's remember that EVERYONE in Bungou Stray Dogs is morally grey. We don't measure how good or bad of a person someone is like we would in the real world, but through their philosophies and, essentially, wherever Asagiri is steering the story towards.)
Still, we can't deny that even in-universe, he's not a good person. But the point of Beast (nature vs nurture) and its story tells us that Ryuunosuke would have gone wherever life stirred him to. He is actively afraid that the people who say he is inherently evil may be right when the part of society he gets brought into is doing the part of the good guys. Being brought into the mafia desensitizes him to his violent urges, even encourages them.
I don't think this contradicts the story of Shiro, where the dog's first time saving someone else comes from his being "determined to be brave this time". Replace being "brave" with being "strong" and it sounds more like Ryuunosuke, right? Because his desire wasn't for redemption, but meaning. For some logic behind his survival. The logic he finds in the main world is survival of the fittest, the logic he finds in Beast is solving cases in the agency and helping people.
Shiro is only able to go back home, to a place where he has a reason to live, right in the moment where he's ready to die, when he pleads to the moon and realizes "All I hope is to see the people I've loved again". He has fought hard, and he wants to go home.
"Dear Moon! I left my best friend in the lurch. It may be why I became black all over. I hate being a black dog. I'd rather die than be a black dog forever. I've tried to be brave to death [...] It seems death always avoids me and passes away from me. During the days I've never forgotten my owner and his family. I have always wanted to see them. Dear Moon, I've come home all the way from the death traps. All I hope is to see the people I've loved again."
[...]
The next morning, children's voices woke me up. They were a girl and a boy who were stooping over my doghouse.
The boy cried in an excited voice, "Dad! Mom! Come here. Whitie has come back!"
"Whitie? He is calling me Whitie?" I jumped out of the doghouse, and looked up at the children.
The girl, who maybe thought I'd run away, held me in her arms. I looked her in the eyes.
"Wow, I see a white dog in her eyes. That's me, isn't it?" I cried with joy.
Akutagawa is only able to accept his place in the detective agency in that crucial moment where he's about to give up and die at the hands of a grief-blinded Atsushi, and Kunikida comes in and assures him that he's not inherently evil, he's just been misguided and used to a certain way of moving through life.
Now, the main world's Akutagawa's story isn't finished yet, but I think the moment he finally gets here is when we see him fighting with the fabric of his shirt for the first time, during the fight with Fukuchi:
He is ready to die, and he is finally able to let Atsushi in his life, the same way his Beast counterpart lets the ADA members in. He can admit that needs someone else to fight beside him, he needs to listen properly to the people that are trying to guide him, and he can see himself broadly, he can make his last action an act of trust and know that it is valuable.
And this is as far as I've read in the manga so don't come at me I promise I'll be caught up by the next time I decide to write something like this.
Closing Thoughts
Now, while the story of Shiro is more a story of penance and redemption and Akutagawa's story is one of healing, I think these parallels are worth mentioning. Both stories involve transformations, a search for a home and belonging, and impossible amounts of guilt, all very important aspects of Bungou Stray Dogs.
It might be a coincidence in the end, but we all know how intentional Asagiri Kafka is and how deep his passion for the authors he names his characters after runs.
I hope you enjoyed reading my rambles, let me know what you think!
Bonus because it's my essay: .stage 4 fear of trying. by Frank Iero fits this really well.
I'm sorry, but if you're writing Mori as the antagonist of your fanfic and the only way you find to make him the bad person in the room is to make him a PDF, you have not spent enough time with him as a character. Or with Bungou Stray Dogs as a text, for that matter.
I get that it's difficult to balance making someone the villain when every single character is morally grey, but we don't have to resort to CSA to justify that narrative, and Asagiri certainly hasn't either, but I also get that writing for Fyodor is difficult (hell, I haven't been able to pin down his characterization).
Anyways, so here's a few ways in which you can make Mori the bad guy:
- Play into how much he separates himself from his emotions (drive him to a point where he should be choosing what empathy is telling him to do, and make him choose the logical path anyways, no matter how much it hurts how many people).
- Talk about his crimes during war. He was a military doctor, but he had more power than that. He was a strategist. How did he abuse that authority? How did he hurt people without even abusing that authority but just by using it to do things he deemed "necessary"?
- Expanding on that: Explore how he hasn't separated himself from who he was during war. Fukuzawa (his foil in that main text) used to be a lone assassin, now he's built a community in the detective agency; he used to kill people recklessly upon command, now he only kills people to protect those under his care; so on and so forth. Mori still plays the role of the strategist to a T; Mori still thinks of his subordinates as soldiers and assets; Mori still hasn't let himself get out of that survival mode that war requires and live as a human, but instead went on to take it upon himself to manage the mafia under the explanation thsf it's all for Yokohama. He hasn't made the choice to change and progress, which is like, the main point in BSD's thesis (even if he has a logical explanation for it. That's the interesting part. But I digress.)
- Literally any other form of abuse is canon for him. He's a master manipulator, he objectifies people as assets and uses them however he sees fit (see Yosano, for example); he groomed Dazai into being a valuable member of the mafia; he uses fear as a tactic for keeping people under his command (yes, the mafia members respect him, but a lot of that respect is just fear as well); he presents himself as the better of two bads (not letting Kouyou get out of the mafia but not keeping her in a situation as bad as the previous boss did, for example). Think of smart ways to make him abusive. It's not that hard.
- Make him cold. Like, scarily cold. Make people's legs shake in fear in his presence. There's always some comedy to his characterization in regular dialogue, but when he wants to be scary he goes full demon mode (remember those panels by Hoshikawa where his face is obscured?). Play into that. It's fun, I promise.
Remember that the base of his character is that he will always choose logic over emotions. Every time another character talks about him, they allude to that. It's the whole reason why the mafia operates the way it does. It's the whole reason why he's both such a great villain and such a great ally, why people would rather make an agreement with him before fighting him directly (aside from having the most loyal organization known to Yokohama idk)
Also remember that these are characters based on real people. I'm not saying this to echo Bones' post shaming certain types of fanfic, because it's all fiction after all, but I'm saying it to point out that Asagiri wrote this story out of love and admiration for these authors, and to promote classical literature, and he would not have made one of the greatest writers in Japan (literally one of the most recognized names there, alongside Natsume Souseki, I'm not exaggerating) a PDF just because. It's a gag. It's a horrible possibility and a play on stories like Dancing Girl, yes, but it's mainly a gag. There's so much more to Mori than that gag and I'll never get tired of pointing that out.
But I also recognize that fanfiction is something you do for you, and if you want to write characters with CSA trauma and make Mori the one to cause said trauma, go ahead. I'm not the fandom police. It is fiction and it is you story. Have fun. :))
➵ A brief character study related to Atsushi's healing abilities.
➵ Some headcanons about his appearance are mentioned
➵ No dialogue aside from a quote from the Dead Apple manga
➵ Read this on Ao3
For all intents and purposes, Atsushi should have no marks on his skin. He should be smooth, silk moth white. Most people don't know that his regenerative powers aren't impeccable.
Montgomery knows. She's seen the marks on his torso: Dry, jagged, dark skin that sometimes burns the same as when the wound was fresh right before he wakes up, despite being fully healed. Maybe it's a way in which that entity that he's teethered to tries to convince him of his strength. After all, he has survived worse, he will always push through the next thing.
He doesn't like looking at it. In showing it to Lucy he might as well have opened up his chest cavity: Here is where I'm weakest. It's not in my everflowing tears or in my screams of pain or in my seemingly inmortal hope. It's at the very core of my body, where I couldn't heal properly, will never heal properly. It's in the mark of the violence that refuses to leave my life, no matter how quickly I flee from it. It's in the guilt I carry for my very existence, and the mark left by the person who helped me do my penance.
He's sure she must have scars too, but he's never seen. Sometimes he ponders on it while she scrambles about the café, still trying to imitate the way the manager serves the clients. Sometimes she startles when someone raises their arm too quickly, and it's subtle enough no one bats an eye, but Atsushi knows. He knows, and he understands. He understands the tension on her shoulders, the tapping of her fingers on the table to take herself out of her thoughts, the wary gaze she greets every new face with, that careful line between suspecting the worst and silently begging for connection. He understands, so he doesn't bring it up.
He's got more marks in other places. His shoulder blades are striped down to his back where his gaze cannot reach without a mirror. He's got marks like Orion's belt where his hip bones used to protrude when they let him go too much time without eating a proper meal. His feet and ankles are bound by shackles, patterns the fur of the tiger traces perfectly whenever he lets his claws out.
Atsushi wonders if the rest of the tiger's stripes are also scars he would have gotten, had he been a normal human. He supposes the tiger should be almost black, then, so the idea is silly, but it's less jarring than wondering if the next time he gets injured all trace of the damage will disappear or if he'll get distorted in strange ways.
After his first encounter with Akutagawa, he got a new mark right where his leg grew back. The skin is raised, a little lower where rashoumon's fangs dipped in, a little higher where the extremity was ripped and dragged along instead of cut. The marks are white, surrounded by brown that turns angry red when he takes a hot bath. The weeks following the fight, he would fall asleep running his fingertips over the keloid, coiled up on himself and waking up briefly every time he mistakenly thought his limb had been detached again, dozing off when his shudders made the rough skin itch.
None of the other times he lost a leg left a scar. None of the other times he got hurt by rashoumon left a scar. Not even Akutagawa's bite when he was a vampire left a scar. Some evenings, he limps a little on the right side, when he's too exhausted to be present, too distraught to bring a smile to the surface. If anyone in the dorms has seen it, no one has pointed it out. The conversation would be a strange one to have; who feels the absence of a leg that is still very much attached to their body?
He was both fascinated and terrified by the discovery that his body can regenerate. Yosano was mostly smug about it. He half-expected her to be disappointed she doesn't have to treat him. He wonders how much getting healed by her hurts, if it feels different from getting healed by the tiger.
His healing abilities are the only proof that convinces him that he was "gifted", not condemned from birth. It's the one thing he's come to expect, instead of thinking he has to earn it. The tiger is simultaneously cruel and merciful. The tiger keeps him alive, has kept him alive at any cost, under every circumstance a person could and shouldn't go through. He lives racing against the tiger, he lives under the tiger's care.
Atsushi thanks the tiger whenever he sighs with relief because he doesn't easily feel his bones under his skin, but finds strong muscle and soft fat between them instead; he curses the tiger whenever he lies on the floor, surrounded by rubble and the memories that plague his brain like pus in a wound; he prays to the tiger whenever he can feel his soul outrunning his body, prays for clarity before he prays for life, because he's never sure if he truly deserves to stay.
Atsushi wonders if he could forgive himself each warm cup of tea he drinks if the tiger wasn't within him, if his life would be worth the same if he didn't have his ability, the ability to fight like a wild beast and survive like a cockroach, the ability to protect and to heal. He wonders how his coworkers would look at him if they realized that, sometimes, he doesn't heal quite right, that his body is a little more fragile than he lets on.
"You killed me that time, with those claws."
"Of course I did! Because I wanted to live! No matter what, I raise the tiger's claws to live!"
This is came out from somewhere in my brain in the middle of the journey that is falling asleep when you have chronic insomnia and it took me having a weird dream about Ranpo and all of the next day to finish writing it so I hope someone likes this and it isn't too much of a stretch.
I love thinking about a characters' life in the quiet moments, their relationship to their bodies and how that affects them. I truly don't think Atsu would be half the hero he is if he was protective of his body (or his life, for that matter, as Montgomery so often points out). I might try writing something similar for the rest of my favorites, if the muses wish to help me with it.
There's something to be said about how BSD Beast makes a point of the fact that you have to live through things. You can't just live off of dreams, or fantasies, or past emotions.
Dazai's connection with Oda is entirely one sided and disappointing (on Dazai's end at least. For Oda it's mostly just uncomfortable) because he was too afraid to let himself experience it in that world. He knows what Odasaku meant to his other version, he has a sort of infatuation with him, and he quite literally sacrificed everything to making sure Oda will live and have a fulfilling life. But he's so hurt when he realizes that he doesn't actually have a friendship with the Odasaku of his world. He can't have it, he never gave himself the chance to. That is not the Oda who helped him and treated him as human when no one else did, that is a stranger he has been dreaming about for years.
Mori makes a point to Atsushi about where to start in his journey to healing and building a better life by pointing out that they both know first hand what violence is like. They can bond and relate to each other through that, and that's precisely why Mori is the one who can help Atsushi.
Atsushi and Akutagawa can start building their bond because they both know what poverty is like, and since they've both gone through those experiences the average person doesn't go through, Akutagawa can talk to him in a way he is unable to with anyone else. What usually turns into a grim comparison to how significantly more miserable his life used to be when he points out his struggles in front of Kenji or Takizaki, becomes an "I see you, I understand you, it's alright that you're living this way because at least you're alive" when he talks to Atsushi at the café.
Similarly, Akutagawa can point out Atsushi's guilt because he understands it. Akutagawa can get into Atsushi's nerves in the way he does because he knows what it's like to be so consumed by an unbearable emotion like that.
Akutagawa can't get close to Gin again because he hasn't been with her. They'll always be siblings, sure, but their bond is shattered now because it's been years since they've actually seen each other. He doesn't just get her back, he has to work to have her close again. The actual connections he has now are in the agency, who he spends his every day life with, not in his sister and the memories he has of her. Sure, his goal is to "get her back", but it's not an immediate reward like, say, in a Mario Bros scenario, yk.
This is part of regular Kunikida's character arc, but very pointedly, he has an idea of what he wants Akutagawa to be when he appoints him to the disciplinary committee, only to find out that the kid just doesn't work that way. Not only that, but he can be a valuable asset to the agency even though he's the farthest away you can possibly be from Kunikida's ideal.
You can't live through dreams, you can't live through ideals, you can't live through concepts. You have to experience the world firsthand. And even through the pain and the discomfort, it will always be worth it to do so.
