Bungou Stray Dogs S4 – 01

OP Sequence

OP: 「TRUE STORY」by (SCREEN mode)

「孤剣士と名探偵」 (Ko Kenshi to Mei Tantei)
“The Lone Swordsman and the Famous Detective”

The premiere zeroes in on the origin story between Edogawa Ranpo (Kamiya Hiroshi), Fukuzawa Yukichi (Koyama Rikiya), and by extension, the Armed Detective Agency. I liked the old cinematic feel with the black and white color scheme carried throughout most of the episode. The monochrome hues not just introduce this episode as a flashback, but also paint a picture of Fukuzawa’s world before he encountered Edogawa.

Reeling in the aftermath of his bloody assassin job, hinted at by newspaper headlines and Edogawa’s deductions, Fukuzawa lives in a world painted in shades of grey, soaked in sorrow. Edogawa and the assassin, Oda Sanosuke (Uemura Yuuto, enter stage right, providing the first signs of color, though brief-signs of a world of mystery and pursuit, that the world is more complicated than can be solved by simple swords, drawing him out of his funk. Edogawa, too smart for his own good, getting kicked out of place after place for airing out the superiors’ dirty laundry.

Edogawa can be annoying as hell in his know it all attitude, but Fukuzawa realizes that this is because Edogawa lives in his own world, unaware of what the average human mind can comprehend. Likewise, Oda (who I’m guessing we probably haven’t seen the end of yet) inhabits his own world of superior reflex and skill that is far above what the average human can do. These glimpses of other, more interesting worlds challenge Fukuzawa’s own dismal view.

While I loved the aesthetics, the setting was weirdly anachronistic at times. Fukuzawa and Edogawa were dressed right out of the 1920’s/30’s/40’s, only to pull out a cellphone-it threw me for a loop. Although, come to think of it, the other members of the Detective Agency tended to dress like that as well-I suppose it was startling because it’s been so long since I’ve seen the previous season. Amidst the talkiness of the episode, they managed to squeeze in some action courtesy of Oda’s escape-complete with some ridiculous moves like Oda accurately shooting the secretary with two guns while his hands were tied behind his back. It seems like the back story is going to take a little longer to get set up, but once it does, I’m sure the action and suspense will go full throttle.