Bungou Stray Dogs – 15

「いつか海の見える部屋で」 (Itsuka Umi no Mieru Heya de)
“A Room Where We Can Someday See the Ocean”

That ending was unreal. Save the children! You can’t kill off children on TV like that! It should be a taboo to kill off innocent young children after making you fall in love with them. Not to mention heartbreaking for Oda to see all these rescued kids blown up in front of his eyes. That emotional breakdown at the end almost made me cry as well. Everything – from Oda’s story about being a writer to the real tears shed – made me feel like he didn’t deserve the punishment that he got; especially for being a good person. This is probably going to be the tipping point for Oda when it comes to his philosophy of not killing people. Normally in superhero movies we see a lot of heroes struggle with their ideal of not killing and doing the right thing when it comes to protecting innocent people. The reference of Oda never becoming a writer is probably a premonition of him killing someone in the future (either someone in Mimic or maybe even innocents). It’ll be an interesting season to see how he gradually gets to that point or maybe it’ll be a sharp cliff from here on out.

Bungou Stray Dogs doesn’t give away who murders the kids at the end, but I think the number one suspect in this case is Gide (Miki Shinichiro) or someone else in Mimic. While it doesn’t surprise me that they would go for the one thing that Oda cares about, it does surprise me that Gide has the same powers as Oda. We haven’t experienced any two individuals in the anime yet with similar powers – so to see two of them now, feels like a huge coincidence. If not a coincidence, then a lack of creativity. However, I’m willing to overlook it if there’s a good reason that Gide is looking for someone like Oda (as he is, “the one”). There are so many questions I have when it shows them trying to be one step ahead of one another using their powers. If you make a decision to do something, is that when the other person can predict the future? Or is your future constantly changing because people are constantly changing their minds? Or do you only see 10 seconds ahead when you’re about to die? We see Oda using his powers to just stay ahead of the game and keep himself alive but I can’t guess what Gide’s motives are and what Mimic wants with him.

As I predicted last week, Ango reveals that he’s not a double agent but a triple agent – starting with the initial assignment of spying on the Port Mafia for the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the government basically); specifically looking at special gifted people. He’s then on put on the assignment of watching Mimic for the Port Mafia and we all know where that leads. It’s a little weird that he’d still show up at the bar after all this chaos, but in some ways, I can appreciate how the three of them can still hang out like nothing’s happened and treat the bar like Switzerland. There are talks about Ango’s betrayal but Dazai keeps it under control by not launching full force at him. The boys have mutual respect for each other, which is nice because you know that that respect comes before their own emotions and work duties. It’s not necessarily a strong friendship, but you know that being drink buddies does strengthen their bonds (which is probably why Ango doesn’t kill Oda). I just hope it doesn’t come back to nip them in the butt. I really liked how they ended that scene with Ango walking away; leaving behind their one and only group photo. The whole episode has been very symbolic and it’s definitely a tipping point of sorts. It’s like Ango’s leaving it all “on the table” and everything from here on out is fair game.

Bottom Line – @RCCherrie: That was a powerful ending for #BungouSD with the writer analogy and cliffhanger. Terribly sad for Oda. The leader of Mimic is kind of an ass… =S And I don’t even know anything about him yet. But no doubt, he’ll the one to break Oda