Repost of my old BSD meta post on the 4 main strategists of the series (so far), brought back due to the deletion of my old blog and interest from peeps!!
Plain text version under the cut (thanks to @kaus-quietis):
So yesterday I was helping out with @buraihatranslations with their translation, one thing that immediately caught my eye was the name of the new chapter.
『人外魔境』
Now what does this chapter’s title have to do with anything? Well for one Samsa immediately notified that it was from a work of Oguri Mushitarō from 1939 which you can read here in its native Japanese (link).
The title is derived from a series of novels, apparently about exploring places uninhabited by humans. The book basically has almost zero information in English but the title can be roughly translated as several things.
The title in context more or less means “Stories from Beyond the Reaches of Civilization” but that title does not make sense within the context of the chapter. After further reading the preliminary translation, I decided that the title can be best described as “Beyond the Human Border” because of the Lore Drop on Abilities this time round.
I still find it interesting how Asagiri uses the title in a different context this time round, but I suppose it fits how an ability is something “beyond the human border”.
I think we can all agree that this is the most controversial chapter in the whole manga. We can’t agree on what its message is, if we are supposed to agree with it, what Asagiri wanted us to think about the characters involved … So, I finally decided to jump in the lion pit and put forward my opinions on it.
I’ll start with a brief recap: Atsushi finds out that the Headmaster of his orphanage, the one who tormented him, is dead. His reaction is … well, if he had been legal for drinking, he would have rushed to buy champagne. A fitting reaction, considering what we have already seen of the Headmaster at this point.
But then we get a shocking revelation: the Headmaster died in a car accident while going to buy flowers for Atsushi, to congratulate him on his successes with the Agency and his great work in saving the whole city. Atsushi is shocked, because … seriously? Eighteen years of abuse, and now he acts like he has always cared about him?
And he expresses his conflicted emotions with a likewise erratic behavior: he runs off from Tanizaki, tries to have a cathartic fight with Akutagawa (who ignores him exactly because of his state of mind), goes to his old orphanage to attend the funeral from a distance, and lastly wanders off to see some conveniently placed families with attentive fathers and young sons.
At this point, Dazai reaches him. And here starts the really controversial part.
They examine together the Headmaster’s background: he appearently grew up in the same orphanage, but at a time when it had even worse conditions, enough to make Atsushi’s time under his education ‘look like heaven’ in comparison. When he got out alongside some other orphans, he quickly fell into a life of crime; then they all got drafted into the Great War, and saw his friends die one by one, until he was the only one left standing.
This left him with an huge unaddressed trauma and the convinction that his determination and will to live, acquired in spite of hardships, were the only reasons he survived; so he decided to dedicate himself to raising the next generation of orphans according to these principles, creating a system where the priority would have been survival at all costs.
And the narration, through Dazai, sorts of portrays him positively for that. Attention is brought to how he was tortured worse than Atsushi did, how the fierce mindset underneath Atsushi’s meekness was grown by his treatment of him. If the Headmaster never did so, would Atsushi be so attached to life? Would he have not succumbed to self-loathing?
To answer this, I’ll take the liberty to give first my own analysis, and then consider what the manga probably wants me to answer.
Yes, if the Headmaster had not been abusive, Atsushi would have survived. Much better, I’d add. It is mentioned that Atsushi was nearly killed at his orphanage, more that one time, and let’s remember that he has one hell of an healing factor. If he had been a normal kid, chances are that he wouldn’t have survived … which, besides begging the question of how on earth the Headmaster’s own time at the orphanage could have been worse than attempted and nearly successful murder, makes one wonder how exactly it’s supposed to be formative for the kid.
Then, the Headmaster is given the credit to have prevented Atsushi’s self-loathing for being a tiger, by becoming himself the object of his hatred. What a martyr. The problem with his reasoning is, that is all the damn story that we see Atsushi have an huge issue with self-loathing! And it isn’t even related to the tiger, most of the times! There are moments where he’s shocked and scared after he went overboard with his power, but the main sources of his problems, the flashbacks that plague him? They’re about his time at the orphanage.
He regularly remembers, and even has allucinations of, the Headmaster and the other members of the staff calling him worthless, good for nothing, pathetic, unworthy to live, and all sorts of pleasantries of this kind. When he allucinates the Headmaster, that nasty voice in his head is the one who tells him to quit, to give up, that he’s not good enough and he shouldn’t even try to do something with his life.
Of course, at this point we could rigirare la frittata saying that it’s what the Headmaster meant, to make Atsushi stronger by giving him someone to rebel against … but honestly? There are thousands of better, different ways to teach someone to value their own life. If the Headmaster, given his traumas, couldn’t think of one, then it’s his own damn fault for not realizing that he couldn’t be a good teacher or caretaker before a lot of therapy, and not taking a different life path.
The one who gives his all despite his insecurities is Atsushi. The one who is willing to face down powerful enemies in desperate battles for the sake of a city he has come to love is Atsushi. The one that didn’t wield to despair and self loathing, pushing forward each and every time, that’s Atsushi. The Headmaster doesn’t have a shred of merit in this.
Now, time to take a guess at authorial intent. And this is … tricky, that is, for the very simple reason that I can’t get into Asagiri’s head and extract the intended correct interpretations from the multiple possibilities. All I can do is propose the most likely, based on what I can read.
The first possible interpretation: the most obvious. We are meant to take that scene and its message as it is. The Headmaster did terrible things, but he also helped Atsushi in his growth. Our boy wouldn’t be half as strong if he hadn’t already experienced severe abuse, and he’s really got to cry the death of his father figure. Bacia la mano che ruppe il tuo naso perchè le chiedevi un boccone.
Another possible interpretation is that it’s an acknowledgement of the fact that people are complicated, and it’s fine to have complicated feelings towards them. Warped as he was, the Headmaster truly believed that he was doing what was better for Atsushi. Isn’t it horrible to confront the fact that the person who abused you is not a cardboard villain with nothing inside, but instead a very complex human being who had a ‘benevolent’, if not logically sound, reasoning behind them? Atsushi is not in a good situation: on the one hand, he can’t forgive the Headmaster for what he did to him, but on the other, he can’t ignore the fact that he did it out of “care” for him (wheter of not it did him any good). He, who had repeatedly been told that he was worthless and undeserving, he had been the object of care all along! What’s one to do in such a situation?
Atsushi doesn’t know either. There is no manual with the instruction for the right emotions and reactions to have. ‘Quando a mio padre si fermò il cuore’ … magari avessi semplicemente non provato dolore. He ends up looking at Dazai with that face, a very forced smile in the uncertainty about how else to react. And Dazai just gives his comment about people crying when their father dies, and Atsushi does exactly that. This is already a kinder interpretation: Dazai made it clear that Atsushi could react however he felt better, but he understood that the kid felt like crying, and gave him an implicit okay to do so. It was a way to help Atsushi express his emotions, bypassing the blocks that the Headmaster himself had put on the road. And personally, I suspect that it gets the closest to authorial intent, because of the emphasis on ‘finding a will to live despite one’s trauma’ has already been established as a central theme of the manga.
A third interpretation put as much focus on Dazai as it does on Atsushi. Dazai is the one who reaches to Atsushi and all but call the Headmaster’s violence ‘necessary’, defining him as Atsushi’s ‘father’. And we already know that Dazai is no stranger to violence as a teaching method; just ask Akutagawa. His treatment of the young mafioso - beatings, calling him worthless, even an attempted execution - is strikingly similar to how the Headmaster raised Atsushi.
And sure, Dazai’s got his promise to Odasaku, be a better person, stay on the path that protects the weak, but these are the ideals he picked up in his formative years in the mafia. It’s likely that he can recognize that his treatment of Akutagawa was wrong, but on some level, he thinks himself as justified: it was how you taught a kid to live in a cruel world, the same reasoning of the Headmaster. He still has his violent tendencies: remember the famous slap he gave Atsushi?
I’m not sure whether he still stands by this ‘educational system’ or not. He hasn’t expressed any explicit regret over how he treated Akutagawa, but he made a point of treating Atsushi in a very different way. He still gave that slap, but that could have been a moment of ‘regression’: a situation in which he needed an Atsushi on top of his game ASAP, couldn’t figure out how to calm him down properly, and fell back on doing what he knew: teaching through violence and harsh words. He expresses no regret over this thing either … but there actually might be, Dazai is a character defined by the fact that he lies to everybody (to his mentees, to his colleagues, to the enemies, to the readers) and so pinning down his true thoughts is very difficult.
With his answer, he might have projected more than a little in the Headmaster. Maybe what he told Atsushi was a covert way to explain his own actions, to present the point of view of ‘a person who does these things’. Maybe prepare him for an absolution; maybe prepare him to handle disappointment over his mentor’s true nature. Maybe prepare him to recognize himself in Akutagawa, and thus sympathize with him and improving the Shin Soukoku dynamic! Bungou Stray Dogs has pulled bigger levels of insane planning after all.
Anyway, I find this a pretty interesting interpretation; even if it could have been elaborated upon better, if this is the case. It would show the situation not strictly as a message to the readers, but an analysis of the characters.
Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!
This is just a theory so take it with a grain of salt (there’s a TLDR at the end if you wanna skip). The scenes where the Hunting Dogs’ abilities are revealed also reflect what their ‘true nature’ is, and the order in which they’re revealed is significant for the future.
So far, 3/5 of the Hunting Dogs’ ability reveals came with a twist of them taking an unexpected side. Tachihara is revealed to have a metal-manipulating activity at the same time we find out he is actually an undercover Hunting Dog. Fukuchi’s weapon-strengthening ability is revealed right when we find out he is Kamui. And finally, (the thing that made me notice this trend in the first place) Jouno’s molecularization ability is revealed when we find out whether he ultimately chooses to side with good or bad.
This makes me believe that whatever the character is telling the audience during their ability-reveal scene is the most honest insight into them, the ‘true nature’ that we should be paying attention to. This is important for the futures of the remaining two Hunting Dogs: Tecchou and Teruko. I’ll start with Tecchou.
What would you do if you tried to find something that is basically non-existent on the internet? What if you have searched the depths of the internet, wading through the old Geocities sites and Japan’s National Diet Library’s archive for a specific piece of work? When nothing came to fruition, would you lay down and say “There is nothing else that I can do.”?
Many might’ve just stopped there and called it a day but, where there is a will, there is a way.
Dear Anon, It is not a weird question at all, as this scene demands careful inspection indeed, given that the differences between the manga and the anime are significant, especially in pretty much everything related to Fedya. Besides a bunch of other differences I already wrote out in my essay (to be published, hopefully, in June!), it is true that Fedya never breaks his cello in the manga’s ch47, whereas in the anime’s S3ep9we see him looking down to his broken cello at his feet, at the end of the episode. Here is a quick comparison of the last scenes in which the cello is visible in the manga and the anime:
We can see how the anime decided to include an entirely new scene, with a different message. In my opinion, this adds mischaracterization to anime!Fedya, but I shall talk more about that in my essay as well.
RegardingVolume 19’s omake, which you reference, it is important to note that the scenes from both pages happen in Sigma’s dream, thus they never happened in the main timeline’s “reality”. The assumption that Fedya shipped his cello to Japan is plausible on its own, nonetheless, while the “for a mission” part remains debatable, as the manga never explained the purpose of the cello recital so far. In my essay, I offer an interpretation in which what I deduced was its purpose becomes clear, so I am rather eager to share it in the future essay post. Either way, I find it very interesting that Sigma dreamed of his co-workers and that this included a reference to Fedya’s cello being transported, because, according to Fedya in ch75, Sigma was born from the Book 3 years prior to the moment he and Dazai ended up in Meursault. That points us to a timeline where both Sigma and Kolya were already working with Fedya during the Cannibalism plan (since its very start), and even before. I think the fandom would be blessed if someone were to make a chronology of the main events and verify this. Also, since Fedya in Sigma’s dream explains to him that his cello was already shipped to Japan, we may ask ourselves where were they? – in Russia? or somewhere else in Europe? – given how it sounds that his cello was shipped to an external place, internationally. Imagine Kolya and Sigma together with Fedya in Russia, then sneaking into the Japanese territory together. Who knows? But then again, speculating on this “info” is like walking on thin ice, because:
As for why exactly Fedya captured Katsura, that too is never addressed directly in the manga, except for Fedya’s own words to Katsura (“I simply wished to ask about our mutual acquaintance. The Detective Agency, that is”), which tell us it’s all about gaining information again (Fedya is an information “trader” after all, besides a million other things). What is more, we as the readers are conveyed the following message by the simple fact that Katsura ended up in Fedya’s basement (yes, basement, not a luxurious room full of stained glass, but this I can forgive because the scene was gorgeous animated in that room): Fedya can easily capture even those freshly arrested by the government (Katsura was arrested in ch40). Does this imply he got his own pawns in the government? An open possibility, I’d say. Or a given fact, at this point, but, until the theories are confirmed kjdsfgnjkf
Thank you for sending me this lovely question, I greatly enjoyed answering it and I hope you don’t mind me answering here, on my main blog! I write my own thoughts / analysis stuff on main.
Bonus info I share again because my love is infinite: Fedya’s song is called “Bird of Death” in the BSD Season 3 OST, and there are two variants of it, which you can find both on youtube and spotify searching by their Japanese titles:
チェロとピアノの為の「死の鳥」 (”Bird of Death” for Cello and Piano)
弦楽オーケストラとハープの為の「死の鳥」 (”Bird of Death" for String Orchestra and Harp) (((please note I sadly do not speak Japanese, and these title translations are from the BSD wiki)))
/// Anon’s full question is transcribed below the cut:
Adding part of Anon’s beautiful response to share last bits about things I share the opinion on!! <3 <3 <3
This! That scene is of suchsolemnity and importance! I analyze it as an example in one of the sections of my essay, concentrating exactly on what the manga had and the anime took out. Moving on, later in this ask you said “maybe, the anime didn’t need to add a broken cello if it wasn’t in the manga” – now, I think there was no broken cello at all in the manga, and it’s not uncommon that anime adaptations add entirely new scenes to canon material, thus usually a manga is considered the only true primary source of “canon”. I do work with a flexible mindset regarding that (we need to take into consideration Dead Apple in all forms, as well as the other light novels after all), but one of my essay’s conclusions is indeed that the anime mischaracterizes Fedya so far (except for Ray Chase dubbing him, he is a very talented voice actor I heard in many roles, and he already has a good intuition of what kind of character Fedya is, I’d say he nails him 100%; I cannot comment on the Japanese VA since I am not a native Japanese speaker though OTL). Still, manga!Fedya is the real Fedya, all things considered.
And just for the beauty of it, I’ll leave the quote you invoked here:
ch46, Fedya (official EN translation): “Man is sinful and foolish. Even if they know it is all an artifice, they cannot help but kill each other. Someone must purify them for those sins. That is why I seek “The Book”.
(…) And I will use that Book to make a world free of sin and skill users”.
*edit*Forgot to add: me and you caring hardcore about Fedya’s cello emanates the same energy as that ??? time I wrote my “calculations” of his cello’s height here. I have no excuse, but it was too much fun. What a time it was.
Dear Anon, It is not a weird question at all, as this scene demands careful inspection indeed, given that the differences between the manga and the anime are significant, especially in pretty much everything related to Fedya. Besides a bunch of other differences I already wrote out in my essay (to be published, hopefully, in June!), it is true that Fedya never breaks his cello in the manga’s ch47, whereas in the anime’s S3ep9we see him looking down to his broken cello at his feet, at the end of the episode. Here is a quick comparison of the last scenes in which the cello is visible in the manga and the anime:
We can see how the anime decided to include an entirely new scene, with a different message. In my opinion, this adds mischaracterization to anime!Fedya, but I shall talk more about that in my essay as well.
RegardingVolume 19’s omake, which you reference, it is important to note that the scenes from both pages happen in Sigma’s dream, thus they never happened in the main timeline’s “reality”. The assumption that Fedya shipped his cello to Japan is plausible on its own, nonetheless, while the “for a mission” part remains debatable, as the manga never explained the purpose of the cello recital so far. In my essay, I offer an interpretation in which what I deduced was its purpose becomes clear, so I am rather eager to share it in the future essay post. Either way, I find it very interesting that Sigma dreamed of his co-workers and that this included a reference to Fedya’s cello being transported, because, according to Fedya in ch75, Sigma was born from the Book 3 years prior to the moment he and Dazai ended up in Meursault. That points us to a timeline where both Sigma and Kolya were already working with Fedya during the Cannibalism plan (since its very start), and even before. I think the fandom would be blessed if someone were to make a chronology of the main events and verify this. Also, since Fedya in Sigma’s dream explains to him that his cello was already shipped to Japan, we may ask ourselves where were they? – in Russia? or somewhere else in Europe? – given how it sounds that his cello was shipped to an external place, internationally. Imagine Kolya and Sigma together with Fedya in Russia, then sneaking into the Japanese territory together. Who knows? But then again, speculating on this “info” is like walking on thin ice, because:
As for why exactly Fedya captured Katsura, that too is never addressed directly in the manga, except for Fedya’s own words to Katsura (“I simply wished to ask about our mutual acquaintance. The Detective Agency, that is”), which tell us it’s all about gaining information again (Fedya is an information “trader” after all, besides a million other things). What is more, we as the readers are conveyed the following message by the simple fact that Katsura ended up in Fedya’s basement (yes, basement, not a luxurious room full of stained glass, but this I can forgive because the scene was gorgeous animated in that room): Fedya can easily capture even those freshly arrested by the government (Katsura was arrested in ch40). Does this imply he got his own pawns in the government? An open possibility, I’d say. Or a given fact, at this point, but, until the theories are confirmed kjdsfgnjkf
Thank you for sending me this lovely question, I greatly enjoyed answering it and I hope you don’t mind me answering here, on my main blog! I write my own thoughts / analysis stuff on main.
Bonus info I share again because my love is infinite: Fedya’s song is called “Bird of Death” in the BSD Season 3 OST, and there are two variants of it, which you can find both on youtube and spotify searching by their Japanese titles:
チェロとピアノの為の「死の鳥」 (”Bird of Death” for Cello and Piano)
弦楽オーケストラとハープの為の「死の鳥」 (”Bird of Death" for String Orchestra and Harp) (((please note I sadly do not speak Japanese, and these title translations are from the BSD wiki)))
/// Anon’s full question is transcribed below the cut:
Anon to @kaus-fangirlis (my sideblog):“Weird question: does Fedya break his cello in the manga? I saw that scene in the anime but I can’t find it in the manga :( I mean,, yeah, Fedya sent it to Japan for the sake of a ‘mission’ (if the omake can be taken as canon) and it’d hella funny if he played it once and smashed it to pieces (why did he even kidnap that guy lmao) But I think he must attach a lot of importance to it and sent it on before he left for Japan,,, so he must have kept it somewhere safe before he went off to prison, broken or not….
tl;dr, if the cello-breaking scene is in manga please tell me in which chapter,,, it’s very /important/ information I need to know ＞﹏＜”
