I Just Read This Reddit Comment About Yesterday's Staff Post And ... 100%

it drags levels down to level 15 and then you have to complete combat nodes to level up. So I was forced to face a level 30 power enhanced boss with two levels 15 characters.

as first i was like: "wtf is this even beatable after all the changes" then tl;dr 6 turns with base sinners+F2P ego, ergo skill issue. rant is going to be of questionable nature, but i'm hoping to make an example out of Bongy on how to problemsolve the shit out of bosses/harder content.

we get an item at the start. You spooked me, so i reloaded once for Eclipse of Scarlet Moths. Coffee and Cranes (which is OP, always.) or whatever is synergistic with your team (event items say rupture/burn/bind/haste) should work too - just keep in mind the pool ego gifts through this dungeon is small and lust-heavy. Ended up picking up the latter and Helterfly's Dream (and its' taking wrath dmg for the rest of the dungeon), for no good reason, lel.

teambuilding: during the event i remember caving in and taking sous-chef gregor (why ppl do not think he's ridiciously good for abno fights is beyond me). But as per tradition, base units+F2P ego. Since we have been yeeted out of the dungeon, checking the moveset is fine. Not sure if the game shows you this after you fail. Chickens are weak to lust+envy, so 3 with lust (Ryoshu, DonQ, Heathcliff) + Hong Lu b/c Entertainment + Faust b/c Emitter. Entertainment proved useless, but base Hong Lu is still really good dps of the feast-and-famine subflavor. Emitter proved only moderately useful. The actual goodstuff, as per usual, were Faust's s2 s3 debuffs. s1 still a joke. Alternatively/additionally: fish for units that have slash/blunt resist/lust or wrath resist+ on EGO. Regardless if you actually go for these on purpose, you want to know this, so if it's down to the wire you'll know who can facetank… …is what should be done for MAXIMUM SWEATING ENGAGE, but with F2P i do that on 2nd try ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ …just decided DonQ gonna be the emergency tank, since Sancho heals.

oldschool MD: taking both event nodes as they are OP as fuck (Marinade!). then usual: ? > minifights > crossed swords > abnos. I thought you keep all sins between combat nodes, but apparently they're halved. No matter, we're farming for emitter/bodysack/sancho spam. Other surprise: it keeps resetting the movegain order. There are no pitstops, so sweaty readjusting it is. (Started with Ryoshu on 1st b/c poise, then went 'duh, need pride'/sloth crew for fast Entertainment to 45, as usual with base Hong Lu. Ignored tremor.) It turned out you get a few level ups to 30, so i just slapped them on dps (Heathcliff -> Hong Lu -> DonQ), so when Headchickens came, these units clashed and the rest did 1-sided. Order ended up like that as in old MD you could level up as a heal of sorts.

actual boss:

heals per chicken so body is not the priority

drains sp per chicken so spawns are more important (hoarded resources -> Emitter if needed)

fragile after breaking a part -> restated that boss hp isn't actually relevant

move that spawns units on-hit -> will use it once units are cleared, and is THE key skill to win clash with - all else can be facetanked

wikia says bucket is breakable-for-realsies AND is the part that spawns, so that's where 1sideds should go

as abno nodes show, spawns themselves are irrelevant as long as they do not attack someone a +% dmg modifier

other than that, best practices apply:

onesided with s1 unless Reasons (Faust kept Bongy (bucket)'s atk down)

AoE EGOs aimed so that other shots go to other units. New lookup is jankier for the aware, but iirc bucket has target weight 2, so will eat 2 shots (outside of the primary target they go front-to-back)

keeping s1 on bottom track for replacing

prognosis for 1coin vs multicoin is ALWAYS a lie

onesided paralyze et al to force later attacks to clash favorably

if you know a sinner is going to Eat Shit due to outspeed reasons you can try forcing a stagger before it happens

to further persuade you into drinking this raw ambrosia of wisdom:

Eyeballing it it looks like <80% to win, but plugging it into a calc says it's 13%! DonQ still proved great, Haste on clash win is real

'if it's irrelevant why do you mention it' you may ask. 'you'll thank me later.' is how i answer.

When I finally beat hard mode chicken I am going to guzzle a pitcher of tea over that fucks corpse. Like I do like the idea of one move being able to summon minions combined with being a minion focused enemy. It's just the funny level systems means that two of the sinners can't roll high enough to actually stop any moves and that's shit.

finding this curious as i was debating whether or not to link your Summation in there. Like, someone solved DQ 'just' before canto 7 and response was ecstatic? what gives?

A momentous occasion is upon us.

The Daiyu-Baoyu theory has its first haters on Reddit 🎉🎉🎉🎉

// Anyway don't go harass anyone over this m'kay? In fact I hope we get more haters cause I actually find these comments really entertaining.

I hope we get enough Redditors knowing about it and hating it that someone tries to make a full post trying to disprove it so I can milk that thing and talk about my own experience desperately trying, in vain, to find contradictions that would disprove it myself.

Golden Retriever: ✅ energetic and friendly ✅ good family dog; prone to separation anxiety ✅ also comes in cream color ergo: Fitzgerald is one

bungou stray dogs as dogs (from this post)

"aforementioned fanart doesn't exist and so cannot harm you" fanart:

who lives who dies who tells your story

Would it make sense for clapper to have antenatal/postpartum depression vibe? not bulimia, as the brain+spinal cord in the sack implies a fetus, along with no overtures to the idea of eating (nary a gluttony in sight, canto IV says hi). There is A LOT of mechanical weight/attention to the sack. Even the egg form is all sac, basically. Like, why go out of your way to modify wrath/gloom resistances and tie them to something breakable? (not complaining, spicy design.) Wiki goes into extensive detail about it's skill rotations, and without major interruption it's roughly: Blood Sac counter goes 1->3, then Blood Cannon, then it moves to Fluid Sac. Without blood, it heals.

Hence, despair/madness as a byproduct of creating something -> JUSTICE!! for Don, new knowledge for Faust?

Do you do psychoanalyzing on other characters besides Yi Sang and Hong Lu? If so I’d like to hear you talk about Don and Faust, and why you think they share 2 egos (Telepole and Fluid Sac)

I mean! I can certainly try! Hong Lu and Yi Sang are just. I guess my field of expertise??? Since I care the most about those two??? But I can certainly try to analyze some other characters, though it might not be able to be as specific and detailed as I am when analyzing my favorites. Hope you understand!

Now then. Let's do this. Under cut we go as usual.

Fluid Sac

Let's start with the one we know less about, aka Headless Ichthys. In fact, we know... very, very little about Headless Ichthys.

Due to Meursault being the one to write the logs about this abnormality, we only get information on its physical characteristics, such as it having lost its head, and that there's something inside its sack that is said to bear resemblence to either a flower or a human nervous system.

That's it. That's all the definitive info we have on this abnormality. We can assume that it has Some religious significance due to its name, Ichthys, being the name of a religious fish symbol, but that doesn't help too much.

There is something interesting I want to note here, and that's the thing inside its sack. The fact that it's unclear whether it resembles a flower or a human nervous system is interesting... Because that mimics what Lunacy looks like. While Lunacy is described as rose-shaped by its Inventory description, the full Lunacy icon can also be interpreted as a brain on a brainstem.

I suppose, if you wanted to dig deep enough, the implications of it containing a symbol akin to Lunacy and having lost its head could could be interpreted as the abnormality being a symbol of a descent into madness. Which, honestly, that's the best I got from what little we have.

Because of just how little lore we have on the Headless Ichthys, unfortunately I can't go too in depth on Don and Faust with it in mind... But I'll still try.

Fluid Sac is a Gloom E.G.O, and though Gloom is one of those Sins I'm not entirely sure of, it does seem to represent taking actions due to one's built up negative emotions.

The main base E.G.O examples we have are Snagharpoon, which has Ishmael follow her compulsion to keep searching for "That bastard", and Land of Illusion, which implies that Hong Lu retreats from reality into his own dream world under heavy emotional stress.

As such, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Fluid Sac signifies something that caused horrible emotional stress to both Don and Faust, which would then kickstart their descent into madness. In more specific terms, this would be heroic delusions for Don and single-minded mad scientist-esque pursuit of knowledge for Faust.

As a brief sidenote, this would align quite well with the visual design differences between the two. Though the E.G.O outfits they wear are extremely similar, all the way down to both of them having green tints in their hair and fin decorations in the exact same spots, there are two notable differences.

One - the shape of the weapon. Don's weapon is shaped like a miniature Headless Ichthys clutching onto a perfectly round sack-orb. It looks almost more like a toy rather than a weapon. Faust's weapon is not only shaped almost perfectly like Headless Ichthys's sack, it also seems to have the same properties, as it bursts during Faust's Awakening attack animation.

Two - the article of clothing that mimics the Ichthys's hand-flippers. For Don, it's a cape-like piece of clothing that looks more like something you'd see on a kid's hero costume. For Faust, it's seemingly anatomically-correct recreations of the flippers that are attached to her jacket.

Both of those I think reinforce the idea of Don and Faust indulging in their methods of madness. Child-like obsession with heroism for Don (using toys and costumes), and endless scientific pursuits for Faust (only someone studying the abnormality closely could replicate its anatomy in this much detail).

It's a bit hard to tell anything from their dialogue lines as they are somewhat generic (my unrelated theory on that is that Fluid Sac is one of the first E.G.Os designed, based on its dialogue lines not having much to do with its abnormality, and due to its attack animations being uncharacteristically sparse in actual frame-to-frame animation), but they do seem to work as good reflections of Don and Faust in general.

Their Awakening lines seem to reflect their general attitudes, with Don's being jovial yet quick to resort to violence, and Faust's being self-assured and seemingly trying to predict all outcomes.

Their Corroded lines on the other hand could be a reflection of their attitudes after their descent into madness began. Don's single-minded "...Crush them." could be a reflection of how she views morality as black and white, and thus believes all that she considers 'villains' should be crushed by her. Likewise, Faust's line here implies that she's willing to do anything, even leave herself completely empty by 'disgorging everything', if it means she reaches what she's looking for.

Looking at the Sin Resources, both Faust and Don require Gloom and Lust to use Fluid Sac, and while Don also uses Pride, Faust uses Envy instead.

I already mentioned what I think Gloom means for Fluid Sac, and I think it being a requirement further reinforces it here. Both Don and Faust need to be acting under severe emotional stress to start their descent into madness.

Lust as a sin seems to represent acting according to one's desires, or more specifically, indulging in them. It also tends to have slight spiritual connotations in Limbus, making it the Sin of acting for the sake of some form of personal fulfillment as well.

Using it for Fluid Sac would make sense with the descent into madness interpretation. For both Don and Faust, their forms of madness are them overindulging in something they find personally fulfilling - heroism for Don, science for Faust.

Don's unique Sin requirement here is Pride. I already went into detail on what Pride as a Sin means in Limbus in the Dimension Shredder post, but to recap, Pride represents actions taken for their personal benefits, while ignoring their negative consequences on either other people or oneself.

This very much represents Don's madness quite well. Her heroic acts are rooted in what she personally perceives as doing good, and she completely ignores the collateral damage that she may cause in the process. Her willful ignorance of the harm she inflicts on others is one of the main things that led her to her personal form of madness.

Faust's unique Sin requirement here is Envy. Now, I won't go into detail on Envy just yet, as it's better saved for Telepole, but in very basic summary, it represents actions done in reaction to other people and their actions.

While there is still much we don't know about Faust, the inclusion of Envy as a requirement for her Fluid Sac implies that the root of her madness actually comes from someone else. There's not enough info for us to speculate on more details... but something tells me this might have to do with a certain Faustian Bargain, if you catch my drift.

So, that's Fluid Sac! For something with so little to dissect, it ended up leading to quite a good bit of analysis anyway! Call me Game Theory cause I'm about to put MatPat out of a job.

Telepole

Alright, let's once again start with the abnormality itself - Alleyway Watchdog.

The funny thing is that the Watchdog has the opposite problem to the Ichthys, as while the fish had very little lore, the Watchdog has a decent amount, but it's written by Yi Sang and as such it's hard to tell how much of its logs are facts, and how much is Yi Sang being Yi Sang and projecting onto the dog.

If there is one thing that is a definitive fact, it's that lack of being able to control oneself and being unable to tell who is controlling who is a recurring theme for this abnormality. The fact that it's unclear if the dog is in control of its own actions calls back to it, and the further muddling of what actually is in control of it only further adds to that theme.

It's unclear if the charred person on its back is controlling the dog, or if it's simply along for the ride unable to do anything to stop it, or if it is also under the control of something else. It's unclear if electricity is what is directly controlling the dog, or if it's something Yi Sang is projecting onto it due to his own experiences.

With that in mind, let's look at the three Sinners who have this E.G.O - Don, Faust, and Heathcliff. Now, I won't be looking at Heathcliff's case too closely, since this is meant to focus on Don and Faust, but I will be bringing him up when talking about Telepole on a general level, so that we have the biggest sample size possible.

In this case, having the Telepole E.G.O would imply these three have some issues when it comes to control, whether it's they themselves lacked control in their life, or whether it's their own degree of perceived control isn't as it seems. Since neither of those three have had their Cantos released yet, it's impossible for me to tell what exactly is going on here, but this is something to keep in mind.

Now, let's talk about Envy, as that's the Sin damage that all of the Telepoles deal. Envy appears to represent actions one takes as a reaction to what others do. This can take any form, whether it's revenge or following orders or being provoked or anything really. What's important here is that the action taken is a Direct Response to someone else.

The only base E.G.O that deals Envy damage is Heathcliff's Bodysack, which represents his impulsive and likely violent reaction to whatever Cathy did to him.

This all fits very nicely with the nature of Alleyway Watchdog, and Telepole E.G.O as a whole. The Watchdog's actions are all reactions to something else controlling it. Likewise, those using the Telepole E.G.O have their actions be influenced or even controlled by someone else.

Their Awakening lines (since there's nothing to analyze when it comes to their Corroded howls I don't think) all reflect a certain part of their personality, potentially implying that something about that is due to the influence of someone else.

Heathcliff's line expresses his impulsively violent tendencies, Don's ties back to her blind heroism, and Faust's has a clinical, detached feel to it.

As for Sin Resources, both Faust and Heathcliff use Envy, Wrath, and Lust, while Don exchanges Lust for Gloom.

Envy as a Sin Resource here once again ties back to the themes of control, implying that for all three, the actions they take are not entirely Just their own. Whether it's provokation or suggestion or something else, for all three of them, their actions are being encouraged, if not directly controlled, by someone else entirely.

Wrath is... hard to analyze. Partially because on first glance it seems to act as a shorthand for fire damage, and partially because no base E.G.O deals Wrath damage. My best guess based on other E.G.Os is that Wrath represents actions done out of self-righteousness. It's the "I deserve to do this, I DARE to do this." of Sins, in my opinion.

It's not necessarily tied to literal anger, as its name might imply, but rather a deeper reason that usually leads to anger - that being the idea that something should or shouldn't happen simply because you wish it so. After all, the most common reason for anger is for something to not go your way. Think children throwing tantrums over their toy being taken away, or a gamer smashing their keyboard over getting outplayed.

With all that being said, Wrath being used for Telepole could have several meanings. It could represent defiance, the idea that the Sinners act out because they believe they deserve better than the person trying to control them. It could also represent temptation, falling under someone else's control or provokation due to believing that they deserve something they don't have or to do something they can't without falling for it.

Now onto the more unique Sin resource requirements. Faust and Heathcliff both require Lust, a Sin representing indulging one's desires and seeking personal fulfillment. This would fit both Heathcliff and Faust, as their Telepoles seem to allude to the things they are already impulsive about - mindless violence for Heathcliff, and pursuit of knowledge for Faust. The actions they are being controlled or provoked to do are things they already wish to indulge in. Perhaps in their case, they are specifically being tempted into doing something, rather than being directly forced.

This however, is different for Don. Don's Telepole requires Gloom, which is a Sin representing actions done out of succumbing to negative emotions. This paints the actions she's controlled or provoked into comitting in a different light. Unlike Heathcliff or Faust, she isn't being tempted by personal fulfillment. No, in her case it's an expression of emotional stress. Perhaps in her case the control is much more forceful, causing her to act out, or perhaps her actions are a reaction to something bad happening to someone she knows. Either way, it's quite intriguing to note.

Unlike my Fluid Sac analysis, which I could get a little bit more detailed on thanks to touching on a facet of Don and Faust's personalities that are clearly evident, Telepole seems to more so reference their pasts, something that as of right now we simply have no access to.

I expect reaching Heathcliff's Canto will help a ton in this specific case, as it will help analyze the rest of the Telepoles thanks to being able to compare what it seems to reference in his revealed past to potentially similar events in both Don and Faust's pasts.

haven't paid theory-grade attention to the plot, but how about just… talking him out of it? 1) there was an amazing theory way back that dove deep into why fukuchi is so… disliked by the fandom; with the tl;dr being (amongst others! <3): "he keeps subverting expectations" - NOT having a final boss fight is 100% more of that. he did go "you have 5mins to suss out my real motives". Season with "in middle of the fight villainous monologue ranpo wakes up and wisely keeps quiet as we works out all the bits"/"atsushi joins with the actual answer clenched in his teeth, cue drama" to taste 2) teruko and fukuchi go way back, given fuku calls the other fuku 'sonny' in the flashback. the request in [villain origin story] flashback can be read as "stop (pointless) deaths", two fukus chapter has the "saving your comrades from death and ending the war, are two different things." => the objective is End-of-Death scenario* (or perhaps, some other form of 'making the world unchanging'?) why? - has to fuck with atsushi's heard harder than "world peace (with a side of totalitarian dystopia)"; thus the goal has to be something he'd personally approve of (world peace being too vague and far-off vs no orphans ever), which could potentially overwrite the means used to get there - goal smaller than (the current) world domination angle would create too much noise - escalate the stakes even harder like a proper animu * BSD makes me keep thinking in SCP Foundation terms. It's quite the assist here, as this subplot tends to have Heroic Optics to it.

so i’ve been thinking

i know, dangerous

in all honesty, what is our cast of characters supposed to do about Fukuchi..?

i’ve already made my rant analysis (that you can read here if you’re interested) about how Fukuchi is really just an old man with a time traveling stabby stick that makes for a horrible OP villain. up until now, when presented with such a crisis, either soukoku or shin soukoku will partner up and defeat the big bad… or at least they had weaknesses, like Dostoy not anticipating Dazai was going to find him at the end of the cannibalism arc, or how most of his henchmen and underlings were eventually foiled or defeated to come to a satisfying conclusion that set us up for the next story beat. even Ranpo has his weaknesses, and his whole character is centered around knowing everything

well, we know for a fact that that’s not going to happen this time considering our usual duos and their friends are having some technical difficulties at the moment...

so that makes me think…

who is left to fight at this point..?

obviously we have Fukuzawa, who is currently fighting, and Atsushi is... around. but, the character on my mind the most at this point is Mori, since he’s been missing for quite a long time now. this by itself isn’t a big deal considering side characters often go literal years without any story time. however, this becomes a bit more interesting considering what’s happening to the rest of the Mafia and the world right now in bsd

so, i’m going to analyze some pieces that might be added to this 4d chess board of a story line. including more than just Mori. however, i’ll be talking about Mori quite a bit in this post, like almost half of it actually, so if you don’t feel like reading this, that’s fine

🔺minor spoiler warning for chapters 30/31, 50, and 84, and Dead Apple and Stormbringer. also spoilers for basically the entire current arc up to the most recent chapter as of writing this (ch 105) since i talk about most of the main events/situations🔻

I’ll start by taking a moment to talk about the European android everyone knows and loves(?) from Stormbringer…

Adam Frankenstein

Ah yes, the android, the myth, the legend, and the being that made me cringe so hard i got face cramps the first time I read him chewing and swallowing multiple pieces of gum like candy. That Adam.

We never see him or even hear of him in any other part of the story, including the main manga. He’s kind of just in Stormbringer and never brought up again, supposedly living somewhere in Europe doing android detective things. We haven’t even gotten a hint or any foreshadowing that he might show up in the main story, either. The reasons I think he may show up now are kind of simple to be honest.

He’s an android. That’s it. He’s, y’know, not made of flesh… And he doesn’t have blood.

What makes blood important right now? The vampires. Considering we know that Bram can transform a human, alive or otherwise, into one of his minions by ingesting their blood, we can probably assume that this is how it works for the other vampires as well. Therefore, Adam is at a major advantage against such an enemy since 1. his body is made of metal that couldn’t be damaged by Piano Man’s wire guillotine or regular bullets and survived the heat of Chuuya’s first Corruption with minimal damage, and 2. he doesn’t have blood. He does have this blue substance that I assume acts something like oil or fuel for his body, but since he’s most definitely not human, this doesn’t count as blood for him. He can’t be turned into a vampire. I don’t even think Fyodor could hack him or put a virus into his system, like he did to the Moby Dick (which is technically an ability that got turned into a mechanical ship). If anything, the vampires would just break their fangs trying to bite into his neck.

Since he’s in Europe, which is where our two jail kings and their entourage are, it’s more likely that Adam will appear in the jail scene with Dazai and Dostoy. I’d honestly be happy to see this because it would be interesting to see how he and Chuuya would interact now after so many years apart if Chuuya is ever cured of his, y’know, vampirism. Since he most definitely isn’t going to just die. It would also introduce a new character for people who haven’t read Stormbringer, which could reignite interest in this god forsaken arc for those of us who have given up on getting more than a few cliffhangers and a reminder that Fukuchi sucks every new chapter (trust me, I feel you).

Moving on to another semi-short analysis for a character we haven’t seen outside of light novels. And the mildly disappointing adaption of one said novel.

Shirase Buichirou

Another character who is also in Europe, specifically London, is Shirase. At the end of Stormbringer, he and Chuuya parted ways on somewhat good terms when Shirase heard of a group called the Stray Sheep in Europe, which he joined. Nothing has been heard of him since, similar to Adam. The only reasons I bring him up here is that 1. he’s in Europe, same as Adam and the jail kings, and 2. he is also connected to Chuuya (and is familiar with Dazai, to some degree, but this isn’t important).

I’m hesitant to say he’ll appear in the story considering we truly have no idea what the state of the BSD world is right now. Japan is overrun with vampires, and there’s probably nobody left there who hasn’t been bitten unless they’re a major character in the story (that hasn’t already been bitten). We know that the vampires have been moving out by disguising themselves with sunglasses and stuff to hide their eyes and complexion and getting on planes. Where those planes went to, we only know it’s somewhere overseas. There’s also mentions of fictional countries that only exist within the BSD world, similar to Kenji’s home town being a fictional one from a novel written by the irl Kenji. Fukuchi mentions he “needs to control half the nations’ armies” in order to carry out whatever plan he has, and it’s probably safe to say this has already come to fruition since he threatened to set the vampire army in motion if One Order wasn’t unlocked.

The likelihood of a character like Shirase appearing without being a vampire is much, much lower than Adam, and for more reasons than just because he’s a regular human. Shirase has no ability and is not named after an author or any other real-life person (that I know of), therefore it’s very unlikely he’ll be revealed to have one unless he wields an ability weapon like Fukuchi’s sword. Which is also highly unlikely. Given these conditions, he’s probably already been turned into a vampire along with the rest of the organization he joined. Another possibility for his inclusion is just to be killed off (by, perhaps, a vampire Chuuya). Or he might make a joint appearance with Adam, but I still doubt he’ll be a major character unless he’s there to die to further the plot.

Not to mention Asagiri has mentioned many times that Chuuya’s story is a long one that’s full of hardships, so perhaps one of those hardships may just be having to kill an old friend.

Sorry Shirase fans, but that’s just my thoughts on the matter.

From here on, I’ll be discussing Mori and how he’s appeared and disappeared throughout major story arcs and how he’s interacted with the ADA since the cannibalism arc. I know he’s apparently a controversial character to talk about because of his ability and the comments he makes about underage girls and whatever, so if you don’t feel like reading this part, that’s fine.

In case you’re interested in another character appearance, I have added a few honorary mentions at the bottom of this post.

Mori Ougai

Port Mafia Boss. Underground doctor. Ex-military doctor. A third of the Tripartite Framework. And one half of the first version of soukoku before it was known as soukoku.

His titles honestly don’t mean much to me as the only thing he continuously claims to motivate him is his position as the Boss, which is reasonable as his entire livelihood is dependent on the organization and its success. He fills his role well as a clear villain character with extremely black if not straight up non-existent morals, which we get plenty of examples of during the Dark Era, the Guild arc, and even the Cannibalism arc. The currently arc also proves that he’s both willing to provide some aid to the ADA, as well as make manipulative requests of them despite the horrible position they’re in currently for his own potential benefit. He is truly, wholeheartedly, an evil character.

What I want to focus on the most is his hand in moving the pieces on the chess board, so to speak. We know that Dazai and Dostoy are both sitting on the board, presumably in control of every piece, but is that really true? Remember, Dazai is only the way he is because Mori manipulated and taught him to be that way, which we can see from the parallels in how they act when making threats or doing something morally wrong. The comparison between Dazai’s attitude and Mori’s in chapter 30 is telling enough, seeing that Mori’s expression when he murdered the previous Boss 8 years ago (as well as when he talks with Hirotsu in this chapter) is almost identical to the one Dazai makes as he says his thinly veiled threat to do the same to Mori. The anime makes these expressions even more similar than they are in the manga, but I take everything studio bones does with a heavy grain of salt at this point… And not just with BSD

The last time we saw Mori was when he was mentioned in chapter 91 as the liaison who informed Tanizaki and Kenji that it was time to come out of hiding. He appeared normal and not infected by the vampire virus, which isn’t much of a surprise to me. Stormbringer showed that he’s more than capable of avoiding death, and by proxy, avoiding the master assassin Verlaine. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume he was able to avoid the hive mind army of vampires that are just regular soldiers, and most of the ability users that have been infected are mafioso who Mori is very familiar with. However, whether or not he’ll intervene in the prison arc is not what I plan to discuss here.

The previous two characters would only make sense to appear in the prison because of their relationship to Chuuya and their location. Mori is Chuuya’s Boss, sure, and sure he probably wants to keep Dazai alive and on his radar, but Mori is still in Japan and knows that Meursault isn’t a place to be taken lightly.

No, I think Mori is about to become a player in the battle against Fukuchi.

My evidence isn’t necessarily anything concrete or even any foreshadowing, such as with chapter 84 when it was pretty obvious that Akutagawa was going to show up to aid Atsushi when he was saying he was all alone, or back in chapter 31 where it was obvious that soukoku was going to reunite for a big fight.

Fukuzawa, so far, has been the only person capable of standing up against Fukuchi alone and not being beaten within seconds (except Tachihara, but, well… yknow). So this alone is interesting to me because Fukuzawa is one of the strongest fighters in the ADA, and arguably one of the strongest fighters in the entire story considering his ability has nothing to do with his raw swordsmanship and martial arts skills. Keeping that small fact in mind, I want to jog your memory of the battle that happened in chapter 50 between Fukuzawa and Mori. Both of them are afflicted with the cannibalism virus, which is probably causing them to feel horrible with symptoms, but they still face off in a 1v1 that looks a little unfair. Mori has his ability, Elise, that does whatever he tells it to do and is basically a highly skilled and deadly combat ability. Fukuzawa, while still an ability user, only has his sword and his physical talents. His ability is a support ability that works on his subordinates, he can’t use it to fight like Mori or Fukuchi. However, he still holds his ground extremely well and even destroys Elise within minutes if not seconds of the fight starting, and Fukuzawa deals the fatal blow to Mori first. Even though Mori also severely wounds Fukuzawa just seconds later, it’s more important that this fight showed us that they are practically equal in combat skill. Not to mention Natsume makes an appearance to tell the two of them to stop fighting since both of their organizations need to survive to uphold the Tripartite Framework, which is something they both agree to disagree on basically.

There’s also the events of Dead Apple where, while under the effects of Shibusawa’s fog, Mori and Fukuzawa are fighting their own abilities and struggling. However, when they meet and switch opponents, they easily take down the other’s ability. They even share a few lines of dialogue that shows they’re familiar with each other’s fighting styles and tricks, similar to their explosive meeting in chapter 30 during the Guild Arc.

Now let’s look at the situation Fukuzawa is in right now. His subordinates are in all danger, and the only one that could potentially be coming to his aid is Atsushi, which is a possibility that I’ll mention at the end of this post. However, doesn’t this setup of our protagonists in a life-or-death situation with no help in sight, seem a little familiar to you?

Dazai was surrounded by soldiers in chapter 31 when Chuuya arrived to (begrudgingly) help him out, on Mori’s orders. Dazai was literally dead in Dead Apple when Chuuya showed up to punch him in the face (deserved) to save him.

Atsushi rarely wins on his own, but with Akutagawa’s help and the singularity created by their combined abilities, they’re able to defeat almost any enemy. And when Atsushi was desperate for help in chapter 84, Akutagawa arrived, even if it was on Dazai’s orders.

Fukuzawa is currently losing the fight against the OP time traveling stabby stick wielding grandpa, putting him in a dire situation of trying to save the ADA while not dying in the process. So, will Mori come out from wherever he’s hiding to provide aid to Fukuzawa? Will zenki soukoku come back and parallel the other soukoku’s reuniting/working together to defeat the big bad? It’s hard to say, honestly, but I do believe it’s entirely possible considering Mori has been strangely missing in the story after agreeing to aid the ADA. Well, the ADA needs aid. Badly. And it’s about time they finally got some.

I think Fukuzawa and Mori have the potential to defeat Fukuchi together considering their both equal in strength, so perhaps putting their finely tuned skills together is what will prove to be our deus ex machina that defeats Fukuchi’s self-induced deus ex machinas that are honestly getting pretty damn tiring at this point.

There’s also the fact that Mori had originally agreed to aid the ADA on the condition that one of their members transfers to the Mafia, so perhaps Mori showing up to aid Fukuzawa will be a manipulation tactic to force them to agree to let him choose who he wants to join, since he only actually wants Yosano out of the deal. However, it’s possible that maybe Tanizaki will be the one to change organizations? He did offer to go in Yosano’s stead in chapter 65 when the deal was originally proposed by Mori, who straight up lied about what Fukuzawa told him over the phone that the one person Mori couldn’t choose was Yosano. Mori is a very, very smart man, so he probably knows that if he forces the ADA into enough of a corner under the guise of helping them, he can get what he wants out of them as well. He could also allow the majority/some of the ADA members to die or come close to force Yosano to heal them and work for him one way or another, since we saw in her backstory in the military that Mori isn’t above shooting someone to make Yosano heal them because now they’re “close to death”. He most likely hasn’t changed much in those ways over the years, so I’m expecting to see some extreme manipulation taking place on his part if he does come back into the story.

Honorable mentions that came to mind as I was working to gather potential suspects:

Atsushi

He’s there, kind of, I guess. So much of the arc recently has been like 2 pages of one perspective before changing to the next that I’m not even sure if he’s still the main protagonist anymore. /j

Since he’s also at the airport where this whole *gestures wildly* thing is happening between the two Fuku’s, it would make sense that he at least shows up during the fight. We also know he’s actively looking for Fukuzawa because he can’t decide on what to do next now that he knows what the DOA is after.

The only way I see Atsushi being implemented in the battle is if he gets super upset or angry over seeing all his friends and coworkers in serious trouble, and either Fukuzawa releases his ability (if that’s even possible) from Atsushi and allows him to use the full power of the White Tiger to fight Fukuchi, which could potentially defeat the time-traveling sword since the Tiger’s claws can cut through abilities. The other option is he goes feral? I don’t really know to be honest. Maybe he just gets his ass beat again by Fukuchi. Who knows. I’ll just be over here preparing the party poppers for Kunikida’s promotion I guess.

Verlaine

Why? For fun.

He’s never appeared in the main story line since he lives in the Port Mafia’s basement basically. But considering the Mafia kinda went up in flames (or vampires, I guess) it’s possible he’s on the move now. Whether he’d appear in the jail, to save Chuuya, or appear at the airport, potentially under Mori’s orders, I honestly don’t know. But, since he’s part of the Mafia and another character we haven’t seen, and the cover of volume 22 as well as other official artwork has been featuring several Stormbringer and Sheep references, some people believe we might be seeing someone from that cast of characters in an upcoming chapter. But honestly I think they might be on as much copium as I am…

It would be funny to see Verlaine show up and just crush Fukuchi in like 3 seconds while the rest of the protagonists couldn’t defeat him though.

Ango?

We see Ango last in chapter 95 when it’s revealed he’s the one that demanded a seal be put on One Order, at Dazai’s request as part of his plan to counter Dostoy. He hasn’t been a big player in this arc beyond being the coordinator early on for the ADA’s moves, but since they all were reunited and came up with their own plans, he’s been more active as just a background character acting on the messages from Dazai. But, since he is the final piece of the Tripartite Framework, I thought I’d just mention him here as well. Natsume clearly wants the three organizations to work together, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Dazai has also given Ango a message or plan to relay to Mori. I don’t think he’ll ever be a super big part of the current events, though, just more of the background coordinator.

The Guild?

We kind of see them and then we don’t. We know Fitzgerald wants to work with whoever is winning, which as far as we know, he thinks is going to be the ADA. He was giving them aid in exchange for Yosano healing Mitchell, but we don’t really see anything come after this agreement is made? Atsushi and Kyouka get into one ambulance with Mitchell inside to bring her to Yosano, and at the same time, Yosano (along with Tanizaki and Kenji) are attacked by the government who set up their own trap unknown to Fitzgerald and Atsushi. We know Fitzgerald didn’t set them up because in the first few pages after we see the government attacking, we see Fitzgerald explaining why he didn’t go with the 74 plans Alcott prepared that included selling out the Agency’s location. Technically, it only happened because Tachihara is a Hunting Dog, so he betrayed the location of the meeting since Mori sent him and the other Black Lizard captains for security, and Tachihara is using his metal manipulation to pretend as if there’s an ability user attacking them with the government so they have to retreat after Kenji is severely injured. He’s also there to prevent Atsushi from reuniting with Yosano just a few minutes later. Which is truly impressive since he’s technically fighting himself the entire time? Wow is that symbolism of him as a character if I’ve ever seen it, that’s for sure. Not to mention he also stabs himself with Gin’s knife, just *chefs kiss* of a character I really wish he wasn’t killed/vampire-d whatever the fuck happened because he deserved so much better. But anyway, we never see the Guild again after this. So we have no idea what they’re currently doing, nor have we seen the other branch of the “Guild” that Steinbeck created at the end of the Guild arc since the end of that arc. So, I doubt they’ll come back.

The Clock Tower?

They’d have jurisdiction over Meursault, but it’s hard to say if they’ll step in. They haven’t been a part of the story at all beside Agatha’s little cameo from chapter 12. On a side note, I believe Agatha’s ability will be something along the lines of causing death in accordance to the lines in the poem “Ten Little Soldiers” (obviously I’m not putting the original name here) since her ability is named after the mystery novel And Then There Were None that’s about ten people dying on an island of various means that follow the reasons in the rhyme of the poem. It’s quite interesting, actually. But back to my main point, I don’t really see why they would suddenly come into the story now. If anything, they might appear if Fukuchi decides to try and use his vampire army against the governments of the world and create a world-wide coup d’etat with One Order.

Is this a copium-driven fever dream of a hope to have? Haha, fuck yeah it is! But I’ll let the copium win today if it means having at least a little hope that Fukuchi’s arc of shitty OP-ness will come to an end soon. Please. Asagiri I’m begging. I’m on my knees. Just PLEASE

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the matter. This theory was a little out there and not really based on too much evidence, but I still felt the need to write up this post, or else the brainrot might actually get my final braincell and it'd be all downhill from there.

As always, I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading. If you have your own idea of what you think will be the thing to defeat Fukuchi, feel free to say it in the comments or send a message to my Inbox on my profile. We can cope theorize together :)

**i just finished editing this oh my god this is so long i’m sorry i just had a lot of brainrot about this and i’m desperately awaiting whatever is going to end Fukuchi to the point i want to do it myself

Manga is 100% superior, if only because it's not dumbed down/made more lighthearted for TV. Like, i watched 1st season (perpetually distracted by 'spot how they're cheaping out on animation/pad out screentime with animation(???)'), then read the manga, then haven't touched anime since. Between tumblr screencaps and being tempted to watch it i just think back to what they did to the source material in S1 and am instantly cured. That said, some bits do kind of feel like Asagiri has an agenda and that agenda is to make people write/read, but the manga is just better at willing suspension of disbelief/has higher concentration of The Good Stuff. By the time the truly stupid shit comes out, the author(s!) have signalled for long and hard enough that they know what they're doing/don't add stuff just because - so you just roll your eyes and roll with it. Plus, chapter-by-chapter it kind of feels like they address the immediate online commentary? Ex. "okay but how are they fed in Meursalt? -> next chapter you get an offhand panel showing you"

Sorry part 2 since I guess I really can't send you manga screencaps on anon but Meursalt also uses square shapes for the prison, which seems more industrial and real vs the hamsterball prison in the show. The glowing balls look like abilities, which wouldn't work on our damaged dearest, while a white and steel fifteen by fifteen box which separates him from the possibly ability derived space in the bottom level does work.

And yeah... I wouldn't trust twitter or any other online space for nuanced discourse but people have hated this show since it first came out. At least we are finally getting fed season 4 after a million years

Aha on ANON, that makes sense actually - the picture I got the other day was not an anon ask (I'm wiping tiny little tears from the corners of my eyes).

Listen, I am not an actual fan of Bungo Stray Dogs as a story. I'm an imposter, really, a fake fan. I'm there for certain characters, and some interesting bits about mashing them together and seeing unique abilities. The actual plot is like 90% Atsushi (whom I hate) and at the same time 40% bullshittery (math what's that?), 20% what the fuck is Asagiri taking, and 30% I can't stand seeing depression treated like this anymore time for fanfics.

I didn't get any sleep last night so I apologize if this sounds deranged and/or delirious but I thought I should come clean. I only enjoy BSD for anything revolving Dazai, Fyodor, Mori (when he's not salivating over Elise), Akutagawa (overdramatic edgelord though he is) and a handful of other characters' interactions and plot developments. My favorite episodes were the 15 Port Mafia days flashbacks, and then literally anything to do with Fyodor. And Dazai but that's obvious.

I should stop rambling. I bet the manga's better though. I just don't read manga except Tokyo Ghoul and yaoi (for drawing references of course).

「Ranpo, Mushi, Seishi」 – Tales from the Burgeoning World of Japanese Mystery

After re-reading Bungou Stray Dogs and with better understanding of the history behind the figures of Japanese Literature, I find myself falling further in love with the Perfect Crime Arc of the BSD Manga.

In a span of three chapters, Mushitarou went from an unknown to one of my favorite mystery authors out there. An outcast of the detective novel world often disregarded due to his pedantic and frankly bizarre way of writing his stories.

Further reading about his life made me realize that this arc is a complete recreation of a section of Mushitarou's life, the other authors he interacted within his short career and an everlasting impact between giants of the Early-Showa Detective Novel scene. It is shocking how Asagiri and Harukawa conceals and works with the details of the story so well, blending in so many different parts of his life into the manga.

The Lineup

To get a better feel of who the three main figures are in this story, I must first introduce the three main authors of this story.

Edogawa Ranpo (left), Oguri Mushitarou (center), Yokomizo Seishi (right)

Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川乱歩, 1894 –1965) was a detective novelist who made a name with his many detective novels which made him a key part of the mystery novel landscape even up to the modern day. He is most well known for creating the character of Akechi Kogorou who first appeared in The Murder on D Hill (D坂の殺人事件) and would later star in many of his novels.

Oguri Mushitarou (小栗虫太郎, 1901 - 1946) was a detective novelist who was known for his bizarre writing style. His use of difficult kanji along with furigana guides for many of his stories makes his works some of the most difficult works to read in Japanese. His most well known work is The Black Death Mansion Murders (黒死館殺人事件) along with the detective Horimizu Rintarou.

Yokomizo Seishi (横溝正史, 1902 - 1981) was a detective novelist who was a master of the 'honkaku' mystery genre. His work The Honjin Murders (本陣殺人事件) and detective Kosuke Kindaichi continue to be a staple of modern Japanese pop culture.

The Making of a Genre

Misery (無惨) by Kuroiwa Ruikou (黒岩涙香) is oft regarded as the first Japanese mystery novels which brought the genre into the public consciousness. A simple murder mystery tale of gambling seemingly gone awry. From this spark then came numerous authors such as Morishita Uson (森下雨村), Ooshita Udaru (大下宇陀児), Hamao Shirou (濱尾四郎) and an up and coming author named Edogawa Ranpo.

Ranpo made a name for himself with the publication of The Two-Sen Copper Coin (二銭銅貨) in 1923 which made him the undisputed 'king' of Japanese mystery novels. With this influential position, Ranpo's comments often brought attention to many other authors working withing the genre. Along with this, magazines geared towards younger readers such as Shin Seinen began to become popular as the youth of Japan became enthralled with tales of mystery and adventure.

The Perfect Crime — The Story and the Arc

Out of all of the arcs in Bungo Stray Dogs, I feel like the Perfect Crime Arc is one that nails the heart of Bungou Media at best; a transformative work about authors and their works, how they treated one another and how they stand in the world of literature. Many of the characters in BSD are very much based on their real-life counterparts such as Dazai and Ooba Youzou of No Longer Human (人間失格) and/or The Flowers of Buffoonery (道化の華) fame. Ranpo and Mushitarou both are great representations of their works and style but more importantly, their relationship tells of their time as mystery novelists.

While Ranpo continues to enjoy mainstream fame not only within but outside Japan as well, Mushitarou is often relegated to the less-mainstream, some would call him your 'favorite's favorite'. But there's a big reason as to why Mushitarou's so much less well-known in the west and it boils down to his writing style. An "absurd" use of furigana, stretching the limits of the Japanese language with an example below from his magnum opus, The Black Death Mansion Murder Case:

Heavy and difficult kanji along with the furigana of various foreign languages, a writing style derided by critics such as Sakaguchi Ango who called it as 'imitating the worst aspects of S. S. van Dine'. This quirk would also be adapted into the Bungou Stray Dogs manga as some of Mushitarou's dialogue is written the way the real-life Mushitarou's writing style

Mushitarou's connection with Dostoevsky may have also been derived further by the story of The Perfect Crime (完全犯罪) which sees Russian characters such as Vasily Zharov who was the leading character of the story.

The story behind the publication of Mushitarou's The Perfect Crime is the main inspiration behind the story of the Perfect Crime arc.

In Spring 1933 Oguri Mushitarou, then a young and new author, submitted a 600-page mystery novel script to Kouga Saburou (甲賀三郎). After reading through it, Saburou dismissed the script saying that it was far too long; recommending Mushitarou to submit something shorter. With this recommendation in mind, Mushitarou submitted the first draft of The Perfect Crime to Saburou which impressed his peer greatly. Saburou however, still felt as if it'd be something difficult to pitch to publishers and even considered enlisting the help of Edogawa Ranpo to get it published.

Saburou then went on and decided to send the draft to then editor of the Shin Seinen magazine, novelist Mizutani Jun (水谷準) who took a quick look and then dismissed the work entirely, putting it to his desk drawer and quickly forgetting it. Shin Seinen was at this point a hub for popular literature for young boys with detective and adventure novels galore with authors such as Yumeno Kyuusaku (夢野久作), Unno Juuza (海野十三) and even Kouga Saburou himself publishing their works in the magazine. Starting from its New Year 1933 issue, they planned to include at least a 100-page one-shot story from various authors.

Yokomizo Seishi, who was at this point one of Shin Seinen's star writers, got sick with hemoptysis which lead to the cancellation of one of his stories which was to be published in the July 1933 issue of the Magazine. With this, the July issue had lost its main story; that is until Mizutani Jun, who was in a scramble to find a replacement, remembered the manuscript which Mushitarou had sent in. He quickly realized that the script was about the length needed to cover for the issue and quickly read over the work. Mizutani then also assured Yokomizo that he should take a rest instead rather than forcing himself to write.

The following is the editor's note written by Mizutani for the publication of the story:

The 100-page "The Perfect Crime" was written by a complete newcomer. This month's edition was supposed to be written by Yokomizo Seishi, but the author suddenly became ill and was unable to write, so this work was substituted for him. As you will see upon reading it, this work is a truly excellent work of detective fiction. Readers may like or dislike the setting or the descriptions, but I hope you will read it to the very last line and congratulate this newcomer on his future prospects.

The Perfect Crime was indeed Mushitarou's debut work, its publication taking center stage and substituting the work of one of the most popular mystery novelists of the era. The fact that the work was deemed "worthy" to substitute Yokomizo's work itself is already high praise.

Yokomizo then also commented with the following after reading the story written by Mushitarou:

"Who could have ever found such a powerful pinch hitter*? Even if I had been in good health, I was not confident that I could write a masterpiece as fascinating as 'The Perfect Crime.'" *A Pinch Hitter is a substitute batter in baseball.

This publication marked the beginning of Mushitarou's friendship with Yokomizo. The two of them met in a bar where Mushitarou said that "Because of your illness, I was able to debut much faster." To which Yokomizo responded with "Don't be silly, you would have debuted regardless whether I was sick or not." Mushitarou then continued saying "That may be true, but regardless the opportunity came quicker because of your illness." Yokomizo then promised, "All right then, next time something happens to you, I'll be sure to cover for you."

The two would be separated for most of the war-time, with them writing letters back and forth about detective novels while continuing to publish works as Yokomizo fled to Okayama due to the outbreak of World War II. Despite Yokomizo ever hardly sending any correspondence during this period, he continued to reply to letters sent by Mushitarou. In early spring 1946, Yokomizo received a letter from Mushitarou saying that he was going to fully devote himself to writing full-fledged novels which Yokomizo agreed with.

After the war had ended, Yokomizo went back to the literary world where he would discover that Mushitarou had passed away suddenly due to Methyl poisoning in a telegram and Unno Juuza would later explain to him the full extent of Mushitarou's untimely death. This death shook Yokomizo and he was unable to do anything for the next few days, especially due to the letter sent by Mushitarou, clearly passionate about his coming works.

Due to Mushitarou's sudden death, Yamazaki Tetsuya (山崎徹也) who was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Rock needed someone to replace Mushitarou's work for the upcoming issue. Yokomizo, who was in the middle of serialization of "The Honjin Murders" in the magazine Houseki decided to 'cover' for Mushitarou and published "The Butterfly Murders" in the magazine.

"I was no match for you"

Edogawa Ranpo at this time as the mystery novelist of the time. Ranpo at this point had met and known many other mystery novelists from Ookura Teruko and once, even met up with Oguri Mushitarou as he wrote down in 40 Years of Detective Novels (探偵小説四十年)

According to Ranpo, the two of them met once in 1946 and in this conversation Mushitarou said to Ranpo, "Edogawa-san, it seems at the end I was no match for you." to which Ranpo then replied, "Not at all, you're a better writer than I am." Which was of course replicated at the end of the arc.

The Characterification of Oguri Mushitarou

In her paper 'No longer Dazai : the re-authoring and "character-ification" of literary celebrity in contemporary Japanese popular culture', Jaylene Laturnas describes the process of Characterification (キャラクター化) as follows:

Character-ification refers to the act of turning anything from living beings to inanimate objects and abstract concepts into characters via anthropomorphism and personification (gijinka) or caricature (deforume).

Bungou Stray Dogs of course, is of course, a series that takes these authors and characterizies them in the gijinka form as stated by Asagiri himself in a 2014 interview. While most characters in Bungou Stray Dogs are 'gijinka' of their works and characters, Mushitarou occupies an interesting space as his actions and characterizations leans heavier towards the real author and the events within his short literary career. There's a clear degree of difference between how Mushi is portrayed in the series in comparison to his other fellow authors as it leans so much closer to real-events than any other author has been depicted in the series (arguably, Kunikida's turbulent relationship with Sasaki Nobuko may be the closest thing but enough creative liberties have been taken to completely differentiate the real person and the fictional character). Even the ending to the arc with Ranpo's deduction of what actually happened is in reference to a real event between the two-real life authors. It makes me want more of this rather than the arc following these 3 chapters.

The depiction of Mushitarou's friendship with the already-dead-Yokomizo in the series is just excellent, I do think a core tenet of their real-life friendship is their willingness to do anything for one another, stemming from that fateful meeting through their debut. It makes sense how in the series that this willingness is taken to the very extreme. Real-life Yokomizo's illness and BSD Yokomizo's illness parallels one another in the sense that it both brought Mushitarou into the limelight, a 'debut' for both real-life Mushi into the literary world and a 'debut' for Mushi the character in Bungou Stray Dogs. His ability being named after his debut novel is also just like the cherry on top, every layer just perfectly slotting in so well.

To examine the characters' real-life and re-contextualize it in such a way that it fits the Bungou Stray Dogs framework, I honestly would like more of this going forward and I can only hope it does happen.

Afterword

I am so so very sorry this article took a while to finish, many sources are only in Japanese and for many of them I had to verify it. Along with graduating, job-hunting and also visiting Japan earlier this year, I was too busy and I overshot when I was going to finish this.

I can't help it though, I really do love Mushishi and his silly antics and his works have somewhat inspired me to write again too. I still plan on doing deep dives like these though I want to try and write about authors not in BSD.

Until then, adieu!

Sources used:

坂口安吾. 「推理小説論」 「新潮　第四七巻第四号」 1950（昭和25）年4月1日発行

小栗宣治. 「小伝・小栗虫太郎」 『日本探偵小説全集6 小栗虫太郎集』付録〈創元推理文庫〉（東京創元社、1987年）所収。

水谷準. 「作家をつくる話――なつかしき「新青年」時代」 新青年1985年2月新春特別号第32巻第1号

横溝正史. 「小栗虫太郎に関する覚書」

江戸川乱歩. 「探偵小説四十年」

Laturnas, Jaylene "No longer Dazai : the re-authoring and "character-ification" of literary celebrity in contemporary Japanese popular culture" (2023) UBC

朝霧カフカ & 春河 35 "【特集】 文豪で遊ぼう: 「文豪ストレイドッグス」原作者 & 漫画家インタビュー" 2014年4月

some additional arguments/points:

each time someone whines at me @elo hell, i send them to those vids and say "if you are really that good as you say, this is roughly how your games should go"

you are the only constant in each and every one of those games.

don't defuse flamers/raise morale because it's "nice thing to do" do it because it makes things easier and more convinient

if you don't come with the mindset of carrying these four noobs to the bitter end be it hell or high water, despiteyour teams sabotaging - what are you doing here son

actually there isn't much difference between skill in various divisions; by that i mean that lower elo makes more mistakes and punishes them less, so they sort of even out. higher elo makes less mistakes and/because it punishes them harsher, thus it also evens out. ergo: each mistake you make is a reminder why you aren't a diamond/plat/what-have-you

some puny little pawn starts trying to rile you up?

are you seriously so weak to be bothered by it? man up.

stop giving them excuses, people rarely have the gall to moan (in the unfun sense) when you are too busy slaughtering the opposing team just because you can (and when they do, the whole scenario becomes hysterical)

lookatit, sad little thing trying - and failing miserably - to build up it's ego with whining because it sucks too much at LoL to utilise other aspects of the game.

why do you assume they even HAVE brains. they are for all intents and purposes bots to be pinged around the map as if you were playing an RTS. they don't listen?

once you're 12/0/6 doing pentas left right and center/cockblocking each frag attempt of your opponents they'll start paying attention.

see below

why do you expect them to be useful in any way shape or form. unless you spoon-feed them gold they are mobile wards at best. after that they become distractions and meat shields - if you're lucky, that is, so don't count on it.

INB4 "you botched formatting": whine to tumblr for devouring/changing html tags each time i try to fix the last dissapearance/not showing proper formatting on dash

And this also (I need to follow that guy I like his videos)

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

Why do you ask?