Kaetan desu! (*≧▽≦)
Jeez! (╬ Ò ‸ Ó) Season 2 of Bungo Stray Dogs certainly started off on a dark note. The series jumps to four years in the past when Dazai was a still prominent executive in the Port Mafia. Dazai is sitting in a bar when two men who we soon find out to be part of the same organization walk in and order drinks. One of those men is Ango Sakaguchi, an intelligence officer for the Mafia and Sakunosuke Oda, a man who sits in the lowest part of the hierarchy as a handyman.
As they begin talking, Dazai tells Oda about a shootout he was involved in with a very gung-ho gang who were armed with a machine gun equipped truck. Dazai is a top executive with an extremely bloody and dark past so he shouldn’t receive injuries from something like this, right? Right? Wrong. Dazai procured some injuries in the middle of the shootout while he was hurrying to get to, would you a believe it, a bathroom and tripped on a ditch, falling flat on his face.*Sigh why you so clumsy Dazai? But then again, that is one of his charm points.
Oda begins narrating on Dazai’s background in the Port Mafia, as Dazai himself complains about how he was unable to die again, and how he wants a simple method for committing suicide. When Oda tell him that there isn’t one, Dazai pauses his antics for a minute and gives states his wish by saying “Man fears death and yet, at the same time, man is drawn to death. Death is endlessly consumed by men in cities and in literature. It is a singular event in one’s life that none may reverse. That is what I desire” Talk about sending chills down my spine, but he said it with a smile so that made it better for me as the viewer.
Typical Dazai, he then quickly changes to light-hearted conversation by requesting the bartender for a drink made of detergent, and when he is rejected both times, Ango walks into the bar telling off Oda for not calling out Dazai when he does that. As he takes a seat next to Dazai, he begins complaining about how this one deal today took up too much time for something as simple as buying a smuggled-in antique watch. Dazai then probes Odasaku as to why he has never heard him complain about work, and Oda chooses to remain humble by explaining how boring his stories are as the organization’s lowest ranked member, but Dazai persists.
As Oda gives his accounts on today’s work, Dazai’s face lights up and he insists that they switch jobs, particularly when he says how he disposed of a dud (bomb) that was found behind a Mafia office. Ango quickly tries to bring Dazai back down to earth by telling him that he couldn’t handle it, with Odasaku agreeing that Dazai’s anticipation would get him blown up. But we ARE talking about Dazai here, so naturally he gets excited about the thought of being blown up.
When Ango asks if they were meeting up, Dazai says he came there on a whim, hoping to run into the two of them. It as though he wanted some company. Aw, even Dazai gets lonely sometimes. They then make a toast to the stray dogs. Now that phrase mind you, is in the title of the show and this is the first time I’ve heard it mentioned in the actual anime. So we’ll just take note of that for now. They also take commemorative photos to show that they had days like that where they could hang out, despite their different positions in the hierarchy.
-Can I just say that this face, is everything to me now? So adorable!
Fast forward to the next day, Oda is suddenly called to the Port Mafia’s headquarters by Rintaro, the boss who we got a small glimpse of towards the end of season one. Past all of the security and cameras, Oda enters the boss’ chambers.
There, he finds Rintaro desperately trying to get Elise, a mysterious little girl who is always by his side to wear a dress, with a lot more dresses scattered all over the floor. Rintaro’s personality changes drastically when Oda announces himself and insists that Oda didn’t see anything. He then explains that he summoned Oda specifically for the job of locating Ango, who has gone missing. He gives him the Silver Oracle, a document which allows him to temporarily gain authority even over executives. Rintaro uses the opportunity to point out Oda’s relations with Dazai, but Oda doesn’t answer. He then asks why it is that Oda has never supposedly killed anyone with the handgun he is always carrying around. Oda respectfully declines to answer and is then excused by Rintaro to commence this special mission.
We then move to another scene where some armory guards have been killed by what appears to be the same group that was involved in the shootout with Dazai. The group targeted the armory with the intent of stealing firearms. We learn that the shootout was originally a distraction and the storage house they hit had a password on that only staff sub-executive and higher has access to. This screams traitor within the Mafia. Dazai says they captured one of the cloaked members and managed to find out the name of their group, Mimic.
We go back to Oda, who is now investigating Ango’s hotel room and comes across a ventiliation shaft where he discovers a safety box. It is then we discover Oda’s ability ‘Flawless’ which allows him to see up to six seconds into the future, when he avoids being taken out by a nearby hidden sniper. He calls Dazai for backup while heading after the sniper. Oda catches up to them and holds them up in an alley, but he is then ambushed himself by another member lying in wait. As the two members close in on him, it looks like this could be it for Oda, but Dazai intervenes and has the two cloaked members shot dead.
Dazai then explains his findings to Oda. He makes an observation that every Mimic member seems to carry a Graugeist, which although is an old European gun, seems to serve as a symbol to the organization. Oda shows Dazai the safety box they were after, which Dazai spares almost little no to effort unlocking. The contents of the box shocks Oda. A graugeist!!
However, Dazai states that the fact that the gun was in Ango’s room, doesn’t mean it actually was his. Mimic could have planted it there in there. But he quickly changes his tune as to Ango’s whereabouts before he arrived at the bar. Ango claims to have driven to do a deal in Tokyo at 8:00PM where the weather was rainy. But the umbrella was wet enough to have been in the rain for at least thirty minutes and Ango’s pants and shoes were dry when he arrived at the bar two hours later. Dazai says that he doesn’t believe that Ango went to a deal, but went to meet someone in secret. Oda tries to justify this, but Dazai shuts it down, saying that if they were such good friends, then Ango wouldn’t have needed to make up an alibi.
One of the Mimic members, miraculously still alive, points his Graugeist at Dazai and Oda. This is when Dazai’s personality starts to scare me.
Dazai psyches out both the Mimic member as well as Oda by egging on the cloaked figure to pull the trigger of the gun and wake him from this “oxidizing world of a dream”. What follows would be a gunshot, and then we see the cloaked man grabbing his shoulder in pain. Surprise! Oda fired under the pressure! A rain of gunfire from Dazai’s subordinates follows and finally kills the man.
After the dust clears, Dazai then makes a confession that he knew the sniper would miss as the inprint from the sniper rifle was on the shooter’s cheek, meaning he was left handed. He was holding the Graugeist with his right hand. In addition to that, the gun has low firing rate and accuracy and could only fire warning shots in the alley. Dazai tired his arm out for long enough, knowing that Oda would shoot him. What is with this guy?
Dazai then requests Oda to find Ango to which Oda says “Yeah, I know”
Season 2 of Bungo Stray Dogs airs on Crunchyroll every Wednesday at 1:35pm (AST)
