Bungo Stray Dogs Season 4: Episode 9 Early Access Reaction!
Added 2023-03-04 14:00:02 +0000 UTC**FLASHBACK HEADPHONE WARNINGS**
Y'ALL -- I wanted Yosano backstory with Mori, but as the saying goes -- "Be careful what you wish for!" This episode was Horrifying, Sobering, Heartbreaking....
...and then somehow so beautiful at the end! THIS SEASON. Is this my favorite season so far?! I think it is BECOMING IT! Let's talk this episode!
LINK TO REACTION: https://streamable.com/bzb09t
Thank you for watching with me and for all the support!
Comments
Hahahaha, usually when an episode is great, even if it’s traumatic, I get excited…or I’m just secretly evil, *bwahahahaa* but yeah, this one was a ROUGH episode. I’m really glad that this season has done all of the prep work with the flashback with Ranpo and Fukuzawa, everything, to lead to this point! I love that this series GOES THERE as well with how dark this plot can get – Odasaku and the orphans had to…walk? So that Yosano could run – or steamroll - over our hearts. But yeah, her being ELEVEN is INSANITY. And for her to keep bringing them back THAT MUCH – no wonder they went insane and for her to stay strong throughout it? Hats off to her…I liked Yosano alright before, but this season, her and Ranpo have jettisoned themselves UP THERE for me. But yeah, for Yosano’s friendship with him to sour and turn to something so heartbreaking and traumatic? SOUL. CRUSHING. It’s so gutting to see her “gift” become something that symbolizes despair….SO MESSED UP. Definitely highlighting the dark side of immortality and how war truly is the WORST. It’s amazing that the ADA is basically a safe space for Ranpo…and then he just invites others to join him and be friends with him. The “cool club” if you will. ;) I just love the bond that Ranpo INSTANTLY develops with Yosano – it’s truly a beautiful scene and one worth getting choked up about! I love them all so much, too! Mori’s obsession with getting Yosano and how it’s affected Elise’s appearance is CREEPY. But then, Mori is CREEPY overall. He’s like that “charming” many you find out is a serial killer. And that what we see on the surface with his character is SUCH an ACT. And yeah, the fact that you can’t tell how bad he is from his strategies on manipulation and gaslighting are…horrifyingly dangerous! And for him to take advantage of Yosano’s doubt and self-destruction. It HURTS. That’s an incredible theory as to why she only heals fatal wounds! I can SO see that and will definitely talk about that in a future discussion! 🙂 And ooooh, I might need to go back to the lemon bomb scene on season one! Thanks for recommending that! Thank you so much for the comment and kind words! I’m SO in love with this season and man, all of the themes and emotions really hit home this episode!
Romaniablack
2023-03-14 19:51:45 +0000 UTCThe sheer contrast between you finishing the episode and cheerfully being like "Yay! This was great! I loved it! :D", versus me finishing it and feeling like my entire soul had been ripped out of my body, leaving me a numb husk of my former self.... and I was the one who knew it all was coming 🤣 Not that that helped in the slightest. 🥲 Because even though I was /dreading/ this very episode ever since the season began, even though I knew exactly what I would see, absolutely no amount of preparation could have steeled me enough for experiencing all this in animated form; in an extremely rare moment for me, I have to give Bones all the praise, because WOW did they knock this out of the park. Yosano's backstory is one of the peaks, the pinnacles of BSD's writing, and I had a metaphorical gun to the studio's heads wanting them to give it all the necessary sensitivity, care, time, and weight it deserved, and they absolutely delivered in spades. I don't know what it is, but Asagiri's craft seems to be at its absolute best when he's writing self-contained backstory arcs, whether it be Dark Era, or Untold Origins, or this (Untold Origins isn't quite in the masterpiece category as the other two are for me, but it's still wonderful); I remember being absolutely FLOORED the first time I read this -- shocked, blown away, horrified, touched, insert every adjective here. He was not afraid to GO THERE with Yosano's backstory, just like he wasn't afraid to with Dazai's backstory in Dark Era, killing 5 kids and then having Oda commit vengeful murder-suicide.... oh how it hurts. It's so beautiful and so important, but god it hurts like a bitch 🥲 Why do I do this to myself, falling in love with this series. 🥲 I cannot even imagine being only 11 years old and witnessing and experiencing everything Yosano had to go through -- seeing so much blood and gore (people RIPPED IN HALF??? GOD LET ME PROTECT HER), having to heal them tirelessly, only for them to be sent right back out to have it happen all over again, and watching them all slowly deteriorate into insanity from never forgetting the pain of the phantom wounds they endured over and over again, never being allowed to rest... I'm sure there were many others who killed themselves too that we didn't even see, or died from starving themselves, or maybe even died from sheer shock from the severity of their wounds even after Yosano healed them. I cannot even imagine going through that, either; I tried to count the "correct" character tally marks too and I got maybe 205 times, I cannot even FATHOM IT. And it's so goddamn heartbreaking because that soldier truly cared about her, he saw her kindness and /believed/ in it, believed that it was a good thing, even when she felt like she was the one to blame for hurting them all (she wasn't!!! she was just being used and taken advantage of!! this POOR GIRL), and he probably tried to last as long as he could BECAUSE he saw her kindness and BECAUSE he wanted her to know that, even in the midst of that hell, even with the way her kindness was being used and abused, he was grateful for it. But everyone has a limit, and eventually even he reached it. And it resulted in one of the most harrowing scenes in the entire series. 🥲😭💔 and it's so sad because he was such a source of comfort for her in a world of darkness and violence, much like Oda was for Dazai (I'm glad you compared them!! It's so true, their personalities are kinda similar 😭), yet his end twisted into something so horrifically traumatic and tragic for the both of them... She became "too correct". The "Angel of Death". And the story even got twisted into her killing a patient, according to what the government official said a few episodes ago, even though that couldn't have been further from the truth. 💔 War is so horrible, and it affects so many people in this series, like Yosano, all these other orphans, and even people like Gide... it's truly messed up. But the reason I love the Armed Detective Agency is that, while they are indeed a detective agency who do indeed solve crimes for the city, as is their job description, we know that they're really first and foremost a place for people to find a home: after all, the agency was first created by Fukuzawa in order to be a safe space for Ranpo. 🥹 And I think it's so beautiful and fitting that Yosano isn't ordered to join the ADA by Ranpo for her ability, but for her /heart/: for who she is as a /person/. The ADA entrance exam has never tested potential members for their actual skills, or their abilities, but for their hearts, for their humanity -- they see people as humans, and cherish them for that, meanwhile Mori has only ever seen people for their abilities and how they can potentially be weaponized to his advantage. The Special Division, too, only sees people as numbers essentially as well; Ango however deviates from that as he values life, and in the same way Oda deviated from the typical morals of the mafia, and he was someone who saw through to Dazai's heart and core and treated him kindly as a human being and a CHILD instead of just as a tool like Mori did (and you can draw parallels between the Yosano and Ranpo scene of her desperately asking him what to do and where it's okay for her to live, and him simply telling her to join the detective agency, and Oda's death scene with Dazai desperately asking Oda what to do, also, and Oda simply telling him to be on the side of good 😭💖). Fyodor's ideologies could probably be compared in all this as well, like you mentioned. Humans are humans, and should be appreciated as such, not merely for whatever special powers or skills they might have, and so it's really touching that Ranpo tells Yosano that they DON'T need her ability, because that's what she so needed to be told. That she's wanted because of her kindness, and nothing more, and also that he validates her suffering, just like Oda validated Dazai's suffering right before he died. The agency is the only place where Yosano is appreciated for who she is, and that's why she's so willing to use her ability to save their lives, because they never expect it from her like Mori did. She's so beautiful and strong and I love her so much, I love Ranpo so much, I love the ADA so so much. 😭🥹💖 Mori has always been "charming" (there's a reason he's so attractive in the looks department, probably the most attractive character in the series imo, but we all have different tastes lol), but that has always been a part of his facade as a highly skilled and successful abusive mentor figure and groomer -- a facade that is completely stripped away in this episode in the few horrific moments where we see just how much of a monster he really is, underneath the veneer of "kind, harmless, ditzy doctor". What's really terrifying is that, I've seen plenty of younger people in the fandom write off Mori as a boring or stupid villain and not take him seriously, but a friend of mine who has unfortunately suffered under people like him in the past can attest that that just proves how scarily well-written he is: people like him are VERY GOOD at hiding their true intentions and their facade of innocence, to the point that only their victims ever see who they truly are. Mori is a master manipulator and gaslighter; at the end of Dark Era, he tries to guilt trip Dazai for wanting to save Oda by pointing out all the "logical" flaws in his reasoning, and now, in the present day, he lies to Yosano and tells her that Fukuzawa said he would give her up, and it WORKS because he is just THAT good at making people doubt themselves and everything they think they know, everything that /should/ seem logical, because.... because "what if...? what if he's right...?" Mori still has an iron grip over Yosano even after all these years thanks to the trauma she went through under him, so as much as I want to scream "HE'S OBVIOUSLY LYING", I completely understand why she would doubt herself and Fukuzawa for a second, and maybe even believe it, because it's /Mori/ and that's what Mori does. It's absolutely terrifying, despicable, disturbing, yet most of all /real/. Mori is such a well-written villain because, taking out the mafia setting and all the mafia boss stuff, he is someone you could encounter in real life. And there's nothing scarier than that. :)))) And yeah, like the other comment said, it's heavily implied (more than heavily imo, it's basically canon I'd say) that Mori intentionally changed Elise's age and personality after he lost Yosano to look and act just like her young self, instead of her older age and more docile and demure personality Elise had originally. I guess he really missed having Yosano around... guess he just likes his little girls feisty and defiant and always talking back to him. Yeah :)))) 🤮 (I didn't think about the bow matching the hairpin and the sweets thing though.... oof 💀) I also saw someone mention the idea after this episode came out, something I literally never thought of before, that the trauma Yosano went through during this period changed her ability so that she can only heal fatal wounds. We see her healing all kinds of wounds the soldiers had in this flashback, and not all of them are fatal -- but then, it escalates to the point where Mori has to shoot the one soldier and bring him to the brink of death to force Yosano to heal him just so he doesn't die, which is literally the exact conditions for her ability now. So I like that theory, that the way her ability evolved might be a representation of the trauma she endured; how healing no longer became something good in her eyes but something that it hurt people to do more than helped, and something she wanted to do as little as possible after a certain point :' ) 💔 (would also recommend rereading the things she says to lemon bomb guy on the train early on in the series when she fights him, cause hoo boy, it hits a lot harder after this backstory 🥲) And yes, you got the timeline off, but other people corrected you so I won't go into that. Maybe I'll add this stuff to the timeline I made on discord. xD Anywayyyyyy, I've ranted long enough as always lmao, but this is some of the best story content in the entire franchise, and I was absolutely overwhelmed by this episode; it was so incredible and so beautifully done, especially that final shot of Yosano opening the door of her own free will and walking into the light, towards her chosen future of saving her home. When Asagiri hits, he really, really hits. 🥲💖
Dana
2023-03-10 22:58:25 +0000 UTCOh wowwwwwww, nowwwww it all makes sense! WOW -- I'll have to bring that up in the next discussion but I LOVE that theory -- it adds SO much to Elise and Mori's dynamic, especially considering she likely changed in his mind to look more like Yosano AFTER he lost her to Fukuzawa.... And thank you for the timeline correction! That makes more sense! UGH, the fact that the Great War explains why there's so many orphans, though. OOF. T_T That's so sad! Thank you for the awesome comment and insight!
Romaniablack
2023-03-09 02:48:11 +0000 UTCHahahaha, it does sound like that, doesn't it?! But yes, learning Yosano's tragic backstory -- it's a lot, right? I wasn't prepared for THIS level of heartbreak! Thanks for the comment!
Romaniablack
2023-03-05 19:36:49 +0000 UTCRemember back in like... season 2 I said Elise's personality is based on someone? The reason she's so disobident to Mori in the current time is that he now bases her personality on young Yosano. The bow on one side of her head is meant to mirror the butterfly, she talks back to Mori because Yosano did, she looks younger because she's meant to based on an eleven year old, she likes sweets because Mori found Yosano in a candy store. So everytime Mori has been weird and creepy with Elise is in a whole new light now. You got the timeline a little wrong. Dark Age was four years ago, not eight. So Mori actually hadn't met Dazai yet (as far as we know) when he went to go take Yosano again. I think a full frontal assult on the PM was his original plan to take over, and she was the crux of that. When he lost her, he had to take a new route and that probably lead him to Dazai. Also having the Great War happening when it does in the timeline gives us an explaination for why this show has so many damn orphans around the ages of 18-20.
Moth (GreenAppleSause)
2023-03-05 02:45:18 +0000 UTCThanks for the comments and clarification! I'll try to remember that, but bear with me if I get it wrong! :)
Romaniablack
2023-03-04 21:49:25 +0000 UTCThank you for the kind words and comment! I LOVE this series and this episode was great!
Romaniablack
2023-03-04 21:49:00 +0000 UTCAwesome reaction! Such a well crafted episode. This series is so underrated.
4Paz
2023-03-04 16:12:30 +0000 UTCFukuzawa is now like, woa, looks like I keep getting more and more children.
Stace
2023-03-04 16:12:16 +0000 UTCFukuzawa saves Ranpo, Ranpo saves Yosano. Natsume saves Oda, Oda saves Dazai, Dazai saves Atsushi, Atsushi saves Kyouka
Stace
2023-03-04 16:04:06 +0000 UTCMori was hot!
Stace
2023-03-04 15:44:42 +0000 UTCIt's Jouno not Juno (slightly like "Joe" and "no")
Stace
2023-03-04 15:32:14 +0000 UTCYosano T-T, I teared up during the episode, but the themes and topic, heartbreaking "Everyone has their Limits", you can apply that to everyone in this series. On a more lightherated note to lift the dark vibe, when she mentioned they stopped working together because of her, why did it sound like a custody battle after divorce lol
alessia_collie
2023-03-04 14:30:43 +0000 UTC
