10 Second Anime - Bungou Stray Dogs - Episode 2

Atsushi unexpectedly visits the Armed Detective Agency office and stumbles into a hostage situation that is more than it seems.

Episode 2 - "A Certain Bomb"

Second Thoughts.

I decided to pick up this show after seeing what a "regular" episode looks like. It looks almost exactly like the first. Atsushi alone and confused, then dealing with a Dazai suicide attempt, then arguing with Kunikida over something and finally getting to the action sequence to be resolved with some magic. Along the way, we get hilarious facial reactions, Atsushi acting as our everyman guide and wondering why everyone is so strange with everyone else saying it's only Dazai who's exceptionally strange.

The humor clicks with me and having a bunch of normal people around lends extra layers of storytelling and opportunities for more humor. It's good!

Heh.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Atsushi's detective "uniform" gives him a tail with a belt that's a little too long.

I'm looking forward to seeing Atsushi figure out how to use his powers, but until then I'll just enjoy his surprised reactions to everything around him.

This Dazai guy is definitely trouble. Eh, more like troublesome!

Ha! He needed help getting out of that barrel because he's suicidal not masochistic. Suicides are trying to escape pain, right? He's not going look forward to slowly dying over a couple of days. That's torture, not suicide!

I got a kick out of Atsushi being the last resort to rescue him because all of his colleagues just said "Congratulations," for finally finding something that would be a successful suicide method.

Being Kunikida is suffering... Well, taking care of Dazai is suffering. Doppo Kunikida was a Japanese poet and novelist at the turn of the 20th Century. He is best known for publishing his daily diary, which is why this version of Kunikida writes everything down in his book. His work was also influential on the Japanese genre of naturalism, which may explain his power of drawing stuff into reality. The writer also contributed a bit to romanticism, so anime Kunikida may have some bad luck love history to show us.

Through all of Dazai's bad behavior, they appear to have settled on a trusting and accepted friendship.

Atsushi, as our narrative guide, can't believe that Kunikida is sometimes as whimsical as Dazai. We saw a hint of that with the different voice impersonations of the complaints against Dazai, but playing rock-paper-scissors to go against the disgruntled bomber cemented that impression.

Hello part-time worker Naomi!

Too bad she got taken hostage. Also too bad that I recognized her and her brother Junichirou from the opening credits. That sucked a lot of the tension out of the hostage situation, but there wasn't that much to begin with because of all the clues Dazai was dropping about job interviews and tests.

I can never unsee Naomi's over-the-top brocon for Junichirou. She was beautiful before but her voice and her actions have made her only joke fodder. I suppose that was the intent. She was only beautiful as long as she kept her mouth shut...

Junichirou Tanizaki was a major figure in modern Japanese literature, but some of his novels featured themes of shocking sexuality and erotic obsession. And now you know why his sister is like that. 

It's pretty rare to see office staff in a detective agency. This is a real business with paperwork and stuff!

Junichirou, as the mad bomber, asked aloud why all these people with powers are so messed up in the head, which is exactly what Atsushi had asked earlier in the episode.

I think he just doesn't want to admit that he's also messed up in the head and just wants to be normal.

Sorry, Atsushi. You're going to fit right in with the Armed Detective Agency.

He's going to fit right in, not just because he has no compunction against unloading all his complaints about his poor life to a total stranger, armed with a bomb no less, but also because he has no compunction against throwing himself on top of a bomb to save lives.

The president of the agency, Fukuzawa, looks formidable and he has a great voice actor giving him gravitas. The real Yukichi Fukuzawa is heralded as one of the founders of modern Japan, although he never held any government position. He wrote one of the first and English-Japanese dictionaries, founded a university, advanced ideas on civilization related to universal human rights and advocated for a Japan open to outside influences during the Meiji Restoration. He's the actual guy who gave Japan the "vee" sound by putting the voiced accent on ウ to make ヴ. The anime version has the special power "All Men Are Created Equal." Seems about right.

Well, Atsushi is one of the weirdoes now. Unfortunately for him, bad guys, or people who look like bad guys, are after the "were-tiger." And the other dude from the yaoi love triangle in the end credits is one of those bad guys. This is just confirmation that Atsushi really is the main character and not just our narrative guide. I'm hoping those "bad guys" also give us funny reaction faces. I'm expecting a little bit of a serious story but more on the funny side judging from what I've seen so far.