10 Second Anime - Bungou Stray Dogs - Episode 3

Atsushi's first case for the Armed Detective Agency turns out to be something unexpected and dangerous.

Episode 3 - "Yokohama Gangster Paradise"

Heh.

The little teaser from last episode showed the audience who was going to factor big time in the next one. Naturally, they both had Japanese authors' names. They also confirmed that Atsushi is the main character for some other reason than being a neophyte as a narrative guide.

But Atsushi is an inexperienced newly hired detective in a strange city, so lets focus on learning things through his eyes. Like meeting the other characters, familiar settings and how to work a case.

The Tanizaki siblings continue their comedic incestuous act.

Well, Naomi appears to be taking it seriously, while big brother looks like he's been trying to keep her contained for years.

Junichirou's not very good at making her act appropriately in public. 

It looks like Junichirou doesn't want to return Naomi's feelings, but I could see a funny situation later on where he starts to and it creeps his sister out.

Since this is a detective agency, even if it does have office ladies, not everything happens at a desk shuffling papers. The first place we see that the detectives spend a lot of time is a café with a patient looking lady behind the counter.

Atsushi, who had been treated pretty shabbily at an orphanage most of his life, has to get used to hanging out with a bunch of weirdoes.

At least they show they're into actually picking up clues and analyzing them. Their in-house game is to guess what each detective used to do before working for the agency. Kunikida was a math teacher, which looks like a perfect fit for him.

People had been trying to guess Dazai's former job, but because they haven't yet, the little reward pool has increased. Increased quite a bit, actually.

If you can't read that, it says 7 Hundred Thousand yen, or about 7 Thousand dollars. Broke Atsushi wants a piece!

Dazai is full of secrets, apparently. His former job is one of the Seven Mysteries of the office!

Unfortunately for me, I pay attention to details. I recognized the new client as the blond lady from the episode teaser last week as she talked to the main bad guy from the credit sequences. The supposedly easy stakeout of smugglers in an alley is going to end up totally something else.

Obvious bad guy Akutagawa is obviously bad. Port Mafia guy blows up a police department. We got it. He's bad.

Ryuunosuke Akutagawa was another of Japan's most famous writers. His book Rashomon was adapted into a movie in 1950 by the great director Akira Kurosawa. The story itself is set at the south gate of Kyoto, which is called Rajoumon, but has at different times been also spelled Rashoumon, which literally means city wall gate. The plot of that story is based on a Noh play from the 1400's where a recently fired servant considers becoming a thief or starving to death. Sound familiar? The writer suffered ill health before finally committing suicide when he was only 36 years old, which may explain the cough anime version Akutagawa has.

As for why the anime version of Akutagawa's Rashoumon power is a voracious eater, I suppose it comes from the symbol of a walled city's south gate swallowing all intended traffic. You see this concept even in Naruto where the main gate the characters leave from has the character for South written on the doors when they are closed, but when opened, the other side spells out あ～ん (aaan), which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for saying "Aaahh" when opening one's mouth before putting something in it.

I had thought only the special powered people in Bungou Stray Dogs would have authors' names, but that blonde lady proved me wrong.

Higuchi is Akutagawa's subordinate and who's only super power I could make out is carrying submachine guns in a bag that should not be able to hold them.

The literary Ichiyou Higuchi was among the first female modern Japanese writers and has even been featured on Japanese currency. She wrote short stories in classical Japanese, which makes her work difficult for contemporary students to read, and she died at the very young age of 24 from tuberculosis. Her literary name is a pen name where readers assumed she was a man, which may be referenced by the anime version Higushi wearing a pantsuit, or that she disguised herself as a client.

The real life version of Higuchi made the tragic mistake of falling in love with her editor, which may explain why the anime version has a junior student type relationship with Akutagawa and readily accepts his harsh criticism.

The big revelation of the episode was that the Port Mafia was really after Atsushi because of the huge bounty on his head. 7 Billion yen. With a B. That's about 70 million dollars, which totally dwarfs the 7,000 dollars Atsushi was hoping to collect for guessing Dazai's former profession.

This news places Atsushi at the center of the story for Bungou Stray Dogs. He's not going to be just a funny newcomer learning the detective ropes while going on adventures.

We saw hints of why Atsushi may be sought after. He can regenerate grievous wounds when he transforms. His tiger form is also impervious to physical attacks.

Also, Atsushi doesn't need moonlight to activate his power, although he still falls unconscious when he's forcibly returned to human form.

Speaking of being forcibly returned to human form, wow! Dazai is much more capable than his suicidal easygoing nature lets on. First, he put a bug on the client and had been listening in on everything since she left the office with the Tanizaki's and Atsushi. The direction had played off his headphones as his usual time-wasting or eccentric behavior, but when Higuchi started spraying bullets, he startled awake as if from a nap. But it wasn't a nap. We got a mundane yet clever reason for him suddenly showing up and stopping the clash between Akutagawa and Atsushi.

This lead directly to the last big revelation of the episode: that Dazai is a former Port Mafioso and that Akutagawa doesn't want to mess with him.

I quite liked Junichirou's Light Snow power. Very inspired by The Matrix movie. He's pretty good as a detective too, noticing how smugglers wouldn't be hanging out in an alley with a dead end, but he has much to learn from Dazai, who was suspicious from the start.

This was an excellent third episode. The main story and antagonists entered the narrative. Atsushi and Dazai used their powers again in a well done action sequence. The important other guy in the end credits showed us who and what he's all about. The story has gotten bigger and I'm looking forward to where it goes next.