10 Second Anime - Bungou Stray Dogs - Episode 6

Kunikida investigates a series of abductions that is connected to an old case and to one of his current informants.

Episode 6 - "The Blue Disciple"

Heh.

This next couple of episodes is very much a Doppo Kunikida vehicle. His case involves the son of an old friend, the location where that friend died and someone taking up where the perpetrator left off.

Kunikida is so fastidious, he won't even walk through the office doors until he's right on time. 10 seconds early is still 10 seconds early.

Kunikida doesn't strike me as a morning person. Then again, I probably wouldn't be either if he has to deal with Dazai's brand of quirkiness as soon as he enters the door.

You know, poisonous mushrooms really aren't that common near a big city, much less the hallucinogenic kind.

Man, I hope Dazai enjoyed his trip because nobody else did.

Kunikida has a lot of patience, but it isn't infinite.

Since the color blue was prominent in the title of the episode, it made me pay attention to anyone associated with that color. The young informant seemed to like water tanks, giving his workspace that blue water glow.

And then there was the drowning lady, who ended being the only survivor of the abducted organ harvesting victims.

Lots of suspicious flags were raised about Nobuko Sasaki because she was separated from the other victims, is supposedly anemic so she didn't need to be gassed by the taxi driver to deliver her to the warehouse and just her name made her a character designed to throw Kunikida off his game.

She may have been separated from the others because the rest were men and she was the only female, but why a water tank instead of another gas chamber?

The real life Nobuko Sasaki was the first wife of the real life Doppo Kunikida. They divorced after only 5 months of marriage while she was pregnant with his child. That traumatic experience drove him to writing romantic poetry instead of the short stories he was writing for literary magazines. After he remarried, his writing style changed again from romanticism to naturalism in the form of novels.

We can see this dichotomy in the anime character, who carries his diary which includes his ideal (romantic) notions on various subjects and the pragmatic (natural or realistic) way in which he plans to realize these idealistic goals.

Dazai is playing up this connection to Nobuko after her rescue, but I'm sure he's been talking up Kunikida the entire time. All the other talk is just to get a reaction out of Kunikida in the teasing relationship they have.

The taxi driver may have been a patsy for these black market body parts traders, but whoever's behind it wants to start a war between the detective agency and the Port Mafia.

Why were Atsushi and Dazai hanging on to the "oh shit" handles in the back his cab after they turned off the main highway? Was the road extra rough? Was a scene cut out? Are they both bad with cars making turns?

Kunikida can hold his own against Akutagawa. These Port Mafia guys really are outmatched when it comes to the Agency.

I saw Dazai joking about Kunikida's glasses as referencing that although Nobuko had spent all this time with him already, Dazai somehow wanted to be Kunikida. It's a subtle thing, but Kunikida did make that fateful eye contact with Nobuko before rescuing her. Sometimes, that's all it takes for a love connection to be made, even if it's one fated to be short-lived.

Next time, the Blue King's Disciple has built a big bomb and the Agency has to find it and defuse it. Kunikida is probably going to face double heartbreak in dealing with the treachery of his friend's son and whatever Nobuko ends up revealing about her true nature. I wonder just how many points she checked off in his list of attributes for his ideal partner.