10 Second Anime - Bungou Stray Dogs - Episode 8

The Port Mafia strikes a moving train with Atsushi as their target.

Episode 8 - "Teaching Them to Kill; Then to Die"

Heh.

This episode felt very much like an introduction to a new story arc where some established characters got some screen time and explanations and new characters came along to further the overall plot.

First, the established character: Yosano.

We had seen her in the 4th Episode tending to Tanizaki and it was suggested that she sadistically enjoyed her work of healing. During the course of her battle with the Port Mafia attackers, she revealed the details of how her special power worked.

She likes touching young man-flesh. Ufufufu. Considering how her power works and how Atsushi's power works, Atsushi might not need to see her all that often.

The main bad guy of the episode, but not the important one, was this Lemon Bomber named Motojirou Kajii. The real Kajii wrote a poetic short story titled Lemon, in which the first person narrator left a lemon on a shelf at a bookstore as a "time bomb" to symbolize the ephemeral nature of a person's life span. The real Kajii died at only 31 years old of tuberculosis, so he probably felt that time ticking down more acutely than others.

This Lemon Bomber Kajii picked the wrong adversary. Yosano's special power is "You Shall Not Die," but the way it works is that it only heals fatal injuries. This is why Yosano's black doctor's bag is full of sharp weapons instead of first aid equipment. It's also why all the other detectives run away quickly when she's around. She likes to figure out where the 50 percent plus 1 point of lethality is, and it's usually a painful trip there for the subject.

Sucks to be this Kajii guy. He's going to look nice and shiny when Yosano is done with him, but before that...

I wasn't too impressed with the philosophical argument between the two "scientists" about the value of life, but at least you knew that a good guy's morality was noble enough, no matter what her reasons for it were. Bad guys are still bad guys, so big deal on that one.

The important new character who made her debut was Kyouka Izumi. Her special power is called Demon Snow and it features summoning some kind of sword wielding avatar. The real life Kyouka Izumi was a male writer who created supernatural worlds described in very prosaic language.

This anime version of Kyouka appears to serve as foil to compare Atsushi's orphan background and his progress in maturity after he joined the Armed Detective Agency. Kyouka fell in with the Port Mafia, but her special power seemed to be activated only by a voice over her cellphone telling her what to do.

Some key moments were Atsushi gaining some more control over his own ability, saving her life from a suicide bomb vest and the train too.

I think there might be love interest brewing in the background here because Atsushi went straight to the lap pillow after he pulled Kyouka from the bay.

Since this is the first episode of a new arc, stuff happens in the background to set up the rest of the plot. Dazai was captured, but the other detectives didn't seem too concerned. Actually, Dazai himself didn't seem too concerned while he was chained up with Akutagawa talking to him. We'll have to see if there's more to Kyouka and the Port Mafia than what we've seen so far.