10 Second Anime - Bungou Stray Dogs - Episode 17

The Port Mafia attempts to retrieve Kyouka but the Guild shows up to declare war on both the Agency and the Port Mafia.

Episode 17 - "Three Companies Conflict"

Heh.

Okay, now the 2nd half of Bungou Stray Dogs can begin.

This is supposed to be the Year of the Monkey, but in anime, it's been the year of the Flying Whale. See Flying Witch and Re: Zero for that.

The opening credits reference much of what we'll be seeing for the rest of the season. Kyouka is obviously an important piece of the narrative as she reminds the Port Mafia of the traitor Dazai who now works for the Agency.

Somehow, Akutagawa and Atsushi will be more alike than different as they both attack Francis F of the Guild.

We pick up our story straight up from the end of Episode 12, but after four episodes of extended flashback, it's necessary to reacquaint ourselves with the characters. Naomi really (really) loves her brother Junichirou. The Tanizaki siblings' scene was there to reestablish the Agency's dorm (where Atsushi lives too) and to remark on Kyouka's first case for her Agency job.

As soon as I saw Kyouka say "I've memorized his face," I knew she was going to have some comedic problems in adjusting to a legitimate job of delivering documents instead of just killing her targets.

Can I coin a word meaning sneaky and sexy? I'll call it snexy. Kyouka's too young to try being snexy.

Hah! She tasered the client, then presented the envelope! Old habits die hard for poor Kyouka.

The set piece for the episode was the confrontation between Kouyou Ozaki and Kyouka. Her power, Golden Demon, works exactly the same as Kyouka's Snow Demon. I suppose that's what the whole 4 episode prequel was about, right?

The real life Kouyou Ozaki was a Japanese author during the late 19th century. His most famous work, The Usurer, was also known as The Golden Demon.

Ozaki tried to convince Kyouka to come back to the Port Mafia willingly by quoting the aphorism "Flowers which bloom in darkness can only be at ease in darkness." Adding to the theme of whether a person's nature can ever truly change was the knowledge that Kyouka became an orphan because her Snow Demon accidentally killed her parents. We know that Kyouka only kills with Snow Demon if a voice from her phone instructs her to do so, which I'm sure will be brought up at some point in the season.

Kyouka's fight with Kouyou, ignoring the once again useless Atsushi (get it together, man!) was rudely interrupted by the Agency and the Guild. The Guild came to play, though, with lots of reinforcements.

So far, from the Guild, we had John S (John Steinbeck) with his Grapes of Wrath power. He showed up eating a potato, so I imagine that was a reference to his book Travels With Charley when he goes to a potato festival in Maine. Lovecraft has his power the Great Old One, obviously referring to H. P. Lovecraft's Old Ones in his many stories. A Louisa was named too, which I guess is going to be Louisa May Alcott. There was also a "Poe." I wonder how he and Ranpo will get along.

Whatever those Guild guys did, it was over quick and everybody else lost and they supposedly took Kyouka with them.

Lucky for the Agency, they have Yosano.

Well, relatively lucky, considering how her power works. She can only heal mortal wounds, so guess what?

I'm a bit annoyed with Atsushi because he had a growth arc in the first half of the season, but he's regressed where he's no good in a surprise crisis.

The Guild made a splashy declaration of war against both the Port Mafia and the Agency.

Hee! Elise says that "sweetness is justice."

Ougai made the correct call in trying to crush the supposedly smaller and weaker of the three opposing forces.

President Fukuzawa has different ideas about who is supposed to be weaker.

Ougai's not dumb either. He supposedly marked Fukuzawa with a radioactive tracer based on his favorite flipping move, but I'm not sure Fukuzawa fell for it. We shall see.

Dazai has ways of making beautiful mature women talk...

This Francis F like to shoot with a big gun, but then he showed that he doesn't even need it. We've seen before how greed and money are a part of his personality.

The rest of the season is set for a lot of action. I hope there's time for some funny episodes too, but I don't think so after the 4 episode interlude. Akutagawa needs to make his appearance too.