Bungou Stray Dogs Episode 11: A Job Unsuited For Her, And An Eccentric Agency

This episode is separated into two stories and they both leave off at the end of what happened last episode. Most of the episode was about Higuchi. We learn Akutagawa is in serious trouble as he has awful injuries, and he’s also in a coma. The mission was a total failure and Higuchi hears the brunt of her Boss’s words. And for some reason there’s a creepy little girl with him, most likely his daughter, who drew a picture of Akutagawa dead. He asks Higuchi whether she thinks she’s well suited for her job, and this is the theme for her portion of the episode. For her and Akutagawa’s failures, they’ll probably get killed soon. The Black Lizard group hound on Higuchi about this, and they admit that the only reason they even obey her is not actually because of her, but because they fear Akutagawa and his power. But since Akutagawa is in a coma, they can easily not obey Higuchi because she’s basically nothing. The rest of the episode we see a bit of Higuchi’s character. I don’t know how she got into Port Mafia, or how she got a high position in the mafia when everyone seems to think she’s not suited for her job. She doubts herself and she knows she’s not suited for it, but when she hears of Akutagawa’s kidnapping, she goes off on her own to save him.

She even admits to wanting to leave Port Mafia many times but she never did, and even though she says “It’s her job” in the end, she most likely has a thing for Akutagawa for some reason, even though we’ve seen him treat her bad. Higuchi is about to get killed by the foreigners but the Black Lizard group had followed her and helped her. She reaches Akutagawa and he wakes up, and apologizes. And we see her smile. That portion was basically showing us the struggles Higuchi faces and her position in the mafia. I think Higuchi can be a really interesting character if we saw more of her, and I got a little connection to her in this episode, but I still don’t know her well. And since we’re this late in the game, I don’t think we will.

The other half of the episode also gave us time to learn about another character, a character who hasn’t said a word until now. Kenji, a young looking guy who’s way too naive and sweet. He’s pretty new to the Agency and he explains that he came from a very small village that had no electricity or technology of any kind, basically a village very much cut off from the modern world. So he’s very ignorant when it comes to everyday things like money and basic street smarts. Even so, he’s pretty popular with people. With old people and with a scary looking guy. He’s always smiling and he really loves cows. Like…he talked about cows a lot, and compared people to cows. I’m guessing there weren’t many people in his village.

The police came to the Agency and brought up a case about a car exploding randomly and jumping into a building. Kunikida gives Atsushi the case and Tanizawa was supposed to accompany him but Kenji went with him instead. Basically the rest of the episode was Kenji being naive and Atsushi following along because he’s sort of naive himself and when they get great info, Kenji seriously goes up to a gang and ask if they were behind the exploding car. This guy…ahhh. Okay.

When they leave the gang’s place, they decide to head back to the Agency but then the whole gang surround them and want to beat them up because they know they did it, and they admit they did, to get rid of an enemy gang member. But they’re weirded out by Kenji “Ahh thanks you guys! I knew you guys would tell me afterward! \^o^/” *insert sparkles*

But then they bash his head in. Right before they attack Atsushi, Kenji gets up like nothing happened but then he starts beating the crap out of the whole gang by picking up cars and trucks and street signs. Apparently, he possesses superhuman strength, but the catch is he can only do all of that when he’s hungry. But when he’s full, he sleeps. Hey, that sounds like me! 😀

And yes that’s it. Also, the thing with Kyouka. The Agency grew a liking to her and they think she’s cute and everything. Kyouka asks the President if she can stay and Atsushi vouches for her, and the President says yes. Hurray! Also, Kunikida appoints Atsushi to look after her, because he’s the one that saved her. Another yay! Also, no one seems to care about Dazai because they haven’t mentioned him? Hmm. Anyway, this episode was kind of filler-ish. Kenji’s part was, but we did get to see how some characters were affected by the situation that happened with Kyouka so that was interesting to see. This show never had one plot and instead was either episodic or had tiny arcs, so who knows how next week’s finale will be like. It’ll most likely end up being a “read the manga” type of conclusion, or it could just be a small set up for another season. But I have no idea how this show is selling to see if it’ll warrant another season.