Bungou Stray Dogs Episode 9: The Beauty is Quiet Like a Stone Statue

OH NO THEY’RE CUTE. SO CUTE.

I’ve been really happy with these episodes. There was a moment with each episode where they were really irritating me and had been boring, but now they’ve really been picking up and I’m glad. Even if the budget is slowly going down, things are getting very exciting.

Things were cute at first until terrible things happened. They start off normal. Kyouka wakes up in the infirmary and she’s fine. Kunikida asks her questions about who was behind the plot and everything, but she wants to eat tofu at an expensive restaurant. After she eats, then she’ll talk. Atsushi happily agrees to that, but he didn’t know the place was expensive. After having her meal, Kyouka explains her backstory. When her parents died and she became an orphan, the Port Mafia went after her and her ability. Demon Snow is an ability that takes orders from her cellphone. She never tossed it away because she would have been killed, so she did her jobs. The person that would give the orders on the phone, which we already knew, was Akutagawa. After the meal, Kunikida leaves but before he does he tells Atsushi to turn her into the military police, and not even bother trying to help her. She’s killed 35 people so that’s enough for a death sentence. But if she goes back to Port Mafia they’ll just kill her for being a traitor. Either way, she dies. Kunikida tells Atsushi not to bother saving her, making a metaphor to a boat and saying don’t take up a cause that’ll just make the boat sink. But then that just makes him wonder why Dazai saved him.

Kunikida leaves and Atsushi is in inner turmoil to what he should do. Instead of taking her to the police, he tells Kyouka they can go whereever she wanted because she probably didn’t have the time to do stuff girls her age would want to do or go to. Like date spots, and Atsushi accidentally makes all of this a date. Kyouka blushes, and then they get going. CUTE!!! How old is Atsushi anyway? Because I don’t want to ship them if he’s way older than her. Kyouka looks about 15 maybe? Atsushi maybe a few years older, so it’s not weird right? I don’t know, I don’t wanna be gross. Then again I’m not as bad as the fujoshis that ship the older brother in Super Lovers with the kid (even though I think they’re a couple???? I’m not watching it, just from things I’ve seen). Or Madoka and Chihiro in Shounen Maid. Please don’t ship them, PLEASE……….Anyway, back to this. Yeah, it was all adorable. They did cute couple things like visit places, eat crepes, go to an arcade and get a bunny plush, and go on a ferris wheel. Everything was going perfectly fine…

Until Kyouka takes herself and Atsushi to the police station. Just like Kunikida said, she can’t go back to the Port Mafia or else she’d get killed. And if she turns herself in, she’d probably get the death sentence. She knows that, but she thinks its right because of everything she did she shouldn’t be alive. But then that’s when the bad things start when Akutagawa appears and stabs Atsushi in the back. He tells Kyouka they wouldn’t kill her because she did complete her mission. All of a sudden, Port Mafia members arrive with a big truck and they stash Atsushi in the back, and Akutagawa takes Kyouka with him.

So now things become hectic as everyone in the Agency finds out about Atsushi’s kidnapping. At first they are more worried about other work and think they should step into this problem, but Naomi calls the president over (thank god) and the president tells everyone that their main goal right now is to find and bring back Atsushi because he’s one of them. EXACTLY! So take that, Rampo!

The rest of the episode are the characters trying to find Atsushi’s location, with Rampo figuring it out in the end when they find the trucking employees killed. We actually get introduced to another character, named Chuuya. Even though the Agency has forgotten about Dazai, the show hasn’t. He has small talk with Akutagawa and then with this overly-dressed guy named Chuuya, who used to be Dazai’s partner. I thought Akutagawa was Dazai’s partner but it seemed like he was an apprentice. We learn that Dazai had taken a mission, but then he disappeared without a word and the next time the mafia heard of him they found him to be an enemy. We didn’t get anything more than that, so the mystery of Dazai’s character continues. I can’t tell what Dazai is trying to do right now, I really don’t think he’d get captured so easily. Like Chuuya said, he had to be plotting something.

Next week looks like a big showdown between Akutagawa and Atsushi! Looks like it’s going to be personal as his ill feelings towards him will most likely be about Kyouka. Even though the animation has been lazy as of late, I’m hoping the fight next episode will be as great as it looks in the preview. Great episode, let’s keep this up.