Slow character building episodes ahoy – I suppose since we had the entire first season to more or less set the stage for the second, we must build slowly from the ground up once again. On the plus side, this let’s us not only enjoy the recently won victory over the guild that the Armed Detective Agency is enjoying, but also let’s us dig a little deeper with these characters we have spent so much time with at this point.
The way the show has chosen to split up it’s segments is now in a “two stories per episode” format, at least for 5 and 6. We’re reintroduced to the Armed Detective Agency in 5 after the three year long wait since season 2, and we also find out yet another identity to the “ninja” executive for the port mafia – she is actually Akutugawa’s sister. Considering that they seem to drop random things about her identity whenever they feel like it, I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. More interestingly, it would appear that Mori and the president of the detective agency have both ordered against open hostility on one another for the moment, despite their victory over the guild. I’m interested in the rationale or what Mori is thinking could be benefitted from a mutual, indefinite cease-fire.
Later on, we meet Lucy from the guild once again (At this point, she’s managed to show up in every season of this show which is pretty impressive for a non-essential character). It would appear she has set up shop at the nearby coffee shop that the “stray dogs” so often like to hang out and strategize at. It’s made clear that she isn’t just being employed, but actually lives there as well. Considering what happened to the guild last season, it does make sense she has nowhere left to turn. Oh, she’s also apparently mad at Atsushi for never coming back for her on the Moby Dick (He did though!! He tried, anyway.)
Kyouka’s parent’s death is finally explained, and it’s more or less how we imagined it – they were government spies, so they made many enemies and were trained assassins. Sounds familiar. That said, it didn’t take long for their checkered past to catch up to them, and as they say, nobody lives forever. Kyouka’s mother, the previous possessor of Demon Snow, was able to pass her ability onto Kyouka through a special method, albeit with an unintended caveat – she can only order Demon Snow through the use of her cell phone, which she ensures she is never separated from. Considering the lengths she’s gone through in the past, I think we already knew this. It would appear that Kyouka’s “foster mother” at the Port Mafia is the reason that Atsushi and company even came across this document in the first place – a certain act of kindness.
Lastly, Atsushi ends up going to investigate a crime in Ranpo’s place, and finds out that a man met his untimely demise after getting vaporized by an oncoming vehicle. That person was none other than his former headmaster (Yes, the one you see in the flashback ever single damn time with the bowl cut!) I’m ultimately relieved because it probably means we will never see that goddamn flashback ever again now, and strangely enough Atsushi shares my elated state! Realizing the cruelties he’s suffered at this man’s hand, he isn’t exactly mourning him and Dazai even mentions that it is ok for Atsushi to not forgive him considering the barbarism he exposed him to. Dazai does bring up a great point though – that hell has shaped him into the person he is today, for better or for worse – but mostly better!
Just please promise me we’ve seen the last of the “bowl-cut-man” flashback, please. I don’t know how much more of that I can take.
Interesting that the headmaster had enough of a heart to get flowers for the child previously under his care. I’m sure the reason he instilled such hatred in Atsushi’s heart was in a misguided attempt to prepare him for the world ahead of him in his own way, even if the way he went about it was very wrong.
Next episode title has me a bit worried – Fitzgerald rising? Uh, his broke ass is sitting at the bottom of the fucking ocean where he belongs. The only place he better be rising to is the great beyond. If it’s the signal for the other shoe to drop in this show though, I am all in. Let’s go.
