Bungo Stray Dogs Episode 31 Review: Part 1 Herurisu/Part 2 Portrait of a Father

Kyouka finally makes her first appearance in this season and we got to learn more about her past and her ability Demon Snow. Atsushi is also in the spotlight in this episode as we experience his relationship with the headmaster of his orphanage.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 其の一「ヘルリス！」　其の二「父の肖像」)

Plot

Atsushi and Kyouka visit the café under the Armed Detective Agency where Lucy now works. After blabbering some things about revenge to Atsushi, she gives them a request that was left for Kyouka that wants her to find a briefcase with money and transfer it to a specific location. As Atsushi and Kyouka head over to the port, they realize that some information is missing from the case file, since it is not specified in which yacht the briefcase is located exactly. They start looking around when Lucy appears and lets Atsushi know that she has the missing page with all the information, while she explains to him why she wants revenge in the first place, and long story short, they end up apologizing to each other. Later on, they manage to find the briefcase with no money inside but a report with confidential information about Kyouka’s parents’ murder case. It ends up that Demon Snow was not the one that killed her parents after all, which makes Kyouka realize that her ability is the gift of her mother to her and that Demon Snow only wanted to protect her. In the second part of the episode, Atsushi is forced to take over a case from Rampo, where he ends up realizing that his headmaster was killed in a car accident and that he is somehow related to it.

Episode Highlights

Atsushi is becoming a ladies man: It’s quite clear to see that Lucy and Kyouka are into Atsushi at this point of the story and obviously Atsushi has no clue about anything since he is a naïve airhead, who attracts young ladies with his ‘I will protect you and save you’ charm. Although I found the scene with Lucy and their clothes quite funny, I thought that she was unnecessary in that story and that it should have been more focused on Kyouka and her past.

Demon Snow is misunderstood: It’s great to finally learn more about Kyouka’s past and see her grow a little bit as a character. Seeing that her parents were working for the Special Operations Division of the government and how they were murdered by this mysterious gifted user that had the ability to use blood for mind control, really made the story come together nicely. It shows that Demon Snow did not kill her parents from her own volition and that she is her mother’s gift to Kyouka in a weird yet heartwarming way. You can see it in the beginning of the episode as well that Demon Snow just wants to protect Kyouka and make her happy in every way possible, even if that means bringing her more soy sauce or killing her own family… On that note, I have to add that it was so nice of Ozaki to do all that for Kyouka; she really loves her as a mother as well.

That hell raised you well: I was not very impressed with this story arc to be honest. Yes, it was kind of touching and yet again nice to see Atsushi growing as a character as well, but I think the story was not paced properly or something, because for some reason something felt weird. If the Headmaster truly loved him and tried to protect him, which he did, don’t get me wrong, wasn’t it a bit too harsh to torture him like that?

Themes & Trivia

More about Kyouka: Her name means ‘unite, cooperate’, ‘capital city’, ‘village’ or ‘apricot’ and ‘fragrance’ or ‘increase’. She is named after Kyōka Izumi who was actually a male Japanese author, his real name being Izumi Kyōtarō. He is best known for a characteristic brand of Romanticism preferring tales of the supernatural heavily influenced by works of the earlier Edo period in Japanese arts and letters, which he tempered with his own personal vision of aesthetics and art in the modern age. In reality, Kyōka Izumi was the protégé of Kōyō Ozaki and admired the latter throughout his entire life, pursuing a career in literature due to Kōyō, which explains greatly the relationship between Kyouka and Ozaki in the anime.

Comments

There are two things that bothered me in this episode: first, the scene of Atsushi swimming and then suddenly his leg is stuck in a mooring chain. Come on, it wouldn’t be so easy for his leg to get suddenly trapped in there. And second, the voice of the Headmaster did not suit his character at all. Since the design came before the voice actor, it felt like they took a bad decision with making him sound like a very old guy.

When someone’s father dies, they tend to cry.

Dazai is such a sneaky little bastard but has such wonderful quotes. It was nice of the Armed Detective Agency to give this case to Atsushi and make him realize the value of his father-like figure. Our boys are growing up.

NEXT TIME: Fitzgerald Rising

The series is part of our weekly anime previews!