Bungo Stray Dogs Episode 33 Review: Masked Assassin

First, the President of the Armed Detective Agency is attacked, then the Port Mafia boss is stabbed in public. Dazai gets shot and now both sides are fighting against each other in order to save their leaders. And who is behind all this? Fyodor, of course, who seems to have manipulated the entire cast to get his plan into motion. Get ready, guys, because shit is getting real.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 仮面ノ暗殺者

Plot

A mysterious masked assassin, who is revealed to be the ex-Guild member Nathaniel, is on the loose and seems to be targeting gifted users. One night he attacks Fukuzawa and manages to wound him with poison that cannot be cured by Yosano’s ability. The next day he attacks Mori in the same way and Dazai realizes that Fyodor is behind all this. After tracking him down and confronting him, Dazai asks Fyodor for information. He lets him know about the poison or ‘curse’ that has infected both Fukuzawa and Mori, and that is slowly draining their lifespans and the only way to cure it is to kill one of both hosts. On top of that, Fyodor has a sniper shoot Dazai. As a result, the Agency and the Port Mafia are forced to fight one another in order to be able to cure their leaders. The Port Mafia is quicker to make a move as they have already surrounded the hospital where the President and all the members of the Armed Detective Agency are located, and as they get ready to defend the President, the elite Port Mafia force seems to be right outside their doorstep.

Episode Highlights

Fyodor’s plan was genius: I was so impressed with Fyodor’s plot and with how bloody well-written his evil plan is. He has put so much thinking into this and after seeing his first moves, we understand why he wanted to get his hands on that book with Port Mafia’s gifted users’ abilities that badly. He moved so carefully with this and came up with a plan that would literally destroy the Armed Detective Agency. He chose to infect the President with an ability that acts like a virus so Yosano’s and Dazai’s powers would have no effect on it: Yosano’s ability doesn’t work because even if she kills him the virus still remains in his body and Dazai cannot do much if he cannot touch the actual user of the ability or find a way to isolate the virus or get inside the President’s blood system or something. As if this wasn’t enough, he decides to injure Dazai as well, who seems to be posing a threat to him, and gets him out of the game since he knows that Yosano’s power will have no effect on him either. How wickedly genius is this? Fyodor, you have my absolute respect.

Survival of the fittest: Am I the only one that thinks that the Agency is in a really tough pickle in this fight? I mean, honestly, I have no idea how they will be able to fight off Chuuya without Dazai. Probably they will have Kenji act as a tank in the front lines and then hopefully with Rampo’s help they must have some sort of plan figured out.

Wait… Did Nathaniel kill Kyouka’s parents? When I was watching the scene of Akutagawa explaining how Nathaniel killed his victims, it just hit me that he must be the assassin that killed Kyouka’s parents in the past, right? I mean his powers and the whole blood control situation matches perfectly. Wait until Kyouka hears about this, that priest is a goner.

Themes & Trivia

Nathaniel Hawthorne: He was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. Much of Hawthorne’s writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral metaphors with an anti-Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. Akutagawa refers to him as irmão, which means ‘brother’ in Latin, probably because he knows that he used to be a priest?

Comments

There were a few Dead Apple references in this one for anyone that didn’t notice, like the mention of ‘Mukurotoride’ and Dazai eating an apple. I was actually quite happy with Dazai’s and Fyodor’s encounter as we got to learn that Fyodor is super serious about getting his hands on that book, so if you have actually watched Dead Apple, his story arc about how much he really wants to kill all the gifted users makes much more sense now. I wonder why though. Also might I add a fun fact here for you? Did you know that “Mukurotoride” translates to a pile of corpses or even better a corpse tower?. On another note, I have to say that the avatars in Mori’s phone for his co-workers are absolutely adorable.

People are sinful and foolish.

I think the next few episodes are going to be heavily action based since all of the main characters will basically fight each other at the same time. Oh boy, this is going to be good.

NEXT TIME: Cannibalism (Part 1)