#I don't think I would be any longer interested in reading bsd if he definitely disappeared from the story–

[himi-wiz]

Hehe

Chuuya for bingo! <3

(And Dazai, if you want to.)

YOU. YOU HAD TO HUH.

Definitely don't know you anon. And therefore I can lie about it but here we go:

Dazai —

Interesting lad in the most atrocious manner possible. Admittedly I still needed to read the novels but I think Dazai is an odd character which I've never quite gotten completely even from the start of my initial bsd phase at 2014-2015. Now I'm as old as him (which is bizarre to think about) and I get what's going on, I still don't think I'll ever quite grasp what's in his head. He has this apathy and intelligence I will never take hold of as someone who understands that I am extremely an ordinary individual and chooses to remain so — being oblivious and normal — for fear that I would turn out to be as isolated as he is.

I think it's terrifying.

To be too smart and think too much of yourself, to realise you're never going to be normal for you will always reason a way out of your greatest passions and your worst nightmares. And therefore you never truly fear anything nor could you truly love something wholeheartedly either. How could you when you can't trust in anything?

I am fond of the irl author, Mr. Dazai Osamu's dedication to his work of No Longer Human which I did read through ages ago and encounter some memorable quotes. But it's only rather recently I was able to fully comprehend the sheer terror it brings as the protagonist Yozo elaborates on the despair of understanding one's role in life is inevitably meaningless, akin to an insect realising its doom to fall prey to fate in a web full of lies.

Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer "Nothing." The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.

— No Longer Human, Dazai Ozamu

And I only have pity for such a being that is unable to unlearn that despair or at the very least, be able to stop, condense and move forward with these thoughts and live with them.

Our BSD Dazai however is given a chance to do so unlike Yozo thanks to Odasaku and it brings a fond affection to see him trying his best. I hope he does find his way and learns to enjoy the difficult journey stumbling around in life. But at the same time, it'll be foolish of me to presume just because he's moving towards the light, Dazai's darkness and general sense of dissatisfaction with people and life would change.

Dazai is not kind, he is not gentle, he's inconsiderate, deplorable, utterly wretched nuisance of a man who can and will use you if he decides it's worthwhile for him to do so, otherwise he has little interest in you even if he can sees through all your struggles and how he could help you, he wouldn't, certainly not intuitively desire so.

And I much prefer that viewpoint for it's more remarkable that Dazai is choosing when he does good. And how he's actively trying to be the side that reaches out to someone else and be there for them. To let himself be tied to people he feels isolated from and be vulnerable enough to take bets and place his trust on the Armed Detective Agency (and Chuuya and Akutagawa) so he could save lives he honestly doesn't care much for. How fascinating.

And so when fans do brush that darkness aside, I can be mildly peeved. But hey, it's still valid and okay to have some fun with just comfort and softness of just wishing happiness for a character you like. It can hard to decipher these layers if you don't know where to look too. Or perhaps am I reading too deep into this? Who knows. Asagiri sure has a way of writing nuances like these and it's so delightful to unpack them.

I still don't understand Dazai on a fundamental level.

That is more of my fault as I am someone who both emotionally and socially impaired so much that I use myself as a medium to "empathise" with people. I merely mimick emotions — like I don't feel sad if someone lost a loved one, I 'force' myself to feel bad if I am that person, I play out the scenario of losing something precious to me and I take that sadness to apply it to the person.

That's how I can predict people well enough, aside from those who are far too passionate in an ideal or passion I can't understand like Kunikida, those who learn to hate everything, and those who comprehend the reasons why they hate and shift to a complete apathy, able to pinpoint all the ways they're wrong — ways they don't fit, they aren't human enough, but are ultimately far too timid and cowardly to work on why they are outsiders and maintain a distance for it's far safer this way.

Dazai is still that person who's terrified of attachment and rejection, still struggling to believe in people more than he trusts his mind and vision of the world around him. And he appears to be doing his best, so perhaps I would fall in love with his character a little more when I finish rereading No Longer Human, the dark era stuff and other bsd side stories.

For now let's see how he'll end up.

Chuuya—

I refuse to elaborate on him.

Suffer anon.

[chazukekani]

Hello, first I want to thank you for your efforts and contents. As an overseas fan, I don't have much access to BSD but thanks to you, I can enjoy the work. I've read your analysis on Singularity so I'd like to ask if you have any personal speculations on the nature of abilities/singularities. I feel that abilities are a lot like programs and singularities are computing errors.

Hello anon! My pleasure that my tiny effort can help, and it is pleased to know that you enjoy work! Thank you so much for the support and I am always grateful for that ^^ I definitely agree with you that abilities are like programmes and singularities are like computing errors. It is also noticeable in Dead Apple (let’s assume DA is canon lmao) that abilities are separable from their owners and able to achieve self-consciousness in order to fight against the characters in the movie. Also another characteristics with abilities is that there are people who cannot fully control their own abilities (ie Atsushi, Kyouka and Tsujimura etc), which makes me wonder ability could be more than just a normal programme, but also like an AI with partial autonomy/judgement.

I think what’s special with ability is that they will know how to protect their owner. For instance, when Atsushi was starving after got kicked out from the orphanage, the tiger took over Atsushi’s body such that he could live (but that is just my own interpretation). We also have Tsujimura (spoilers alert), who got saved by Shadow Tag in order to prevent her got killed by Ayatsuji’s ability. We even have Dazai, whose nullification ability is activated regardless Dazai himself would like to activate it or not (with referenced to 55 minutes).

It is as if abilities have some certain bonds, where they act as guardians for their owners.  

On the other hand, singularity is an interesting topic that worth to discuss. When I first come across the word ‘singularity’, it reminds me quantum physics. The google definition of singularity (in terms of quantum physics) is

A gravitational singularity, spacetime singularity or simply singularity is a location in spacetime where the density and gravitational field of a celestial body is predicted to become infinite by general relativity in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system.

Coincidentally, another series that is written by Asagiri (Guilty Children),it was shown that Asagiri has a grasp of quantum physics (idk how well he knows about the discipline but he said he read books about it so anyways)

Translation: Q16 I have read books about quantum physics and military weapons while writing Guilty Children. I didn’t understand books about quantum physics very well so it was actually quite tough... and of course I have read various of all the great author’s works, essays and commentaries. That was a lot of fun.

In Beast, Dazai explained that he used No Longer Human to create an Ability Singularity, which forced to connect with the canon universe in order to acquire memories from canon Dazai. 

…何故なら私は異能無効化の能力者だ。そしてその特性を利用して特異点を発生させ、世界の分断を強制接続させた。そして『本』の外の自分……つまり本来の自分の、記憶を読み取ることに成功したのだから」

Beast Chapter 3 (JP) Kindle ver. location 3328/3643

Other than the bugs that we observe in the battle between Oda and Gide, I do think singularity is something more than ‘errors’. It can be a bridge between universes, or it can be the key to unlimited power (with reference to Stormbringer). The Ability Singularity in BSD could be a chaos, but could also be an order. And this links to another problem because ‘chaos’ is a main focus in quantum physics as well (I am not able to further elaborate it because I am not a science students, but feel free to google quantum chaos), which I am not sure whether Asagiri will continue to expand the story with this direction. But still, please beware that my speculation above could be completely wrong because I am a complete outsider in terms of science. 

I may have overthought, or over-interpreted Asagiri’s plan on Ability Singularity because there is so far no indication that the story has referenced quantum physics, but I personally are very delighted if Asagiri decided to put the discipline into BSD. After I first acknowledged that Beast took place in a parallel universe, I do believe that quantum physics will be the best tool to reconcile the existence of canon and Beast universe.

Sorry for such random and baseless reply! and please correct me if I have made any mistakes!