#Light novel bungo stray dogs

[lotus-pear]

the day i picked up dazai or smth idk i've never read it

[elizaelisabethelisa]

Hello wonderful people.... I have a little problem i want to buy the light novel of the manga Bungo Stary Dogs but i can't find it to buy, the only copies are on fucking U.S

Can someone sent a link to buy the books in UK pls

I will kiss him or her or them

[originalartblog]

Chuuya week 2024 - Day 4 - Human

[Storm Bringer]

[sorcerersandskillusers]

I want to talk about one of the most terrifying and interesting bsd characters who almost no fan remembers.

This character nearly tore down the ADA without ever getting involved herself, yet the entire fandom has ignored her because of her terrible anime adaptation.

Who am I talking about?

Nobuko Sasaki

If you haven't read Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam, then you probably don't even know who this character is, in the anime she is watered down to the lovesick girlfriend of an actual villain, and you probably dismissed her immediately. But in the light novel, we get to see how dangerous and cunning she really is, to the point she nearly gets the better of Dazai and almost causes the ADA to be shut down. (Fukuzawa says he would have closed the agency if they hadn't caught her)

In terms of intelligence I'd put her on the same level as Mori, just slightly below the super human genius characters i.e. Dazai, Fyodor and Ranpo

The Azure Apostle

For those who don't remember, Sasaki was the Azure Apostle, a mysterious figure who challenged the agency with several horrifying cases, which would all lead to mass casualties if the agency failed to stop them. These were; uncovering an underground organ smuggling operation (which the agency failed to stop and which massively hurt their reputation) stopping a bombing of Yokohama port which could have killed hundreds of people, and preventing a commercial aeroplane from crashing into the city (this was not included in the anime)

Each of the people, who committed these crimes, had no Idea they were being manipulated and thought it was their own idea the whole time. There was no evidence that anyone else had been involved at all, and the agency had no way to connect her to any of the crimes. And she even makes the genius move of framing Dazai, the mysterious new member with suspicious knowledge of the underworld and a hidden past, as the true culprit.

In fact, she only made one mistake, challenging Dazai. If Dazai had been basically anyone else, they would have been cornered and arrested, but since Dazai's mind works on a level even master strategists can't imagine, he was able to turn the tables on her.

But even after Dazai sees through her plans, the ADA still has to act exactly the way she wants them too and stop the plane crash. Even when they know they're being manipulated, they still have to do exactly what she wanted.

Finally, after Dazai and Kunikida confront her and get her to admit to being behind all those crimes, even then they are powerless to stop her.

Even after being involved with so many massive crimes, Sasaki herself hadn't done anything illegal, so within the law the ADA is completely powerless to stop her.

They can't arrest her, and if they try then the agency will be put in even more danger as will many innocent lives. She has completely trapped the ADA, and even Dazai in a choice to follow the law and let her go or take justice into their own hands and prove they will stoop as low as she did.

In the end, there she has them in a perfect deadlock, let her continue her mission, or kill her themselves. Both are bad outcomes for the ADA.

In the end, Dazai has her killed by using a third party (Rokuzo) to shoot her, so the agency can't be blamed for her murder, though this ends her plans it deeply scars Kunikida and shakes his resolve in his ideals.

The trauma from this event still haunts Kunikida to this day, we see that when he is affected by Q's curse, Sasaki is who he sees.

So thats the Azure Apostle, a terrifying master mind who nearly brought down the Armed Detective Agency, but now lets look at the other side of this character.

Nobuko Sasaki Herself

We know several things about Sasaki as a character and her history from the light novel. That she was a brilliant criminal psychologist and was internationally recognised despite being so young

,that she was the ex-lover of the Azure King and the real mastermind behind his plans, and that she had very little motivation of her own.

That's not meant to be an insult to the character, she says herself that she never really had much direction in life, even with her incredible intelligence she never really had anything she wanted to achieve.

But the Azure King was the opposite, he had powerful drive and strong ideals, he wanted to punish criminals who couldn't be touched by the law and when he failed to change the law as a bureaucrat, she offered him an alternative.

A very important thing here is that neither of them were manipulating or forcing the other into this path, as far as we see they genuinely loved each other, each providing something the other couldn't, Sasaki her mind and the Azure King his drive.

When the Azure king died, Sasaki had no path of her own to follow, so she simply kept following his, even though she doesn't seem to have really cared about his cause.

All of this creates a very unique character, you can't say she was driven by revenge, because she wasn't really driven at all. It's more like she was running on momentum, she had chosen a path to follow and could not stop even though there was nothing pushing her down it any more.

She's a perfect antithesis of Kunikida and was the best possible villain a light novel about him could have had.

A man who brings his ideals into reality with his own hands against a woman who uses others to enforce ideals that were never hers to begin with.

Anyway, I made this because Sasaki is criminally underrated in this fandom, If you haven't read "Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam" I highly recommend it, I've only put a tiny fraction of the amazing story here.

[kiqilinn]

Anyflip links to complete bsd light novels

dazai’s entrance exam - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/vpeu/

dark era - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/pcxl/

untold origins - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/ghzd/

55 minutes - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/ppxc/

dead apple - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/wvkq/

beast - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/vaqg/

fifteen - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/msym/

stormbringer - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/gbxf/

i got a hold of these while z library was still in it’s full glory and thought i’d share! the translation on these is by yen press, if you want a site where you can download them dm me, send any complaints to my ask box :3 i also recommend checking out @/bsd-bibliophile’s website for fan translations 

[originalaccountname]

there is so much to unpack in such a little excerpt. This is from the exchange between Mori and Oda near the start of Dark Era.

[ukumiii]

children of the war

[wiltedrain]

Doodles

[kokoasci]

event horizon

[mackerel22]

Stormbringer!Dazai: My kink is doing stupid shit and watching Chuuya speed-run the five stages of grief as he realises that he still wants to do yaoi stuff with me.

[moux-xe]

stormbringer charms incoming…. ppsssstttt….

[lotus-pear]

smoke break

[my-hyperfixations]

ASAGIRI!! DROP A LIGHT NOVEL ABOUT THE CASE WHERE RANPO AND POE MET AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!

[originalartblog]

[Storm Bringer]

“In fact, I was against using Adam for such a frivolous investigation from the very start,” Dr. Wollstonecraft began in a huff as she crossed her arms again. “The government is always like this. They send a mechanical detective, then blow him up once they’re done to keep any secret information from getting out. [..] I suppose this is the government’s way of saying we ought to neglect science in favor of human life!”

Dr. Wollstonecraft, ma'am, I think your ethically-dubious opinions on science are better saved for other audiences.

Dr. Wollstonecraft (aka Mary Shelley) based on @videogamelover99's design!

[sorcerersandskillusers]

One of the most heartbreaking scenes in The Dark Era is seeing Dazai trying so desperately to convince Oda to live. Seeing Dazai clutching at straws, repeating back the advice he must have heard a thousand times at him, just to try and get through to Oda even though he knows already that it would never work.

And the worst part is, how through this whole scene Oda is acting just like Dazai, he has the same emptiness that Dazai normally only sees in himself. So now Dazai has to go through the impossible task of convincing HIMSELF to live, something he has been unable to do all these years.

I looked at Dazai. “There isn’t anything, Dazai. It’s all over. Everything. Whatever else happens now is meaningless—just like what I’m about to do. Am I wrong?” “Odasaku…,” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording, but—don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something…

And then him telling Oda why he joined the mafia, even though it was clearly something he never wanted to tell anyone, in the vague hope that it just might convince Oda to stop.

Hey, Odasaku, do you know why I joined the Mafia?” I stared at him. We had known each other for a long time, but he’d never even attempted to talk about that. “I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence—close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that…” Dazai paused before continuing, “…I would be able to find something—a reason to live.”

But he can't do it, Oda is too far gone at this point, he lost not only the children, but his dream. He was in unimaginable grief and suffering and just wanted things to end.

I looked at him; he looked back at me. “I wanted to be a novelist,” I said. “I thought I wouldn’t deserve such a life if I killed someone during a mission. That’s why I never killed anyone. But that’s all in the past. There’s only one thing I want now.” “Odasaku!” I began to walk away. Dazai yelled out, but I didn’t turn around. Heading west, I started my journey.

Oda's listlessness is almost a perfect mirror of Dazai in the bar after Ango has betrayed them.

“I’m not sad. I knew from the very beginning,” Dazai said. His face was a blank mask now. “It didn’t matter whether you were with the Special Division for Unusual Powers. I always lose the things I don’t want to lose the most. That’s why I don’t feel anything anymore. The moment you get your hands on something worth going after, you lose it. That’s just how things are. There is nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging a life of suffering.” I stared at Dazai. We had known each other for a while, but this was the first time he’d ever opened up about himself. I could see a thorn the size of a harpoon wedged deeply into his life.

This is why I say Oda is the only character to ever truly understand Dazai, because he saw the part of Dazai that he kept most hidden from the world, he knew Dazai's unending loneliness and emptiness. And in the end, he was consumed by the very same thing. But before he died, he did what only he could do, and gave Dazai a way to escape that emptiness.

[alexkiyama]

The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency in a nutshell