"aforementioned Fanart Doesn't Exist And So Cannot Harm You" Fanart:

26-29- Ango’s epic plot armor (and other complaints)

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Welcome back to the Anti-Dazai Series! I think I should just acknowledge that I have no posting schedule at this point. But the Anti-Dazai Series isn’t discontinued— it’s just taking me longer to create than I was hoping it would. Anyway. Onto a rundown of Dazai Crimes™ in these next four chapters.

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When we last left off, Dazai said he now will get the government involved in this conflict. I sure hope he does this in a normal sensible way, like by explaining what’s going on to them and requesting backup, and not in a Dazai Way, which will most likely endanger people’s lives.

We now return to our protagonist, Atsushi.

After getting scolded (and slapped) by Dazai after the Q incident, Atsushi decides to stay in the agency’s headquarters rather than to go out and risk messing things up again. Kouyou is still being held there, and she asks if he’s here because he “commit[ed] some error that made [him] scamper away from the front lines.” 

Upon hearing that question, he makes a face indicating that she’s right, and when she questions him further, he says “I… I was just trying to protect them all…” while having flashbacks to Naomi and Haruno being injured post-Q fight last chapter. 

If Dazai had chosen something better to say other than “get over it” [the exact quote was mentioned in part 20-25, but it was something similar enough to that], Atsushi wouldn’t be feeling so useless right now. Because he did try his best, and there was nothing he could have done to avoid that outcome. The only person who can do anything about Q’s ability is Dazai, and Dazai was not there with Atsushi at the time to stop it from happening.

Of course, I’m into blaming him for not being there, but I am blaming him for not properly comforting Atsushi. The “tough love” approach clearly failed with Akutagawa, and even though he’s being a lot nicer to Atsushi, in that last Q scene we see him somewhat slip into a tough love approach again. And we see in this chapter that Atsushi is not handling it well, and is taking it quite hard.

Now back to Dazai. Let’s see how his government negotiations are going. 

Seems like he’s meeting with his old friend Ango. I sure hope this doesn’t turn violent..—nope, he’s now pointing a gun at him unprovoked. 

Well at least it can’t get any worse— ah wow it got worse. Dazai just staged a car crash. There is absolutely no way Ango survives this. 

I’m gonna do something I’ve never done before on the Anti-Dazai Series and include a screenshot of the manga, because the amount of plot armor Ango will need to survive this is. a whole lot. I’d really like to elaborate on this scene, but I’m too busy being amazed that Ango survives this.

There is absolutely no way Ango survived that. If BSD didn’t use anime physics, Ango would be very, very dead.

There is a lack of Dazai for a bit, as Kyoka gets captured by the police, Q gets captured by Lovecraft, and Nathaniel abandons the Guild, pushing Francis to speed up their plan of attack. 

But Dazai returns just in time for the Q incident (the actual Q incident, not just a mini fight by the train station). Which is good, ‘cause he’s exactly the guy we need. 

But of course, Dazai can’t handle a city-wide crisis without messing with people first, so when Kunikida approaches him asking about what this mysterious hand-shaped mark that appeared on him is, rather than tying him down to an infirmary bed and sedating him, he chains him up to a chair and simply watches as he has the magical equivalent of PTSD flashbacks [if I’m interpreting these panels correctly]. It is later revealed that not only did Dazai sit around and watch, but he filmed Kunikida for entertainment. I’ll get back to that later, once it’s mentioned in the manga, but keep that in mind.

Meanwhile, Atsushi is fighting for his life out there. With the help of Lucy, Atsushi escapes ((ALSO. It’s really not mentioned enough, but Lucy was the one who originally came up with the idea of the mafia and agency working together to take down the Guild. I’m pretty sure the anime changed it so that it was Atsushi’s idea, but in the manga Lucy suggests it to Atsushi in this scene. I think she deserves more credit than we give her. She’s a pretty cool character.))

Atsushi makes it to the ground safely, and now has the epic quest ahead of him of delivering Q’s doll to Dazai. Unfortunately, Mark is still shooting at him, and manages to hit him, shattering both of his legs . As Atsushi lies on the ground,with two broken legs, reaching for the doll, Dazai spawns out of nowhere and grabs it. Then he reveals that he set up a smoke screen beforehand, and he activates it now.

Sure, it would have been a lot more convenient if he activated it before Atsushi’s legs got shattered, but whatever. What can you expect from this guy, other than this. 

And that’s it for this week’s chapter of the Anti-Dazai Series!! Join me next time when I’ll probably have enough content to stop grouping multiple chapters together like this, because I wanted to include chapter 30 in this entry too, but I scrolled through it and every other panel was Dazai, so I was like “nope! That’s way too much work for today!” and decided that that’ll be a problem for another day.

re: Nikolai: nah i get what you mean by earning. There is no clear A->B->C that would course-correct early any assumptions readers may get from one appearance to another. Given having to hash out losing sleep over how legit is anything he says is, on every installment readers run the chance of reasoning their way into a perfectly valid read - only for the author to slap it down with a different conclusion. And yeah, mismanagement of expectations happens 100% because of lack of screentime, but doesn't this sort of look… anthropic principle-esque? i mean, when the reader peeks into the plot, Nikolai can only pop up if he's relevant to it. And for the character to be relevant, they do have to move it forward somehow (= plot device), or do things with the core themes and ideas (which tbh is a blind spot to me, but the vibe i'm getting is: he's only tangentially related, hence short screentime).

...themes of the story... ...endless pursuit of freedom... ...has flawor but it's bad... …trash opinions but poorly writt--

CONDEMNED TO BE FREE

-Jean Paul Satre super rough TL;DR: having any preference at all <=> making a decision. +If the only question in philosophy that matters is suicide (- Camus!!!), then continuing to exist is already a made decision +If one is not free, they would be unable to make decisions. but see above. +as a bonus not making a decision is a decision in an of itself ("living in bad faith")

if one assumes BSD is blasting us with absurdism/theme of "meaning/purpose of one's life" - as many wonderful tumblr analysts point out, of course Nikolai would be [vague hand gestures]! Existentialism is a completely different branch of philosophy/cluster of attitudes, of course he's jobbing! of course it comes off weird; freedom if basically already solved, as a concept! He just circles and circles and circles never reaching this point! And… now that "perfunctory fact check" lead me to good ol' Wisecrack, they bring up an interesting point: "MUH FREEDOM" at it's rawest conflicts very hard with social reality (and thus, goes against the grain of whatever social commentary Asagiri is going for, by the virtue of not giving a shit about any of that; the underdog is the character who disagrees with the author).

…where were we? ah yes, funni comic book about writer twinksonas. As for characters relegated to plot progression units: there is only a limited amount of screentime to be had; if the manga's flavor is unbreakable plot armors, instead of getting killed off characters will be shuffled to the side; it's not plotted too thoroughly (see also: nary a Fukuchi poster in any of the earlier chapters), so naturally the author will flip thru a rolodex for setups and resolutions that don't have to be properly introduced again. For sake of the core idea, why is plotdevicification bad? I haven't actually read Bleach, but didn't Tite Kubo like the characters introduced in anime fillers so much they occasionally popped up in canon later? When you put it this way, the writing style does have that energy. But without the meme/gossip of "the cure to writers block is new characters".

rephrase of previous query: what would be the in-canon proof that Asagiri Gets the essence of Gogol and is in dialogue with it? (and what would be the absolute worst you can imagine him do?) re: roots: On one hand: so what you liked is the introduction/comedy part of a comic before jokes run out and Cerberus Syndrome Serious Businesses-up the narrative. On the other: doesn't it kind of fit the in-story events? up to Cannibalism you could place arbitrary windows of unknown time between most of events. Even between Fitzgerald arriving and Moby Dick infiltration you could stretch it out a bit, as negotiations continue to break down, plans are made to capture Q etc. But with DoA, what ADA interfaces with is the tail end of the plan, where all the rapid, loud plays are backloaded to. As such, pace of the plot mirrors the hurried scramble of the focus characters. This is why demon duo were relegated to the comedy interlude: they're the only ones of the main characters/monster of the week faction for whom time passes like molasses. If played out properly, post-climax of DoA should give space for cleanup of loose threads (being detailed would slow down the perception of speed; i've seen a piece of writing advice that went for slow moments, use long, verbose, descriptive phrasing. high stress is short. fast. punchy.) or to decompress - if only because it wouldn't make sense for the characters to go brr at full speed for this long.

Also i've noticed that the manga gets unpleasant when one tracks details i.e. characters chapter to chapter to chapter. It is best when one vibes with (≠ focuses on) what's happening in the moment within the chapter. As for clusterfucks: doesn't this mean that his initial setups are delicious, but as more details are added all the flaws become more apparent? the mystery of 'what's in the box'; whatever the answer is, it's never as satisfying as the possibility space of all the ways the wave function can collapse, so to speak?

Asagiri researches everything for BSD. You obsess over Gogol alone. this skews perspectives

can we form a coup against asagiri and make you the writer instead? genuinely... I am not taking the Fyodor immortal information well.. please help............................ ( ´，_ゝ` )

Oh, I would absolutely not do BSD well either. I just wish Asagiri had stuck to his roots more. He was a great comedy writer, and the beginning of the story was great for it. It's the action and Death Note stuff he can't seem to get mastery of. But for the immortal part: I'm not entirely sold that Fyodor's immortal, yet. It seems like yet another twists that will twist to reveal oh, shocker, he faked his memories to confuse Sigma/the ADA... or something. Could very well be immortal, but not 100% guaranteed.

haven't paid theory-grade attention to the plot, but how about just… talking him out of it? 1) there was an amazing theory way back that dove deep into why fukuchi is so… disliked by the fandom; with the tl;dr being (amongst others! <3): "he keeps subverting expectations" - NOT having a final boss fight is 100% more of that. he did go "you have 5mins to suss out my real motives". Season with "in middle of the fight villainous monologue ranpo wakes up and wisely keeps quiet as we works out all the bits"/"atsushi joins with the actual answer clenched in his teeth, cue drama" to taste 2) teruko and fukuchi go way back, given fuku calls the other fuku 'sonny' in the flashback. the request in [villain origin story] flashback can be read as "stop (pointless) deaths", two fukus chapter has the "saving your comrades from death and ending the war, are two different things." => the objective is End-of-Death scenario* (or perhaps, some other form of 'making the world unchanging'?) why? - has to fuck with atsushi's heard harder than "world peace (with a side of totalitarian dystopia)"; thus the goal has to be something he'd personally approve of (world peace being too vague and far-off vs no orphans ever), which could potentially overwrite the means used to get there - goal smaller than (the current) world domination angle would create too much noise - escalate the stakes even harder like a proper animu * BSD makes me keep thinking in SCP Foundation terms. It's quite the assist here, as this subplot tends to have Heroic Optics to it.

so i’ve been thinking

i know, dangerous

in all honesty, what is our cast of characters supposed to do about Fukuchi..?

i’ve already made my rant analysis (that you can read here if you’re interested) about how Fukuchi is really just an old man with a time traveling stabby stick that makes for a horrible OP villain. up until now, when presented with such a crisis, either soukoku or shin soukoku will partner up and defeat the big bad… or at least they had weaknesses, like Dostoy not anticipating Dazai was going to find him at the end of the cannibalism arc, or how most of his henchmen and underlings were eventually foiled or defeated to come to a satisfying conclusion that set us up for the next story beat. even Ranpo has his weaknesses, and his whole character is centered around knowing everything

well, we know for a fact that that’s not going to happen this time considering our usual duos and their friends are having some technical difficulties at the moment...

so that makes me think…

who is left to fight at this point..?

obviously we have Fukuzawa, who is currently fighting, and Atsushi is... around. but, the character on my mind the most at this point is Mori, since he’s been missing for quite a long time now. this by itself isn’t a big deal considering side characters often go literal years without any story time. however, this becomes a bit more interesting considering what’s happening to the rest of the Mafia and the world right now in bsd

so, i’m going to analyze some pieces that might be added to this 4d chess board of a story line. including more than just Mori. however, i’ll be talking about Mori quite a bit in this post, like almost half of it actually, so if you don’t feel like reading this, that’s fine

🔺minor spoiler warning for chapters 30/31, 50, and 84, and Dead Apple and Stormbringer. also spoilers for basically the entire current arc up to the most recent chapter as of writing this (ch 105) since i talk about most of the main events/situations🔻

I’ll start by taking a moment to talk about the European android everyone knows and loves(?) from Stormbringer…

Adam Frankenstein

Ah yes, the android, the myth, the legend, and the being that made me cringe so hard i got face cramps the first time I read him chewing and swallowing multiple pieces of gum like candy. That Adam.

We never see him or even hear of him in any other part of the story, including the main manga. He’s kind of just in Stormbringer and never brought up again, supposedly living somewhere in Europe doing android detective things. We haven’t even gotten a hint or any foreshadowing that he might show up in the main story, either. The reasons I think he may show up now are kind of simple to be honest.

He’s an android. That’s it. He’s, y’know, not made of flesh… And he doesn’t have blood.

What makes blood important right now? The vampires. Considering we know that Bram can transform a human, alive or otherwise, into one of his minions by ingesting their blood, we can probably assume that this is how it works for the other vampires as well. Therefore, Adam is at a major advantage against such an enemy since 1. his body is made of metal that couldn’t be damaged by Piano Man’s wire guillotine or regular bullets and survived the heat of Chuuya’s first Corruption with minimal damage, and 2. he doesn’t have blood. He does have this blue substance that I assume acts something like oil or fuel for his body, but since he’s most definitely not human, this doesn’t count as blood for him. He can’t be turned into a vampire. I don’t even think Fyodor could hack him or put a virus into his system, like he did to the Moby Dick (which is technically an ability that got turned into a mechanical ship). If anything, the vampires would just break their fangs trying to bite into his neck.

Since he’s in Europe, which is where our two jail kings and their entourage are, it’s more likely that Adam will appear in the jail scene with Dazai and Dostoy. I’d honestly be happy to see this because it would be interesting to see how he and Chuuya would interact now after so many years apart if Chuuya is ever cured of his, y’know, vampirism. Since he most definitely isn’t going to just die. It would also introduce a new character for people who haven’t read Stormbringer, which could reignite interest in this god forsaken arc for those of us who have given up on getting more than a few cliffhangers and a reminder that Fukuchi sucks every new chapter (trust me, I feel you).

Moving on to another semi-short analysis for a character we haven’t seen outside of light novels. And the mildly disappointing adaption of one said novel.

Shirase Buichirou

Another character who is also in Europe, specifically London, is Shirase. At the end of Stormbringer, he and Chuuya parted ways on somewhat good terms when Shirase heard of a group called the Stray Sheep in Europe, which he joined. Nothing has been heard of him since, similar to Adam. The only reasons I bring him up here is that 1. he’s in Europe, same as Adam and the jail kings, and 2. he is also connected to Chuuya (and is familiar with Dazai, to some degree, but this isn’t important).

I’m hesitant to say he’ll appear in the story considering we truly have no idea what the state of the BSD world is right now. Japan is overrun with vampires, and there’s probably nobody left there who hasn’t been bitten unless they’re a major character in the story (that hasn’t already been bitten). We know that the vampires have been moving out by disguising themselves with sunglasses and stuff to hide their eyes and complexion and getting on planes. Where those planes went to, we only know it’s somewhere overseas. There’s also mentions of fictional countries that only exist within the BSD world, similar to Kenji’s home town being a fictional one from a novel written by the irl Kenji. Fukuchi mentions he “needs to control half the nations’ armies” in order to carry out whatever plan he has, and it’s probably safe to say this has already come to fruition since he threatened to set the vampire army in motion if One Order wasn’t unlocked.

The likelihood of a character like Shirase appearing without being a vampire is much, much lower than Adam, and for more reasons than just because he’s a regular human. Shirase has no ability and is not named after an author or any other real-life person (that I know of), therefore it’s very unlikely he’ll be revealed to have one unless he wields an ability weapon like Fukuchi’s sword. Which is also highly unlikely. Given these conditions, he’s probably already been turned into a vampire along with the rest of the organization he joined. Another possibility for his inclusion is just to be killed off (by, perhaps, a vampire Chuuya). Or he might make a joint appearance with Adam, but I still doubt he’ll be a major character unless he’s there to die to further the plot.

Not to mention Asagiri has mentioned many times that Chuuya’s story is a long one that’s full of hardships, so perhaps one of those hardships may just be having to kill an old friend.

Sorry Shirase fans, but that’s just my thoughts on the matter.

From here on, I’ll be discussing Mori and how he’s appeared and disappeared throughout major story arcs and how he’s interacted with the ADA since the cannibalism arc. I know he’s apparently a controversial character to talk about because of his ability and the comments he makes about underage girls and whatever, so if you don’t feel like reading this part, that’s fine.

In case you’re interested in another character appearance, I have added a few honorary mentions at the bottom of this post.

Mori Ougai

Port Mafia Boss. Underground doctor. Ex-military doctor. A third of the Tripartite Framework. And one half of the first version of soukoku before it was known as soukoku.

His titles honestly don’t mean much to me as the only thing he continuously claims to motivate him is his position as the Boss, which is reasonable as his entire livelihood is dependent on the organization and its success. He fills his role well as a clear villain character with extremely black if not straight up non-existent morals, which we get plenty of examples of during the Dark Era, the Guild arc, and even the Cannibalism arc. The currently arc also proves that he’s both willing to provide some aid to the ADA, as well as make manipulative requests of them despite the horrible position they’re in currently for his own potential benefit. He is truly, wholeheartedly, an evil character.

What I want to focus on the most is his hand in moving the pieces on the chess board, so to speak. We know that Dazai and Dostoy are both sitting on the board, presumably in control of every piece, but is that really true? Remember, Dazai is only the way he is because Mori manipulated and taught him to be that way, which we can see from the parallels in how they act when making threats or doing something morally wrong. The comparison between Dazai’s attitude and Mori’s in chapter 30 is telling enough, seeing that Mori’s expression when he murdered the previous Boss 8 years ago (as well as when he talks with Hirotsu in this chapter) is almost identical to the one Dazai makes as he says his thinly veiled threat to do the same to Mori. The anime makes these expressions even more similar than they are in the manga, but I take everything studio bones does with a heavy grain of salt at this point… And not just with BSD

The last time we saw Mori was when he was mentioned in chapter 91 as the liaison who informed Tanizaki and Kenji that it was time to come out of hiding. He appeared normal and not infected by the vampire virus, which isn’t much of a surprise to me. Stormbringer showed that he’s more than capable of avoiding death, and by proxy, avoiding the master assassin Verlaine. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume he was able to avoid the hive mind army of vampires that are just regular soldiers, and most of the ability users that have been infected are mafioso who Mori is very familiar with. However, whether or not he’ll intervene in the prison arc is not what I plan to discuss here.

The previous two characters would only make sense to appear in the prison because of their relationship to Chuuya and their location. Mori is Chuuya’s Boss, sure, and sure he probably wants to keep Dazai alive and on his radar, but Mori is still in Japan and knows that Meursault isn’t a place to be taken lightly.

No, I think Mori is about to become a player in the battle against Fukuchi.

My evidence isn’t necessarily anything concrete or even any foreshadowing, such as with chapter 84 when it was pretty obvious that Akutagawa was going to show up to aid Atsushi when he was saying he was all alone, or back in chapter 31 where it was obvious that soukoku was going to reunite for a big fight.

Fukuzawa, so far, has been the only person capable of standing up against Fukuchi alone and not being beaten within seconds (except Tachihara, but, well… yknow). So this alone is interesting to me because Fukuzawa is one of the strongest fighters in the ADA, and arguably one of the strongest fighters in the entire story considering his ability has nothing to do with his raw swordsmanship and martial arts skills. Keeping that small fact in mind, I want to jog your memory of the battle that happened in chapter 50 between Fukuzawa and Mori. Both of them are afflicted with the cannibalism virus, which is probably causing them to feel horrible with symptoms, but they still face off in a 1v1 that looks a little unfair. Mori has his ability, Elise, that does whatever he tells it to do and is basically a highly skilled and deadly combat ability. Fukuzawa, while still an ability user, only has his sword and his physical talents. His ability is a support ability that works on his subordinates, he can’t use it to fight like Mori or Fukuchi. However, he still holds his ground extremely well and even destroys Elise within minutes if not seconds of the fight starting, and Fukuzawa deals the fatal blow to Mori first. Even though Mori also severely wounds Fukuzawa just seconds later, it’s more important that this fight showed us that they are practically equal in combat skill. Not to mention Natsume makes an appearance to tell the two of them to stop fighting since both of their organizations need to survive to uphold the Tripartite Framework, which is something they both agree to disagree on basically.

There’s also the events of Dead Apple where, while under the effects of Shibusawa’s fog, Mori and Fukuzawa are fighting their own abilities and struggling. However, when they meet and switch opponents, they easily take down the other’s ability. They even share a few lines of dialogue that shows they’re familiar with each other’s fighting styles and tricks, similar to their explosive meeting in chapter 30 during the Guild Arc.

Now let’s look at the situation Fukuzawa is in right now. His subordinates are in all danger, and the only one that could potentially be coming to his aid is Atsushi, which is a possibility that I’ll mention at the end of this post. However, doesn’t this setup of our protagonists in a life-or-death situation with no help in sight, seem a little familiar to you?

Dazai was surrounded by soldiers in chapter 31 when Chuuya arrived to (begrudgingly) help him out, on Mori’s orders. Dazai was literally dead in Dead Apple when Chuuya showed up to punch him in the face (deserved) to save him.

Atsushi rarely wins on his own, but with Akutagawa’s help and the singularity created by their combined abilities, they’re able to defeat almost any enemy. And when Atsushi was desperate for help in chapter 84, Akutagawa arrived, even if it was on Dazai’s orders.

Fukuzawa is currently losing the fight against the OP time traveling stabby stick wielding grandpa, putting him in a dire situation of trying to save the ADA while not dying in the process. So, will Mori come out from wherever he’s hiding to provide aid to Fukuzawa? Will zenki soukoku come back and parallel the other soukoku’s reuniting/working together to defeat the big bad? It’s hard to say, honestly, but I do believe it’s entirely possible considering Mori has been strangely missing in the story after agreeing to aid the ADA. Well, the ADA needs aid. Badly. And it’s about time they finally got some.

I think Fukuzawa and Mori have the potential to defeat Fukuchi together considering their both equal in strength, so perhaps putting their finely tuned skills together is what will prove to be our deus ex machina that defeats Fukuchi’s self-induced deus ex machinas that are honestly getting pretty damn tiring at this point.

There’s also the fact that Mori had originally agreed to aid the ADA on the condition that one of their members transfers to the Mafia, so perhaps Mori showing up to aid Fukuzawa will be a manipulation tactic to force them to agree to let him choose who he wants to join, since he only actually wants Yosano out of the deal. However, it’s possible that maybe Tanizaki will be the one to change organizations? He did offer to go in Yosano’s stead in chapter 65 when the deal was originally proposed by Mori, who straight up lied about what Fukuzawa told him over the phone that the one person Mori couldn’t choose was Yosano. Mori is a very, very smart man, so he probably knows that if he forces the ADA into enough of a corner under the guise of helping them, he can get what he wants out of them as well. He could also allow the majority/some of the ADA members to die or come close to force Yosano to heal them and work for him one way or another, since we saw in her backstory in the military that Mori isn’t above shooting someone to make Yosano heal them because now they’re “close to death”. He most likely hasn’t changed much in those ways over the years, so I’m expecting to see some extreme manipulation taking place on his part if he does come back into the story.

Honorable mentions that came to mind as I was working to gather potential suspects:

Atsushi

He’s there, kind of, I guess. So much of the arc recently has been like 2 pages of one perspective before changing to the next that I’m not even sure if he’s still the main protagonist anymore. /j

Since he’s also at the airport where this whole *gestures wildly* thing is happening between the two Fuku’s, it would make sense that he at least shows up during the fight. We also know he’s actively looking for Fukuzawa because he can’t decide on what to do next now that he knows what the DOA is after.

The only way I see Atsushi being implemented in the battle is if he gets super upset or angry over seeing all his friends and coworkers in serious trouble, and either Fukuzawa releases his ability (if that’s even possible) from Atsushi and allows him to use the full power of the White Tiger to fight Fukuchi, which could potentially defeat the time-traveling sword since the Tiger’s claws can cut through abilities. The other option is he goes feral? I don’t really know to be honest. Maybe he just gets his ass beat again by Fukuchi. Who knows. I’ll just be over here preparing the party poppers for Kunikida’s promotion I guess.

Verlaine

Why? For fun.

He’s never appeared in the main story line since he lives in the Port Mafia’s basement basically. But considering the Mafia kinda went up in flames (or vampires, I guess) it’s possible he’s on the move now. Whether he’d appear in the jail, to save Chuuya, or appear at the airport, potentially under Mori’s orders, I honestly don’t know. But, since he’s part of the Mafia and another character we haven’t seen, and the cover of volume 22 as well as other official artwork has been featuring several Stormbringer and Sheep references, some people believe we might be seeing someone from that cast of characters in an upcoming chapter. But honestly I think they might be on as much copium as I am…

It would be funny to see Verlaine show up and just crush Fukuchi in like 3 seconds while the rest of the protagonists couldn’t defeat him though.

Ango?

We see Ango last in chapter 95 when it’s revealed he’s the one that demanded a seal be put on One Order, at Dazai’s request as part of his plan to counter Dostoy. He hasn’t been a big player in this arc beyond being the coordinator early on for the ADA’s moves, but since they all were reunited and came up with their own plans, he’s been more active as just a background character acting on the messages from Dazai. But, since he is the final piece of the Tripartite Framework, I thought I’d just mention him here as well. Natsume clearly wants the three organizations to work together, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Dazai has also given Ango a message or plan to relay to Mori. I don’t think he’ll ever be a super big part of the current events, though, just more of the background coordinator.

The Guild?

We kind of see them and then we don’t. We know Fitzgerald wants to work with whoever is winning, which as far as we know, he thinks is going to be the ADA. He was giving them aid in exchange for Yosano healing Mitchell, but we don’t really see anything come after this agreement is made? Atsushi and Kyouka get into one ambulance with Mitchell inside to bring her to Yosano, and at the same time, Yosano (along with Tanizaki and Kenji) are attacked by the government who set up their own trap unknown to Fitzgerald and Atsushi. We know Fitzgerald didn’t set them up because in the first few pages after we see the government attacking, we see Fitzgerald explaining why he didn’t go with the 74 plans Alcott prepared that included selling out the Agency’s location. Technically, it only happened because Tachihara is a Hunting Dog, so he betrayed the location of the meeting since Mori sent him and the other Black Lizard captains for security, and Tachihara is using his metal manipulation to pretend as if there’s an ability user attacking them with the government so they have to retreat after Kenji is severely injured. He’s also there to prevent Atsushi from reuniting with Yosano just a few minutes later. Which is truly impressive since he’s technically fighting himself the entire time? Wow is that symbolism of him as a character if I’ve ever seen it, that’s for sure. Not to mention he also stabs himself with Gin’s knife, just *chefs kiss* of a character I really wish he wasn’t killed/vampire-d whatever the fuck happened because he deserved so much better. But anyway, we never see the Guild again after this. So we have no idea what they’re currently doing, nor have we seen the other branch of the “Guild” that Steinbeck created at the end of the Guild arc since the end of that arc. So, I doubt they’ll come back.

The Clock Tower?

They’d have jurisdiction over Meursault, but it’s hard to say if they’ll step in. They haven’t been a part of the story at all beside Agatha’s little cameo from chapter 12. On a side note, I believe Agatha’s ability will be something along the lines of causing death in accordance to the lines in the poem “Ten Little Soldiers” (obviously I’m not putting the original name here) since her ability is named after the mystery novel And Then There Were None that’s about ten people dying on an island of various means that follow the reasons in the rhyme of the poem. It’s quite interesting, actually. But back to my main point, I don’t really see why they would suddenly come into the story now. If anything, they might appear if Fukuchi decides to try and use his vampire army against the governments of the world and create a world-wide coup d’etat with One Order.

Is this a copium-driven fever dream of a hope to have? Haha, fuck yeah it is! But I’ll let the copium win today if it means having at least a little hope that Fukuchi’s arc of shitty OP-ness will come to an end soon. Please. Asagiri I’m begging. I’m on my knees. Just PLEASE

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the matter. This theory was a little out there and not really based on too much evidence, but I still felt the need to write up this post, or else the brainrot might actually get my final braincell and it'd be all downhill from there.

As always, I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading. If you have your own idea of what you think will be the thing to defeat Fukuchi, feel free to say it in the comments or send a message to my Inbox on my profile. We can cope theorize together :)

**i just finished editing this oh my god this is so long i’m sorry i just had a lot of brainrot about this and i’m desperately awaiting whatever is going to end Fukuchi to the point i want to do it myself

imagine misplaying SO HARD it flips your entire position

i don't even think that the example is a death threat, but go off, i guess.

(also TIL extra details for context, so thanks for that)

its dope how the CEO of this website can casually drop the fact that he had at least one content moderator on payroll who was accepting bribes to take down blogs on request, without revealing who was affected by this or what actions were taken to reverse the damage, and were all just supposed to be like oh ok thanks for taking care of that :D

My friend just pointed this out when I paused on a certain time stamp in season two of BSD episode 18, and we noticed fuckin' HILTER exists in this series now? Holy shit??? It was when that one staff member was bringing up tabs to hide the fact she was looking at Nastume the calico cat but...I has questions?

the future is now

Once more, all makes (some) sense, just like that. You mentioned Burrowing Heaven hides the sky the sky with it's branches, but being Carmen, it's also the Light. To indulge in one's desires with no regards to reality/others -> to be Stuck in (one's) Heaven!! Plus, closing one's eyes (=ignoring reality, focusing on yourself) is what gives Carmen-looking tattoo (brand.. Mark, even.) but 'heaven through the eys of others' in this case would be the lack of self-awareness that comes from ignoring the external + because the exteral keeps intruding, it's not heaven from the PoV of the one stuck in it! Which would kind of take a shot at explaining why there is a hole in SiH: it ain't gonna be filled, and seems like it's the doing of not-burrowing, as opposed to grey dude. it looking like a branch (of the burrowing heaven), but also humanoid -> seeks to invade the heart (emotions/exploit immature outlook), not the eyes (reason/resignation to reality). And to look at it, is to look/give attention to the world around! …it's an abnormality about distortions, specifically this sort of mid-point between 'normie' and 'abnormality' seen in Leviathan (Spotty), and (maybe? haven't finished LoR yet kek) Reverbation Ensemble? It would also attempt explaining why the gift is Pride-coded. It lacks cute wordplay of Prejudice, and we're already operating on the assumption the game doesn't do any semblance of a color wheel, so: it is pride, because to close one's eyes in this context is to gain advantages from it (some kind of distortion/clarity of self-image), while ignoring drawbacks (some kind of distortion ;^) and also arresting one's development/growth by ignoring anything that would trigger it)

Face the Sin, Save the Ego: these stable distortions are not effloresced EGO (which btw, blooming flower imagery (awaiting pollination of external ideas?) vs light/distortions-as fruit of Carmen('s work))

this implies prodding Stuck in Heaven prompts us to theorize the plot to get the abno's deal. Let's go, and try not to rehash any other theory too much, lel. …what is the core Driving Question of Limbus Company? the nature of Dante, in small scale. In the grand scheme of things - the sudden mass death event. It hasn't been retconned out yet, right? can't seem to find a sauce.

The Golden Boughs (bough: large branch of a tree) are being gathered. A single one eases various coherent distortions to manifest (Kromer, possibly Dongrang), so a large enough amount of them would prompt whoever to have a stable distortion with minimal prompting. (thanks @lu-is-not-ok) …but that doesn't quite cover the novel threat of stable distortions having nonsense abno abilities (Pluto from LoR), combined with being clever in how they're using them - to play the long game. …or in a way that amplifies the heart of most issues presented by the social critique these games are (selfishness?).

bonus: something something all trailers and the 'opening' use the same part of "In Hell We Live, Lament" which i assume is the deal is similar to LoR, in that cherrypicked bits are of particular relevance to the plot. Had a theory coherency check mid-rant and failed kek.

tl;dr this implies we're sleeping on a lot of tree/growth imagery

once more, for the people in the background: Lu, how is your brain so wrinkly.

Stuck in Heaven (ego gift: Late-bloomer's Tattoo) has been grinding my gears for a while now. It has an idea - and a clear one at that - but i can't figure out what it *is*. Wiki has the event transcript. Pls send help

Alright, back to my proper analyses, and... *cracks knuckles* Oh this one's gonna be fun. I want to say that since this one won't need to get into E.G.O analysis, then this post will be a bit shorter than my other full-length analyses...

But. You know how it is with me. For all I know this one might end up ridiculously long anyway. Also, uh, spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina ahead.

So, before we can talk about Stuck in Heaven, we need to talk about the other Abnormality it's directly related to - The Burrowing Heaven.

The Burrowing Heaven debuted in Lobotomy Corporation, but later made a return in Library of Ruina as one of the Abnormality Battles. For the sake of completion, I will be taking a look at both of its appearances in the series.

In its original appearance, Burrowing Heaven takes on the form of a tree-like entity, made up of a fleshy material, with branches that seperate into wing-like shapes and many eyes.

Its main mechanics in Lobotomy Corporation is that the Abnormality needs to be on-screen to prevent it from breaching and teleporting away once it does breach. This mechanic is reflected in a lot of flavor text about it, most directly in the description of its E.G.O Gear, which includes the sentence "Just contain it in your sight."

Burrowing Heaven's story further expands on this idea. The Abnormality is repeatedly said to "live inside your eyes/gaze", to feed on the attention and focus others give it by looking at it. However, the moment one looks away for too long, it begins to stretch the stalks of its wings for two reasons - one, to gather corpses as food for the fruit it bears; two, to reach towards the sky and sun, as if to cover it up.

Religious imagery and symbolism is used all over for this Abnormality. From the act of stretching its limbs being compared to praying to an old-forgotten god, to its wings reaching the skies being compared to an angel, to the action of it growing its thorns and burrowing being described as for the purpose of "reaching heaven inside one's vision".

Now, there's a very interesting part of Burrowing Heaven's story in LobCorp that I want to point out. Usually, when those stories are said in first person, it's either through the use of "we" (to reflect the company/employees writing those down as a whole), or with the passage being specified as either some testimony or log or otherwise being quoted.

However... That's not the case here. For Burrowing Heaven, there is a whole section in its story written in first person, with no clear note of it being quoted from something else. Allow me to paste the segment in its entirety.

"That's what a gaze is. Attention. An invisible string that connects us.  Sole focus.  Do not come here, as there is no place for you to rest.  But you see, I could only bear fruit when I stood inside your sight. Is this what you wanted to see?  When your tears dry up at last, tell me your answer."

Interesting, isn't it?

However, we're not done yet. There is still the context of its appearance in Library of Ruina, so let's look at that, shall we?

In Library of Ruina, Burrowing Heaven's Abno Battle is placed on the Floor of Religion, aka Hokma's Floor, alongside Price of Silence, Blue Star, and WhiteNight.

Narratively, this Library Floor explores the faith and dedication that Carmen's group put into her and Ayin, especially from Hokma's perspective, who unconditionally put his trust into Ayin back when he was known as Benjamin. Thus, all of the Abnormalities fought on this symbolically represent Carmen's unwavering dedication to gathering like-minded people to make her dream come true, and the devotion those who followed felt towards her and her goals.

When it comes to the Burrowing Heaven, there is some more info we can gather from its Abno Battle in this game, starting off with its new appearance:

As you can see, the previously tree-like form has been replaced with one that very clearly represent a human's central nervous system, brain and spinal cord included. The bloody wings and eyes still remain though.

...Now. Those who have played Lobotomy Corporation might recognize what Burrowing Heaven is meant to represent in this form. And for those who haven't, allow me to show you something.

This is what became of Carmen after her death:

A disembodied central nervous system, with its nerves spread out in an almost wing-like fashion.

While most of the flavor text here repeats what we know about the Abno from LobCorp, there are a few unique pieces of text I want to shine a spotlight on right here.

"The desire for the unreachable will only grow bigger. And to pursue it… is to tread a path riddled with thorns."

"Basking in everyone’s gaze and attention… It will finally come to fruition and spread its wings."

"The one who spread their wings sacrificed everything they had, and yet…"

"Just close your eyes. That’s right, you’re doing good…"

"If we ever open our eyes again, will we get to see the fruit of our labor in that gaze?"

...In case you were wondering why I was being so scant on the interpretation part of this analysis, this is why. This connection is what changes Burrowing Heaven from a nebulous concept to a direct parallel.

Burrowing Heaven, at its core, is a reflection of Carmen. More specifically, Carmen's dream, and the way she and her followers acted to reach her goals. How, to pursue it, they had to single-mindedly focus on that goal, to make many sacrifices for the sake of reaching what seemed unreachable.

It could also represent how Carmen's seeming demise and the following tragedies happened because nobody paid attention to the warning signs, nobody focused on Carmen when she was at her lowest. And yet, those very tragedies are what led to even more attention being put on making progress towards that goal, towards Carmen's wings spreading out and reaching ever closer towards the heaven she so desired.

The gaze being put on her may have put her deep underground, in the vat where her nervous system became a source of Cogito... but it also eventually led to the breathtaking sight that was the Light. And now that there is no more gaze left on her, her wings can spread everywhere, blocking out the sun with her own Light.

When you think about it, isn't that how Distortions take place under Carmen's influence? Just close your eyes and ignore the world around you. Let your desires guide you. Just like Carmen is encouraging you to do, patiently. That's right, you're doing good, following what she says.

...Okay that's all fine and good, but what the fuck does all this mean for Stuck in Heaven? Let's get to that.

From just a cursory look at its physical description, Stuck in Heaven appears to be the next step of progression in this Heaven line of Abnormalities. From the tree-like form of the LobCorp Burrowing Heaven, to the brainstem in Library of Ruina, to Stuck in Heaven taking the form of growths directly growing over a person.

Interestingly enough, the Mirror Dungeon event describes Stuck in Heaven as having "the appearance" of a branch, yet being human. Curious.

This is also where a difference is established between Stuck in Heaven and Burrowing Heaven, with the event text directly referencing the Abnormality that Stuck in Heaven is related to.

"Heaven sometimes burrows; other times, it makes a home in the heart. Once taken root, that heaven will only be visible through the eyes of others."

Immediately, this tells us one major thing - Stuck in Heaven does not burrow like Burrowing Heaven, it does not need to feed on the attention people give through vision. Rather, the thing it aims to take root in is the heart.

The text you get from taking the [Close your eyes.] option explains why Stuck in Heaven does that. When it takes root in one's heart, closing one's eyes is not enough to get it out of one's gaze, as the sight it sought out is that coming from the heart itself.

I believe this is also why actually trying to [Return the gaze.] with one's eyes does nothing. With Burrowing Heaven, which actively sought out one's eye vision, one can find many references to it being alive and actively watching its observer back. However, trying to do so with Stuck in Heaven results in it ignoring the observer. The heaven Stuck in Heaven is looking for is not in the eyes, but past them. "Behind me", as the text puts it.

Now... all of that might not have much meaning without further context. After all, what's all this looking with one's eyes and looking with one's heart stuff about?

And this. Is where we get to The Little Prince.

Yeah, remember how Demian seems to be representing the titular Little Prince himself, through him directly quoting the kid?

Yeah, that's not the only thing Limbus Company borrows from that book. In fact, from what I've gathered, The Little Prince might just be one of, if not the most important books when it comes to the themes Limbus Company is setting itself up to explore.

And the main theme that Limbus Company borrows from that book is the theme of seeing with the eyes vs seeing with the heart. It is all over this narrative. The constant focus on perception and what everyone is percieving through their senses. The equal focus on the heart, of how subjective reality is when looking at the reflections of one's heart, yet how one has to follow the heart to reach the unreachable. I mean, for fuck's sake, the word Limbus can refer to both a part of the eye and a part of the heart!

Most importantly, I think it's also the key to understanding Stuck in Heaven a bit better. In The Little Prince, a clear divide is established between the Little Prince, who uses his imagination to understand his reality, and "the grown-ups", who focus solely on the physical world.

Stuck in Heaven's E.G.O Gift is named Late-Bloomer's Tattoo. A late-bloomer is someone who takes a long time to develop one's skills or grow up. For Stuck in Heaven to be able to leave its mark (or Tattoo) on someone, to take root in their heart, one has to not be a grown-up yet, to still be able to see the world with one's heart rather than one's eyes.

So... What does it all mean?

I'll be honest, I don't fucking know! I don't even know if Stuck in Heaven even still has connections to Carmen the way Burrowing Heaven does!

What I can say however, is that Stuck in Heaven is likely extremely interconnected with the main plot and themes of Limbus Company, the same way Burrowing Heaven was for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina.

Does it represent the goals of Limbus Company itself? Faust? The Golden Boughs? The fucking Mark of Cain?

The reality of it all is... we just aren't far enough along in the story yet to be sure. The way it connects to one of the bigger themes of Limbus Company, alongside it being directly related to the Abnormality that was so directly paralleling the end-game reveals about Carmen in LobCorp, means that we likely just don't have enough of the puzzle pieces yet to see the full picture of what Stuck in Heaven truly represents.

I'm sure as we head closer towards Limbus Company's endgame, the true meaning of Stuck in Heaven will become much, much clearer to us. But, until then, all we can do is wait and see what comes next. It's definitely a subject I'll want to revisit later on, once we get a better grasp on the overarching plot and will be able to start properly connecting the pieces.

Sorry that I couldn't give a more definite answer as to what Stuck in Heaven's exact meaning is, but from all the analysis I've done I genuinely think this is the best answer I can give. That it's a direct parallel to something within the main plot of Limbus Company that we have yet to learn, similarly to how Burrowing Heaven is a direct parallel to Carmen and the path taken to reach her goals.

>#unfortunately (for me. its probably a good thing for everyone else) i am not the writer and cant have that whenever you type something, you're a writer. Ao3 awaits >:3

also: if the answer is vampires AND he relies on them so damn much, why isn't entire Meursault turned. ...does it mean that the fact he didn't despite it giving him an advantage (and vampires can hide in the populace) make his control freak tendencies an Informed Ability?

thanks for prompting me to come to that conclusion, i hate it.

which was beside the point; if entire prison is under his control (if it wasn't it means the majority of wardens of the prison for the most dangerous just... failed a spot check. collectively. While moving in a prisoner whose ability they do not fully know) Chuuya offing guards would immediately cue a setup for "now that you have killed your partner Would You Kindly now stay where you are as i initialize (already did) shutdown-drowning sequence (which he already knows Chuuya cannot stop, taking advantage of 101) for that corridor so you can join him.". Since Dostoy does discard everyone after 1 use--

--psyche! topic hijack.

Imagine Dazai's gloating making sense. If different arguments(1) were used all this would grate less and the ending(2) note would be more cohesive. The cohesiveness would disarm our whining somewhat. Fukuchi who trusted media/the government/HD (=other people) getting rekt + Dostoy who trusted Fukuchi getting rekt vs Fukuchi who probably could get Fukuzawa/HD in on it with charisma (and having to prepare for it i.e. refine his political theory) but didn't and thus gets rekt + Dostoy who could rely on his hand-picked manipulated underlings but didn't and thus gets rekt.

1.1) not reusing underlings; to do so would mean expending resources/taking risks to bail them out of various states of capture, but doing so would set up persuading that Dostoy is not a completely terrible boss which would mean MORE investment + trusting them to not fuck up. "laze all day so others with do things for me" is useless on purpose.

1.2) 'underlings are less useful when controlled with fear/when they get something out of it' with Sigma as exhibit A. Dostoy works them presumably for months/weeks/days and Dazai persuades them in under 20mins.

2) option i haven't seen elsewhere: meta-plot twist that it looks like manga is catching up to anime but actually reroutes elsewhere. That aside, between that, plot twist: actually dead, plot untwist: BSD plot armor i'm not feeling ANY of the options, chief. Especially the last one: this would be setup for lining up for F. Dostoevsky's imprisonment and Crime and Punishment. Which would include Dostoy changing his mind while recovering, but given how hydra-like multiple bitching sessions have been so far.....

kind of wild that fyodor expected that dazai would die in meursault when bro has literally cheated death in front of him before. like did dead apple mean nothing to you babygirl?