How Bungo Stray Dogs Helped Me Keep My Ideals in the Face of Loss
CW: Death, suicide, homicide, child abuse, trauma
I have a love/hate relationship w/ Bungo Stray Dogs. On one hand, I think that it juggles a ton of characters and plotlines in a fascinating, fresh manner. On the other hand, I feel like the writing is so far up its own behind that it spells out every minute detail and leaves zero (and I mean, zero) up for imagination or processing as a viewer. It has really fun action, memorable music, and overall decent animation. At the same time, it obsesses over fish lens’ shots, bloats its action scenes with talking and cutaways that feel like it was classmates with Monogatari and overall can be a mess to follow at times. Arguably most importantly, I believe that it explores dark, nuanced stories and developments for its characters whilst feeling manipulative and overkill at times. For every tone deaf story like the one for Yosano, there is a brilliant introspection into the emotions of a survivor and their resolve to continue living like Atsushi. In fact, one of my all time favorite AniTAY articles, written by Dark Aether, explores the latter.
Admittedly, I have a tendency to look for connections from my life to movies and anime. It is natural to look into ways to reflect upon our lives. Maybe when I was younger it felt more important to find characters to identify with, but I slowly began to become fascinated with hearing perspectives of writers through their characters. The one place I make efforts to not do this with, however, is with my career. A little bit about what I do: I work as a crisis counselor. This work ranges from walk-in clients needing someone to talk to after major life events to co-responding with police departments to evaluate individuals who may be experiencing suicidal and/or homicidal ideations (there is more, however, this is a brief summary of some of what I do). It is often, quite literally, a matter of life or death. The phrasing of what I do can often sound melodramatic, and I try to be aware of that, to the point that my friends and I joke that I sound/am like a chunibyo. Something else I’ve been known for that my friends tease me for is my love of wholesomeness and being broody. The warmth of families and protecting the innocence of the youth remains one of my biggest sources for hope. All of this said, what I very rarely do, however, is compare my work to media I come across. That said, I found myself inspired by an anime at a time that I did not anticipate/know would occur.
Just a bit past 4AM on a Friday, I received a call for coming out to a residence to evaluate someone. I’m sparing many of the details not to share anything I am not supposed to. What is important to share is that, due to miscommunication, I didn’t get to see the client in my usual window. I typically have a hard cap of 30 minutes from request to service- no, this isn’t just policy. Every minute counts when someone is expressing thoughts of hurting themselves…just as much when others are in danger. After driving across town twice, I met with the police at a hospital. I come to ERs frequently, and I’ve seen just about every scene an ER generally gets. On that day, in that moment, I saw something I will never forget. Doctors crowded around a room as people were screaming. On a table was a small baby. I stood, stunned. The police barked at me to say something to everyone to calm them down. I froze. I got into this line of work because I had a tolerance for seeing death, holding people I knew as they took their last breaths. But this scene, watching doctors try to do CPR on a baby, just stopped me. A silence came over the ER as the only noises were heavy sobs and machinery beeping. In that moment, we lost a life of an innocent baby, an innocent child with so much life ahead of them.
My phone logs asking for guidance on the ensuing nightmare were some of the most uncharacteristic I’ve ever had. I could barely function. Our director called in and let me go home for the last hour of my shift. I sat in silence in my car for about an hour and stared off, still stunned. I understand its confusing not knowing the details, but long story short if you are struggling to follow, the baby was most likely killed. I did one of the things I promised myself I would never do: I blamed myself. I felt many emotions: anger for the event to occur, determination to be better at my job to help prevent it in the future, and overwhelming sadness that the loss occurred. I laid in bed, eyes wide open. How could this have happened? Does a hell like this truly exist on Earth? Will I ever be able to work again? Do I deserve to keep working after this? Eventually, I said words to myself that I had no idea where they came from. Little did I know, I was recalling a very important scene to an anime that ended up being one of the saving graces for my career.
In Bungo Stray Dogs’ third season, the Armed Detective Agency takes to a sewer in pursuit of a villain linked to the evil Fyodor. During this pursuit, main character Atsushi is accompanied by a character named Doppo Kunikida (yeah, if you don’t know, they name the characters like that, it’s okay). What is important to share is that Kunikida is a man of strong belief that ideals are what hold order to protect our world. During this conflict, it is revealed that Fyodor has armed children with firearms and grenades to stop the Armed Detective Agency. Despite his attempts to save one of the children, Kunikida fails to disarm grenades strapped to a girl and is forced to watch in horror. On top of the atrocity, Kunikida has a difficult breakdown as his ideals are challenged in the wake of this event. He heartbreakingly asks how he could live with himself if another child died before his eyes.
The genius detective Ranpo reassures Kunikida, stating that the reason Kunikda was challenged was because of his strength and virtues. The episode progress as a typical episode does (that is to say, fast) and this appears to be filed away for later. Later in the episode, Atsushi is struggling to follow a lead when Kunikida shows up to help him. When asked why he is there, Kunikda replies
“…I might not have been able to save that girl, but I can save (the president of the agency) along with the rest of the city. I can’t think of a better way to try to honor her memory.”
It is strange- this is a four second line in what is arguably one of the more fast-paced anime I have seen. I don’t know what it was about it, but those words resurrfaced within me that day. Re-watching now, there is so much about the scene that it hits so well in such a short time. Kunikida is English dub voiced by Patrick Seitz which, if you know his voice, you know the level of gravity he brings. What Ranpo says to Kunikida regarding his virtues explains why he takes the horrific scene as hard as he does. At the same token, however, its what makes his resolve to carry his ideals forward even stronger. Finally, there is a raw honesty about this simple line carries: there really isn’t a great answer or way to address the loss of an innocent life, but continuing to try to help others to prevent another tragedy from occurring is as noble as one can get.
So the quick, four-second line in a conflict that presented and resolved itself within two episodes of a fast moving anime was memento and push I needed on that day. To this day, when I feel challenged, or doubt my place in my profession (something that is sadly not unique to me), I remember my reason, my “why.” I think of the losses, and the child stands out. I take a deep breath, and I remember, I’m trying my best to honor the life that was lost forward. Rules and regulations are great, care-free attitudes might protect ones from taking the blows as hard, but ideals are the core of a person. They are what anchor us down when the waves get rough. For me, I found a reason to carry my ideals forward stronger that day. And even if it was brief, in passing, I will forever appreciate remembering such a subtle and appreciated scene from Bungo Stray Dogs.
