Teaching Them To Kill; Then To Die

For a moment there, I thought we were going to have to go through another member of the Armed Detective Agency to go over their power, and how it is used in this episode of Bungo Stray Dogs. That still happened in this episode, but it wasn’t forced on us in the way others have been it seems. This week’s person with powers is the agencies head doctor, Akikio Yosano. Her ability is unique as she is able to treat and heal people, with the catch being that they have to be on the brink of death for her to use it, including herself; which explains how Junichirou was able to survive. As she stated in this episode, it’s a bit inconvenient especially when minor injuries keep them from doing their jobs.

Not only were we given time to learn about a new character, we are also introduced to two members of the Port Mafia. The main antagonist in this episode is the bomber Kajii Motojirou. Both Akiko and Atsushi are stuck on a subway train with this lunatic and his, what appears to be, lemon shaped bombs. We are subjected to his warped sense of wisdom the majority of the time he is on screen, but fortunately, Akikio takes the upper hand.

The other is a girl, Kyouka Izumi, who has the ability to summon a warrior type entity known as “Demon Snow” that is able to cut down their enemy at lightning speed. I believe that this character will be of great importance somewhere down the road as she does have a kind of redemption by the end of this episode. We now know that not all members of the Port Mafia are not completely psychotic, as Kyouka’s past is briefly mentioned when comparing herself to Atsushi.

What’s important about this episode is that Atsushi is finally given the spotlight this time around. He is no longer the completely ignorant mess from the start of this series. Before he was hesitant to fight because he didn’t understand what his power is. To be fair, he probably still doesn’t understand, but that didn’t keep him from venturing off by himself to find the bomb.

This episode was really good at setting up the next story arc. It’s so good that I forgot about what happened to Osamu at the beginning of the episode, until the very end where it sets up the next story arc very nicely while giving us a cliff hanger. I hope that we see more of Osamu soon. He is the face of this show, but it feels like he is very underutilized so far, but maybe the next episode will remedy that as the search for Osamu will probably begin.

Final Verdict: 4.5/5

Original Air Date: May 26th, 2016; Studio: Bones; Genres: Action, Comedy, Mystery, Seinen, Supernatural; Duration: 23 min. per episode