This was always going to be the end.
The good ones who stood up for a true definition of heroism and peace will die to spit in the face of the system that would've taken pleasure in killing him themselves, and the villain goes with him.
From the moment Fukuchi ‘Genichirou’ Ouchi was introduced to the story, this was always going to be the end, even if you were to set aside the fact Asagiri-sensei himself has stated he had things planned from the very beginning. If we take into account he planned far ahead as to say Tachihara was designed from the start to be a spy, then this means that the Decay of Angels arc was surely also planned far in advance as well.
It’s been fourteen long years since Bungou Stray Dogs began, and I myself as a fan got into it not long after Fitzgerald’s introduction — so I suppose you can say that I’m as veteran as a fan can come.
I remember when Poe’s chapter first came out, and my much more amateur self started translating it, only for Dazaiscans to have been founded around this time and carry the torch that would burn for many years afterwards.
To spare anyone actually reading this for my perspective on the ending of this arc, I’ll do my personal opinions/analysis of it before going into much more personal stuff regarding BSD as the first part has come to an end... so here we go.
To pay homage to a document of old from the BSD fandom:
“In defense of the misunderstood hero of BSD, Fukuchi Ouchi”
Genichirou’s character is one of my all time favorites of the series. The intent behind his character and personality is perhaps one of my all time favorite concepts, for he is a man who, despite being one of the villains in the story arcs, there truly aren’t many others more pure in their intentions than him.
From a young age, when Genichirou was still just a young swordsman sparring with Fukuzawa, he had a goal in mind— a lofty, impossible goal that he still tried to aim for because that’s just how strong his ambitions were. Genichirou was so determined in his skills that he truly believed he could create world peace.
He believed in his country, in his government, in the soldiers, and human beings at their core to want to exist in a world that is free from suffering, war, and strife of all kinds.
That love for humanity is naive, for certain, but also shows just how much Genichirou truly loved the world around him and wanted to protect people who were weaker than him.
A tale as old as time began, with a starry eyed young man who wanted to become a hero joined his nation’s army, only to realize that everything he believed was a joke. A lie. A sham.
His country was not acting in the best interest of their own people or the world, and they did not follow the rules of human beings.
Because of his power and strength, Genichirou was used and abused as a weapon of the government. He was forced to do inhumane things in the ‘name’ of Japan, his country he thought the world of and was proud to be a part of. He tortured and maimed women, children, and the elderly by his own admission, and how much it hollowed out his heart when he admitted this could be read on his face. It’s not hard to imagine just how much he was forced to do, and what he had to do in response to keep himself in one piece.
To top it off, before his entire world was destroyed in this way, Fukuzawa had completely denied his request to join him in the battlefield— and Genichirou faced this horror of humanity all alone. Fukuchi Genichirou died and was reborn on that battlefield of blood, and what survived was a monster of self-preservation, hatred, and desperation.
He thought if his country was this evil, if the outside world was this selfish, then the only thing to do would be to change everything from the inside out. He would twist the metaphorical body of the world inside out, expose all of its flesh and organs and start anew.
There’s no telling when specifically this goal of his began. We don’t know when he got ahold of Ame-no-gozen, or where he got it, even though we see the sword being used on multiple missions in the past prior to him becoming the leader of the Ryoken.
But we do know that Fyodor manipulated the information Genichirou learned within Ame-no-gozen that a war would destroy the entire world, as this was his driving force for all of his actions within the Decay of Angels arc. We can surmise that, with Atsushi being sent to the past in the last chapter of part 1, he will at some point cross paths with Fyodor from the past, as this explains why Fyodor knew Atsushi’s existence in DEAD APPLE— and, likewise, he will find some way to taint the truth within Ame-no-gozen.
For years and years, Genichirou did not doubt this truth from Ame-no-gozen. His desperation to protect other people and the world at large left him blind to consider that perhaps even otherworldly things can be falsified somehow, which is perhaps an intended irony when contrasted to his use of the Book’s page to change the public’s perception of the Armed Detective Agency and turn them into wanted criminals.
Because of how he was so violently disillusioned from his time fighting in the Great War, Genichirou came to the ugly yet real truth of humanity: they cannot be unified under a mutual belief in peace and hope. There will always be humans that view other people as subhuman, animals, and creatures that should be eradicated without batting an eye. World peace cannot be achieved through the same hope he had when joining in the fight.
The war taught him that there was perhaps only one way for the world to be unified— under the same violence that made him come to hate his own government.
The only time humans are truly united is when there is a mutual enemy; an existence that everyone hates so much that all other prejudices pale in comparison.
Humans can only come together by a mutual hate.
So, Genichirou made the decision to become an enemy of the entire world so the entire world could unite against him.
We don’t know what his ideal world would’ve looked like, had he won.
Would the entire world have been enslaved to the vampire infection, and everyone just went on living as mindless zombies obeying his command to not fight with each other precisely because he was controlling them all?
Would he have kept things small with the ‘Army of Humanity’ and dragged things out so the rest of the world would remain united against the same cause, and perhaps someday forget about their prejudice?
There’s no telling, and even if we chose one of those options, it’s clear what the flaws in these decisions are: both options still result in mass death, which is antithetical to Genichirou’s desire to not cause more harm and death, as he told Fukuzawa he had a set number of people he was willing to sacrifice.
Even when accepting the role as a villain, Genichirou couldn’t stomach creating more deaths when he had done so much evil already for the sake of a government that went on existing as if nothing was wrong. After all, they would throw him away as a pawn the second anything was exposed; he would be labeled as some rogue soldier who enacted violence beyond imagination without government authority, and would be punished in their stead.
It’s undeniable that Genichirou loathed every damn second pretending to be a part of the society that destroyed his hopeful view in the world, but he pushed through and gained more and more power and fame knowing he would inevitably get rid of them some day.
When was the Decay of Angels formed, we have to ask?
We know that V was a prototype to the DOA (hehe, and if i may take a second, I called it years in advance and Asagiri-sensei confirmed this when the episode dropped.)
We don’t know if Genichirou was involved in V, but we DO know that Fyodor was and presumably stalked Ranpo and Fukuzawa ever since then. (Fan behavior.)
If V involved Genichirou, that would mean he started his plan of revenge not long after the war came to an end. If he wasn’t, how did he come to create the DOA? How did he meet Fyodor? What could have possibly been said or shared between them to allow Genichirou to believe there was any layer of trust or cooperation?
When we think about that stuff, we can see the naivety of his youth is still there; he still believes in the idea of world peace, and that there are people out there who share this hope for the world.
And Fyodor has proven himself to feed upon this selfless naivety with gluttonous viciousness.
Simultaneously, Fyodor also seemed to be scared of Genichirou to some degree and avoided trying to get into any conflict with him. He was well aware of Genichirou’s power and devotion to his cause of making himself the enemy of everyone for worldwide unification against him, and exposing himself and his own agenda would make Genichirou come at him with aggressive force— which is exactly what happened when Genichirou was freed from being controlled by Fyodor as the Divine One.
If Fyodor was going to be a threat to the entire world, Genichirou was going to be the one to take him out.
Because, at the end of the day, Genichirou is still a man who earned his title truthfully— He is the protector of humanity. He is their hero.
Genichirou’s intention for humanity was pure, no matter the methods he chose to implement.
In the face of Fyodor’s actions, he was the bigger threat to people and the peace of humanity.
I don’t think Genichirou wanted to die. Even if this was always going to be the end to us, I truly think that. I think he wanted to live long enough to see the world peace he envisioned become a reality.
He wanted to cement this dream into reality so he could perhaps look at Fukuzawa and say ‘Look, I made my dream come true as well.’
Maybe then he would have apologized for everything. Maybe they would have made amends. There are so many maybes that could have happened, but were never meant to be.
Even at the very end, Fukuzawa understood the reasons behind Genichirou’s actions and that his intentions were pure.
Teruko, too, knew his intentions were pure, which is why he probably enlisted her help towards the very end.
Genichirou and Teruko are a reflection of Fukuzawa and Ranpo— a glimpse into what could have become of them at any point, if they were unlucky at any time or did anything different.
Just like Fukuzawa, Genichirou came to a young Teruko in a time of need, when she had all but given up on living. His hand was her salvation, and she decided to devote every inch of her being to him— a blind devotion that is so hard to come by. Even though Genichirou and Ranpo only met once a decade ago, I can’t help but wonder if it was somehow intentional; an attempt to replicate what Fukuzawa had, to understand why he was so happy with his new life, but their circumstances were so different that even if Teruko and Ranpo share a similar blind, vicious devotion to their leaders, Teruko wasn’t enough to be the salvation to save Genichirou from himself the way Ranpo and Fukuzawa are like that for each other.
Tecchou’s straightforward heroism that surely reminded Genichirou of his younger self wasn’t enough.
Tachihara’s belief in proper justice and confronting Genichirou honestly wasn’t enough.
Jouno’s pragmatic personality understanding that, even if he didn’t care about the world or humanity at large, what Genichirou was doing wouldn’t accomplish the outcome he envisioned... because, whether Jouno wanted to admit it or not, he was swayed to some degree by the driving ideals of the Ryoken... it wasn’t enough either.
Genichirou perhaps could not forgive the idea of someone like him being saved, when those usually saved by the Ryoken were truly innocent civilians who were in desperate need of help.
(And yet... wasn’t he also so desperate and in need?)
The DOA arc focused so heavily on Genichirou and Ranpo going head to head, instead of Fukuzawa vs Genichirou as you would expect.
Genichirou and Ranpo had this mutual obsessive jealousy towards each other.
They wanted what the other had more than anything, and didn’t hesitate to weaponize it against the other out of petty selfishness (For Genichirou, it was how long he and Fukuzawa had known each other; for Ranpo, it was being with Fukuzawa NOW and being the life Fukuzawa chose.)
Genichirou intentionally targeted the agency, knowing its origins and how much it meant to Ranpo. Every time he and Ranpo were in close proximity, he tried his hardest to attack, hurt, or attempt to kill Ranpo altogether. His obsession was never masked very well.
Even when ordering the other Ryoken, he did it with Ranpo and his intelligence in mind, as seen by Teruko thinking about Ranpo because Genichirou had warned her that he would be their biggest adversary.
And yet— or perhaps precisely because of— this mutual jealousy and obsession, there is also a mutual respect towards the other’s skill and intelligence. Genichirou never underestimated Ranpo, and Ranpo put so much of his orders and guidance towards the other members to ensure they’d avoid crossing paths with Genichirou as much as possible. Because he is well aware of Genichirou’s skills, and he also knows Genichirou would stop at nothing and even weaponize other members of the Agency to force the others out of hiding.
When Ranpo put all the pieces together regarding who Kamui was and what his goal/’true path’ was, there is a moment where he’s conflicted and at a loss for words. Not only was Fukuzawa’s belief in his friend ‘wrong’, but Ranpo’s choice to trust in Fukuzawa’s belief in his friend put them in a bad spot. He said he was wrong.
I don’t think it’s because Fukuzawa was so blinded and easily convinced by Genichirou, but rather, the genuine belief in his selfless goal was completely real. He didn’t have to fake that part of his act that went on for over a decade.
And even at the end of it all, it wasn’t as if Genichirou’s core goal was ‘wrong’ — he wanted world peace, and he sought for the best option by taking into consideration the evil of humanity he was forced to participate in. He made Fukuzawa the true controller voice of One Order not just because he trusted Fukuzawa, but because he knew that Fukuzawa knew what his true dream was, and he was never meant to remain alive as the ‘true evil’ to unite the world.
The word ‘hero’ is such an overused term. It’s often used to flippantly and childishly these days, and it’s interpreted as something embarrassing, almost—
There’s certainly no single definition for what it means to be one either, or what the requirements are... but in terms of a hero in its most cliche, honest, and straightforward of definitions, Fukuchi Ouchi is a perfect example of that.
An illustrious warrior or soldier.
A person who shows great courage.
A person admired for their achievements and noble qualities.
The central figure in an event, period, or movement.
An object of extreme admiration and devotion.
All of those definitions define him.
I think it’s safe to say that somewhere along the way, Genichirou realized that the path he chose to enact world peace was tainted thanks to Fyodor. The purity of his wish and the naivety of the remaining goodness in his heart was taken advantage of to help Fyodor’s agenda, and if his ignorance had helped manifest such a thing, then he should be the one to end it once and for all.
I think even Fyodor acknowledges that there is nothing more fearsome than a selfless, pure heart.
All of the years he toiled away in hatred, loathing, spite, pain, and an amalgamation of other emotions were tossed aside and he died just as the person he started his life as a soldier as: a selfless hero sacrificing his life and soul to protect his people, and the world at large.
Humanity’s greatest hero.
Note: everything else below the readmore is personal thoughts on the series and you're not obligated to read it.
read more
To begin again from before:
It’s been fourteen long years since Bungou Stray Dogs began, and I myself as a fan got into it not long after Fitzgerald’s introduction — so I suppose you can say that I’m as veteran as a fan can come.
I remember when Poe’s chapter first came out, and my much more amateur self started translating it, only for Dazaiscans to have been founded around this time and carry the torch that would burn for many years afterwards.
I remember the years of my favorite character being missing, the elation of another one of my headcanons being proven canon in the series, the community events that fans of the series would come up with together, and of course, most importantly: the friendships I have made as a result of being into this series.
It’s a little funny and ironic to look back on now at my age.
I actually got into this series because of an old abuser, who forced me into dating him by suicide baiting me when the same day I had confessed to someone else. I was too scared of the idea of someone dying because of me, and the me from back then was a pathetic, cowardly thing. My relationship with that person and all our mutual friends was completely destroyed, and thus began my isolation with this person. He would guilt trip and threaten self-harm whenever I didn’t want to do something or couldn’t because of irl responsibilities or I felt too uncomfortable. He forced me to do sexual acts with him or he’d guilt trip, throw a fit, or, again, threaten self harm.
It was hard. It was painful. He would tell me in great detail how he wanted to kill my friends and anyone I spoke to because he wanted me all to himself, and that I was ‘cheating’ on him just for writing fictional anime ships with other people in ye olde tumblr rp community.
Yet somehow, I still remember staying up until 4 or 5am for season 1 episodes to drop and watch them as soon as they came out. No subtitles or anything, just pure raw video. It was such an elating experience, to finally see my favorite characters move and speak.
Even if I was forced into BSD, forced into ‘kinning’ Chuuya because my abuser ‘kinned’ Dazai and wanted to ‘kindate’, my love for BSD, its characters, and its world was truly real. I fell in love with Ranpo at first site, and it’s ironic how I loved Dazai/Ranpo as a ship because my abuser kinned Dazai and thus roleplayed him with my Ranpo.
I remember when I cut my abuser off. I went completely offgrid for 3 days. At the time, my mother was trying to leave my father because she was tired of his control and abuse, and gained assistance with a small apartment. Me and my sibling stood with her when she broke the news, and I stayed with my mom as much as I could in that apartment, while my sibling couldn’t accept not having wifi and therefore couldn’t commit to actually leaving... even though we were both so miserable in that house.
When I got back, I cut him off. Talking to someone like him is pointless because he won’t listen to reason, so I did what most people do— I sent an essay of my intents, the reasons why, and blocked him before he could respond. On social apps, on tumblr, on skype (because discord wasn’t around/mainstream then), and even blocked his number. I was cripplingly scared, and I had every right to be.
His response was to have a violent breakdown, hunting down everyone we mutually knew, threatening suicide to them, begging them to convince me to talk to him, so on and so forth. He even managed to find my younger sibling’s tumblr with equally threatening messages of suicide or self harm, and they had just only entered middle school at the time.
Nothing was off limits for him.
That’s why, as a last resort, he made himself a ‘victim’.
Problematic discourse was just getting itself off the ground in that time, so he made a long essay about me on his rp blog that I was a pedophile who preyed on him, because I was 20 at the time, and he was 17. My birthday (may) came before his (august), and he made use of this gap where it seemed like I was older than I was to accuse me of grooming him, of isolating him, making him do things he didn’t want even though those were all things he did to me. And perhaps he could say those things precisely because he knew he did them himself.
It severely traumatized me. I had folders upon folders of receipts on his behavior as a last resort when he wouldn’t stop getting my friends and own blood family involved, and yet, this post of his with no receipts of his own that no one believed truly damaged something in me. It was my first time being equated with something I suffered from, which I hadn’t even properly confronted myself with at the time. Back then, it left me with panic attacks and I checked every account I came across with aggressive suspicion and paranoia.
Now, it just makes me mad.
Not long after I made that callout on him, when callouts were used as intended scenarios as a last resort, I was eventually approached by some other people who were harmed by him, apparently.
I learned that, in viciously disgusting irony, despite calling me a pedophile, he had met up with a 12-13 year old child in person and had inappropriate physical relations with them, when he was already 18.
It was someone I knew when stuck with him, who at the time said they were 16 or 17 if memory serves correct.
But when you meet a 12 or 13 year old, you can tell they’re a child. There’s no way you can’t.
The fact he said the golden line of ‘they lied about their age/they didn’t look that young’ when confronted made me feel sick. Not just because... how could you fucking say that, but because I wondered if I stayed around a little longer, would I have noticed? Could I have saved them from that? I felt so guilty for unknowingly leaving a child with a violent predator like him, and even now, it gnaws on me. Even if I know there’s probably no way I could’ve known or would’ve noticed, I didn’t want anyone else to suffer from him. I wanted to be the last to deal with that sort of treatment from him.
Wherever they are... I really hope they’re alright. I hope they’re alive. I hope they’ve healed even a little. I hope they don’t blame themself. I hope they at least turn their hate towards me instead.
Despite all of the things I suffered from him, my love for BSD never faded. I never felt any type of way towards Dazai or Chuuya. I loved Dazai/Ranpo with all my heart. I saw that the tag only had 4 or 5 fics when I wanted to start posting fanfic, and was determined to fill it up as much as I possibly could.
Funnily enough, my fanfic Turnover Game was actually written for some rp prompt during that time period when I was still interacting with my abuser. You’d think I’d have deleted it... but no.
When I cut him off, some part of me must’ve decided I would make BSD solely mine. I wouldn’t let him influence something that I loved, even if he introduced me to it.
And here I am, over a decade later.
I’ve met so many dear friends. I’ve lost some of them too. I got better at Japanese. I learned how to commission artists. I fell in love with people. I watched some of them leave. I met with people I encountered here, had so much fun, and have memories I will truly never forget.
I’ve been stalked. I’ve been harassed. I’ve been accused of heinous things. I chased out a person who was a truly dangerous individual towards kids, and his followers did everything in their power to smear my name.
I befriended some of the most popular artists and writers in this fandom, and watched almost all of them leave with heavy hearts because they couldn’t stand the cruelty that had built in this fandom over time. I watched my friends leave for the same reasons, and understand the lingering bitterness in their hearts from what they had to deal with.
Perhaps it’s because my introduction to BSD was so violent that I can remain. I’ve never questioned my ability to stay or continue to love this series.
Maybe I’m still clinging to the ghost of the fandom far before I was wholly active on twitter, and there was a thriving community who interacted so fondly with one another on tumblr and through messages to plan something that truly united people together by their love for the series.
I have never forgotten. I mourn its presence the same way you reminisce when you move a family heirloom, and the spot it took up is spotless amongst the dust.
It’s still there. It never stopped being there. But it’s different now. It can never be the same as it was before. You think it doesn’t really suit being on its new shelf, but you can’t do anything about it.
I’ve suffered more traumatizing scenarios than what that evil guy did to me that would’ve made any normal person leave, but still I remain.
It’s hard to imagine what sort of person I would be without BSD and Ranpo.
I truly love this story and cherish the people and memories I have made thanks to loving this series. I want to see it through to the end and be able to reflect on all the things about me that have changed when that true final chapter is released.
I don’t think a story needs to be perfect in order to be loved or good.
I’m a pussy that hates character death, for example, so the constant fake outs don’t bother me at all even if it’s a complaint a lot of people I know have. It’s a little funny, actually, because in my earliest stories I’ve written, I was always too eager to kill off the main character for some divine tragedy that would linger as a shadow over the world.
As much as we have an ideal vision of a story, we can’t apply our expectations so insistently and get upset when that idea doesn’t happen.
You can love something as intensely as you want, but at the end of the day, it still isn't yours to decide.
In recent posts, I've sounded somewhat aggressive in my reaction to people's thoughts on the recent chapter, but I don't think my feelings have changed.
Even if you've loved BSD for one year, five years, or even over ten years like me, if it truly makes you angry, frustrated, depressed or disappointed— it's okay to say goodbye. Time is never wasted if it's used on something you love, something that made you smile, something that gave you memories and friends you'll hold dear forever. Those will always be a part of you and will always exist. You can always come back. That is truly miles better than stubbornly sticking with something out of sunk cost fallacy or a sense of responsibility, and eventually coming to loathe anything involving it.
I doubt anyone who feels like that will read this far, let alone have their thoughts changed, by someone like me... but even so, my love for BSD and its community hasn't changed.
There are people who hate me, who spread misinformation about me, who get me barred from community events, who have sent me messages telling me to kill myself— and even so, I love them too. I want them to be free to participate in events and make friends even if they have no qualms sabotaging my own chances. Perpetuating a cycle won't help anyone. Really, I just feel bad that they’re so unhappy they have to resort to this sort of hatred.
I want people to have fun together and bond over their love of the characters and literature for years to come.
Things are far from good in this fandom. There's so much hate and aggression, not just towards each other, but even the creator of the series for self-inflicted misconceptions when we have known these characters like they're our neighbors.
Things have been hard on people for years now, and I can only surmise they're trying to grapple some sort of control in one of the few things they have some sort of say in, which is their hobbies. They want to escape from the lack of power and options they have in their life or the world at large, and I understand that. I want to believe most of the people dedicating themselves to so much fighting and discourse have this problem... but this is a community, at the end of the day. Your interpretation and your love is yours, and yours alone. No one can take that from you, and you have no right to take it or change it for anyone else.
After BEAST released, I believe a fan question prompted Asagiri-sensei to say a certain quote that sticks with me to this day— but I can't find the specific source link. I can't phrase it verbatim, but the gist was “What other universes are there in relation to the book?” and Sensei replied, “any sort of alternate universe is possible with the book; so many that not even I can fathom. Surely there's even a universe where Dazai and Chuuya even left the mafia together.”
It was a very kind thing to say. He didn't have to say it, but giving your fans something like that to imply all of our silly aus and fantasies have a place in the multi-verse of the Book within BSD, HIS story and creation, is truly great. It's clear he has consideration for those with various ideas and interpretations. None of us are wrong, and we can all love our own hand-sculpted universal interpretation of BSD. The meaning behind what one character says in your view of BSD will be different from someone else's, and that makes every one of our fan experiences unique. I think condemning the interpretation of others would be going against the hopes and ideas that Asagiri-sensei had crafted.
If you're angry at him, if your interpretation is so negative towards him or the series, maybe it means that you don't love the series the way you once did. And that's okay.... but we all fell in love with this series because of its richly written characters and unique plot, didn’t we? He has always treated them with care, as he has always treated our love of the series with care.
We should also treat our own love of BSD with care, and cherish it without breaking it over expectations or overstaying longer than our hearts can withstand.
I hope that the hiatus between now and part 2 will at least be a few months. I think it would be a good thing for people to sit back and parse their feelings about this series that’s so dear to not just me, but a lot of people; what it meant to them in the beginning, and what it means now. Why do they stay? What reasons do you have for leaving? Are you happy? Or, does interacting with other people from this series fill you with negative emotions?
No matter what happens in the future, for the story and for us as fans, I hope we’ll take into consideration that Asagiri-sensei wants to share the story he’s envisioned with us, for us to be a part of something he loves dearly. I want to see that through to the end. No matter what age I end up being, I’m determined to be right here, still loving this series and all of the people who love it alongside me with all I can.
Thank you, Asagiri-sensei, for creating Bungou Stray Dogs.
Thank you, fans of Bungou Stray Dogs around the world, no matter what language barriers and different opinions we may have.
