Like omg you're so right the story of how our plucky underdog protagonist teamed up with all his deus ex machina friends and got a massive powerup via an emotional flashback about his childhood to defeat the evil baddie who wanted to commit genocide because *checks notes* humans kinda suck is sooo out there a shonen fan could never grasp such a plot.

first, Dazai was still involved through the “double suicide” dream. i feel him killing Fyodor directly would have been a rather boring, predictable choice, but this was a great subversion of expectation while keeping him a part of it.

onto why Fukuchi specifically.

him and Fyodor have a lot in common, notably in their ideas of world peace and how they go about achieving that. they are the same in that they both caused slash were about to cause so much violence and destruction for a greater cause, but their perceived threats were different. their views on abilities differed greatly, but they did both use their own as an important tool in their plans.

however, the main thing i like about this choice is that from the beginning, Fukuchi was the one person above Fyodor. he was Kamui, the leader of the Decay, so hierarchically, he was Fyodor’s only higher-up.

furthermore, the religious symbolism. Fukuchi’s title of Kamui translates to “God’s majesty” or “God’s might”. Fyodor is obviously a saviour figure. we can therefore equate him to Jesus, and Fukuchi to God.

All this for that 😔