#bsd tecchou

in very, very brief summary, jouno wrote gesaku (which was a heavily stigmatized genre of pulp/popular fiction) and all three of these men were among the first 'western-style' newspaper journalists in japan. each were, at one point or another, however briefly, imprisoned by the state in retaliation for challenging the boundaries of the suppressive Meiji-era free press laws, and they persisted in their journalistic endeavors even as the government cracked down on newspapers. including fukuchi, who was (to oversimply it) centrist at his most radical and who had connections within the government through his former career and close friends. (as fukuchi described this period, "It was like a gush of water.... As soon as a reporter spoke, he was summoned. Many respectable reporters and gentleman were fined or jailed.")

like, i'm especially wary of my American lens here, and, more specifically, my American constitutional law background, since I'm impelled towards righteous indignation that is all at once anachronistic, culturally obtuse, and painfully hypocritical. but even acknowledging that my voice is an ill fit for this particular conversation, I don't think i'm terribly off base to suggest that asagiri's choices re: the composition of the hunting dogs are at the very least interesting!

I love the implication that Tetchou solved the cipher just so he could actually read it to Jouno—

Because one, that’s sweet of him (and exactly the type of thing he’d do), and two, this implies that Tetchou is the smartest person in the Hunting Dogs. Or at least strangely good at Cyphers specifically and that kind of logic puzzle.

Because the letters were sent to the smartest person in each organization (Mori for the PM, Poe for the ex-Guild, Ranpo for the ADA but Dazai showed up instead), which… actually implies that the sender sent it to Jouno, being the obvious candidate for the smartest person in the Hunting Dogs.

But Jouno. Is blind.

Look at the cipher:

IT’S A VISUAL PUZZLE. Whoever sent these out clearly didn’t do that much research.

Jouno definitely seems like the smartest member of Hunting Dogs, but I don’t know what the sender was thinking giving him a puzzle he couldn’t even perceive.

I feel like Tetchou just did what he does best and brute-forced the thing— but even then, that implies that he has enough experience with ciphers to be able to do so, and the fact that he cracked it at all is impressive.

Anyway, the main takeaway is that the strength of Tetchou’s mind is not to be underestimated.