#chapter 129.5

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Original:

Breakdown:

This seems to be the only content I do on my blog these days, so voila. Ignoring the first page (I'll come back to that later), everyone seems to be grieving in this chapter. The Hunting Dogs have lost their captain, and now Teruko is their leader. This is a huge responsibility for someone whose age we don't even know. (And I don't even think Teruko knows her actual age. What I understood of her backstory was that she was born, her ability awakened, and she was sent to war.)

After everything they've been through, it does suck that the ADA are still seen as terrorists, but at least Asagiri is staying consistent with the page's power. Dazai not being in the panel with the ADA is interesting because Chuuya is back in Japan (and had enough time for a haircut, apparently), so I'm assuming they went back together with Sigma. Anyways, I'll come back to this for the theory part.

For the mafia's funeral, we only saw Hirotsu, Mori, Kouyou, Chuuya, and Kajii. Considering that Hirotsu was also affected by the vampire infection, I'm assuming Gin and Higuchi are okay, especially Higuchi, since we still haven't seen her ability. Akutagawa not being there could just be that he's not into funerals/ ceremonies. He doesn't strike me as the type to like those.

Even Fitzgerald, who got his organisation back, isn't looking too happy about the aftermath of the fight. John Steinbeck and his revenge plans have not been forgotten, but part 2 is already looking very busy, so who knows when that will happen.

Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think Kyouka's confession is weird. She's a traumatised child who was saved by a kindhearted young man. It's normal that she'd develop some kind of attachment or admiration towards Atsushi. I don't think this relationship will become something, unless there's a timeskip (and by timeskip, I mean going forward, not going backward).

I guess Fyodor foresaw something bad would happen to him, so he left a bit of the page for Atsushi to find. Who would have thought he'd be transported to ye olde London? Asagiri is literally doing anything but introducing Agatha Christie.

Theories:

Now that Atsushi is in the past (it does look like it's 1800-early 1900), he's probably going to encounter Fyodor again. So, anyone who's tired of Fyodor, he's probably going to be an antagonist again. Or we're just going to see a different side of him, where he's just broken.

I originally thought that Atsushi would witness The Great War, but that happened fourteen years prior to the main series, which looks to be set around the 2010s. It would have made an interesting plot, and he could have ended up being a Fyodor sympathiser, but he's been thrown too far back.

However, he could meet the person who created the Book and ask them how to fix the future and how to get back. He might also meet Ueda, so that we'd get to know him and his struggles. BSD's main thing is highlighting mental health and trauma in pretty much all the characters, and Ueda just came and left, so there has to be more to him.

Maybe Atsushi will be taken into the early establishment of The Order of the Clock Tower. If Agatha Christie is to be a future antagonist, I think it'll be interesting to see the origins of her organisation and how much it will differ in the present timeline.

Moving on, the only page we see Dazai on is the first one, where his hand is hovering over a page. Maybe he'll help Atsushi by leaving clues for him to pick up on. Who knows, maybe we'll get more Dazai vs. Fyodor, this time 4D chess that transcends time. (Would this be relevant to the plot? Probably not, but it'll be fun to watch.)

There's also the fact that Dazai hasn't been seen together with the other ADA members for a while now, and the fact that the PM has taken a huge blow that other organisations are starting to rival it, which makes it a perfect setup for him to be transferred. He'd rebuild the mafia in under a week if he went back. There's also the whole thing that Mori said about him taking over the PM before reaching 23, and considering that it's been several months since the events of S1, I'll assume it's late Spring.