hai….how does the fyodor lover feel about the BSD chapter…
i am obviously upset, but i will now rationally speak. i am moreso pissed that whatever left of my faith i still had in the narrative, has since proven itself as fanciful, and was smitten away with the penultimate to this division’s finale. i will be honest—i am stubborn and i will hold onto even a thread of possible resolve in the future that could satisfy at least me, but the fact is, it has become apparent that i am not alone in my complaints about this arc, or how this plot and writing has progressed since 2024.
my detailed arguments are drafted—i just thought i could answer this as a preface. regarding fyodor, i already expected his «end» would be clumsily and inadequately executed many months ago, due to factors such as: 1) the complete combination and combustion of a dozen supernatural elements, both wielded by, and simply associated with him—not only would you have to tie off the antagonist’s character, but also, all of these outside complexities that require their own careful knots to not seem “cheap” or leave plot holes. that is already a complicated design. 2) his resurrection ability (which i’ve already teased my opinions on). 3) it actually ties back into the second, but my stance on asagiri straying from fyodor’s original “presentation”, or appearance of his essence, as i like to term it. this last point is why i’ve held such a huge disappointment—it’s the handling of fyodor’s character. my beliefs were instantly confirmed upon receiving the news that bungou stray dogs is sectioned in parts, and this one was about to end. anyone could see: there was absolutely no way asagiri could sufficiently rectify fyodor’s position in two chapters (unless they were somehow, 50+ pages, each? of course that wouldn’t happen).
still, out of all the ways this inevitable event could have played out, the edifice of this chapter was highly unsatisfying to me, not only because of fyodor actually «dying», but because of how everything until now was built up for this moment, yet what actually happened appears so sloppy beside it. people might say that fyodor, as he is, deserved an «anticlimactic» death, but i am/will arguing here not that. instead, i am arguing the execution of the chapter itself as anticlimactic—there were aspects within 129 alone (independent of the greater arc/plot) that i saw had more potential (ex. fukuchi, fyodor, and their ideals—opposites of the same coin. if it was going to be fukuchi’s action in the end, its importance should have been emphasised). this flatness is something readers have dealt with for a while, and for it to not have improved at the very end is disappointing.
i’ll state the rest in my original post. it’ll focus more on fyodor, while here, i choose to give criticism to the larger plot. this is what i’d like to share for now. (i am sick. he never fails to get me with such careful words, whether he intentionally speaks in prose or something even more rare, directly from his anima.)
