Zagan's Ooky Spooky Chamber

Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨

FIRST OFF THE MISCHARACTERIZATION?? The fandom treats ITrapped like an evil son of a bitch that deserves the fucking worst. I SWEAR THOSE TOXIC CHANCE AND DOUBLEFEDORA FANS TREAT MY POOR BOY IF LIKE HE WAS THE HELLSPAWN OF ROBLOXIA… 🥀🥀🥀 People hate ITrapped because he betrayed chance, but that’s double standards because the fandom likes Twotime even though they betrayed Azurewrath. Imma tell something about ITrapped that some people didn’t know: ITrapped had held onto the Darkheart during (and probably before) his relationship with Chance. It was confirmed by the forsaken Devs that the SFOTH swords can corrupt anyone that dares hold those swords for longer. ITrapped BECAME ‘greedy’ because of the Darkheart’s amplifications onto his mind. Itrappeds mental health was kinda already like shit ever since he lost two of his friends, Ellernate and Caleb244 (implied, despite those two never being directly mentioned). He was grieving over his friends and the Darkheart made his situation even fucking worse. The effects from the Darkheart? HE LOSES ANOTHER FUCKING FRIEND 💔💔 I feel like ITrapped deep down cared about Chance since he didn’t want to become lonely again…. BUT OF COURSE DARKHEART HAD TO CORRUPT HIM 💢💢💢💢💢 I have a theory that he stole the Darkheart because he wanted to protect himself from any of the admins and try to free his friends, since the banlands is scary ass place that is dangerous when you’re unarmed. My baby boy needs more angst :(

after the butchering of ITrapped’s character, this ‘new’ version gets his ‘fanon’ lore (aka given by the fandom). WHERE THE FUCK IS CALEB AND ELLERNATE??? HELLO??? WHERE WAS HIS STATUS OF BEING A EXPLOITER DURING MAY MADNESS????? His ‘lore’ isn’t expanded from that point, only being used as a plot device for chance’s sad backstory or wtv.

Now moving onto canon, him being the ‘greedy’ one in the forsaken lore never made sense because CALEB WAS THE ACTUAL GREEDY ONE IN HIS FRIEND GROUP NOT ITRAPPED 😔✌️🥀 I need more canon lore about ITrapped that proves to the fandom that ITrapped isn’t pure evil… I’m starving…… but obviously the forsaken devs don’t want to do jackshit beacuse they don’t care about anything (yes yes, drama). ITrapped’s lore in forsaken is the devs basically mischaracterizing their own character, because of the lack of focus on his character’s nuance (see: very first paragraph of this rant), but rather have major focus on him being a shithead to Chance (similarly to ‘fanon’ interpretation). as a result, may madness fans have to slander forsaken’s iteration of ITrapped lmfaoooo 😭

(image not mine, it is from pinterest ig)

Headcanons about Nene!

12-13: popular, straight As, Christian, basically the stereotypical "good girl". Born to a Japanese father and Korean mother. Born in Japan but moved to South Korea at a year old, after her father left her mother. Moved to America at 7 with her maternal grandmother and mother. Her mother really wanted her to fit in so she made herself as "American" as possible (only speaking English, eating American food,) her friends all said she'd be cooler in she got a boyfriend, so she did and...

14-17: Her boyfriend gave her herpes and immediately left her. In a panic, she tried suicide (Nene's Interactive Suicide), but ultimately failed. For the first few weeks, she was able to convince everyone it was allergies, but eventually told her mother the truth. And her mom was PISSED. She told Nene she was possessed and that she'd brought demons into their home. Eventually, her mother agreed to get her the valacyclovir, but her grandmother ended up disowning Nene. At school, a kid found the valacyclovir in her bag and told the whole school. Nene was now an outcast with no friends. Her grades slipped from top of all her classes to failing everything. She wasn't the teacher's favorite anymore. She didn't even care for her religion anymore, skipping church and hiding her Bible away. Surely God could only love pure girls. And she wasn't pure anymore. Somewhere inbetween all of this, she started cutting herself. Her mother simply covered her legs with bandages, fearing the stigma of have daughter in the psych ward. Nene also stopped eating, developing anorexia nerviosa. Her mother claimed it was "just another phase". She covered herself with baggy clothes, hoping to hide her bony figure. She stuffed her bra to make herself look more attractive as her cutting frenzies and eating disorder got worse and worse. And it worked. She became the "school bicycle" so to speak, as well as discovering she was bi. And it all came to a head during the school shooting (picos school). She'd tried so many times to kill herself that year. And she just knew this is how she would die, surrounded by corpses in a bloody school. How embarrassing! How stressful! As she saw a ginger kid with a gun approaching, she thought this was her chance! All the anxiety would finally end! She threw herself in front of him, this younger kid she didn't even recognize, and beg him to spare her, to end her life. But he didn't. "You're the Herpes Slut, aren't you?" He asked, sounding like he already knew. He grabbed her by her bony hand and shoved her under a desk before saying "don't die" and running off. She managed to escape after that, but she felt like she'd died that day. She was paranoid now,untrusting of anyone. Everything only became worse. Her mother became manipulative and cruel, her cutting, her non-eating, her attempts, all of it more intense, more crazed, more frequent. She let others ruin her, strip her, do what they wanted.

It was killing her more than anything she could do.

She took her cutting knife everywhere and had been suspended constantly for having them at her new school, but she was too scared not to have them. If she was gonna die, it would be by her hand. Finally, one day and one month before her 18th birthday, she found everything of hers laid out on the lawn. She clothes, her seal plushies, her makeup kits, her books, EVERYTHING. The locks had also been changed. She was kicked out. She sobbed on her lawn until she couldn't breathe. She grabbed her knife, some cash, a seal plushie, a few pieces of clothing, a small makeup kit, and an old picture of her and her mother from when she was only four and ran. Ran until she caught a train leading into the city, ran until she spotted a tall abandon building, ran until she was at the very top of the building, overlooking the cacophony of color that was the sunset. At least my last one will be the prettiest, she thought, taking out her knife. She knew what she would do: Hara Kiri. The most honorable suicide. As she aimed the knife at her belly, which the ribs still jutted out of, and stared at the sunset. What a beautiful last memory, she mused. She was ready for the kingdom of heaven. As the blade grazed her skin, she heared a loud "Hey, Darnell! There's some chick with a knife up here!" As she turned to the source of the noise and saw it, a look of understanding passed between them. The ginger kid smirked. "Oh", they both said "it's you". The other kid laughed joylessly. "Thought she woulda had you shot up by now."

18-24: she'd learned the kids names. Darnell and Pico. Pico and Darnell. She'd known about them, of course. Pico was once as popular as her. They'd even hung out a few times. And Darnell had had a campaign for school president, working very hard to gather the sympathy vote. They were all aware of each other, but not friends, at least not close ones. But now? Ever since they'd saved Nene, you never saw those three without each other. They knew each other well, like they'd been friends since birth. They knew Pico was schizophrenic. They knew Nene was anorexic. They knew Darnell was a pyromaniac. They knew every quirk, fact, secret, shame, pride and regret about each other. They tried to kill Pico's ex together (and he fucked it up, obviously), they battled the Uberkids together, they'd fought to be kings of the portal. It seemed like their adventures and chaos would never end. And slowly, they stated getting better. Pico wasn't so anxious all the time. Nene wasn't so skinny anymore. Darnell controlled his impulses. They made each other better.

And then Darnell died.

He really wasn't lying about having five years left to live. Pico cried the hardest. Nene felt like she was burying a brother. Neither of the talked. Just cried and hugged. It went on like that for days. Things went on. Life went on. They went on. But it wasn't the same. Pico and Nene killed and earned money and never talked or joked or laughed. How could they? They weren't whole. Nene had days were she wouldn't even look at food. Pico's hallucinations worsened. This wasn't manic depression. Nene knew that was like. She'd barely survived it. This was a depression that slowly ate you alive. But Nene steeled herself. This wouldn't kill them. This would not kill her. She gripped the handle of the knife Pico had carved for her. "We're going." She said. "Where?" Pico asked, slumped over in a chair. Nene smiled. For the first time since she could remember. "Wherever the fuck we want." And they did. They found new friends. Made new enemies. Built a home, a base, a life worth living. Because they still had to grow. Still had to change. Had to do it. For Darnell. Their new friends pushed them. Hard. And it was good to have someone pushing Nene again. Because she needed pushing.

But everyone's story ends.

No one could have seen it coming. The sword slammed into her ribs. Through her lungs and

Out

Of

Her chest

Blood. Who's blood

oh

Her blood. She'd seen that. But this was different.

As the sword was yanked back out of her chest, Nene fell. Hard. Her cheek hit a rock, knocking her tooth out. But what did it matter?

She could see him. Darnell. He wanted her to come with him. And she was ready to go. Because Pico would be okay. He had the now. It wasnt just them against the world. It was him and the others. And they would be okay. She would be okay.

Nene had done a lot of things in her life. A lot of them weren't good. But her friends were good. Seals were good. Pink dresses and hearts and sparkly headbands were all good. Having a mom was good, even if she was unkind. Helping her friends was good. And, by God, was valacyclovir good.

Nene didn't win. She was bleeding out on a battlefield, covered in dirt and blood. But she still chuckled. She wasn't dead by her own hand. That was something. No, Nene didn't win the game of life.

But she'd give her a pass.

STAT cosplay!!!!

if it were actually accurate…i couldn’t figure out how to tie her hair without it showing my own hair and the wigs net

After re-reading Bungou Stray Dogs and with better understanding of the history behind the figures of Japanese Literature, I find myself falling further in love with the Perfect Crime Arc of the BSD Manga.

In a span of three chapters, Mushitarou went from an unknown to one of my favorite mystery authors out there. An outcast of the detective novel world often disregarded due to his pedantic and frankly bizarre way of writing his stories.

Further reading about his life made me realize that this arc is a complete recreation of a section of Mushitarou's life, the other authors he interacted within his short career and an everlasting impact between giants of the Early-Showa Detective Novel scene. It is shocking how Asagiri and Harukawa conceals and works with the details of the story so well, blending in so many different parts of his life into the manga.

The Lineup

To get a better feel of who the three main figures are in this story, I must first introduce the three main authors of this story.

Edogawa Ranpo (left), Oguri Mushitarou (center), Yokomizo Seishi (right)

Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川乱歩, 1894 –1965) was a detective novelist who made a name with his many detective novels which made him a key part of the mystery novel landscape even up to the modern day. He is most well known for creating the character of Akechi Kogorou who first appeared in The Murder on D Hill (D坂の殺人事件) and would later star in many of his novels.

Oguri Mushitarou (小栗虫太郎, 1901 - 1946) was a detective novelist who was known for his bizarre writing style. His use of difficult kanji along with furigana guides for many of his stories makes his works some of the most difficult works to read in Japanese. His most well known work is The Black Death Mansion Murders (黒死館殺人事件) along with the detective Horimizu Rintarou.

Yokomizo Seishi (横溝正史, 1902 - 1981) was a detective novelist who was a master of the 'honkaku' mystery genre. His work The Honjin Murders (本陣殺人事件) and detective Kosuke Kindaichi continue to be a staple of modern Japanese pop culture.

The Making of a Genre

Misery (無惨) by Kuroiwa Ruikou (黒岩涙香) is oft regarded as the first Japanese mystery novels which brought the genre into the public consciousness. A simple murder mystery tale of gambling seemingly gone awry. From this spark then came numerous authors such as Morishita Uson (森下雨村), Ooshita Udaru (大下宇陀児), Hamao Shirou (濱尾四郎) and an up and coming author named Edogawa Ranpo.

Ranpo made a name for himself with the publication of The Two-Sen Copper Coin (二銭銅貨) in 1923 which made him the undisputed 'king' of Japanese mystery novels. With this influential position, Ranpo's comments often brought attention to many other authors working withing the genre. Along with this, magazines geared towards younger readers such as Shin Seinen began to become popular as the youth of Japan became enthralled with tales of mystery and adventure.

The Perfect Crime — The Story and the Arc

Out of all of the arcs in Bungo Stray Dogs, I feel like the Perfect Crime Arc is one that nails the heart of Bungou Media at best; a transformative work about authors and their works, how they treated one another and how they stand in the world of literature. Many of the characters in BSD are very much based on their real-life counterparts such as Dazai and Ooba Youzou of No Longer Human (人間失格) and/or The Flowers of Buffoonery (道化の華) fame. Ranpo and Mushitarou both are great representations of their works and style but more importantly, their relationship tells of their time as mystery novelists.

While Ranpo continues to enjoy mainstream fame not only within but outside Japan as well, Mushitarou is often relegated to the less-mainstream, some would call him your 'favorite's favorite'. But there's a big reason as to why Mushitarou's so much less well-known in the west and it boils down to his writing style. An "absurd" use of furigana, stretching the limits of the Japanese language with an example below from his magnum opus, The Black Death Mansion Murder Case:

Heavy and difficult kanji along with the furigana of various foreign languages, a writing style derided by critics such as Sakaguchi Ango who called it as 'imitating the worst aspects of S. S. van Dine'. This quirk would also be adapted into the Bungou Stray Dogs manga as some of Mushitarou's dialogue is written the way the real-life Mushitarou's writing style

Mushitarou's connection with Dostoevsky may have also been derived further by the story of The Perfect Crime (完全犯罪) which sees Russian characters such as Vasily Zharov who was the leading character of the story.

The story behind the publication of Mushitarou's The Perfect Crime is the main inspiration behind the story of the Perfect Crime arc.

In Spring 1933 Oguri Mushitarou, then a young and new author, submitted a 600-page mystery novel script to Kouga Saburou (甲賀三郎). After reading through it, Saburou dismissed the script saying that it was far too long; recommending Mushitarou to submit something shorter. With this recommendation in mind, Mushitarou submitted the first draft of The Perfect Crime to Saburou which impressed his peer greatly. Saburou however, still felt as if it'd be something difficult to pitch to publishers and even considered enlisting the help of Edogawa Ranpo to get it published.

Saburou then went on and decided to send the draft to then editor of the Shin Seinen magazine, novelist Mizutani Jun (水谷準) who took a quick look and then dismissed the work entirely, putting it to his desk drawer and quickly forgetting it. Shin Seinen was at this point a hub for popular literature for young boys with detective and adventure novels galore with authors such as Yumeno Kyuusaku (夢野久作), Unno Juuza (海野十三) and even Kouga Saburou himself publishing their works in the magazine. Starting from its New Year 1933 issue, they planned to include at least a 100-page one-shot story from various authors.

Yokomizo Seishi, who was at this point one of Shin Seinen's star writers, got sick with hemoptysis which lead to the cancellation of one of his stories which was to be published in the July 1933 issue of the Magazine. With this, the July issue had lost its main story; that is until Mizutani Jun, who was in a scramble to find a replacement, remembered the manuscript which Mushitarou had sent in. He quickly realized that the script was about the length needed to cover for the issue and quickly read over the work. Mizutani then also assured Yokomizo that he should take a rest instead rather than forcing himself to write.

The following is the editor's note written by Mizutani for the publication of the story:

The 100-page "The Perfect Crime" was written by a complete newcomer. This month's edition was supposed to be written by Yokomizo Seishi, but the author suddenly became ill and was unable to write, so this work was substituted for him. As you will see upon reading it, this work is a truly excellent work of detective fiction. Readers may like or dislike the setting or the descriptions, but I hope you will read it to the very last line and congratulate this newcomer on his future prospects.

The Perfect Crime was indeed Mushitarou's debut work, its publication taking center stage and substituting the work of one of the most popular mystery novelists of the era. The fact that the work was deemed "worthy" to substitute Yokomizo's work itself is already high praise.

Yokomizo then also commented with the following after reading the story written by Mushitarou:

"Who could have ever found such a powerful pinch hitter*? Even if I had been in good health, I was not confident that I could write a masterpiece as fascinating as 'The Perfect Crime.'" *A Pinch Hitter is a substitute batter in baseball.

This publication marked the beginning of Mushitarou's friendship with Yokomizo. The two of them met in a bar where Mushitarou said that "Because of your illness, I was able to debut much faster." To which Yokomizo responded with "Don't be silly, you would have debuted regardless whether I was sick or not." Mushitarou then continued saying "That may be true, but regardless the opportunity came quicker because of your illness." Yokomizo then promised, "All right then, next time something happens to you, I'll be sure to cover for you."

The two would be separated for most of the war-time, with them writing letters back and forth about detective novels while continuing to publish works as Yokomizo fled to Okayama due to the outbreak of World War II. Despite Yokomizo ever hardly sending any correspondence during this period, he continued to reply to letters sent by Mushitarou. In early spring 1946, Yokomizo received a letter from Mushitarou saying that he was going to fully devote himself to writing full-fledged novels which Yokomizo agreed with.

After the war had ended, Yokomizo went back to the literary world where he would discover that Mushitarou had passed away suddenly due to Methyl poisoning in a telegram and Unno Juuza would later explain to him the full extent of Mushitarou's untimely death. This death shook Yokomizo and he was unable to do anything for the next few days, especially due to the letter sent by Mushitarou, clearly passionate about his coming works.

Due to Mushitarou's sudden death, Yamazaki Tetsuya (山崎徹也) who was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Rock needed someone to replace Mushitarou's work for the upcoming issue. Yokomizo, who was in the middle of serialization of "The Honjin Murders" in the magazine Houseki decided to 'cover' for Mushitarou and published "The Butterfly Murders" in the magazine.

"I was no match for you"

Edogawa Ranpo at this time as the mystery novelist of the time. Ranpo at this point had met and known many other mystery novelists from Ookura Teruko and once, even met up with Oguri Mushitarou as he wrote down in 40 Years of Detective Novels (探偵小説四十年)

According to Ranpo, the two of them met once in 1946 and in this conversation Mushitarou said to Ranpo, "Edogawa-san, it seems at the end I was no match for you." to which Ranpo then replied, "Not at all, you're a better writer than I am." Which was of course replicated at the end of the arc.

The Characterification of Oguri Mushitarou

In her paper 'No longer Dazai : the re-authoring and "character-ification" of literary celebrity in contemporary Japanese popular culture', Jaylene Laturnas describes the process of Characterification (キャラクター化) as follows:

Character-ification refers to the act of turning anything from living beings to inanimate objects and abstract concepts into characters via anthropomorphism and personification (gijinka) or caricature (deforume).

Bungou Stray Dogs of course, is of course, a series that takes these authors and characterizies them in the gijinka form as stated by Asagiri himself in a 2014 interview. While most characters in Bungou Stray Dogs are 'gijinka' of their works and characters, Mushitarou occupies an interesting space as his actions and characterizations leans heavier towards the real author and the events within his short literary career. There's a clear degree of difference between how Mushi is portrayed in the series in comparison to his other fellow authors as it leans so much closer to real-events than any other author has been depicted in the series (arguably, Kunikida's turbulent relationship with Sasaki Nobuko may be the closest thing but enough creative liberties have been taken to completely differentiate the real person and the fictional character). Even the ending to the arc with Ranpo's deduction of what actually happened is in reference to a real event between the two-real life authors. It makes me want more of this rather than the arc following these 3 chapters.

The depiction of Mushitarou's friendship with the already-dead-Yokomizo in the series is just excellent, I do think a core tenet of their real-life friendship is their willingness to do anything for one another, stemming from that fateful meeting through their debut. It makes sense how in the series that this willingness is taken to the very extreme. Real-life Yokomizo's illness and BSD Yokomizo's illness parallels one another in the sense that it both brought Mushitarou into the limelight, a 'debut' for both real-life Mushi into the literary world and a 'debut' for Mushi the character in Bungou Stray Dogs. His ability being named after his debut novel is also just like the cherry on top, every layer just perfectly slotting in so well.

To examine the characters' real-life and re-contextualize it in such a way that it fits the Bungou Stray Dogs framework, I honestly would like more of this going forward and I can only hope it does happen.

Afterword

I am so so very sorry this article took a while to finish, many sources are only in Japanese and for many of them I had to verify it. Along with graduating, job-hunting and also visiting Japan earlier this year, I was too busy and I overshot when I was going to finish this.

I can't help it though, I really do love Mushishi and his silly antics and his works have somewhat inspired me to write again too. I still plan on doing deep dives like these though I want to try and write about authors not in BSD.

Until then, adieu!

Sources used:

坂口安吾. 「推理小説論」 「新潮　第四七巻第四号」 1950（昭和25）年4月1日発行

小栗宣治. 「小伝・小栗虫太郎」 『日本探偵小説全集6 小栗虫太郎集』付録〈創元推理文庫〉（東京創元社、1987年）所収。

水谷準. 「作家をつくる話――なつかしき「新青年」時代」 新青年1985年2月新春特別号第32巻第1号

横溝正史. 「小栗虫太郎に関する覚書」

江戸川乱歩. 「探偵小説四十年」

Laturnas, Jaylene "No longer Dazai : the re-authoring and "character-ification" of literary celebrity in contemporary Japanese popular culture" (2023) UBC