#Higuchi Protection Squad rise up!!

[anti-dazai-blog]

4- Even Higuchi’s not safe from Dazai (and other complaints)

I thought the analysis of chapter 4 would be shorter than the average analysis, since Dazai only shows up in the last panels. But Dazai does this cool thing where he somehow manages to condense a lot of Asshole-ry into a short amount of time. It would be impressive if he wasn’t such a horrible person. 

As mentioned in part 3.2, all injuries that occurred during the fight against Higuchi and Akutagawa are Dazai’s fault. He was well aware that Higuchi’s a mafia member, yet allowed Atsushi, Tanizaki, and Naomi to walk right into her trap, without giving them any sort of warning. 

I’ll recap all injuries during that fight, just so you have a clear rundown of the amount of damage Dazai doesn’t mind causing to his so-called friends and coworkers:

Naomi gets shot by Higuchi and almost dies (would have actually died if not for Yosano, so that goes to show how serious her injuries were)

Tanizaki gets stabbed by Rashoman (also a serious injury, and most likely would have died if not for Yosano)

Atsushi loses a leg (and Dazai had no way of knowing it would grow back, since the Weretiger ability has not shown its regenerative capabilities prior to this)

Atsushi, Tanizaki, and Naomi all will definitely have some amount of trauma from this (mental health is very important and I will definitely acknowledge their trauma the same way I’d acknowledge their physical injuries 

Tanizaki was forced into a situation where he had to reveal his ability to the mafia, which is something that can (and probably will) put him in more danger in the future (It’s clear from Higuchi and Akutagawa’s reactions to Tanizaki’s ability that they didn’t know all the details of it. They only knew it was non-combative. And it makes sense that they wouldn’t have known— Tanizaki is/was a high school student before joining the agency, and since he’s 18 he probably joined very recently. He’s not someone the mafia would have a bunch of intel on. But now he lost any element of surprise that he could have had in the future.)

Not only was all of that caused directly by Dazai conveinitenly neglecting to warn anyone that they were walking right into a trap, but he was listening in on his friends and comrades getting slaughtered without doing anything. And furthermore— his timing when he finally did show up was a little too perfect. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was waiting just around the corner for the perfect moment to make his dramatic entrance. 

Now, did he do this for the theatrics of it? Did he wait until this moment to reveal himself because of his need to show everyone that this entire situation is nothing more than a game to him? Or could his possible motive be to make sure Atsushi and Akutagawa’s rivalry progresses the way that he wants? He was listening in on every word said. It’s likely enough that he waited until now to finally save his coworkers (two of which are bleeding out on the ground in front of him) just for the sake of having this artificial rivalry of his own making go the way he wants it to go.

As a side proof for this, we can take a good look at his facial expression when he shows up and nullifies Atsushi and Akutagawa’s abilities. That’s a pretty big (and ominous) smile for someone who’s supposed to be there to save his coworkers from certain death.

When reading this chapter, I was very surprised to find another victim of Dazai’s antics that I didn’t remember from beforehand and definitely didn’t expect: Higuchi. 

Let’s take a moment to rehash something that happened earlier in this very chapter; Akutagawa slaps Higuchi across the face for jeopardizing their mission by shooting at the weretiger when they need him captured alive. With that in mind, let’s look at what happens when Dazai shows up:

Dazai arrives and nullifies the abilities. Higuchi questions why he’s here and how he knew to show up. Dazai, who, up until now, has made his top priority “being mysterious” and never revealed anything to anyone, decides that he would absolutely love to reveal exactly how he knew what was going on. He pulled out his headphones and his end of the listening device from his pocket, and reveals that he planted the other end on Higuchi. 

Dazai, a former mafia executive, who’s surely aware of whatever sort of hellish mafia punishment awaits those who are careless enough to allow listening devices to be planted on them, decides to reveal this information here and now. Not to Kunikida, who asked him repeatedly what exactly he’s doing. Not to Atsushi, Tanizaki, and Naomi, who he watched walk right into a trap with no warning of what sort of fight they were about to face. He chooses to completely neglect the people on the same side as him, and reveal this useful and necessary information in the one and only way that would actively harm someone.

And it would be bad enough if she was just some random mafia member, but she works with Akutagawa. She works with someone who would slap her for nearly no reason. She’s not getting away from this unharmed. And Dazai knows that.

I’ll end this off with some minor complaints. Dazai tells Atsushi to stand up right after his leg was cut off, because he doesn’t want to have to carry three people back—although his leg had regenerated, there’s no way of knowing if he would be able to walk on it right away. Imagine watching someone’s leg get amputated and replaced by an artificial leg, and telling that person to get up and walk on their way out of the hospital. That’s just cruel. But whatever, it’s Dazai.

Here’s another relatively minor complaint, this time regarding Akutagawa, to even things out a bit. When Akutagawa sees Dazai, he immediately starts telling him about the bounty on “the weretiger”. From the way he speaks, it seems like he’s talking to him the way a subordinate would talk to his boss. I wouldn’t be surprised if he subconsciously still sees Dazai in that way. And yet when Dazai hears Akutagawa talking to him in this way, and hears about the bounty, his response is along the lines of “Oh? That’s so cool!” In around 8 chapters, he finally gets around to looking into who exactly placed the bounty on Atsushi, but I’m positive that if he would have asked Akutagawa directly, right here and now, Akutagawa would have told him. Which, of course, just makes his unnecessary trip to the Mafia’s dungeon.. well, a little more unnecessary. 

Join me next week when I tell you all about how Dazai ditches work more often than he actually shows up to work, and if BSD took place in a realistic world he would have been fired by now.