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What makes Soukoku Soukoku? A long analysis

Thread on Twitter: https://x.com/RandoBSDAnalyst/status/1770598183132967067

There have been many ways the word Soukoku (双黒) has been translated from the Japanese, such as "Double Black," "Twin Dark," and "Twin Darkness." As the translations imply, all the generations of Soukoku are very heavily tied together by a certain darkness they share. Soukoku, especially, have a very fascinating yin-yang relationship that is crucial to understanding how they work together so perfectly despite their differences.

In the pop-culture sense of yin-yang very simply being opposites but similar, Soukoku fits the idea perfectly. Dazai and Chuuya experienced so much of the same things as teenagers but in slightly different ways: having their childhoods robbed from them and growing up way too fast in an environment unsuitable for their age, struggling with humanity, feeling alienated and lonely, being betrayed and losing the people they cared about, and just simply not ever being able to be like anyone else do to the pain they went through and their inability to be truly vulnerable in the normal sense anymore. Their shared experiences and desire for humanity connect them.

They are thus both isolated in different ways, and it is this that allows them to reflect and complete each other. Even their responses to the deaths of those they cared about (and the resulting heartbreaking realization that these people had been their friends the entire time) in Stormbringer and Dark Era are meant to emphasize their similar but contradictory natures. Chuuya, who is generally so emotional, hid his emotional reactions and lied during the death of the Flags so that Albatross would die in peace and only showed emotion afterwards, while Dazai, who is generally calm and driven by logic, acted rather emotionally during Oda’s death and visibly showed his distress. There’s also many other ways in which they are shown to mirror each other that lie more in their mentalities.

They both are also described as feeling undeserving of goodness in their lives, and they believe themselves to be unworthy of their hearts. This was a result of their views towards their own humanity and their alienation from others, which mirror each other in that they are extrinsically driven for Chuuya (due to his ability and strength) and intrinsically driven for Dazai (due to his emptiness and coping mechanisms), and it quickly led them to become self-sacrificial in ways that are similar yet different, with Dazai doing so as a form of self-harm and out of necessity (as he believed that things didn’t affect him), while Chuuya does so out of his need to always protect others using his ability and his self-deprecation. Dazai thus never even considered that he had the possibility of leaving until Oda died and still shuts down when someone compliments or points out any good in something he did, while Chuuya similarly had fought against Detective Murase’s wishes to save himself from the mafia. Neither of them believed that they were human enough to be meant for the light. Even the way they both do physics problems in their heads and have a habit of humming when happy can be thought of as small ways in which they are similar and in sync with one another.

In the more traditional sense of yin and yang, Dazai is very clearly yin: dark, calm, soft, passive, wavering, cold, death, winter, the Moon. Chuuya, on the other hand, is yang: bright, active, loud, direct, warm, life, summer, the Sun. However, just as Daoism states that there will always be yang found in yin and yin found in yang, Dazai and Chuuya have some traits of yang and yin, respectively. Dazai’s logical way of thinking, the harshness of how cold he can be at times, and the loudness of the way he pretends to feel is more yang (even though his true emotions are deeper and softer and more vulnerable), and between the two, Dazai is the one that found himself in the light. Chuuya still lives —and found a home — in the side of the dark, and his tendency to introspect and the certain depth and sentiment to the emotions Chuuya feels is more yin. Dazai could be thought of as the Moon attempting to be the Sun, and Chuuya could be thought of as the Sun eclipsed by the darkness of the Mafia. There is a bit of light that lies within Dazai’s darkness, and a darkness that lies within Chuuya’s light. Thus their partnership lies not in their opposite personalities, but the threads that tie them together as a result of their views regarding humanity and themselves.

This is made incredibly clear in Stormbringer, where several scenes are designed to show their compatibility as partners, to the point where Chuuya even hallucinated Dazai taunting him about their similarities when he was drugged in Stormbringer.

But as Chuuya slowly began to see the human inside the Demon Prodigy and gradually became the one person who could predict Dazai’s motives (while Dazai, a brilliant strategist, could never predict Chuuya), he also began to understand that these similarities are what allow Dazai to understand him more than anyone ever had. The similarities were never a burden, but instead boons that allowed them to find humanity in each other and learn to read each other’s souls.

We don’t know much about their bond after Stormbringer and the Dragon’s Head conflict, but we do know these two moments were not the true beginnings of their partnership as Soukoku, indicating that their partnership grew even further with time and was made official afterwards.

There is so much lore and history to unpack between the two of them despite all that we know about their partnership. Remember that they still have three year's worth of history we have no idea about, history that is undeniably rich and eventful.

What we do know is that after all they have experienced together and learned from each other because of the ties they share, their bond and trust are simply more than anything that could be described using labels and norms (they are the perfect example of relationship anarchy). After so many years, they truly know each other by heart and by soul despite their constant disagreements, something that Dazai so often proudly proclaims, and they are both exactly what the other needs. They are always there to affirm each other’s humanity, and their words and actions always provide what the other requires in ways that may not make sense to the typical person but makes perfect sense in the context of their relationship and personalities.

They have never needed to explicitly express the way they care and feel vulnerable around each other and to put words to the feelings they share, instead showing each other implicitly through the arcade games, the childish arguments, and the many times they protected each other. Instead of forcing themselves into a normalcy they know they wouldn’t ever fit into or be allowed to fit into because of their natures, they manage to reach each other through various means that resonate with and can be understood by just the two of them. They built their own kind of normalcy, their own messy language composed of the pain they share and the words that go unsaid during their childish bickering.

The scene where Chuuya punched Dazai and harshly told him off during the Dragon’s Head Conflict is a perfect example of that, reminding Dazai of his humanity in a way that Dazai could process instead of ignore or push away. Chuuya had learned to care deeply about Dazai, but he never let go of his detestation of the masks Dazai wore. He knew from what Dazai has done for him in Stormbringer that Dazai has the potential to be good and do good if only he lets himself accept he is a human with feelings that are affected by others and his own actions. So the anger and the harsh response to Dazai’s nonchalance in the scene, then, was less about Dazai acting like an asshole and more about Dazai acting like an asshole and not even seeming to understand that there was more to him behind the masks he constantly wore.

Another earlier example is Dazai carrying Chuuya to where the Flag member’s bodies were before leaving him alone to mourn their loss, and then allowing Chuuya to struggle on his own for a while (though part of it was not intentional and was him again pretending to be douchey). As much as Dazai tried to pass their intentions off as another twisted method of annoying Chuuya, even going so far as to claim that he was “intentionally late” to save Chuuya, it is clear that his basic, overarching plan was purely for Chuuya’s sake.

He wanted Chuuya to at least partially face his humanity and internalize the fact that he was indeed in charge of his own behavior, emotions, and outlook. Therefore, to show all this in a way Dazai knew Chuuya would accept instead of deny, as Chuuya has such horrible survivor’s guilt and used his near invulnerability in battle to force himself to continue fighting so that he could protect others and somehow prove to himself that he is human, he allowed Chuuya to fight and handle things on his own terms in the way he knew Chuuya could before saving him and giving him the ultimate choice in the end. And it was not that all of it was intentional (he surely felt some guilt regarding the torture, based on the fact that he let Chuuya punish him afterward) or that it was even the biggest reason why Chuuya changed his perspective over the course of Stormbringer, since it was mainly Adam and Verlaine that showed him that humanity wasn't just one's origins, but it's clear how much thought Dazai put into Chuuya's humanity.

It’s as if the two were practically born to read each other’s hearts and souls in certain aspects, even though they may not have a word-for-word understanding of the other’s specific thoughts and emotions. And as their bond deepened over time, so did their ability to connect. Chuuya is able to easily sense Dazai’s presence no matter where Dazai hides, and even when using Corruption, Chuuya is able to scream Dazai’s name and regains some of his humanity when close to Dazai or when Dazai calls out to him.

Dazai, in turn, is able to tell when Chuuya’s at his limit, and promptly finds ways to end the mission so that Chuuya can recover. So, when all is said and done, they don’t always need to say everything out loud, and words can be limiting anyway depending on the circumstances.

Sure so much is left murky in the pain they live in since their verbal communication is imperfect (especially outside of missions, as they both struggle so much with their more vulnerable emotions), and sure the arguments get notoriously painful, but they can trust that they will always be able to still find each other and understand one another despite the flaws and roughness. They don’t need perfection and labels, they just need them. In a world where attachments and the usual displays of vulnerability get you and others killed or worse, something which both Dazai and Chuuya experienced so painfully from very young ages and were shaped by, it is more than they could ask for from one another. They feel that they weren’t meant for anything too soft in the normal sense, anyway, and in either case, such affection would only make both of them less them.

That’s what makes their bond so powerful: it is built off an intrinsic and deep understanding between them that formed from the messiest parts of themselves that reflect each other — their twin darkness.

In one of the creator’s words, they are one soul in two bodies, the perfect twin flames. They may exchange harsh truths instead of soft love confessions, and they tend to focus more on their work and survival in order to keep each other and Yokohama safe, but it doesn’t mean that their feelings aren’t any less obvious and meaningful to one another. It’s the much smaller things, all these acts of service and their own forms of affection, that allow the absolutely incredible depth of their bond to best come through and make it possible for them to each come to terms with being so intimately connected to another person after everything they’ve already lost. They’re the one constant, the one bit of surprising stability, in each other’s lives in every possible universe, something that is so invaluable for two individuals who have lost so much. They not only have stood the test of time despite everything thrown at them, but also still allow themselves to share the same childish arguments and small moments of tenderness even after so many years.

Now, I feel that I must add that yes, Soukoku isn’t perfectly healthy in the way we would usually judge a relationship. But that is the point. It would be far unhealthier for them to be in normal relationships where things are more gentle and loving in the usual sense, because it’s not in either of their natures and would be ignoring the parts of themselves that are darker and make them themselves. They’d both be putting on masks for such a relationship to work, since they’d have to act like they can accept and reciprocate such gentleness and vulnerability, as while they can be gentle and vulnerable, it is never in the way it usually works. Dazai and Chuuya, on the other hand, actually acknowledge those parts in each other without encouraging those bad traits, and instead of forcing them to hide those parts or think of them as nothing but monstrous, they find humanity in the death, destruction, and all their flaws that resulted from the things they needed to do to survive. They give each other true, genuine acceptance and humanity where they would otherwise pretty much never have.

They also know very well that neither of them have any blueprint for what love and true belonging is supposed to be like, Dazai especially since Chuuya at least was able to find a "family" in the mafia and grew up under Kouyou where he was cared about and seen as human and approachable despite his moments of temper (but even then it’s not like Chuuya still felt completely understood). One of them uses the other as their will to live because that’s the best he can do in that regard (as in he would pretty much lose any will to live as soon as the other genuinely leaves and is why he’s possessive and why he so constantly thinks of Chuuya), somehow has MORE masks than people he’s lost and never felt as if he had his own genuine identity, doesn’t even process that he ought to have boundaries (forget about what those boundaries ought to be), is unable to process his emotions and feel vulnerable in the normal sense due to problems with trust and emotions, can’t handle being treated as an actual person, and desperately holds on to whatever allows him to feel human and partially treats him as such without going too far. The other also greatly struggles with his emotions, vulnerability, trust, and loss, and he also feels obligated to always protect others to his detriment because he can’t live with himself otherwise (which is why he can be possessive and overprotective — in the sense of “You are a part of me and I feel obligated to look after you and make sure I don’t end up seeing you hurt like everyone else I’ve cared about before you” — of those who show him care and/or humanity in some way, which is mostly just Dazai at this point, but also includes to a lesser extent the many people who work with him and under him in the Mafia, which is why they are so fond of him and greatly respect him as an Executive and why he had eight boxes of oracles requesting him to temporarily lead the Port Mafia during the Cannibalism arc) and has a lot of guilt and self-blame. Of course they are going to be messy.

But acknowledgment of that messiness is what matters and gives them that bit of humanity they don’t get to have otherwise, and they give each other what they need. They fight for each other’s humanity and let each other be themselves and not the people they’re expected to be, and Chuuya gives Dazai meaning to his life and makes him actually feel different emotions, while Dazai gives Chuuya a break from being obligated to protect others using his ability and strength, and having to always worry about not being able to protect someone in the first place. It’s always been Chuuya’s choice to protect Dazai and use Corruption, and even though he has to always save Dazai and while Dazai may certainly give him some grief from how dangerously self-destructive Dazai is and how little Dazai values his own life, he knows Dazai can handle himself during missions until he gets there and will then be able to pull through the rest with his constantly-evolving plans.

Related Songs: "A Little Death" and "Flawless" by the Neighborhood, "I'm Your Man" by Mitski, "Daylight" by David Kushner, "Rock Bottom" by Hailee Steinfeld, "In the Name of Love" by Bebe Rexa and Martin Garrix, "Young God" by Halsey, and "The Archer" by Taylor Swift

#bsd #bsd dazai #bsd chuuya #soukoku #dazai osamu #chuuya nakahara #dazai x chuuya #character analysis #bungou stray dogs

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