(ex-posted from my tumblr)
Dumping more BSD-related thoughts onto here because I can’t get them out of my head. This time it’s purely about Dazai and how I personally think it’s really interesting how people view Dazai as a character in the general “Bungo Stray Dogs” universe and how he actually is portrayed as a character within the manga itself. This is all just word vomit btw and some free-flow thinking so sorry in advance if it doesn’t make sense and seems disjointed.
Dazai is an interesting character to me in the sense that… a large part of why I like him definitely comes from how Miyano Mamoru voiced him in the anime, and also because of all the backstory we get of him from the anime. So imagine my shock and confusion when I decided to read the manga (after S4) and realized none of that backstory is actually IN the manga. It actually made me pause and re-think a lot of Dazai’s character, as he is, in the manga, and whether I would have liked him as much without the extra info we get. I genuinely don’t think I would have. I’d certainly be curious about him, but I don’t think i would’ve necessarily liked him as much just as an individual character.
A manga-only reader actually know so little about Dazai. He really is just the mentor figure who appears to somehow know everything and shows up to drive the plot/motivate Atsushi, while also clearly hiding a million and one secrets in his trench coat. And manga-only readers do not get access those secrets.
