Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Bungo Stray Dogs, Vol. 8 (Light Novel): Storm Bringer

This book hurt my feelings. Okay the beginning of the 4th chapter kind of devolved into BSD nonsense but then the wrap-up was nice and the rest of it was freaking devastating. Poor babygirl. What really broke my heart was not only how sad Chuuya's story is (and the implications for his future relationships) but how much of a psychopath young Dazai was.

Anyway, this one was good, Asagiri, do another one.

Content Warnings

trintrin's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

As someone who deeply, deeply loves Chuuya, this is not good for my health. I'm so overwhelmed, I genuinely don't know how to put my feelings for this book into words. However, I shall attempt.

"Chuuya's character is an inexhaustible spring." “Master Chuuya is the kind of person who will never abandon those who have helped him, even if they end up betraying him. That is simply who he is. It would seem that was why he became the Sheep King.”

Chuuya is an incredibly loyal person who cares so, so much about his friends, his crew, his organisation, an AI that he doesn't really vibe with, and heck even the "friend" who stabbed him in the back quite literally. He values people and the help they provide, and he's a very chill dude who just wants to live his life. I will not stand him being called "unnecessarily arrogant" because have you even read this book?

It's so cruel, seeing him suffer to that extent, not knowing if he is even human, losing every single person close to him, going through all the stages of grief, and finally accepting his fate.

I'm so proud of Chuuya and the way he handled everything. Literally one of the best BSD characters, and that's saying a lot considering BSD has a ton of amazing characters.

“It was hard to describe Master Chuuya’s expression then with only a single word. To be specific, he looked like he wanted to smack Shirase in the head with a hammer, but he didn’t have a hammer on him, and he didn’t want to have to use his bare hands, either. It was a fantastic expression, so I took a picture and saved it in the folder titled FAVORITES in my storage.”

Adam ahhh 😭 he's so precious, what else can I say? I loved him and his little antics so much.

He was the one who made Chuuya laugh so genuinely on two occasions and is the source of most wholesome moments in this book. I hope he achieves his dream of opening an all-android detective agency and

I hope we get to see him lots and lots in the main manga.

“Just once, I want you to imagine just how much it could affect a person if you told them they weren’t human. Imagine how it feels to be told you weren’t born with God’s love, that you are nothing more than a character set someone suddenly came up with. Imagine the depths of a person’s heart pierced by those words. It’s a pitch-black abyss where the moon can’t be seen. There is no hope. There is no salvation. Do you get it? Even those feelings of despair are merely something someone designed!”

Verlaine, there we go, BSD making me care for the villains yet again. So far, out of all the villains, Verlaine was the one I feared the most. Maybe that's justified considering he's also the most powerful of them all,

but I did not expect his story to be so tragic. The pain of not being human, actual humans pretending to understand him and telling him it doesn't matter if he's human or not. I don't agree with him taking out his anger on the world and trying to push his ideals on Chuuya, but I understand where he comes from. And that epilogue? It was so heartbreakingly beautiful :(

"I wanted to save you, and I thought I was." Rimbaud bent down and held a hand over Verlaine's chest. "But all I ended up giving you was the unwanted pity of a man who merely pretended to understand. I know simply apologising is not enough to merit forgiveness. I was always wondering what I could give you in return, and then, on the verge of death, I found my answer. I can give you this. You didn't like the birthday present I gave you. So I'm giving this to you instead, as a replacement. Happy birthday, Paul. I'm glad you were born -- and I'm so glad I got to meet you."

I never really cared for Rimbaud in Fifteen, but now I hope he gets to have a happy ending with Verlaine in an alternate universe, considering those are canon in BSD. It's wild because Rimbaud is already dead by the time Storm Bringer starts, but you see so much more of his past in this one. I never expected his actual name to be Paul Verlaine and that he switched code names with the artificially derived skill named Arthur Rimbaud. Or that he is the reason Verlaine's heart is still beating. Everything about these two are tragic smh smh Asagiri never beating those sadist allegations.

“Those who knew Dazai didn’t dare come near his home—not even his Port Mafia subordinates—and not because of how eerie the area was. Rather, nobody knew how Dazai would react when someone invaded his private space. Perhaps he would tear off their limbs and kill them, or perhaps he would welcome them with open arms and a cup of tea. Nobody could understand how Dazai worked. The black wraith of the Port Mafia: That was what people called him.”

And, of course, Dazai. What would BSD be without this little manipulative mastermind gremlin. He wasn't around as much as I would've liked him, but he did play a major part, albeit mostly behind the scenes or towards the end. Dazai is Dazai, what more do I need to say? The difference between him in the last book and this one is striking, though. You can see sixteen year old Dazai lose most of that childish innocence and become more and more of an esteemed mafioso within just a year. The little crumbs we get of his life in the Port Mafia only serve to contrast how he turned his life around later on, and I'll be devouring every last bit of it.

The only critiques I can give this book are the lack of development of side characters more than surface level.

The deaths of the Flags, and the detective, which were already pretty sad, could've been so much sadder if they were more fully developed. As of now, it only hurts because their deaths hurt Chuuya, not because we miss those characters in particular.

I understand this book is already long as it is, but still, it would've been a nice addition. Another thing is being told and not shown sometimes? Now this could be lost in translation, so I don't really mind it. Two more random ones are constantly pointing out Chuuya's lack of height, which got old pretty fast; and that

electricity torture session,

which I don't really understand the purpose of, other than to inflict extreme pain. Now these are pretty minor and didn't affect my enjoyment of the book. Can't give it any lesser than 5 whole well deserved stars!

Content Warnings

More...