I Will Never Stop Thinking About This Reference.

i will never stop thinking about this reference.

Oda Didn’t Understand Dazai: An Opinion By Me

@catboychuuuya wanted me to elaborate on that bit in my Soukoku post about Odasaku not really understanding Dazai. I aim to please, so here I am.

Let’s begin

Part A: Buraiha Trio

Oda wasn’t necessarily a bad friend. He just didn’t really know what to do with Dazai. I actually think Ango was both a better friend toward, and had a better understanding of, Dazai (Oda pushed Dazai toward the light, but Ango was the reason he got to stay there).

Oda decided that Dazai should live in the light, but I think Ango always thought he belonged there. Like he knew that Dazai had the potential to be good.

In the prologue of the Dark Era light novel, Ango is the one truly bothered by Dazai’s apathy and suicidal tendencies. Oda has very mild reactions to all of it. Dazai is basically crying out for help, and Oda’s reactions are very indulgent (kind of “that’s nice, sweetie”).

"'Oh yeah, I created a new hot-pot recipe. Would you guys be up to trying it next time we hang out? I call it the 'superhuman stamina pot.' You can run for hours without getting tired after eating it. It’s a dream of a—'

'Not in a million years,' Ango sternly declined.

'If it keeps you from getting tired, then it might be pretty useful before a hard day's work,' I added.

'…Odasaku, that's exactly the problem right there. You're enabling Dazai. You don't speak up, and that's why he goes off the rails.'

I see. So this was what Ango meant by 'enabling' him. You learn something new every day."

Now, again, Oda was not a bad person or friend. It’s normal to joke around with your friends. But also, I think it’s pretty clear (Particularly in Storm Bringer and the Dark Era) that Dazai was genuinely struggling in the mafia. He was extremely unhappy.

Another problem with Oda is that he put Dazai on a pedestal like almost everyone else in the mafia (exceptions are Chuuya and Ango for sure).

"No matter what he did, Dazai seemed to reach heights that normal people couldn’t."

The difference between Odasaku and the rest of the mafia is that Dazai greatly admired Odasaku. He admired his belief system and resolve. That’s why I think it’s so sad that Oda didn’t really understand Dazai, because Dazai took Oda’s word as gospel.

There’s one last quote from the prologue that I want to talk about:

"We had a saying in the Port Mafia: 'The greatest misfortune for Dazai’s enemies is that they are Dazai’s enemies.' If he wanted to, he could even have a picnic in the middle of a firefight. Dazai was practically born to be in the Mafia."

This is the first case where I think it’s clear that Oda has a fundamental misunderstanding of Dazai.

Dazai was not born to be in the mafia. He was groomed to be in mafia by Mori. Mori picked him because he was an extremely intelligent, yet directionless child. I think we all spend so much time thinking of Dazai as a puppet master that we forget that he is also capable of being manipulated himself.

Dazai is eighteen during the Dark Era. Eighteen. He’s a teenager. He’s not a mastermind. He’s a lost kid in desperate need of guidance. He spent four incredibly formative years of his life suffering under Mori’s thumb (One before officially joining the mafia, three after). Odasaku was Dazai’s hope, someone he could look to instead of Mori. He wanted to be like him so badly.

Part B: Something to Live For

“Odasaku…,” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording, but—don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something…”

Yeah, you read that right. Dazai just presented an optimistic outlook on life.

He’s speaking to someone who has just lost his main purpose in being in the mafia, taking care of those orphans. Yet, he’s begging him to find a new reason to live anyway.

Part C: Last Words

That brings me to Odasaku’s final moments.

“‘You won’t find it,’ Odasaku said in almost a whisper. Dazai stared at him. ‘You should know that. Whether you’re on the side that takes lives or the side that saves them, nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity.’”

Okay, so, Odasaku is right that Dazai won’t find purpose in the darkness, but he’s wrong about why. Dazai is not an empty person incapable of happiness. Even though Dazai thinks this means that Odasaku understood him well, we can’t forget that Dazai doesn’t really understand himself. His feelings. His mind. Dazai genuinely believes that nothing can make him happy, but he’s wrong and the consequences to Oda’s words are huge.

Now, Dazai thinks he’s a villain pretending to be hero. He thinks he’s inherently empty. WHICH IS WRONG.

Think about why Dazai went to Oda’s side in the first place. Because Oda was his friend. Dazai put his personal feelings first in that situation, and he does that more often than people tend to notice. He’s actually motivated by emotions a lot.

During Storm Bringer, Dazai basically moves Heaven and Earth to stop Verlaine and keep Chuuya in the mafia.

“‘I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence—close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that…’ Dazai paused before continuing, ‘…I would be able to find something—a reason to live.’”

We have to remember who prompted Dazai to think that, Chuuya. An idea born from Dazai’s relationship to another person, not the idea itself, was what made him join the mafia.

Ranpo is definitely autistic coded, but so is Dazai. Since No Longer Human was extremely influential on BSD, and that novel has a lot of autobiographical elements in it, it makes sense that Dazai seems autistic. After reading No Longer Human myself, I really do think that Osamu Dazai (the author) was autistic. Yōzō’s (the protagonist of No Longer Human) behavior is very autistic. I mean, at one point, he describes masking verbatim.

I’m mentioning this because I think that what Dazai hopes to understand is not a reason to live itself, but other people’s motivation to live. It’s an extension of the very autistic feeling of alienation from other people. Dazai thinks there’s something wrong with him because despite caring about other people a lot, he has trouble understanding their illogical behavior. He also struggles to understand his own illogical behavior.

I also think this is why Oda struggles to understand Dazai. Because people who aren’t autistic usually struggle to understand autism. Autistic people often get profiled as ‘sociopaths’ (an outdated term that refers to Antisocial Personality Disorder) and are seen as emotionless monsters.

Dazai distances himself from other people as a defense mechanism. In his own words, “I always lose the things I don’t want to lose the most. That’s why I don’t feel anything anymore. The moment you get your hands on something worth going after, you lose it. That’s just how things are. There is nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging a life of suffering.” I think that indicates that he cares very much about the people in his life, but that he also lives in constant fear of losing them.

Conclusion

I don’t know how well I articulated any of this (I’m neurodivergent, can you tell?), but my point is that Odasaku took a lot about Dazai at face value, instead of trying to peel back the layers and understand him as a person. He ended up dehumanizing Dazai a bit in the process.

Dazai is far from perfect, but he’s also not inhuman.

I think about this quote from Atsushi a lot, “People need to be told they’re worthy of being alive by someone else or they can’t go on.” Like, what would have happened if someone told Dazai his life was worth living even without some grand purpose?

Bsd Quick Analysis: No Longer Human

Spoilers: light novels and movie

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Spark notes version: Dazai does not need to be in direct contact with the target, but it’s still very complicated.

Keep reading

I love Soukoku and attempting to deny their bond and the homoeroticism there would make all of us look stupid. But I kind of hate how their relationship during the Mafia days gets interpreted by most of the fandom. Because that’s not Dazai, and Chuuya already has/has had that with other people.

For example: A friend who barges into his apartment at all hours of the day and night? Canonically Albatross did that.

Chuuya is a person who thrives off of community in a way that Dazai refuses to. That’s why he finds it again and again (the Sheep, the Flags, whoever those friends were that died during the Dragon’s Head Conflict, the PM in general). So, this idea that Chuuya had no one to trust except Dazai is both wrong and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of Chuuya’s character.

Chuuya is a trusting person. He trusts people and he likes to be surrounded by them. He’d never put all his eggs in one basket especially if that basket is Dazai.

Dazai is the opposite. He isolates himself and operates alone most of the time. Other than Oda and Ango, Dazai didn’t have a lot of people around him that he genuinely liked and enjoyed spending time with. He has a very twisted self image (which isn’t helped by Oda’s misunderstanding of Dazai as a person), so he keeps people away as a defense mechanism.

I’m not saying that Chuuya and Dazai weren’t close at all (their inside jokes, code names, etc. all prove they were), or that Chuuya wasn’t affected by Dazai leaving the mafia. But I want everyone to consider who Dazai was while in the mafia. He wasn’t really capable of vulnerability at all. Chuuya was not an exception to that. Fifteen, Storm Bringer, the Dead Apple flashbacks, and allusions Chuuya has made are all evidence of that.

Dazai’s relationship with Chuuya was honestly probably closer to Dazai’s relationship with Akutagawa than anything else. He did care about Chuuya, but he was probably incapable of expressing it in a healthy or affirming way.

Hot take: Oda was wrong.

Oda's dying words to Dazai,

"nothing beyond what you would expect will appear. Nothing in this world can fill that lonely hole you have. You will wander in darkness for eternity.”

are presented to us as an irrevocable truth, because Oda is Dazai's only friend, he claims to be the only one who understands him.

Oda uses this to convince Dazai to become a "good man", and through that, fulfill Oda's dream to not kill anymore; to become a good person.

And as the audience—people who are attached to these characters, and people who've seen Oda purely through Dazai's eyes (as an older brother, father-type mentor; someone who Dazai greatly respects and adores), we believe Oda as well.

We witness the scene that is tainted by Dazai's emotions from the start, we feel his doubt and despair. You put yourself in his shoes to really experience the story to the fullest.

This is also the reason why we lose the ability to think it through.

Yes, Dazai's life looks pretty bad, then.

But he is also depressed and su*cidal, he cannot be expected to get out of it all on his own. Of course he'd hold onto his best friends last words like a lifeline. And not only "to become a good man", but also "you will never find happiness".

So to sum it all up, Oda might have thought he was right—might have been right—but only when it came to PM Dazai.

ADA Dazai has a lot of potential, and could learn to want to live again if only he had more support.

I keep seeing headcanons and fanart of Spy x Family with Dazai and Chuuya but y’all are missing the fact that it’s very obviously supposed to be Oda and Ango with a feral little Dazai running around