English Dub Review: Bungo Stray Dogs WAN Episode 9

OVERVIEW

Dr. Yosano misplaces her scalpel.

OUR TAKE

Yep, we’re still at it with this as we go enter the final third, though this time we might actually be able to pin point something easy to make 400 words out of here. This week sees a skit about forgetting where a doctor character put their scalpel after a surgery and asking characters she recently operated on if they possibly feel weird, leading to wacky shenanigans including accidental comings on and fake diagnoses. This is probably the most focus we’ve had on this character throughout this comedy spin-off, so naturally I don’t have a whole lot to add about her as a character other than that she is the doctor character and I guess uses sex appeal sometimes? Like all characters in the series, Yosano is loosely based on an author with her powers based on one of that author’s works. In this case, her power is called Thou Shall Not Die, naturally making it a healing sort of power, and is based on a poem that author made as an anti-war protest during the Franco-Russian War. And now you know a little bit more about all of that for the inevitable open book quiz we’ll be having at the end of the season, so make sure you study up!

The other noteworthy segment is the one at the end, which sees Atsushi and Dazai drawing each other for a game or something. At the end of that, there’s a little song to instruct people how to draw Atsuhi’s depiction of Dazai. This sorts of drawing songs are actually pretty common when it comes to cartoons in japan, apparently accompanying an interest with the work with trying to get children to learn how to draw, which is interesting as it encourages starting kids on their respective journeys to become artists right away. Honestly, if there was a way of incorporating this into American cartoons, we would probably be the better for it. Then again, there isn’t a ton of appreciation for the arts over here, at least not on this level, so who knows how that would go. Anyway, just three more episodes of this version of the show and I can finally be done with it. As you can probably tell, it’s becoming harder and harder to really come up with something to say about this series every week, so I’ll be glad to finally put all of this behind me.