Bungou Stray Dogs - Episode 5: Sherlock Has Come

When last time we see Bungou, we see the Detectives easily destroying the Port Mafia hitmen, and Atsushi settling in. And now, for the first time we shall see the enigmatically eccentric Edogawa Ranpo in action, in the fifth episode of Bungou Stray Dogs: Murder on D Street. Spoiler alert, for both intentional spoilers and otherwise.

Right after last episode, the headquarters was still in ruins, and yet Ranpo was just chilling around and playing around with with a marble. Without looking at the explanation at the end of the episode, it could already be understood that he holds quite some influence, as a respected member of the Detectives.

And here we see Atsushi being sidelined for once, to help the comically clueless Ranpo. Stereotypical genius that has no idea how to do usual day-to-day stuff.

Yes, we shall go along with the classic storyline. The tried and proven private eye was shoved from the case by a new investigator. Although, in this case, Ranpo took that relaxedly.

On another note, the case seems to also be just another classic murder. Bungou's first fray into mystery could perhaps be just that: a collection of used plotlines.

Well, mixed with Bungou's running joke, that is. The moment they caught a man in the net, I already guessed it'll be him.

Oh, it's been quite a while since last hearing Dazai going on and on about ladies and double suicide, since that one time last episode. However, they never really told us about why he ended up in the river, other than "going for a swim." Perhaps it's just that we were seeing the story from Atsushi's perspective, after all.

On to more laughs, when Ranpo challenged the sergeant to solve the case in sixty seconds.

It was quite a miracle that he didn't outright panic and thought about the murderer's MO: the same as a Port Mafia execution. However, once more this turned out to be the same recipe as a usual crime story: a red herring.

But when Ranpo used the ability, to my surprise, they threw all usual means of making a good murder story by outright telling us who the killer was.

To my surprise, the sergeant.

The moment he hesitated to pull out the gun for examination, the investigator pleaded that his subordinate can't be wrong. Now that was some tense moment, but I thought that he relented too quickly. His ego seemed big enough at the start of the episode.

The deduction was finished, and all it was left is to hear from the perpetrator how it went to be. It was a classic tale, once again, not really much to be commented; the usual corruption and evidence that he needed to retrieve, then the accident where the victim was killed.

But Bungou flipped the pattern of deduction. Ranpo never told anyone how he did it. On the other hand, Dazai did explain the case like Sherlock. But he not being a master of deduction, it seems not all strings were tied; not all questions answered. I thought they just couldn't find a way to connect the clues.

And the last reveal, the most shocking one of all, it turned out that Ranpo wasn't Gifted after all, just a super talented person who could deduce in under a minute: Sherlock on a different level.

But the most striking thing was that Ranpo was, according to Dazai, just convincing himself that he was Gifted. Such was the childish personality of this eccentric man.

That's about it, actually. Until next week, where I do hope they return to chasing the Port Mafias.