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"Mature Content Warning!" |
Boss Man
So, I originally thought he wasn't heinous enough to be on here, hence why he's on Villainous Benchmark, but thinking about his actions and relationships with other characters, I want to see if he counts so instead of a proposal, I'll do a discussion on the Grand Marshal of Outer Space/Outer-space Marshal/Grand Marshal of Space.
What's The Work?
Bungo Stray Dogs Is a 2012 monthly manga series written by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa. The series is regarded as underrated by many but is very popular in Japan.
The series revolve around characters that are based off of famous people in 20th century or older literature history, and their powers are a reference to those people's famous works. The protagonist, Atsushi Nakajima was kicked out of his orphanage and saved a man named Osamu Dazai from drowning, only to find out that Dazai was trying to off himself on purpose. Dazai and his partner, Doppo Kunikida are looking for a rampaging tiger and the two of them find out that Atsushi was the tiger (thanks to his ability to turn into a wild tiger). After the investigation, Dazai recruits him into the Agency he works for, the 'Armed Detective Agency', a grope of detectives that handles crimes too dangerous for the police to handle. There, he meets many other ability users as they tackle various cases and events taking place in the city of Yokohama. As Atsushi fights and works to earn himself a place in the world, he and his allies fight to protect themselves from their longtime rivals, the Port Mafia and defend the city from outside threats like The Guild, the Rats in the House of the Dead, and the Decay of the Angel.
Who Is He?
Ōgai Mori can be considered the series secondary antagonist. Like almost every other character in the series, he is based off the Japanese surgeon and author with the same name and his ability, Vita Sexualis (which is based off of the author's most popular novel, Vita Sexualis) allows him to summon a little girl named Elise, being able to configurate her emotions, appearance, and is capable of having her professionalize in combat.
Mori is the leader of the Port Mafia, an organization that controls a majority of Yokohama's criminal underworld and are the longtime rivals of the Armed Detective Agency. He originally worked as a military physician and later an underground doctor forming a tag team duo with the detective agency leader, Yukichi Fukuzawa, before the two of them went their serpent ways after Fukuzawa tried to stop him from exploiting Akiko Yosano's healing ability again as a means to overthrow old Port Mafia boss. After that went south for him, he works as a doctor for the mafia and secretly assassinates the old boss on his death bed, taking over as the current boss of the Port Mafia to maintain a state of balance in Yokohama.
What Makes Him Heinous?
Heinous Standards?
The heinous standard of BSD is pretty high, with Fyodor being the mastermind behind almost everything, Francis mind breaking a whole city, Shibusawa killing ability users worldwide, all that jazz. Fyodor and Francis are bigger threats than Mori and Mori may not be a guy who attempted to destroy a whole city, or massacred a crap tone of ability users, but his relationship with the characters we love like Dazai, Chuya, and Yosano plays a part at how personal he is toward them since his cold actions are the sole reason why the three of them are in the positions they're in. But I'll let you guys in the comments discuss that.
Heinous Actions
The worst thing Ōgai did that could consider him a war criminal was keeping the soldiers from retreating during the Great War and forcing them to keep fighting after Yosano heals them, traumatizing both the men and Yosano. One of the soldiers that Yosano was close friends with (that being Tachihara's brother) even offed himself after reaching his breaking point which made Yosano reach her breaking point, snap, and loose her mind to the point where she was about to bomb a whole ship until she got arrested and detained in an isolation facility.
During the events of the Fifteen prequal story arc, he blackmailed Chuya into cooperating with him and Dazai in finding out the truth behind the old bosses return and the Arahabaki creature that Chuya's after by abducting his friends from the Sheep, who were all just teenagers. As for his actions the STORMBRINGER prequal, which takes place a year after Fifteen, he arranged for the Port Mafia's Flags (who were pretty much the only friends Chuya had left) to die at the hands of Paul Verlaine, which caused Chuya to lose it and use his destructive Corruption powers.
Next, he's responsible for the events that play out during the Dark Era prequal arc. Inviting the criminal group called Mimic into Yokohama just so he can have the Special Ops' permission to take them down on the condition he and the mafia get a Skilled Business Permit to legalize all of their criminal activities. Knowing Odasaku is the only one who could be a match for their leader, Gide, he manipulates the pacifistic former assassin into fighting Gide by tipping him and his crew off about the orphans that Oda looks after, this getting the kids killed and leading Odasaku into going on a suicide mission. After Oda's death, Dazai goes to his aid but is too late. Oda then gives Dazai a dying wish about being someone who saves people if both good and evil are the same to him, leading to him becoming a member of the ADA
What Makes Him Inconsistent?
Almost every character in BSD is more than a hero or villain, they're walking ideologies trying to achieve their goals. Mori is no different, the thing about him is that he's a man who's basically the epidemy of "the ends justify the means". He has the qualities of an extremist when it comes to the Great War and Yokohama, genuinely believing that abilities were needed during the War otherwise nations like theirs would fall apart, and he outload said in a flashback that he loves everything about Yokohama City, even the bad parts of it, showing that not only is he someone who cares about balance in the city (hence why he killed the former boss bc of his recklessness) but because he sees the beauty in a place like it and doesn't want that beauty to be tarnished, even willing to cooperate with the Armed Detective Agency to defeat greater threats that come to destroy Yokohama and even though he helps them out of pragmatic reasons, he never betrays them in the process of the cooperations.
Dr. Man. "Boy, no matter what the stakes are, there's always a logical best solution. The more you feel yourself falling into a confused panic, the more important it is not to forget that."
Mori is also pretty affable, encouraging Atsushi to fight against Lucy to save his friends and even though that could also be pragmatic bc he was also in the same situation as all of them, before he makes his leave, he gives the kid some friendly advice about there always being a solution to any problem no matter how dire. Secondly, he has respect for Fukuzawa as a swordsman despite their falling out, even telling his subordinates to ceasefire on the detective agency after the battle against the Guild, AND fully believing that they're innocent when the detective agency was framed as terrorist by the Decay of Angels. Lastly, despite the fact that he's willing to discard his subordinates if necessary, Mori is a pretty good boss to them, willing to have casual relationships with them and forgives their mistakes as long as they don't harm the Port Mafia, especially the mafia executives like Chuya and Koyo. He also willingly putted himself at risk of dying at Fukuzawa’s hand due to the Cannibalism virus in both their bodies to keep his subordinates in the mafia from destroying themselves fighting the detective agency.