Last week was just a calm before the storm for the Armed Detective Agency. This week, as “Bungou Stray Dogs” begins a new chapter in its story, things take a drastic turn for the members of the Armed Detective Agency. We get to see more of Nikolai Gogol and understand his ideals, and at the same time, we also find out more about The Five Deadly Omens. “Bungou Stray Dogs” has always worked on its story-building arcs with shocking plot twists. The manga as well as the anime both work their way toward shocking the audience with their rollercoaster of challenges. Let’s take a look at the events that transpired in episode 6 of “Bungou Stray Dogs” this week.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In Episode 6 Of ‘Bungou Stray Dogs’ Season 4?
After the events of last week, the timeline moves a month ahead, where Fukuzawa is receiving an honorary birch bow from the government for their help in the cannibalism incident. Back at the agency office, the team is discussing the four recent gruesome murders. After analysis, they came to the conclusion that those individuals were in the government, and the murder pattern was following the myth of “The Five Deadly Omens.” Each murder is symbolic of the Buddhist Cycle of Existence. Four of those five acts had already been committed, and the fifth was yet to be executed. Fukuzawa is of the opinion that the team should work to avoid that from happening, but Ranpo takes a step back. After Mushitaro’s warning about an upcoming dangerous task that the team should avoid, Ranpo is positive that this is the task Mushitaro hinted at.
In the sixth episode, we are also introduced to Osamu Dazai. He is away at a horse race when he is arrested by Saigiku Jōno. It turns out that Mushitaro is, in fact, still alive, albeit severely injured. He was forced into undoing his ability, which brought out all of Dazai’s past criminal charges into the open.
Sakaguchi calls Atsushi Nakajima and informs him that there is a mole in the government. As the Armed Detective Agency prepares to fight their next enemy, the Minister of Justice, named Tonan, and his team are preparing to take the Agency down. Kunikida, Kenji, Yosano, Miyazawa, Izumi, and Nakajima receive a video from Nikolai Gogol. In the video, he has trapped five government officials, and he threatens to kill them by 6 PM that day. The death of those officials is the fifth murder waiting to happen.
Nakajima gets a head start and goes into the mansion where Gogol has kept the hostages. On his way in, he is met by Gogol. Gogol’s space manipulation works in his favor, and Nakajima loses the fight. Gogol engages in a short monologue about his ideals of being free and how only Dostoyevsky understood him. In the meantime, the remaining members of the agency plan to infiltrate the mansion. The government has also set up snipers with orders to shoot on sight.
Meanwhile, Ranpo is on an investigation of his own, but he has kept the Agency in the loop. He meets Director Taneda in a building. Director Taneda is injured and bleeding, but he helps Ranpo. Taneda tells Ranpo that one of the remaining three members of The Five Deadly Omens is responsible for his condition and that the person’s ability is the exchange of information. Taneda also mentions that one page of the book is missing. The Five Deadly Omens have taken over the page for their mission. The book contains supernatural powers. All the pages of the book are blank, and anything written on them turns into reality.
Here, the Agency is preparing to rescue the hostages when their identities are revealed. One of the members is the Minister of Justice himself. Gogol, being the trickster he is, decides to execute the members six minutes earlier than he had said. He has one personnel dressed in white with their face covered behind the hostages. He lets the Minister of Justice live. The others are bound by chainsaws, which begin cutting through their bodies, resulting in a painful and horrifying death. As the agency members hear what happens inside, whatever Gogol says starts becoming a reality. Soon we find that the Agency members have replaced the personnel dressed in white. They are confused to find themselves standing there because they had not even barged in through the doors. The snipers and armed forces stationed outside see what is happening inside the mansion and turn against the Agency. Gogol has tied himself to a chair, and as his parting words, he embraces his death as the final freedom from the cages of human morality. He is also killed in a similar fashion as the rest. He persuades the Minister of Justice to make the phone call and inform his office that the real antagonist is the Armed Detective Agency. Since Gogol and his gang have the page from the book, they can easily turn things in their favor. Ranpo calls Kunikida and warns him to get out of there because the final act was targeted at bringing the Agency down. But it is too late for them to turn back. We also find that Taneda was taken to the hospital, and his recovery is hopeful.
Season 4, Episode 6: Ending Explained – Who Or What Are The Five Deadly Omens?
Season 4, Episode 6 of “Bungou Stray Dogs” is based on Chapter 57 of the manga. In the manga, The Five Deadly Omens are addressed as The Decay of the Angels. Jōno, in fact, works for the Hunting Dogs unit. His ability is Priceless Tears, which allows him to manipulate and disintegrate his body into tiny particles. The Hunting Dogs are a special group of the government that is tasked with dealing with severe cases involving those with abilities. Dazai’s arrest by Jōno is just the start of the calamity that has fallen upon the Armed Detective Agency. Dazai is one of the most instrumental members, and his arrest could lead to a lot of complications for not only the Agency but also his previous employer, the Port Mafia. With Mushitaro’s ability now undone, all the crimes hidden under the rug will be out in the open. Yosano is also not in the clear because there have been whispers about her accidentally killing someone in the past. Jōno’s introduction in this episode only means that we will be getting to see more of the other Hunting Dogs in the forthcoming episodes.
Nikolai Gogol is an interesting antagonist. His flair for dramatics and his ever-so-vibrant way of speaking emphasizes the severity of his ideals in an obscure way. This episode revealed that philosophically speaking, he carried a lot of burden within him. He wanted to be free of the human bonds of morality and ethics. He found himself caged within the confines of the social construct, and working with The Five Deadly Omens was his way of getting his message out there. Perhaps he was only living his life to be finally free of the shackles, and since he did not adhere to the customs, he left chaos and destruction in his wake. Considering Gogol’s thirst for theatrics, one can assume that he has not actually died and is perhaps only faking his death. (Manga readers, hold your secrets for a week longer!)
These antagonists in the story do raise a lot of questions about society, the construct, the morals, and the age-old debate of “what is good and what is evil?” The anime started off on a light and nostalgic note, but it is just episode six, and there is already an explosion of adrenaline and thrill in the story. With the Hunting Dogs and the government hot on their heels and the quintet of antagonists bent on wiping the Agency out, how will the Armed Detective Agency save themselves from this double-edged attack?
