Title: Bungo Stray Dogs Vol. 21
Author: Kafka Asagiri (Story), Sango Harukawa (Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action
Publication Date: June 21, 2022
The Story
Fukuchi has begun his true plan. The first part was to use Bram to begin spreading a virus around the world which will turn members of a nation’s military into vampires. The second part of that plan is to obtain the forbidden skill weapon One Order. With Fukuchi being the head of the world’s military, One Order, which was originally developed for front-line commanders to remove doubt from their troops by mind-controlling them, will place the entire world’s military under his ultimate command. Thus, allowing him to take over the world.
Fukuchi ends up explaining why he wants to do this and what the Decay of the Angel is truly about. Meanwhile, Poe creates a temporary headquarters in a book for the ADA to assemble. There, Ranpo goes over the plan to end this conflict once and for all. There are two options… the first is to find, capture, and/or possibly destroy One Order before it is handed off to Fukuchi. The other is to kill Bram and end his skill.
Only a few hours remain; however, Jouno becomes an outlier in this plan’s success or failure!
The Characters
Tachihara and Jouno each got some development; however, their development is one in the same. Even though they are different characters, each one tries to betray Fukuchi after learning of his true plan. This turn into a hero was parallel with no real differences even though their resulting circumstances varied a bit.
What this does is plants seeds of doubt into Fukuchi’s mind as he believes that the Hunting Dogs are turning against him. Despite this realization, he remains as calm and collected as ever, never waiving from his goals.
Outside of that, nothing really big on the development front.
Final Thoughts
Another good volume of Bungo Stray Dogs… even if we had to wait almost a year (eight months, actually) for it to come out. Hopefully, it won’t be another year as we are nearing the big showdown of this story arc. The ADA has a plan but it appears that Fukuchi is already keen on it and his trump card for that plan just stabbed him in the back. Still, it means he’s fully aware of what the ADA’s targets are so it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I doubt that the ADA’s plan isn’t going to happen without crossing paths with Fukuchi at some point, though.
Ranpo’s recap was nicely needed. Even though it was a mere information dump, with the last volume coming out in October of 2021, that info dump was a great refresher course for the story of this arc so far! Now that the stage is set, I’m excited to see the battle begin to unfold. I doubt that it will wrap up in 1 volume, though. I fully expect this to wrap up by Vol. 24. Should be exciting until then!
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This item was purchased for review.