Let Me Talk About Dazai Osamu.

Let me talk about Dazai Osamu.

Dazai is often so animated, whether it be flirting shamelessly with beautiful women, or trying to get on Kunikida’s nerves, or messing with naive little Atsushi, or irritating the living heck out of Chuuya.

But, emotions? In a previous post, I talked a bit about deciphering Dazai’s emotions, about how he shows real and true emotions only in certain very calculated and planned situations.

Even for a person who rarely shows true emotions, it is visible how his face changes when the Port Mafia is brought up. His voice, his eyes, the tightness in his jaws— everything changes.

Season 1 Episode 3, when Kunikida is describing the Port Mafia to Atsushi.

For me, this is a very important hint to decipher him, a tiny gap in space-time from where I can peek into his heart.

In Season 1 Episode 5, when he intervenes the sergeant’s nervous rant to say, “No, this wasn’t the Mafia’s doing”, he’s a changed man. He not only describes, but reminisces and relives the numerous times he’s seen the event he’s describing unfold.

He doesn’t meet anybody’s eyes, he’s staring into space. His voice is lower, a sharp contrast to the usual high pitched, lulting, lively voice. This isn’t the voice he uses to talk with his colleagues in the Detective Agency, with Atsushi.

In Dead Apple, while facing away from Atsushi, he says, “I might have stayed there, murdering people.” His head is angled towards the ground, voice low.

(what might he have been feeling then? that’s a topic for another day.)

In Season 2 Episode 9, while he’s talking directly with the Port Mafia boss, Mori-san, there’s is somethingly uncannily odd about his face— eyes open far too wide, smile far too forced.

I’ve searched long for the right word to describe this expression— it’s uncomfortable.

Haunted.

He’s uncomfortable, he’s uneasy, but he doesn’t know that, he can’t acknowledge that, he wouldn’t accept that, because how do you hide what you don’t know you’re feeling?

∘

The problem here is, Dazai cannot see that he himself, was also a victim. He sees himself only as an abuser.

The fact that he’s also a victim, a young boy who watched his boss murder an old man, a young boy held at gunpoint so he couldn’t go to save his friend— he doesn’t understand his abuse. He doesn’t understand he was also wronged, he always sees himself as the wrong do-er.

Which is why he never let himself heal, because in order to do that, you have to notice your injuries first. Like he literally covered himself up in bandages, figuratively he did so too— made up a smile and built walls all around him, impenetrable, insurmountable.

In these specific moments though, his face betrays his mind.

His face makes it very apparent that he was affected, is still affected, regardless of whatever he tells himself.

It’s in these moments, that you see he has a living, beating heart, scarred and heavy and haunted with the trauma of his unspeakable past.

It’s in these moments that you see he’s human— still, despite, after all.

∘