Shou Doodles

Thoughts on Ranpo

I said something about Ranpo being a jerk but being the nicest person around from his perspective on twitter yesterday and my meta got too long to post there. This got way out of hand and is more of a Ranpo analysis than an explanation. Anyway:

Let us first consider Ranpo’s perspective in general. Ranpo can look at a person, place, or thing and know everything about it if he so chooses. He figured out Fukuzawa was an assassin in about 30 seconds and that was before he gained 12 years of experience as a detective.

His glasses gave him the confidence to acknowledge he was smarter than everyone else – something he was afraid of because, as he said in Origins, being smarter than everyone else meant he was all alone and because being the smartest person around meant that if he was wrong no one would catch his mistake in time as we see with Kunikida. But what we don’t acknowledge often enough imo is that the primary thing Ranpo does with his glasses is not wear them.

What Fukuzawa said when he gave Ranpo the glasses was: “If you put these on, your ability will activate, and you will be able to see the truth, right then and there. On the other hand, when you’re not wearing them, other people’s simplemindedness will not bother you anymore.”

(This is, of course, the basis of the ability Fukuzawa later manifested – “You can turn your power on and off at will” – but I digress.)

But Ranpo could already do the first part. He was like Scott Summers from X-Men who can’t turn his power off. If you notice, when Ranpo’s in Poe’s book with Yosano, Ranpo isn’t actually bothered by knowing things. He starts deducing the case out of sheer annoyance, and it’s only when Yosano goes “wow you’re on a roll” that he snaps at her and stops. Despite all his supposed self-importance, he spends the entire case trying not to be special.

He also gets mad and asks “are you saying the president lied to me?!” which. He knows. Fukuzawa told him to his face it was a lie. What matters here is that he didn’t acknowledge it because he didn’t want to know.

Imagine you have the ability to be better than everyone at nearly everything. Go to get your car fixed and they can’t figure out where the short in your electrical system is? Well, you can, so shouldn’t you do it? You go to the doctor and they’re not sure what’s going on with that click in your wrist. Well, you'll know if you just read a couple of anatomy books, so shouldn’t you do it? You go to the coffee shop, to the grocery store, to the post office, and you can do everything better than everyone else, so shouldn’t you?

Fukuzawa correctly believed that Ranpo had the confidence and support to drop the glasses charade after their first case. But what Fukuzawa really gave Ranpo with the glasses, and what Ranpo clung to for so many years, was an excuse to turn it off. To say no, I’m not taking all that energy to do all that thinking for other people. To see someone be totally, completely, maddeningly wrong and go “huh, sure I guess,” as long as it didn’t interfere with his life. To not be expected to just deduce how the trains work.

And to save his energy for more important things. Yes, some of the information comes easy, but it did take him a little thought to figure out Fukuzawa's past. He believed everyone was doing some thinking all the time, but the revelation that he was the only one would put all that effort on him. There's a reason most colleges limit the number of finals you're required to take in a day: you can't apply yourself forever without burning out. Ranpo admitting he was smarter than everyone else without the glasses would have had him on track to either run himself into the ground or harden his heart at the tender age of 14 to protect himself.

Case in point: it's Ranpo who says he has to protect all the "foolish infants" around him just seconds after he finally admits he's smarter than everyone else - and just seconds after he's been given an excuse to not kill himself doing it.

Circling back to the statement that triggered this essay: Fukuzawa’s final bullet point in his explanation of Ranpo’s ability is that nobody hates him. Ranpo digests this, and in the anime we see flashbacks to him getting thrown out of the academy, but we also see him at his parents’ grave. Now, what would his parents’ deaths have to do with people being foolish or hating him?

Potential answer: Even when he shuts his brain mostly off, Ranpo knows what people are going through. He knows their pasts, when he needs to, their bad deeds and things they’d like to keep secret. We've seen that he knows what would hurt them the most, too (re: his intro episode when he repeats Yamagiwa’s last words to Sugimoto.)

Other people don’t.

Other people might make an off-color joke that they don’t realize breaks their friend’s heart. Other people might spend two years guessing Dazai’s history and making strong generalizing statements about how evil and deplorable everyone in the Port Mafia is. Other people might accidentally get caught whispering at a funeral about how they heard the boy’s mother had an affair, which, to Ranpo, looks like intentionally being overheard saying things you know are lies about a kind and wonderful dead woman.

For two years he didn’t understand that they didn't know. For two years he walked by thousands of people who saw an energetic young boy, but he thought they saw an orphan who was lonely and hungry and sad. It looked like people hated him, because why would they say the things they said if they knew? (They didn’t.) Why would they walk by him if they knew how he felt? (They didn’t.)

In the novel he says “all the times I was suffering” at this revelation, implying it happened often and he couldn’t understand why people were so awful.

Of course, Ranpo is still a jerk – but he could be much worse. He’ll tell people they suck to their faces and advocate for leaving Atsushi to be sold on the black market and be obscenely arrogant, but legitimate stabs, those awful moments when you put your foot in your mouth and really hurt people – he never does that by accident. But other people do it to him by accident. For friends he knows just what gifts they want for the holidays, knows their favorite and least favorite foods, and a dozen other little things other people don't know and make it look like they don't care about him enough to pay attention.

Which finally brings me to my original statement: Ranpo is a jerk but from his perspective he’s the nicest guy around. Assuming they're idiots and "not being bothered by the ignorance of others" lets him ignore their lack of social graces.

I never claimed to be. I’m more of a casual enjoyer

You’re an unfunny cunt

I’m a dazai fan????? I’ve drawn him multiple times because I like his character so much???? I made a clay figure of him???? He’s also my girlfriend’s favorite character?????

Even if I did actually hate him he’s literally not real at all, he is a fictional character. I fear it was never that deep

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAKENAKA 🎉🎉🎉

Thought I’d share some mp100 doodles (some of these are a little old.)

Oh and a special doodle of Reigen and one of my ocs, Julius.

Because a lot of you seem to be conflating intelligence to mean a single thing im going to spell it out for you

DAZAI!

quick on his feet. He reads body language pretty well. he knows what to expect. His disadvantage is that he tends to project his own expectations onto others and this clouds his judgement. He is "intelligent" in the way that he has a great capacity to improvise in tricky situations. He doesn't know everything he just always makes sure to have a plan B C D E F and G. Thats it

RANPO!

he knows all the facts about any given situation. His biggest disadvantages are that his judgement is shoddy at best and he doesn't always know what to do with the information he has. He is used to disregarding information for the sake of peace (like dazai is a killer, or kyoka is a killer or yosano tortured thousands) but that often means he ends up too close to the wrong people. He forgives EVERYONE because for as much as he sees the bad in a person he sees the good. He will always plan for the opposing team to do the right thing even when it isnt likely. He is unreliable and inconsistent. The good thing about him is that as soon as he realizes his mistake he never makes it again.

POE!

JUSTTT as smart as Ranpo. He can GATHER as much information as Ranpo but it takes more effort. He has a lot of resources and technical know how. He knows technology, he knows politics, international law and most importantly people (arguably more than Dazai). His biggest advantage is that he knows exactly how to pressure people into doing what he wants. His mysteries are tailormade to each person and created so that people can only escape when they realize what he wants them to. It is becuase of this that he saw society as a farce. He knows reality and truth are malleable concepts. That's why Ranpo and him are such a good team. Ranpo can see everything immidiately and Poe knows what to do with it immidiately.

Louisa!!!

She can slow down time when she's focused THAT'S her ability. She is capable of thinking of every possibility and coming up with dependable statistics. She's smarter than Dazai but less of an asset because her analysis relies on what she is aware of (preexisting knowledge). In the world of BSD there is ALWAYS something no one is aware of. She isn't as capable of recovering as quickly from a miscalculation so she really only has one shot.

Chuuya!!!

He doesnt need to use his intelligence most of the time because he can pretty much brute force his way out of most things. His intellegence relies on instinct. He has GREAT instincts. He knows when a situation has gone sour. Of course he doesnt usually verbalize it because with Dazai he doesn't need to and when he's alone why would he announce it to an enemy. He knows when he's safe and when he isn't. His biggest disadvantage is that he doesn't always listen to those instincts. In terms of priorities he almost always puts himself last and that leads to a lot of problems.

NIKOLAI!!!

Nikolai is similar to Chuuya except a bit more extreme because no one's life is his priority. His motivations are unclear and he always goes for the most imoral option. He isn't concerned with a specific desired outcome it is the inconsistency of his own actions that drive him.

FYODOR!!!

Kinda like Poe, in that he knows how to work people, but to a lesser extent and a little like the chameleon that Dazai can be but to a greater extent. He knows what a person wants more than anything and he promises that to them.

His biggest advantage is that he is smart enough to ally himself with people who have nothing else to live for. Sigma, Nikolai, Bram (before Aya), Nathaniel and Fukuchi are all outsiders. They are alone but desperately want to feel like they belong. Fyodors biggest disadvantage is that if those people find belonging elsewhere then his influence on them shatters. He seems to be aware of that? Idk it's too soon to tell.

Mori!!!

He isn't crazy smart. He's just sadistic and cruel. He picks easy targets (children) and slowly takes away their agency. He undoes them until they have nothing to live for and they then become perfectly obedient adults. His biggest disadvantage is that he relies on the chain of abuse and that isn't sustainable as a dynamic for power. Chuuya and Akutagawa have no one above them to preassure them to listen to orders now that Dazai is gone. Also the extreme amounts of abuse he relies on is impossible to ditch out to EVERYONE. That's why he relied on the chain of abuse but that's failing. Mori isn't smart. He's a coward. He takes the shortest path no matter the resistance.

FUKUCHI!!

isn't smart either. He is just THE BEST chameleon. He hid in plain sight. He knows war and war tactics. He's a great spy and facilitating a strong bond with the target is a great spy strategy.

They are not all the same stop conflating their perspectives as "knows everything". It leads to a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of misinformation. DAZAI IS NOT RANPO! He doesnt know everything. He's just really good at pretending he does.

:0

I think Ranpo wouldn’t like people touching her hair.

(This totally isn’t based on the fact that I refused to let anyone style my hair when it was long)

I’m trying to make genderbent designs for like half of the characters. I’ll post them as I get them done but for now here’s a doodle

Hear me out, it’s a shaker with charms of Rimbaud and Verlaine during the Arahabaki explosion with chuuya in the center. I could totally make this, it’s just a matter of if I have the motivation

Me on the toilet right now

The stench is visible

Ritsu and Shou swap! My favorite detail is that I changed Shou’s lighting blot into a spoon lol.

Funny thing is that I made this in church