This ^^^

This ^^^

Bungo Stray Dogs and the separateness of Childhood - a sociological view

[So a large portion of this is left over from when I was revising sociology for my alevels, which were done over a month ago now (wow). So I hope there's people out there who find this interesting, it's nice to post this since it goes back to my roots of what started me on tumblr in the first place (sociological analysis, but of MTP). Also this has Stormbringer spoilers.]

Sociologists agree that childhood is a social construct (a concept in society with no fixed definition). The definition of childhood changes depending on culture and time, so it is not universal or 'natural'. Bungo Stray Dogs portrays a definition of childhood much different to many of our own cultures, and part of its presentation is something I want to look into.

The main idea to look at is Jane Pilcher's idea of 'separateness' - childhood as a clear and distinct stage of life in which children are considered physically and psychologically incompetent and unable to run their own lives. This idea of separateness often leads to childhood being considered a 'golden age' of play and having a lack of responsibility. In BSD, the idea of childhood as a separate stage is not as clear - many children 16 or under are seen working in (or looking for) employment much like adults would do. For example, in Stormbringer Shirase (who is 16) works in a car factory, Yosano at age 11 is said to work in a confectionery store (we don't know if this was family owned or not though), and Ranpo in Untold Origins (aged 14) looking for a job when he meets Fukuzawa. With this information we can gather that children have to take the responsibility of work from a younger age than many cultures (for instance where I lived children have to be in education until 18) and that from as young as 11 they are able to employment.

Consider the other children present - the Akutagawa siblings living on the streets for many years without parents or financial support, Kyouka and Q (as well as teenagers like Dazai and Chuuya) being part of the mafia from a young age, Kenji in his village, Chuuya and Mary Wollstonecraft in Stormbringer, and Atsushi living in the orphanage. All of these have different notions of childhood attached to them.

The Akutagawa siblings learnt to support themselves from a young age. Their group of fellow homeless children act as proof of a wide child poverty issue, one which represent the effects of a lack of child welfare support by the government or the effects of the many casualties in the Great War (leaving many without parents). The lack of child welfare support may show a general lack of the idea of separateness, since specialist support for children is not available.

The abundance of children in the mafia, especially those who reach the higher ranks of executives like Dazai and Chuuya by the age of 16, show a distinct lack of recognition of childhood as a separate stage. Those who are children don't seem to be treated much differently to the adults, which is especially apparent in Q and Kyouka's missions (where Kyouka in her first mission we see being considered disposable by the mafia).

Kenji's childhood on paper seems the closest to many farming cultures in our world. He works on a farm from a young age, as many people in his village and in real life farming families do. The recruitment of him to the detective agency however, suggests that (despite his youth) his ability makes him fit for the job. This somewhat leads on to the idea that children with abilities are seen as more mature and subjected to more adult activities and topics from a younger age, with their allowance of separateness smaller than that of non-ability user children.

A few other Stormbringer examples - Mary Wollstonecraft is only 10 years old as of Stormbringer, and yet she is working for the European governments and making robot agents for them. Young children working for governments is a clear example of a lack of separation between child and adult. Another, and arguably much worse example, is Chuuya and Verlaine - both experimented on by scientists/the government and infused with singularities via force. Chuuya is also canonically cloned. Verlaine and Chuuya, in their experimentation, are not treated much differently, despite Verlaine being an adult and Chuuya being around 5 at the time of his kidnapping/start of experimentation. This suggests a lack of seperateness yet again. There is a lot more that could be said about the whole 'cloning/made into a weapon' part of their story, but this is not the post for that.

A more recent one - Teruko. Because of her unique ability to change her age means that within the first few months of her life she was forced to fight in war. She's actually forced to bypass her own childhood for the war effort, and therefore her childlike demeanour during the Decay of Angels arc may be to try and harness what she missed out on. Her ability in itself could also play into the 'old age is a social construct' argument too maybe but again, not the post.

Atsushi's childhood in an orphanage at first seems to match the ideas of childhood as a separate stage dependent on others. The purpose of orphanages is to raise children without parents and help them prepare for the world, but Atsushi's experiences of abuse shows that his ability, to the orphanage director, makes him undeserving of this separate stage. Instead he is abused and eventually kicked out with no real support. This being able to go on unchecked alongside the other examples brings me to my conclusion about the definition of childhood in Yokohama/the surrrounding villages/possibly the world are not being considered a separate 'golden age' to the same standards as our world.

As mentioned earlier, children who are ability users are less likely to have this construct of seperateness include them. In sociology, labels and constructs are assigned by people and society, and so in this universe there are many adults who have removed this construct from ability users' lives in their childhood. Yosano is the clearest example of this - Mori takes her away from her experience of childhood and places her in a war zone, where she, despite being 11 years of age, is treated like an adult and (because of her ability) is placed on a pedestal by the solders. She's stripped of her childhood through not only the standards placed upon her, but the trauma she endures in the war zone - leaving her to spend what remained of her childhood in a psych ward until Fukuzawa is able to take her in.

Ability user children, via circumstances or adult intervention, do not get to experience childhood in the way other children do because that label is stripped away from them. This is most usually because they pose some asset to an organisation or campaign - and this can include the ADA too. Just because the ADA offers a more healthy and safer environment for the children than other organisations, it is still putting children into work and treating them the same as adults. How ethical this is, is in itself another question that I don't think I can give an answer to. But I could honestly talk about how ability user children are treated differently in a whole other essay.

[I do not have much else to say now about this specific area but it's probably better to post than just to let sit in the drafts as it has done for a while. So no proper conclusion sorry.]