Osamu Dazai

Osamu Dazai (太宰 治,) is a member of the Armed Detective Agency and was a former Executive of the city's worst underworld organization, the Port Mafia.

Appearance
Dazai is a young man with mildly wavy, short, dark brown hair and narrow dark brown eyes. His bangs frame his face, while some are gathered at the center of his forehead. He is quite tall and slim in terms of physique.

For his attire, Dazai wears a long sand-colored trench coat, the belt of which he leaves untied. Under it is a black vest over a striped dress shirt that is light blue in hue. He wears a bolo tie, which is held by a brown ribbon and a turquoise pendant. He also dons beige pants, dark brown shoes, and has bandages wrapped around his entire body; only his face, hands, and feet are left uncovered.

Back when he was in the mafia, Dazai wore a black trench coat that reached under his knees. He also wore bandages over his right eye and his right arm is in a sling—presumably products of his suicidal pastimes. At some point, he was able to regain the use of his right arm; the same arm he then used to aim and fire a gun at Akutagawa three times.

After the cannibalism, Dazai wears a formal suit during the agency's celebration.

During the Yokohama fog incident, Dazai wears a white over black long sleeves and a brown tie, together with white pants. A can be also seen attached to his padded.

After being arrested by the Hunting Dogs and taken to Meursault, Dazai is currently wearing white prison clothes.

Personality
Dazai is a mysterious person, his true intentions are never revealed unless he reveals them. The person who got closest to the truth of his personality, as acknowledged by Dazai himself, was his friend Sakunosuke Oda, who said to him, "it can't be found. (...) You should know yourself. No matter whether you're on the side of killing people or saving people, there will never be anything that can surpass your mind. No place in this world that can fill your loneliness. You will linger in the darkness forever."

Dazai is usually called lazy as Kunikida always scolds him for being unproductive and slacking off. Despite that, he has shown a sharp wit, deducing all the unlikely situations that led Atsushi to believe he was being stalked by a tiger when he was the tiger in question. He has complete confidence no matter what type of situation he is dealing with, be it combat or simply bad situations he created in the first place.

In most occasions, Dazai is overly dramatic, he takes most of his actions as a joke, and, although they are very thought out plans, he does not credit himself for most of what he has done. Dazai likes to tease anyone and everyone if it means that he can get a laugh out of it.

He is a suicide maniac, often trying to commit suicide in comical manners but oftentimes failing. He, in particular, wishes to commit double suicide with a beautiful woman (a nod to his real-life counterpart who tried to commit double suicide with various women multiple times). However, while his suicidal tendencies are initially comedic, they reveal a truly dark deep hole that Dazai has and believes he cannot fill. He believed he could fill this hole and find a reason worth living for if he lived a life of bloodshed and war, but his friend Oda with his dying breath convinced him to choose the good side. He understood that even though good and evil mean little to Dazai, he may become a slightly better person if he were to choose well.

In the past, while he was still suicidal, it was shown to be far less comedic. He even described the death as a way to free himself from the oxidizing world but strangely enough, he could not die no matter how hard he tried. Additionally, he was extremely brutal and methodical, setting up traps to catch captives alive to torture the of information and he would often beat Akutagawa for disobeying orders and to push him to the limits to improve his abilities. He was extremely confident and was a terrific planner, coming up with long-run strategies to subdue his enemies. Oda once noted that there was a saying in the Mafia that the worst thing for Dazai's enemies was the fact they were his enemies.

While in the present he is more lighthearted and comical, he still retains some of his darker personality. He is still able and proficient at coming up with long-run strategies, though he doesn't inform his teammates what they are until the time is right. He is seen to be willing to use dirty means to achieve his goals, such as purposely deflating Ango's car seat airbag when they crashed so Ango would have numerous broken injuries. This forced Ango to cooperate with Dazai for pardoning Kyouka in exchange for having his wounds healed. When Kyouka shows remorse over having killed 35 people, Dazai remarks with a sinister face that something like that is nothing. Nonetheless, he does care for his teammates and watches out for them, especially Atsushi for whom he sees the greatest potential.

Ability
No Longer Human (人間失格,) allows Dazai to nullify others' abilities on contact. It relies on skin contact and is always active. As such, he can nullify any ability even while restrained as soon as it touches him.

Background
He has a record of 138 counts of conspiracy to murder, 312 counts of extortion, and 625 counts of assorted fraud and other crimes.

Appearances
Main=


 * -| BEAST =


 * -| DEAD APPLE =

Quotes

 * (To Oda Sakunosuke) "For most things in life, it's harder to succeed than fail. Wouldn't you agree? (…) That's why I should attempt suicide rather than commit it! Committing suicide is difficult, but it should be relatively easier to fail at attempting suicide!"
 * (To Oda Sakunosuke when asked how he got his injuries) "I was walking and reading a book called How to Not Get Hurt Out of the Blue and fell into a drainage ditch. (…) I was speeding around a mountain path and drove off the cliff. (…) I was trying to kill myself by slamming my head into the corner of a block of tofu."
 * "Disputes that become worse because of me... How wonderful."
 * (To Oda Sakunosuke) "Hey, Odasaku, do you know why I joined the Mafia? I joined the Mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence—close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that… I would be able to find something—a reason to live."
 * (To Oda Sakunosuke) "You're such an idiot, Odasaku. The biggest idiot I know. (…) You didn't have to do this. You didn't have to die."
 * (To Ōgai Mori) "...Could it be that you're afraid, Mori-san? That one day, I would slit your throat and take over as the Boss? Like what you did to your predecessor?"
 * "Man fears death and yet, at the same time, man is drawn to death. Death is endlessly consumed by men in cities and in literature. It is a singular event in one's life that none may reverse. That is what I desire."
 * "Anything I would never want to lose will be lost. It is given that everything that is worth wanting will be lost the moment I obtain it. There's nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging life of suffering."
 * (To Fyodor Dostoevsky) "You don't really understand God one bit, do you? 'Perfection and harmony'? God doesn't give a single care about those. I've seen it so many times… His gimmicks are the accidental and the illogical. That's… a weakness you and I both have. We thought of thousands of ingenious schemes, and we still ended up in here… in a prison at the ends of the earth. The ones who actually make the world turn… are those who scream within the storm of uncertainty and run with flowing blood."

Etymology

 * The name "Osamu" (治) is a given name.
 * The surname "Dazai" means "thick" (太) (ta/da) and "rule" (宰) (zai).

Namesake

 * Osamu Dazai (1909-1948)
 * A brilliant writer who attempted suicide multiple times (before succeedin on his third try), Dazai is one of the most notable writers of " - first person, semi-autobiographical works emphasizing darkness of the self. His most famous novel, "No Longer Human" follows a man who goes through life feeling  as if he is merely "acting" the aprt of a human."

Trivia

 * The real life 's birthname is Shūji Tsushima (津島 修治)
 * Dazai's past with Fyodor Dostoevsky likely refers to the influence Crime and Punishment had on Ōba, the protagonist of No Longer Human.
 * His constant attempts to commit suicide with a beautiful woman could be an allusion to his real-life counterpart's attempted double suicide with Shimeko Tanabe and Hatsuyo Oyama. His attempt with his lover Tomie Yamazaki was ultimately successful.
 * It's also possible that his suicide attempts serve as a reference to No Longer Humans protagonist Ōba Yōzō's multiple suicide attempts throughout the story, which is considered to be a reflection of Osamu Dazai's turbulent life.
 * He was the youngest Executive in Port Mafia history.
 * In real life, he is often grouped together along with Sakaguchi Ango and Oda Sakunosuke as the Buraiha or Decadent School. 
 * And on the series, this is often alluded, because the three used to meet in a Bar Lupin as true to their real-life counterpart, as seen in Dazai and the Dark Era and illustrated on the calendar.
 * Dazai usually refers to himself by the gender-neutral pronoun, "watashi," rather than the more masculine pronouns like "boku" or "ore." This is likely because of the format of traditional novels, which the real Dazai specialized in, typically used formal "watashi" pronouns over its variants.
 * The book The Complete Suicide which Dazai owns in the series is a reference to written by  published in 1993 filled with guides on methods of suicide along with the assessment of the pain it causes, preparation required, the appearance of the body and, lethality.
 * Dazai is very bad at driving.
 * According to the first official guidebook:
 * He recently spends his time doing nothing.
 * He has an irregular sleeping pattern and doesn't sleep much.
 * He feels that he should think about new ways to harass Chuya in case they got paired up again.
 * He thinks that everything is his strengths
 * His ideal type is any person who is willing to commit double suicide with him.
 * His motto is "Have a pure, cheerful, and energetic suicide."
 * According to him, there were no times when he thought he was dying the most.
 * According to the second official guidebook:
 * His favorite type of woman is a woman who doesn't ask any questions.
 * His favorite motto is "Death is a part of life."
 * What he felt about the title of youngest executive: "It wasn't something I was aiming for, so I didn't feel anything."
 * His memorable experience at the bar "Lupin": "When the master remembered the three of us and our favorite drinks."