Bungo Stray Dogs - Review - Ashley's Anime

Ladies, gentlemen and other distinguished individuals, I have found the love of my life. It is this anime. I think it is now one of my favorite series, actually. Really, between the story line, the art and music… I think it was great. I look forward to another season as well as my marriage to Dazai…

Bungo Stray Dogs follows the tale of the adorable Atsushi, an orphan who got kicked out of the orphanage for some strange reason and is now left to survive on the streets. Which he can’t seem to manage. Near the brink of death, he meats Dazai through a series of strange, suicidal events. And through another series of strange events, Atsushi is invited by Dazai to join the Armed Detective Agency. This agency is composed of those with supernatural powers, taking on the cases no one else can.

The Good:

What wasn’t good about this anime? Literally, everything about it to me was like mac & cheese, but like, the good kind that gets all gooey and has bread crumbs on top… Okay I have to stop myself before I get hungry.

I usually don’t comment on art style or soundtracks because, for a lot of the anime that’s been coming out in recent years, it seems to fade in the background and most of it looks the same to me, if I’m being honest. I know there are differences, do not get me wrong, but you can’t deny that some anime just seems… Generic. Like a white t-shirt. Bungo Stray Dogs did good in that it made itself more eye-catching and distinguished amongst the other anime that’d been released this season. If I could compare it to anything, it sort of reminds me of Persona; even the music makes me want to barge in to Tartarus or marry Mitsuru.

And the story kept me interested. I always get concerned with anime that revolves around anything superpower-esque, but this one did it right and I didn’t find it boring or disorienting. It wasn’t like Charlotte. On a scale of one to Charlotte, one being the best and Charlotte being… Charlotte… It wasn’t Charlotte.

I fell in love with the characters and I found it easy to remember what was going on with each new episode. Usually I have to remember where I left off, but Bungo Stray Dogs didn’t really make me do that. Instead, I found it so engaging and the characters so lovable that everything just got me really excited. And then there was the ships… So many ships… The Admiral of OTPS had to stop me on several occasions.

The humor of this anime was also very well balanced with the darkness it conveyed in the story. I never felt like it was purely humor or purely dark at any point in the season. It was like the baby bear porridge of anime.

The Bad:

Because nothing is without its flaws including myself which is why I cry at night! And this is not the appropriate place to talk about it so let’s talk about anime instead! (This is how I deal with most of my issues). What I will say I was disappointed with was that we never really got into depth with some of the other characters. And that may have been out of time restrictions, so I didn’t look too far into it.

I think that, because it was only twelve episodes, it had to move at a fast pace to keep up with all the information and the story’s direction. While there were episodes I could say were “filler” I don’t entirely believe that because it felt like each episode was trying to tell us just a little bit more about each member of the agency.

Maybe it’s just my bias or my need for more episodes, but I didn’t really find there to be anything necessarily bad about this anime at all. I think it was, for the most part, very balanced and well done.

Recommendation:

I think you already know the answer to that question. This anime was awesome and I got really into it. I think what really brings it together is the fact that it’s very character-driven and the characters have great designs as well as dynamics. Overall, this is a must watch.