It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on here. I feel like the best excuse for this, is to say that I was busy with school and track, but then I look at all the hours I’ve spent on Rocket League and I realize that that is a straight lie. If I wanted to be honest, I should say that I’ve just been procrastinating, but I feel like being a master of procrastination isn’t really something I should brag about. Well anyways, I should get onto the meat of this article, which is as the title says. Should you watch Bungou Stray Dogs Season 1?
Bungou Stray Dogs is a seinen manga written by Kafka Asagiri, which was later adapted into an anime. It advertises itself on being a mafia anime like 91 Days or Baccano! but unlike those two shows, which are hard set in reality, Bungou Stray Dogs decides to give all their major character powers. This is a great start for the show. First of all, it’s not a light novel adaptation, which already gets brownie points with me. Second of all, I really enjoyed both 91 Days and Baccano! and I believe that if superpowers were put in either of those shows, both of them would manage to work with it and be great. The problem is BSD is not 91 Days or Baccano!. It is its own separate thing.
Season One starts us off by following Atsushi, who is walking the riverbanks of Japan. Besides him, he sees a man trying to drown himself. He jumps in a save him. They end up going to a coffee joint or something like that, where we learn that the man’s name is Dazai and he works for a special detective agency, where everyone has powers. We also learn that the reason why Atsushi was wandering the sides of a riverbank is because the orphanage he was staying at is being terrorized by a tiger. Yada Yada, stuff happens. It turns out that Atsushi’s power is him turning into the same tiger that was terrorizing him. Problem is, he doesn’t have the ability to control it. Dazai is able to use his power to negate Atsushi’s, and then Atsushi is brought to the Detective Agency. Where the show continues off.
This was a very strong starting episode and I’m not going to lie, it got me wanting more. After the first episode, we learn about the “bad guys” of the show, who call themselves the Port Side Mafia. The show spends a couple of episodes with Atsushi tagging along with the other members of the agency where they take down members of the Port Side Mafia. Then we meet the main villain of the show, Akutagawa. He believes that the weak should just die and the strong should survive. To avoid major spoilers I’m going to stop here.
I have to give BSD credit for a couple of things. To start it off, the art is great, or to be more specific, the characters look great. The character designs in this show are straight fire. All of them have an easily distinguishable look, while all managing cool. By all, I mean all the main characters. A few side villains look a bit out of place by how bad they look compared to the majority, but who really cares.
Another thing I have to give BSD credit for is its creativity when it comes to it’s powers. While it does have the Mary Sue of powers in super strength, most of them are things I haven’t seen before. For example, one character has the ability to write in a notebook, and then what ever he wrote comes into reality.
Both of those things are great, but the best thing in this show to me is Dazai. Dazai has a very whimsical personality with his most defining trait being the constant strive to kill himself. He constantly blows things out of proportion with how dramatic he is, but he does it without getting on my nerves, unlike some characters *cough cough Mako cough cough*. If you’re thinking he sounds like a comic relief character, it’s because he is. Usually comic relief characters can’t carry a show, but the thing is Dazai isn’t just a comic relief character. Near the middle of the show, Dazai’s secret past is revealed. His character takes a 180. He changes from checkers to four dimensional chess.
For every good character in this show, they also have 5 bad ones to counter it. For example, the main character in this show. Atsushi is probably one of the blandest main characters in all of media. If he were a sandwich, the only thing on him would be mayo. If you’ve watched Naruto, he makes Sakura look like a good character. I find myself enjoying the show a lot more when he’s not on the screen, but he’s always on screen, souring my taste of the show.
He’s not the only character like this in this show. Another character I can’t stand is Akutagawa, the main villain. It’s not because he has bad motives or is straight unlikable. It’s because the show forces him the be Atsushi’s rival, despite them not really having that much of a connection. Akutagawa could be a good villain, but the show denies his development by making him constantly fight Atsushi. His character is wasted potential.
Bad character development can be offset by a good story, and as I said before, I did enjoy the first episode and I did wonder where the show was going to take it. I couldn’t have guess that it was going to take it to the trash. Atsushi is apart of a detective agency, but the show clearly doesn’t understand what detective means. Most of his adventures are him just beating the shit out of the port side mafia. No real character development and no real plot. If the show had an actual plot, these would have been easily filler episodes, but it doesn’t making this whole show feel like filler. Out of twelve episodes, about two of them were above average.
Onto the main question: Should You Watch It?
Bungou Stray Dogs had a good premise with good art backing it, but the execution fell short. Bad characters with a bad story makes for a bad show. Even with how much I enjoyed Dazai as a character, there are too many flaws for me to justify recommending it. If you haven’t watched the show yet, you aren’t missing out. Easy Pass.
Key Reviews 