Anime Review: Bungou Stray Dogs 3rd Season Episode 1

Bungou Stray Dogs 3rd Season Episode 1

Studio: Bones

Genre: Action, Mystery, Supernatural

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Bungou Stray Dogs takes a misfit group of characters (all who share names and similar traits to famous historical writers) and brings them together to form a group called the Armed Detective Agency. Atsushi, an orphan boy on the run, is quickly adopted into this group and it becomes clear early on that these people have unique abilities which aid them in their job. I’m going to attempt to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible for those people that haven’t watched the first two seasons (and if you haven’t yet, get on that now!) – but if you like quirky characters, supernatural abilities and exciting fight scenes then you’ll be right at home here.

This is the third season in the series and it’s been something of a sleeper hit – popular enough to get more episodes but never talked about as much as other big shounen series like My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan. Part of that may be down to the popularity of the character, Dazai, voiced by seiyuu veteran Miyano Mamoru. It probably also helps that most of the characters are fairly attractive and voiced by popular voice actors. However, the first season received mixed responses, mainly due to the frequent usage of comedy which often felt discordant against the more serious plot in the background. Season two, however, picked up the ante more with the introduction of another group of enemies forcing the Armed Detective Agency to form an uneasy alliance with their former rivals, the Port Mafia. Which brings us to the third season.

The first episode starts off strong; compared to the light comedy often seen in the first season, it seems like this series has finally found a balance between the darker emotional moments and the humour and toned down on the latter more to the benefit of the overall story. The episode doesn’t continue on from the events of the last series but instead is told in flashback, to the time when Dazai was in the Port Mafia himself, and his meeting with the volatile Chuuya. For fans of the series, this is backstory long awaited after being hinted at often enough. Dazai is perhaps the most mysterious character in the series and the focus on him in this episode points to a potential for greater development of his character in the third season. Atsushi is not the most interesting of the zany cast and so his role as protagonist grows tired fast – indeed, I didn’t miss him at all here and it’s refreshing to see more of Dazai in his life before he left the Mafia.

The darker and more serious tone is reflected in the colour palette of the episode – everything is somber and more monochrome, and this matches Dazai’s mood perfectly. There is lots of dialogue between the characters, and only one action scene but it doesn’t feel boring or slow-paced. Like most first episodes, the opening and ending animation is not shown yet but the ending credits roll to a song from Granrodeo, familiar to watchers of the first series’ opening. Judging from the tense cliff-hanger of this episode, it looks like this ‘flashback’ arc will be continuing a while longer before it comes back to the present day, but I’m certainly not complaining as the story so far is engrossing.