Bungou Stray Dogs 5th Season

The Armed Detective Agency is still on the run from the Hunting Dogs, but not all hope is lost. Detective Ranpo Edogawa has a plan to prove the Agency's innocence and save the world from chaos: to find and capture Kamui—the leader of the terrorist organization Decay of the Angel.

In order to determine Kamui's whereabouts, Ranpo and his colleague Atsushi Nakajima must convince Ouchi Fukuchi, the renowned captain of the Hunting Dogs, for amnesty. Although Fukuchi was tasked with arresting the members of the Agency, his past with the Agency's president, Yukichi Fukuzawa, may be the key to earning his trust. But unbeknownst to them, Fukuchi might not be as honorable as he proclaims.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Dazai, Osamu Main

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Nakajima, Atsushi Main

Uemura, Yuuto Japanese

Nakahara, Chuuya Supporting

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Edogawa, Ranpo Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Akutagawa, Ryuunosuke Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Dostoevsky, Fyodor Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Yosano, Akiko Supporting

Shimamura, Yuu Japanese

Izumi, Kyouka Supporting

Morohoshi, Sumire Japanese

Kunikida, Doppo Supporting

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Gogol, Nikolai Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Suzuki, Mari Producer

Kurakane, Chiaki Producer

Takemoto, Nobuhito Producer

Igarashi, Takuya Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 22, 2025

Kranst

Recommended

The fifth season of Bungo Stray Dogs is an immediate continuation of the previous, foregoing the usual flashback arc and opting for more episodes to develop the ongoing plot. This has been the grandest and most ambitious part of the anime thus far, and strongly executes on the expectations set before. The tension has peaked, incorporating a constant rate of suspenseful, yet impactful twists and stakes with solid weight behind them. Character motivations and ideals have become more personal, adding to the depth of each side of the conflict. The show has found its stride, and it has never looked or felt better than now.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 2, 2023

ArchangelEST

Mixed Feelings

Bungou Stray Dogs Season 5 also known as the embodiment of Deus Ex Machina, starts to overstay its welcome with the excessive plot twists. On top of giving too much screen time to Atsushi who continues to be 100% irrelevant.


Animation / Art / General Visuals - 9/10
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The show continues to look great. Great scenery art and solid action animations.


Sound / Music / Voice Acting - 9/10
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Top notch stuff. Great music, voice acting, additional sounds.


Story - 7/10
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I'm starting to get tired. S4 was fun, but S5 undoes a lot of the build-up by producing one story twist after another, all of which seem excessively contrived, and full of deus ex machina moments that ruin the narrative cohesion.

Nobody ever dies. Everyone is always found to have been magically saved 2 episodes later, using one excuse after another. The entire season is a never-ending game of "I knew that you knew, that I knew that you knew, that I knew that you knew...". We have Ranpo, Dazai, Ando, Fyodr and others endlessly one-up each-other in ever more unbelievable ways.

It's like watching Code Geass, except instead of following along the gradual planning of Lelouch, we're stuck as an out of loop third party, just watching all the craziness go down without having a clue.

The main villain's motivations are only barely believable thanks to my own imagination, because the show surely hasn't fleshed out the world enough to make me relate to his mindset. We basically have to take his word that his rationale is solid, because there's no real supporting evidence for it. And the way it all played out in the end was absolute confusion. The season ended and I still didn't know who actually "won" and who "lost". Except I have a feeling that it's we, the viewers, who lost hours from our life watching this mess.


Characters - 6/10
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A let down after Season 4. This time around, we have excessive focus on a bunch of fanatics. Most of the Detective Agency and Port Mafia is side-lined. The Guild is basically all absent. Ranpo is stuck carrying a large part of the weight, while Atsushi once again does his best to be the worst anime character ever created.

My god, for the second season in a row, Atsushi continues to be 100% dead weight, with the story being in no way affected whether he existed or not. He still hasn't found any confidence in doing anything. He loses every fight he's in for the second season in a row. Like straight up, he hasn't managed to do anything successfully.

And to make it worse, the show creates a 1 minute cliffhanger scene at the end featuring Atsushi as someone who's gonna be relevant in S6. Even though we already know that he's never gonna do anything because the character is clearly written to be utterly useless until the end of time.

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Total - 7/10

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Bungou Stray Dogs Season 5 is a let down in my book. S4 started building up a fascinating storyline, but it all kinda fell flat because of excessively tangled up deus ex machina filled narrative.

Still, the show looks great, and the characters for the most part are fun. Except Atsushi of course. He should never have existed. Here's me begging god again that S6 finally writes him out of the show. Please god. Make him trip and break his neck or drown in his bathtub or something. That character does not deserve the animation effort.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 16, 2025

joemaamah

Not Recommended

Funny

This season was such an utter disappointment. The art remained about the same. Colorful with great background work. The animation may have ticked up a touch with a tad more budget this season. The awesome cast of characters (other than the MC, who still totally sucks, and needs to be written out already) were back in spades. I think Ranpo is now officially my favorite BSD character.

But the writing? Well, it fell off a cliff. Vampires? I mean really guys, that's the best you can come up with? It was trite and the episodes were strewn with so many vampire cliches, I came this ... close to throwing in the towel on the trainwreck. But I managed to make it to the end of the season, and my thoughts then were that this anime should have ended permanently at season 3. It pains me to say it, but BSD, one of my all-time favorites, has dropped to the level of flashy trash with this season.

All in all, this season failed, being totally mid, and I couldn't grade it any higher than a D; 65/100. But no way I could call it fine. The earlier seasons set the bar, and expectations, too high to give this mess any kind of break. I likely won't watch another season, unless I see some exceptional reviews from people who have opinions I respect, and not the usual jibber-jabber of the fanboys (and girls).

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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