Before anything, you should know something: If you expect seriousness… you’re in the wrong train. Does this mean that everything is comedy? No.
If you expect something to do with mysteries and well… “detectiveness” you’re going to get HUGELY disappointed (yeah, with CAPS). Probably the only time (the only time I can actually remember) where they do resolve a mystery, they resolve it so quickly that would put L from Death Note in shame. So yeah, in that aspect is pretty terrible. The way I see it, Ranpo is a parody of the typical detective, and the personality of him is not bad.
Another thing that I think most of the people will hate is the protagonist. Is your generic protagonist with a trauma that lives like shit until something amazing happens to him. And the importance of the trauma that they want to give after some episodes it’s just bad, and some people would agree in thinking that is annoying.
Now let’s begin with more subjective things:
In Bungou Stray Dogs is common for the characters to be in a certain mood, let’s say childish, and in the next second be all “let’s kick some ass with our awesomeness”, and some of the antagonist are not that different, probably the only ones that maintain their characters is Kunikida and Akutagawa, the main villain, they don’t get easily swayed by the situations like most of the characters, but are still affected by them, and you can see it in their expressions. And yes, even the villains change their mood very easily with the expressions of either “You killed my sister” or “I’m going to rape you”.
Another important aspect is the comedy, which a lot of people would agree it’s not appealing to everybody. While some say that if you didn’t like the first episode, don’t watch the other ones because you’ll not like it, I disagree, I think you should give it a try till episode 3, if you’re not comfortable then drop it like it’s hot.
The plot of the series is not that good. Remember Kekkai Sensen? Yeah, the show that just had a detective agency as an excuse to have adventures in the world? Well this is pretty much like it, and of course it’s the most recommended show if you like this one or Kekkai Sensen. Only that in this series, the bad guy acts relatively quickly compared to KS. Nothing great about this villain but it works with the function so that’s something.
The OST is meh~, I can barely remember the OP and ED, because of the first notes, I always skipped them. Nonetheless the ones used in the series as atmosphere is relatively good.
Now the big question is; Why did I gave it a 9? Easy; Because I don’t care for most of the flaws that I mentioned.
I NEVER expect seriousness and detective mysteries in this anime, and in my opinion Ranpo is a pretty likeable character. In fact, all of the characters are likeable, nothing special (except for Dazai and Kunikida) but certainly they appeal to my tastes. Even the protagonist that while it has some flaws I can see some development in him. He starts as a coward that sees no other way to survive than to do bad things, and then at the end of the series he’s a person that has suffered but still looks out for the others because he knows how it feels to be in their position. While the trauma is relatively bad, it works. I also love the way the characters change their personality quickly, it shows me that they feel other things than just their archetypes, makes them a little bit more realistic, and the ones that we see their past we see more development and more reasons of why they’re the way they are. The comedy is not perfect but it’s entertaining and sometimes might give you a little laugh because how absurd it is. And the main problem that I had with Kekkai Sensen is that the plot and villain are bad, in Bungou Stray Dogs they try to fix this, with a decent plot and villain.
And MY GOD THE 1OTH EPISODE WAS AWESOME. It was the best episode I’ve seen in months, and hey, I’m following about 24 animes this season and watching some other in my free time, so something good was done in that episode.
Bungou Stray Dogs is an anime that started good, it had some decent moments and some great episodes and a finale that makes you want more. And I personally enjoyed that a lot.
