Bungo Stray Dogs (2016– )
8/10
A Slow Start that Becomes Fantastuc
16 February 2019
First, I just want to say that the English dub on this is rather well-done.

So, I won't say much here, expect that the first 10 or 12 episodes seem to be a bit slow, disjointed, without any real major unifying narrative tying things together. Rather, it feels like a series of unrelated episodes about different adventures of the detective agency.

The story is NOT about how people got their powers or "gifts" or anything like that. The powers are mostly unexplained and are just sort of there.

This show starts out as just a collection of funny stories and then takes a somewhat darker turn as the history of the different organizations are slowly revealed, and then things hit a climax with the major present-day factions get embroiled in a conflict, forcing certain political and personal games to get played.

Honestly, if they had just slowed the pace down a little and added more meat, this would have been such an epic story, but too many times they build up a conflict only to resolve it rather easily. And sometimes heavy drama between characters sort of gets easily overcome. That would be my only real complain, besides the mundane nature of the first few episodes.

Other than that, there was enough character development for me to become fond of most of the main ones. There was thankfully relatively little fan service, and what little there was in the show was kept to a minimum, used mostly for comic relief.

There isn't anyone really overpowered - each character is shown to shine at some point or another, and as I said, this is more of a story between different groups of people than it is about action or special powers.

I would recommend this, but I don't think it would appeal to as wide an audience as, say, Cowboy Beebop (yeah for some reason, I was reminded of Beebop, but just a few whiffs here and there).

Worth checking out. I found it while seeking out funny anime, and the humor was satisfactory. (I do think that the humor may come off better in the sub than the dub, but I am not sure).
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