Bungou Stray Dogs

[Skull]

I do hope they release some more of those republications of the Author's novels with the anime characters on the front covers. I loved those.

I'd especially like to have Mori Ougai, Hirotsu Ryorou, Kyusaku Yumeno and possibly Motojiro Kajii's novels as well.

[Skull]

A late Christmas present, but I got the side story novel to Bungou Stray Dogs - "Ayatsuji Yukito vs Kyogoku Natsuhiko".



Interestingly, it's the only BSD novel not to have any illustrations inside. I guess being a side story meant it wasn't important enough to warrant it.

[RoydGolden]

Really late, but I wonder if Ernest Hemingway is ever going to make an appearance in this series. As he actually fought in wars, he'd fit into the action-packed setting without needing to change much and from what little I know of them, his writings on the "lost generation" seem to dovetail quite well with the series' theme of "stray dogs" wandering in search of an answer. No clue what his Gift would be, though. "For Whom The Bell Tolls" sounds like the most fitting name, but I'm not sure at all as what it'd actually do.

[Skull]

I remember saying a while back that Hemingway should've been part of the Guild.

Without spoiling anything, it's still certainly possible for him to appear as American factions are still involved in the story. So here's hoping.

[RoydGolden]

I remember saying a while back that Hemingway should've been part of the Guild.

Without spoiling anything, it's still certainly possible for him to appear as American factions are still involved in the story. So here's hoping.

Hemingway showing up with the Guild would've been really interesting thematically, given the mutual rivalry and admiration between the two in real life.

Now that Fitz is dead(?) in the series I presume nothing can come of that anymore, even if Hemingway does show up later on. Oh well.

[Skull]

Now that Fitz is dead(?) in the series I presume nothing can come of that anymore, even if Hemingway does show up later on. Oh well.

Putting this in spoilers, even though I don't think that we'll be getting another anime, I would hate to ruin it for anyone who hasn't kept up with the manga but plans to. So only read this if you have no plans to read the manga...

Here be spoilers

So it turns out after much investigation, that Fitzgerald is alive living as a beggar in the slums of a foreign country he washed up in. Alcott convinces him to return and he starts planning on making a new group. Meanwhile, Steinbeck has gathered a bunch of people to form the "Guild Remnants" to fight against Fitzgerald. So it's very likely that if Hemingway did turn up then he'd be part of one of those two groups.

[Skull]

Damn, the latest chapter of Bungou was downright epic. I certainly wasn't expecting some of those matchups which makes things interesting.

Ranpo is mega Boss

I felt really bad for Kunikida, seeing his old friend Katai get shot on camera like that. Ranpo was absolutely badass standing up to Chuuya and trapping them in a book using Poe's Ability. Kyouka holding her own against Akutagawa for a while was pretty impressive. The other star of this chapter is Kajii, spamming his Ability by strapping bombs to his chest and marching toward the enemy as the bombs continuously explode. Now that's how you use a so called "useless Ability".

[RoydGolden]

Another writer it would be interesting see show up is Cervantes, though he's from a drastically earlier era then most of the authors shown. He'd obviously borrow a lot from Don Quixote, with some of his real-life badass exploits mixed in, like his numerous escape attempts from Algerian prison. I imagine he'd either be a youthful and hot-blooded boy with an overzealous passion for justice (could be a hero or villain storyline-wise, given the series' overall moral ambiguity), or else a more cynical and tempered older man (maybe a police chief) who recognizes the world to be an absurd place but yet continues to believe in "foolish ideals" like justice anyway.

His Gift would of course be summoning a set of knightly armor and lance, granting superhuman powers but exaggerating his knightly disposition to a point nearing insanity the longer he uses it. He could also play off Kunikida in an interesting way, given their shared emphasis on ideals.

[Skull]

Hot damn! That latest chapter was brimming with badassery! At long last, we finally get our suspicions confirmed of what exactly "Vita Sexualis" is.

Spoiler:

A deathmatch between the director and the mafia boss. Katana versus scalpel. Vita Sexualis (a loli) versus All Men are Created Equal (completely useless).
The past between the pair is revealed as old comrades before going their separate ways.
We also finally get to see Natsume Soseki outside of a flashback and it turns out he was Mii-Chan all along thanks to his ability: "I Am A Cat". Watching over Yokohama from the shadows.

[Skull]

So I was listening to the Drama CDs for Bungou, and I must say - the skit between Chuuya, Akutagawa and Kajii all eating lunch together had me dying.

Ah, found it on YouTube.

[Koutaro]

Thats a lot of juicy info, hopefully the anime will be getting a third season in due time.

[Skull]

Hmm, y'know I've been re-reading a lot of the Holmes stories recently and I feel we've been robbed of an Arthur Conan-Doyle character. We already have Edogawa Ramp, Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie, but still no Doyle.

I'm really tempted to make a OC Doyle sheet like we used to back when Bungou was still airing.

[Skull]

So I *finally* got my hands on the last of the reprints of classic books with Bungou characters on the front. And I decided to take a picture to celebrate...



Seeing as we have the upcoming movie, I hope they make some more.

[Skull]

Phew, since the Cannibalism arc is finally over we have a refreshing mini-arc centred around Ranpo and Poe trying to track down an Ability user who likes to create unsolvable murders. You know what that means....

It's time for another author spotlight! This time we focus on Oguri Mushitarō a mystery novelist in pre-war Japan, mainly writing through the '30s and '40s. He was a contemporary of Ranpo hence why he faces off against him in BSD. His works often have a Sci-Fi bend to them as he was very critical of the overconfidence in scientific advancement and to highlight the potential incompatibility between science and ethics. His Ability "Perfect Murder" is named after one of his two masterpieces, his other one - "Black Death Hall Murders" is referenced when he makes his declaration of victory against Ranpo - he directly quotes a line from the book.

As a side note, his murder victim being a mystery author called "Kindaichi" is probably a reference to the popular mystery manga series "The Kindaichi Case Files".

[Skull]

A couple of things to talk about today.

First up, I read the latest chapter of the manga and the mini-arc centred around Ranpo seems to be coming to an end. I can see it wrapping up within the next chapter. This short arc has definitely been a refreshing change of pace after the long and dramatic Cannibalism arc.

But more importantly, a third wave of reprints by Kadokawa have been released to promote the upcoming movie "Dead Apple". You guys may remember that they are the original works that the author's Abilities are named after (E.g "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai) with the covers being redesigned to have the anime characters on the front. This time around the latest two are "The Setting Sun" by Osamu Dazai and "Tangled Hair" by Akiko Yosano. These two are interesting because the former is the second book by Dazai to be made into a reprint and isn't referenced in Bungou at all - probably was made because Dazai is the most popular character and all that. While Yosano's book of poems, "Tangled Hair" doesn't appear to contain the poem that Bungou used for her Ability "Thou Shalt Not Die". Regardless, I'll definitely buy them the first chance I get because I'm a sucker for Bungou.

Here's what the new covers look like. <3

[RoydGolden]

This summer doesn't have much anime I'm interested in (really only The Detective Is Already Dead) so I decided to catch up on some other shows that'd been languishing on my watchlist, starting with Bungou Stray Dogs' third season. Overall it was a pretty enjoyable ride. Classic mix of humor, darkness and stylish action I've come to expect from this series.

Fyodor was certainly an imposing villain in how much of a chessmaster he was as well as his sheer fanaticism in achieving his ideals that makes him far scarier than any past enemies the Agency has faced. That said the final episode felt like a bit of an anticlimax in that Fyodor was ultimately arrested without a fight (though the way Dazai caught him was clever and nicely tied in a certain previous character), while the climactic fight of the season went to a random minion of Fyodor's who'd never been shown before and seemingly only existed so there'd be a big fight at the end.

The action was still strong, and the reluctant team-bonding between Atsushi and Akutagawa was well-done, but it just didn't feel as hype as Atsushi versus Akutagawa or Atsushi/Akutagawa versus Fitzgerald from the past seasons. I've heard this was only part of a longer-running story-arc from the manga and frankly that shows here in the lack of a really climactic resolution.

Also I couldn't believe this season literally ended with a "Toast to the stray dogs" line given that's how I for fun closed my review of the series back in S2. Guess I'm prescient.