Bungô Stray Dogs

[Season 1] From the names of the characters, it looks at first glance like a writer's duel, which, even though on screen, only one character has anything to do with writing and they're certainly not fighting with pen in hand. A rather sympathetic and less serious mix of Durarara!!, where our gang (reminiscent of the gang from Akame ga Kill!) serves as the unofficial protectors of the city from the vicious Port Mafia: They tease each other for odd purposes, and when they're not doing that, they're showing off playing practical jokes on their colleagues. The most central plot point is the episodic solving of minor detective cases by characters who have very strong (and, it should be noted, quite original) supernatural abilities, and that, ladies and gentlemen, fits together like a hairdryer with a bubble bath. The plot then has to disqualify the 2 main characters, in an obvious, uncompromising, and unfortunate detour, because one of them can solve every case in 30 seconds (but just doesn't want to on purpose) and the other one can turn off all superpowers (and so is therefore somewhere in the background for strange reasons). Otherwise, there would be nothing to watch, right? Even so, the rules of the game are very convoluted and non-specific, with random things happening on the field until it’s laughable. Yeah, it's entertaining pretty often, thankfully. The fights are solid with handsome visuals, and even comedically it's decent: Each character has a deranged quality to the character that is continuously referenced, even if it's overdone in places (Dazai). Unfortunately, the messiness and indecisiveness of the story, the not knowing how to mix drama and fun, slows down the action terribly, and right when something is finally about to happen, the first season ends. For being only very fleetingly introduced to the good guys, and knowing only cursory information about the bad guys, the arrival of a 3rd entity felt premature and certainly not welcome. It's kind of a more shōnen-esque Durarara!! devoid of intelligent story and direction, but it's no catastrophe. A better 3 stars (12/12/2019)