Atsushi is a teenage orphan who was kicked out of the orphanage, but gets a lucky break when he saves a certain Dazai who tried committing suicide in the river. The latter hires him to join the Armed Detective Agency, where people with supernatural powers battle crime. Atsushi is surprised when he discovers he has these powers himself, and can transform into a tiger. His first assignment is to battle the Port Mafia, but their leader places a bounty on Atsushi, since he wants the latter’s tiger powers. Other cases include discovering who is kidnapping people; stopping the mafia’s bomb from exploding at the Yokohama port or a train... Dazai can neutralize anyone’s superpowers by touching them. Other members of the Detectives are Ranpo, who has no superpowers and can only rely on his deductive intelligence, and Kunikida, who can “3-D print” objects with his paper pages. The ex-suicide bomber girl Kyoka is recruited into the Detective Agency.
“X-Men” meets “Infernal Affairs”: this unusual anime series takes a typical crime genre story of a Detective unit fighting with the mafia, but makes it more interesting by giving certain key players special superpowers which tend to challenge the usual outcomes of this formula. While it was helmed by the “Sailor Moon”-maestro director Takuya Igarashi and the writer Yoji Enokido, “Bungo Stray Dogs” are not always inspired or creative to the fullest, delivering a good story, yet ultimately lacking that finest touch. The tone shifts, depending on the situation: in certain episodes, for instance, minor characters are gunned down in a bloody manner; in episode 4, the Detective Agency staff decides to nonchalantly throw out a dozen criminals who stormed their headquarters, and thus there is a cartoonish shot of someone counting “one, two, three, four...” as the corpses are thrown one by one out the window. This syncretism of funny-cheerful and criminal-violent is a tad too daft, yet the balance works most of the time since the characters are treated rather respectfully. Episode 6 is the first one that jumps through the ranks of quality: it presents the character Doppo Kunikida who has a fascinating power. He can create objects written on a page of his notebook. This leads to a virtuoso set-up fight with villain Akutagawa: Kunikida shoots at a pipe in the background, which leaks water and splashes Akutagawa, creating a puddle around him. Kunikida then creates an electric shocker in his arm, and throws it in the puddle, electrocuting Akutagawa standing in it. Kunikida akso decisively solves a mystery abduction case in the same episode, realizing the taxi driver is the perpetrator, since he was the only person who was with all the abducted people before they disapeared. Season 1 of “Bungo” ends abruptly: it tickles the interests of the viewers, but seems to be jumping from subplot to subplot, introducing supporting characters and then forgetting about them, without an overarching grand vision of where all of this is heading.
Grade:++
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