TL;DR at the end!
Hello, readers, and welcome back to another review of mine, or welcome to my reviews, if it’s your first time here. Today, I will reviewing the Bungou Stray Dogs manga, in a spoiler-free fashion. So, shall we get into it?
We’ve all heard of Bungou Stray Dogs, or at the very least, made aware of who Dazai is. And I’m guessing everyone knows who Dazai is, upon showing interest in this series. Now, I’m originally an anime watcher, but I didn’t find BSD appealing as how everyone made it out to be. That is, until I read the manga.
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Story
The plot of BSD is rather simple. It follows a similar fashion of the shonen formula, where naïve main character has a rival, and they fight big bads and stuff. BSD can look unappealing. At first glance, BSD is reminiscent of a mystery series. After all, the story revolves around a detective agency. However, BSD should be treated as a shonen series, rather than as a mystery story.
That being said, BSD, is one of the better shonens I’ve come across. Despite not really bringing anything new to the table, it excels at one thing: execution. Most of the time.
Despite being rather simple, BSD has complex lore. Taking away the lore of BSD would turn BSD into a normal shonen. The lore of BSD is which manages to make BSD stand out. Many people agree that the best parts of BSD are during the flashbacks. After all, flashbacks are a great way to show why that character ended up the way he is. Unfortunately, I would be diving into huge spoiler territory as the lore ends up being one of the more crucial parts of BSD as a whole. However, I consider this one of the manga’s few weaknesses.
BSD (manga specifically) works chronologically. Most of the lore is hidden in the light novels, and bits of it adapted in the anime. The lore is crucial to some certain characters, and depending on you, the characters may not stick to you as much. The manga tends to focus on the present more, rather than the past, so how things work in general may be confusing.
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Power System
BSD has a power system which I find alright. It’s not balanced, like say, Nen from HunterXHunter or Stands in JoJo. One character can manipulate gravity while another character only creates… lemon bombs? The power system as a whole is a bit strange considering certain humans are born with it. And some people have powers, and some people don’t. There isn’t any way to awaken it; you’re just born with it. That is a tiny gripe I have with the power system, but I do find it rather creative. It’s not limited to combat, but for many other things like support and utility.
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Characters
BSD is known for its AMAZING characters. We’ve seen Dazai, we’ve seen a guy in a suit with a hat, and we’ve probably seen a detective boy with his eyes closed most of the time. BSD is amazing at character writing. I cannot believe how layered these characters are. Most of their decisions are left to the reader’s interpretation, too.
I would pick one character, and it would be Akutagawa. Despite me having personal favourites, I believe this character is one of most in-depth characters in the series. Despite being someone who kills, he has ideals which are always tested. Despite following the archetype of being the MC’s rival, he has his own story, which makes his life feel like it doesn’t completely revolve around the MC.
But that’s not all. BSD focuses on a number of characters, and most of them manage to be very fleshed out. There are a few characters who only had around 10 chapters of screentime, who manage to be way more amazingly written that I thought they would be. These characters are all important, despite being a side character, and all of them have their own roles to play.
The few problems I have with BSD’s characters, however, is how they’re introduced at the start. In the first 15 chapters they already introduce a large number of characters, which can be overwhelming at the start. Aside from that, BSD has a huge amount of plot armor. Now, I love our characters, but don’t put them in situations they can’t get out of, only for them to escape out of said situations in unbelievable ways. It doesn’t help that one of the characters’ manipulations feel like it’s more like writing the plot, rather than genuinely manipulating something. But that’s a small gripe.
Overall, BSD has amazing character writing, and I’m surprised at how great it is.
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Art/Quality
BSD has amazing art. It was quite hard for me to get used to it at first, as the manga and anime have distinctly different styles, but the manga does improve its art overtime. Not to mention, the character design. Oh my gosh, how and why is everyone so drippy? Did the artist work at a fashion designing job or what? Most of the character designs are so iconic that each one of them could be the main character of their own manga.
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TL;DR
Overall, BSD is an amazing manga. It is a bit reliant on consuming the other mediums to fully enjoy it, but that doesn’t detract away from the overall enjoyment. BSD has in-depth characters, as well as writing the relationships to be realistic and interesting with a great artstyle to boot. 
