It's been a long time since S1 aired back in 2016 and for one reason or another, I never felt compelled to pick up S2 until recently. I enjoyed S1 initially but it was still a fairly mediocre anime in my eyes. For context, let me lay down some of the problems I had with season 1 from what I can remember. I've only seen S1 once and that was watching it weekly while it was airing so forgive me if I miss anything.
So with these criticisms in mind I hoped that S2 would fix these issues. The reception to this season was extremely positive so I was excited to see what was going to happen. So, I dived in and watched the first four episodes which were an immediate step-up. The dark mafia tone was handled extremely well. The characters new characters were enjoyable to watch. The comedy was placed in fitting scenes and actually funny most of the time. It was shaping up to be a really good season. I was pumped to get back into the present to see the Guild in action and to witness a potential three-way-war.
Then I watched the rest of the show. Somehow, Bungo Stray Dogs S2 not only manages to be worse than season 1, but it's problems are even more egregious than before.
First of all, the way this show handles it's characters is honestly idiotic. I want to chock this down to a poor adaptation, but I'm not familiar with the source material so I don't know. The members of the Guild are visually really well designed and they were hyped up to be some awesome antagonists. They are a lot more interesting than Port Mafia and their powers were a lot cooler as well. So, the war begins and we see two new Guild members surface. One of them being Margaret Mitchell, a character I was really excited to see. She's the most distinct character on the poster and her dub performance is done with a southern accent so it's different from most anime villains. She's also hot, not gonna lie. So, for the first fight we see against the Guild, the two members get destroyed by Aktugatwa, just because he's angry. What a stupid way to introduce a new villain group. It's writing 101. If you want villains to be threatening, don't have them be beaten so easily right when they're introduced. It's idiotic. Especially since it's by one of the show's most annoying characters. So, for the rest of the season, the Guild never once feels like a threat and Port Mafia takes the role of dominant villain because we're supposed to think they're cool. Because a generic modern day mafia is somehow cooler than a group of people dressed in 1800s costumes that are named after famous authors that you'll actually recognize who have superpowers named after some of their books. The main villain suffers immensely because of this. He has such an interesting and unique power, and they make little use of it in this show. The final battle fails because of this. It happens out of nowhere, it's way too short and it doesn't feel like a climax in the slightest.
This character problem extends into the protagonists as well. Despite this being a 'war' the only Agency characters that do anything of note are Dazai and Atsushi. Everyone else either does barely anything or gets treated like Ranpo and gets half an episode dedicated to a mystery that was way better than anything that came before it this season. Why is every character handled so incompetently? It's not that hard to write a compelling and entertaining battle story. This was definitely a rushed adaptation, it's the only way this amount of mistakes actually makes sense. This show has so much potential to be amazing but it was squandered. It's got three seasons for god sake, it doesn't really have an excuse.
So, Bungo Stray Dogs S2. A show that somehow most people love despite being one of the most obviously flawed things ever made. It's unfortunate that a cool idea like this show got wasted with one of the most underwhelming anime adaptations ever made. I haven't even read the source material and I'm still made. This is a show I really wanted to like but everything it does from the characters, the fights and especially the poorly handled comedy just ruin the experience for me. If S3 is better than feel free to let me know, because I really want this show to be good.
Just so I end on a positive I'll quickly list some of the stuff I liked:
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