TLDR at the end Hello readers and welcome back to another review of mine or welcome to my reviews if its your first time here. Today I will reviewing the Bungou Stray Dogs manga in a spoilerfree fashion. So shall we get into it? Weve all heard of Bungou Stray Dogs or at the very least made aware of who Dazai is. And Im guessing everyone knows who Dazai is upon showing interest in this series. Now Im originally an anime watcher but I didnt find BSD appealing as how everyone made it out to be. That is until I read the manga. Story The plot of BSD is rather simple. It follows a similar fashion of the shonen formula where nave 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 Ive 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 mangas 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. Power System BSD has a power system which I find alright. Its 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 dont. There isnt any way to awaken it youre just born with it. That is a tiny gripe I have with the power system but I do find it rather creative. Its not limited to combat but for many other things like support and utility. Characters BSD is known for its AMAZING characters. Weve seen Dazai weve seen a guy in a suit with a hat and weve 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 readers 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 indepth characters in the series. Despite being someone who kills he has ideals which are always tested. Despite following the archetype of being the MCs rival he has his own story which makes his life feel like it doesnt completely revolve around the MC. But thats 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 BSDs characters however is how theyre 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 dont put them in situations they cant get out of only for them to escape out of said situations in unbelievable ways. It doesnt help that one of the characters manipulations feel like its more like writing the plot rather than genuinely manipulating something. But thats a small gripe. Overall BSD has amazing character writing and Im surprised at how great it is. 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. TLDR Overall BSD is an amazing manga. It is a bit reliant on consuming the other mediums to fully enjoy it but that doesnt detract away from the overall enjoyment. BSD has indepth characters as well as writing the relationships to be realistic and interesting with a great artstyle to boot.