Its 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. Ive only seen S1 once and that was watching it weekly while it was airing so forgive me if I miss anything. Characters are introduced well but are given little screen time after that even if they seem important Villains are given little to no development Animation is decent at best boring at worst final fight of S1 being an exception Comedy straight up ruins most scenes and is unfunny Tone nosedives frequently from dark to funny Characters are one note not necessarily a negative expected for a shows S1 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 stepup. 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 threewaywar. Then I watched the rest of the show. Somehow Bungo Stray Dogs S2 not only manages to be worse than season 1 but its problems are even more egregious than before. First of all the way this show handles its characters is honestly idiotic. I want to chock this down to a poor adaptation but Im not familiar with the source material so I dont 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. Shes the most distinct character on the poster and her dub performance is done with a southern accent so its different from most anime villains. Shes also hot not gonna lie. So for the first fight we see against the Guild the two members get destroyed by Aktugatwa just because hes angry. What a stupid way to introduce a new villain group. Its writing 101. If you want villains to be threatening dont have them be beaten so easily right when theyre introduced. Its idiotic. Especially since its by one of the shows 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 were supposed to think theyre 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 youll 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 its way too short and it doesnt 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? Its not that hard to write a compelling and entertaining battle story. This was definitely a rushed adaptation its the only way this amount of mistakes actually makes sense. This show has so much potential to be amazing but it was squandered. Its got three seasons for god sake it doesnt 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. Its unfortunate that a cool idea like this show got wasted with one of the most underwhelming anime adaptations ever made. I havent even read the source material and Im 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 Ill quickly list some of the stuff I liked: Character designs are fantastic definitely the best part of the show Powers are fun and creative Episodes 14 are really great Soundtrack Fights are better animated this season Margaret Mitchell
47 /100
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