English Dub Review: Bungo Stray Dogs WAN Episode 4

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Akutagawa goes on errands for Dazai, but runs into Atsushi, which reignites their rivalry.

OUR TAKE
Even with my limited knowledge of Bungo Stray Dogs, because again I have not seen the first two seasons, Akutagawa and Atsushi’s bad blood is definitely something that I have been acquainted with. It seems to be similar in some ways to the grand daddy of all anime rivalries, Goku and Vegeta, with the main protagonist wanting a more carefree attitude about life while his rival, who naturally wears darker colors and has a bit of a darker morality, is constantly ready to challenge the other to a fight at the drop of the hat. But another wrinkle unfolds in that the two have a mutual connection to another character, Dazai, who formerly trained Akutagawa, leading to a bit more jealousy for getting the attention that Akutagawa (man these are some long names to type out multiple times) formerly had. This is then exploited for this parody series, where Akutagawa’s loyalty to Dazai is so great that he’ll do errands for him, even if the errands are ultimately to get things for Atsushi. Having two characters with such intense feelings for each other is pretty easy fuel for comedy, so it’s natural to get that some focus in a comedy version of your usually very series battle series.

Oh, I guess I need something else to talk about here. Well, I can probably say that this episode is definitely the first of this series so far that I feel like I could jump in without whatever minimal knowledge I have about the series. As I mentioned before, a good parody is able to get you to feel lin on the joke even without knowing the references, and I think this may accomplish that. However, I think it might only do so due to the more meta nature of anime in recent years, what with the archetypes of “main hero” and “hero’s rival” becoming so common and recurring to the point that it’s pretty easy to make fun of the tropes as a whole and everyone who is even remotely acquainted with this medium is going to know what you’re referring to. But honestly, if it works, it works, and I’m not going to complain about that. At the very least, it helps me to finally pick something apart from this series when it seemed like I would have to grasp at all of the straws to find something. But then again, there are at least six episodes left of this.