The best ‘Bungo Stray Dogs’ characters according to the pack of feral teenagers currently occupying my living room
I have never watched Bungo Stray Dogs. My friends’ teenage children, on the other hand, are obsessed with it and when I innocently mentioned, “Oh hey, work wants someone to write about that show you like,” they descended.
Now they’re in my house and may possibly be holding me hostage until I give in to their demands. So, with that said, here are the ten best Bungo Stray Dogs characters as dictated to me by the pack of teenagers currently squatting in my living room. Remember, I have never seen this show and understand literally nothing they’re talking about. These opinions are not mine but they are very loud.
10. Edogawa Ranpo
“If you pronounce his name really fast it becomes Edgar Allen Poe. He is not Edgar Allen Poe but this was a conscious choice the author he’s based on made as this is actually a pen name rather than his actual name.”
“A relatable king, deeply motivated by praise who keeps a secret stash of candy and snacks.”
“He’s a 26-year-old man but if his boss tells him he’s done a good job he’ll do basically anything for him. His Dad-boss will do anything for him too though because the agency was basically created for him so he could have an autistic safe space.”
“A conniving bastard who knows everything all the time./pos”
“He doesn’t actually have a power but has convinced himself he does because he’s so smart he knows everything all the time and everyone else believes he does too. He’s convinced his powers are stored in the pair of glasses his Boss-Dad gave him. (He secretly knows he doesn’t really have powers but has had to convince himself that he does so that he can continue actually liking people in spite of knowing everything about everyone all the time).
9. Chūya Nakahara
“Short king. Wish he was more confident about it but it is what it is. Dazai calls him short sometimes and he gets violent. Uses the excuse that he’s still growing but he’s a 22-year-old man. He’s not still growing.”
“He’s actually taller than the author he’s based on though.”
“He wears a stupid f***ing hat but manages to make it look good. Unsure of how he does that.”
“Lesbians love him. The asymmetrical haircut may be involved. Also the cool bike.”
“He’s a human experiment and genuinely wasn’t sure he was human at all until he was 16.”
“Was the king of the sheep (a gang). Does not like being referred to as this. Very nearly wiped out the Port Mafia with them before he was 16 only for them to be turned against him by Dazai in order to make him switch sides.”
“In the manga you find out Dazai dislikes him well before you ever see him on page.”
8. Bram Stoker
“So first of all he’s a vampire. Sick as f***.”
“His ability is to make zombie vampires that do his bidding.”
“Most of the time we know him he’s a head and shoulders on a sword in a coffin, or carried around on the back of a 10-year-old that he has a buddy cop dynamic with.”
“He’s kind of a Dad, he’s a centuries-old vampire with an obsession with radios, he was seven feet tall before he becomes a head and shoulders, and had thoroughly given up on life before the 10-year-old decided they were doing this and sort of kidnapped him. (Where was he gonna go, he’s a head and shoulders stuck on a sword).”
“Fandom used to refer to him as Bramsicle.”
7. Lucy Maud Montgomery
“She kind of serves as a mirror to Atsushi where she’s had a lot of very similar life experiences, shared trauma, but reacted very differently. When you first meet her she’s an antagonist who captures a lot of the ADA in this weird pocket dimension and they’re genuinely worried they’re going to die, but then as the arc progresses you learn more about her and her motivations and Atsushi convinces her to change sides and Do The Right Thing with a Naruto style pep talk.”
“She ends up working in the cafe under the ADA headquarters, knows that it’s up there, but doesn’t want Atsushi to know she knows. It’s very Tsundere. But at the same time she’s developed so much more beyond a love interest or a foil, she’s her own character with her own history and motivations.”
“After she stops working for the guild she decides she wants to find herself and take the time to figure out who she is and wants to be, and it’s really good.”
“Her power is Anne of Abyssal Red, a pocket dimension she can trap people in. Metal af.”
6. Sakunosuke Oda
“I think he’s silly.” (Clearly positive).
“By the time canon rolls around he’s been dead for four years. He’s left such a mark on the narrative though that you can feel him everywhere before you even get the flashbacks where you learn who he is.”
“He’s so plot integral. Which is funny because no one knows what the plot of Bungo Stray Dogs even is.”
“He’s a child assassin. Out there age 14, killing people. Then plot happens and he decides he’s not going to kill anyone ever again. But stays in the Port Mafia. The first time we see him he’s talking shit to a mob boss’ face.”
“He found Dazai bleeding to death on his doorstep and took him to a bar. They were 15 and 20.”
“The man ever. Can’t stumble across an orphan without deciding to adopt them. Number one curry enjoyer. Is somehow nice to Dazai (elite level difficulty). Has a gay situationship with a triple agent.”
5. Akiko Yosano
“Her ability is “thou shalt not die”, she can heal people but only if they’re at the point of death. So she takes them there. With a chainsaw.”
“Her entire thing is she likes physically abusing men who try and doubt her abilities because she’s a woman. She will beat up a man at the slightest hint.”
“She’s really into her torture-healing. Will use any excuse to lure people into her little torture-healing chamber, even if they just have a little sniffle etc.”
“She was working in a candy shop as a child when Mori found her, went I can use your powers, and took her to a battlefield to work as a military nurse. Part of an experimental unit whose purpose is to keep soldiers from ever being able to die. Referred to as Angel of Death. Eventually experiences psychological collapse and is basically kept on a shelf until Ranpo and his Boss-Dad find and take her home.”
4. Aya Kōda
“She’s the cutiest patootie in the world and deserves so much better.”
“The first time we meet her she’s a little gremlin child, mouthing off to Kunikida, he looks away for ten seconds during which she wanders off and is handed a briefcase with a bomb in it. Next time we see her he saves her from another bomb. At which point she announces she wants to marry him, he informs her at length of all the criteria she doesn’t fit for his ideal bride, and she decides he’s actually a nitpicking asshole.”
“Ends up stealing Bram. Stealing. He wants her to put him back. She will not.”
“I think it’s important to note she was quite terrified during that whole ordeal.” (The stealing of Bram.)
“Number one favorite ten-year-old who has saved the world. Her Dad can shut up.”
3. Atsushi Nakajima
“That’s my wife!”
“We first see him dying of starvation at the side of a river bank, contemplating robbing a motherf***er.”
“He got kicked out of his orphanage because he was a weretiger. He didn’t know that. He thought the tiger was hunting him.”
“Saved Dazai’s life against Dazai’s wishes.”
“Atsushi is really underrated in the West. People keep saying he shouldn’t be the main character even though Bungo Stray Dogs is shaped by him being the main character even when he’s not on screen. It doesn’t work if he’s not the main character.”
“When he figures out through Dazai brand team building exercises that he is the weretiger he gets adopted by the ADA and is put through a bomb trial. He jumps on the bomb in the most pathetic pose possible and they (the animators) keep on putting him in that pose.”
“Adopts a child assassin, steals her from the mafia.”
“Homoerotic rivalry with Akutigawa.”
“Rehabilitating every agency, Port Mafia, and guild member. He’s like their therapist except he’s deeply traumatised.”
2. Doppo Kunikida
“The most autistic man in the world. Has a whole book of his ideals. Will only use one type of hard to get hold of, artisan made notebooks. Is very intense about them. Will get very upset if forced to break with his extremely rigid schedule, even if it means meeting the notebook maker. Has somehow, despite being only 22 years old, managed to qualify as a maths teacher, discovered he hated it, and joined the ADA.” (Note: The person being quoted is autistic.)
“Take a drink every time Kunkida watches a child blow up, or nearly blow up.”
“Is the straight man to Dazai a lot of the time. Acts like he hates Dazai but kind of cares about him in a roundabout way.”
“He keeps the agency together. It’s confirmed that if Fukuzawa dies Kunikida will be in charge. Because he’s organised.”
1. Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
I’ve been informed that he is “the skrunkler ever”. I don’t know what that means and they won’t explain.
“He is so deeply traumatised and f***ed up. We don’t know much about him before joining the Port Mafia except that he was homeless and living on scraps. Dazai found him and his sister when he was 14 and proceeds to do to him what Mori did to Dazai. He then does the same with Kyouka when he’s in charge of training her. It’s generational trauma without any actual family ties.”
“The fandom loves making him a pathetic little meow meow but not in a woobification way. The parts of the fandom that like him. Lots of the fandom don’t like him. Lots of the fandom have bad taste.”
“He’s just a sad little guy. Wet dog.” The teenager then made noises that among my generation would have been known as squeeing.
“Atsushi is slowly rehabilitating him. He promised he wouldn’t kill anyone for six months and then he’d kill Atsushi. This has not happened. They’re very gay about it. When he’s vampirized the bite he takes out of Atsushi’s neck is very homoerotic. They managed to make vampires quite unsexy for most of it but for this one they made an exception.”
Dishonourable mention: Dazai
“The worst man in the world.”
“He does not make this list simply because he is the worst and yet he still features on it heavily, his name is mentioned on nearly every entry because he has his awful fingers in every f***ing pie. There’s not a single character who hasn’t had some awful little interaction with Dazai that probably pulls things towards a greater goal for the greater good but which also diminished their quality of life in the meantime.”
“He’s a character who is deeply shaped by his past, yet despite knowing about his past we still know nothing about his past. We don’t know what’s up with him because just when you think you’ve discovered why he’s a little freak you discover that nope, he was already like that. The earliest scenes we have of him are him talking to Mori as Mori recruits him into the Port Mafia, age 14, where we discover that he is already at that point a weird little freak. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.”
“The world’s most manipulative man who has canonically committed at least 136 counts of murder.”
“He almost dies and I nearly cheered with joy.”
“I nearly cried tears of joy when I thought he was truly dead.”
“The worst thing about him being the worst man in the world is he’s also my favorite character. I am for my sins a Dazai fan. This is simply my cross to bear.”
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