Bungo Stray Dogs Season 5

Episodes 51-52

No, that's not a typo or a tongue-in-cheek reference to the term “Orwellian” that makes up the boat's name. Like many a dropped name in Bungo Stray Dogs, the good ship Boswellian references a very specific author, in this case, eighteenth-century biographer James Boswell. The Scottish author is best known as Samuel Johnson's biographer, and “Boswellian” refers to a constant companion who is also a keen observer of their friend. The classic example is, of course, John Watson to Sherlock Holmes. In the case of these episodes, it likely is a dual reference to Rampo's observational skills and the fact that Akutagawa is a keen observer of Atsushi, leading to the tense cliffhanger of a final scene in episode fifty-two.

In any event, wow. Bungo Stray Dogs wastes no time this season, jumping swiftly back into the action without even a thought of a flashback arc. (That's a little too bad for Chuuya fans because the next in terms of the novels is about him.) When we left our beleaguered friends at the end of the previous cour, things were looking very bad for the Agency, the Mafia was MIA, and the new monsters in the form of the Decay of Angels were busy reshaping the world in their own image. It certainly didn't help that Dazai took himself out of the action to have a mind-off with Dostoyevsky in prison, although that may prove to have been a smart move later on. Fortunately for our collective sanity, things kick off with Rampo working his magic to get the Agency back together again.

Rampo has always been the group's wildcard, possibly even more than other underused characters like Kenji. The fact that he's not really Gifted in the supernatural sense is a major factor, but it's more that he genuinely marches to the beat of his own drum. That reflects how real-life Edogawa Rampo constructed his stories; even his tales starring his series detective Kogoro Akechi don't follow the formula of, say, the Hercule Poirot stories or the original Kindaichi novels. But as we see this week, Rampo can also be too smart for his own good. He's already taken an irrevocable step by the time he figures out that his mentor's old pal Fukuchi is more than just the leader of the Hunting Dogs: he's the mysterious “Kamui” who heads the Decay of Angels.

This is a very tangled story, even for Bungo Stray Dogs, and a large part of that is because of the overlapping and conflicting loyalties on display. Fukuchi is part of two groups on opposite sides of the conflict (or rather, who think they are), Akutagawa is watching Atsushi with the clear intention of doing something, Lucy is practically a member of the Agency rather than the Guild at this point…and that's not even counting people like Ango with mixed interests based on past friendships. If the Agency and the Mafia are meant to represent two sides of the same coin, that coin is spinning awfully fast right now, blurring the clarity between heads and tails.

With all of this happening, it's a good thing that there are moments of levity and heartfelt reunions. Atsushi launching himself at Kunikida is adorable (especially in light of his understanding of how afraid he is to be alone), and having Yosano standing there with a gigantic knife to nearly kill Kunikida so she can grow his hands back balances things out nicely. We won't get many breaks going forward, so strap in for the ride. It's going to be bumpy.

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Bungo Stray Dogs is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.