This was a show I was a bit late to when it first started airing, and only caught it last year. Seasons one and two were both pretty fantastic. For those unfamiliar with the show, every important character is gifted with some kind of supernatural ability. Our lead character can transform into a weretiger, one character can make an object out of a page in his notebook assuming he understands the objects function and the object is no bigger than the notebook. Then there is the team medic, who is capable of healing any fatal wound, the key word here is fatal. Show up to her with a broken arm, and in order to heal it the injury needs to be made life-threatening.
While season one focused the Port Mafia trying to capture Atsushi, the shows main character. After successfully keeping him safe, Season 2 sees the western group known as 'The Guild' who put the bounty out in the first place come into the picture, forcing The Detective Agency and the Port Mafia to team up in order to stop them from destroying the city.
Season three opens up with some more backstory on one of the show's characters, Dazai. Portrayed so far as one of the most powerful characters in his show, Dazai is capable of nullifying any other gift. Beyond that, he is exceptionally smart and cunning. Here we get to see how he originally joined with the Port Mafia, whereas the previous season we saw his back story on how he went from the Port Mafia to joining with The Detective Agency instead.
This is where things start to get a bit annoying, as not only does his back story not really set up anything for this season, but the actual main plot of this season just feels like it's setting up the antagonist for a future season. Despite the show being three seasons in, and the first two seasons feeling like they told their own story and moved along the plot, we get twelve episodes of set up for another season entirely. Even certain aspects that were introduced at the end of the previous season with a coming disaster, though to be honest, it's not clear if the villain set up here even is that coming disaster. The entire season just feels like nothing has been advanced in the overall story of Bungou Stray Dogs outside of introducing a villain, as well as giving a little bit of backstory on Dazai and the purpose of The Detective Agency.
A second issue that comes up is also that our main character, Atsushi, kind of feels like nothing that happens in this show is really of his own volition. While he technically makes the choices, Dazai seems to be the one pushing him, as well as most everyone else, where he wants them to go. He even gave encouragement to Atushi for the last bit of season 2, and had plans in place working under the assumption that Atsushi would act a certain way, down to some very specific details. It's a bit of a running issue with the show I have in how they make Dazai seem almost unbelievable smart and cunning, without really being able to explain how he knows as much as he does.
That out of the way, there is still a lot to like about this season. As always, there is a lot of really fun fights with characters you come to love. Outside of a couple of people, most of the cast are already characters we have been familiar with for the whole show so far, but despite that, we still have a lot of great fights and moments between them. We get to see some interesting uses of the power of creating objects out of the notebook, as well as more scenes with the illusion based power of Tazinaki and showing why he is a lot more threatening then he first appears. His power has been consistently fun to see used as the show progresses, and I hope they have more in store for him in the future.
Getting back to the negative, however, is our main character and his eternal rival Akutagawa. They've been building this up for a while now, but while they hate each other they have the ability to work together and highly compliment each other due to both of their abilities. The problem with this comes with the fact so many fights and powers that are shown off in Bungou Stray dogs are interesting and clever in their application, at least for the most part. This duo, however, just kind of devolves into 'I can punch you super hard'. It's a bit of a running problem I have with a lot of shows (I'm looking at you My Hero Academia) where the least interesting abilities get the spotlight. Akutagawa has a fair bit of utility on his own, but overall it still devolves into a power game.
I know I have been mostly ragging on this season in the review, and while I think the criticism is very warranted it's still an overall fun show to watch. It may be a let down from previous seasons, but it doesn't stop it from having a lot of great fights and character moments, and some genuinely interesting things going on. While I think you'd be fine to kick back and wait for the next season since this just adds more questions, once that fourth season comes to give this one a watch so that you know what's going on. It's still worth the time.