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A 2012 Seinen manga.
Nakajima Atsushi is an orphan who has been cast out of his orphanage. At the verge of starvation, he ends up saving a man from a suicide attempt. That man, Osamu Dazai, works in a detective agency, of a special kind who resolve cases that normal cops can't resolve, often involving people with super powers called "abilities". After discovering Atsushi is his most recent target, and managing to subdue his out-of-control ability with his own Power Nullifier ability, Osamu decides to "adopt" him, that is, employ him as a detective.
Written by Kafka Asagiri. Art by Harukawa35. Published on Kadokawa Shouten's Young Ace. An anime adaptation was released in 2016, and has just finished its fifth season.
Tropes used in Bungou Stray Dogs include:
- Action Girl: This show has several, Yosano being the standout as her healing factor means she can recover terrible injuries and keep going, but Higuchi, Gin, Margaret, Lucy, Kyoka and Kouyou all are formidable fighters as well.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Higuchi has a huge crush on Akutagawa, which he is completely ignorant of.
- Animal Motifs: Akutagawa is routinely associated with dogs and hounds, he's known as the "Black Dog" of the Port Mafia, he's known to be aggressive and has an extreme loyalty to his "master" (Dazai, whom Akutagawa borderline worships despite Dazai's treatment of him) and Rashomon somewhat resembles a dog's head. Naturally he's always at odds with cat-themed Atsushi.
- Yosano is associated with butterflies, which are tied to themes of death and rebirth and she always has her butterfly-shaped hairpin.
- Ascended Fangirl: Mizuki Tsujimura is a fan of the series and was allowed to become a character in the show working as one of Ango's subordinates.
- Badass Normal: At Chapter 6, it is revealed Ranpo has no powers at all, he's just very smart.
- Big Damn Heroes: When some thugs threaten to torture Louisa when she won't hand over her money to them, Fitzgerald shows up out of nowhere, punches one across the alleyway and declares it cost him fifty bucks for that punch.
- Birds Of A Feather: Atsushi and Lucy both grew up in orphanages who subjected them to horrendous abuse and they both have terrible self-esteem, though while Atsushi's manifests as constantly blaming himself, Lucy's is more outward aggression and abandonment issues.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: The men in this series are very pretty, especially Dazai, Ranpo, Tanizaki, Mark Twain, Fyodor and Tecchou.
- Cycle of Hurting: This trope is used several times - most notably, Mori was grooming Dazai to be his successor and Dazai was acting in a very similar manner to Mori until he quit the Port Mafia. Similarly, Akutagawa behaves much like Dazai did when Kyoka is his protégé.
- Driven to Suicide: Played For Laughs. Osamu is constantly attempting suicide, and failing at it.
- Enemy Mine: Atsushi and Akutagawa are forced to team up in order to take down Fitzgerald and stop him destroying Yokohama. Later they team up again to hunt down Pushkin when Fukuzawa and Mori are both poisoned by his ability.
- Eyes Always Shut: Ranpo and Jouno, though while Ranpo does occasionally open his eyes, Jouno never opens them because he's literally blind.
- Green Eyed Monster: Akutagawa despises Atsushi because Atsushi has everything Akutagawa wants - he has a place to call home and he has Dazai's respect and approval despite doing nothing to earn it.
- In a more comedic example, Lucy isn't a big fan of Kyoka due to how close the latter is to Atsushi.
- Healing Factor: In Chapter 4, it's revealed Atsushi's ability allows him to regenerate his body parts.
- Healing Hands: Akiko's power, "Thou Shalt No Die", allows her to heal people, but only if they are critically injured.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In chapter 2, Atsushi jumps over an bomb that doesn't go off, because actually there's no bomb, only a chronometer on a box, and the situation is a test for his character in face of danger, to prove he can really work as an "armed detective".
- Hidden Depths: Fitzgerald seems like just an arrogant selfish rich guy who wants to destroy Yokohama, but it turns out he's deeply in love with his wife Zelda and all his plans are to retrieve the book so he can bring their daughter back to life.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Done twice, first Ace and then Shibusawa are both ruthlessly outclassed by Fyodor.
- Living Shadow: Rashomon is a shadow who spawns from his user that can eat, well, anything. It isn't explained what exactly that means but things are hit by it seems to disappear on thin air, making people go through an experience similar to a Portal Cut.
- Lolicon: Mori Ogai, as his ability "Vita Sexualis" takes the form of whatever Mori desires, which is Elise, who resembles a young girl. Rather creepily, Elise used to have a more robotic personality, but after meeting eleven-year-old Yosano, she changed into being more aggressive to match Yosano's personality.
- Incest Subtext: Naomi is a little too attached to her brother Tanizaki, though recent chapters heavily imply they aren't actually related.
- Invisibility: Tanizaki's ability allows him to blend with the environment seamlessly.
- Mentor: Dazai to Akutagawa and Atsushi, though he does a significantly better job with the latter.
- Oda was Dazai's mentor before that.
- Kouyou was Chuuya's mentor when he first joined the Port Mafia and even now he still defers to her as his senpai despite Chuuya being significantly more powerful.
- The Napoleon: Chuuya Nakahara is only 5'2 and his temper is as short as he is. In Real Life he was even shorter!
- Not So Above It All: Atsushi is generally pretty strait-laced unless money comes into the equation at which point he'll happily go along with his fellow detectives' antics. It's rather justified, considering he was homeless and nearly died of starvation at the start of the series.
- Parental Substitute: It's pretty clear that Fukuzawa and Ranpo are more than colleagues and have more of a father-son relationship. When Fukuzawa is poisoned during the Cannibalism arc Ranpo is utterly devastated.
- Oda was this to a group of young orphans he was taking care of. When they are killed in a cruel bid to force Oda into fighting again, he completely crosses the Despair Event Horizon
- Power Incontinence: Atsushi's ability activated and went out of control sometimes before the events of the first chapter, to the point he had no idea he was the "tiger" the Detective Agency was hunting.
- Kyoka is unable to control Demon Snow unless a cellphone she wears is called. Once she joins the Agency she can finally control her ability on her own.
- Power Nullifier: Osamu's ability allows him to make any abilities that get near to him to deactivate.
- Reality Ensues:
- A two-fold case in Chapter 2. In spite of the end of the previous chapter implying that Atsushi had been conscripted into the Armed Detective Agency, the fact that he was previously deemed a high-level threat thanks to his tiger form's rampage means there's a lot of opposition to him joining. As well, Atsushi is reluctant to join since not only does he not want to put himself in danger, but as he points out his Power Incontinence would probably make him a liability. Dazai, being Dazai, resolves this with a convoluted Secret Test of Character involving Junichirou pretending to be a Mad Bomber.
- At the end of the chapter, in spite of having passed said Secret Test of Character and being offered a position in the Agency, Atsushi once again declines in favor of getting a minimum wage job. In response, Dazai points out to him that there really aren't any other viable options for him; he has no significant friends or family, no viable skills, and if his designation as a major threat were to be revealed he'd be arrested at best and shot at worst. Atsushi begrudgingly decides to join.
- Reformed Criminal: At the end of Chapter 4, is revealed that Osamu used to be a mafia member.
- Semantic Superpower: Kunikida's can create objects from drawings he does on paper, which is limited by the size of the paper itself.
- Sherlock Scan: Ranpo's ability boils down to this, where he just has to look at someone and can instantly deduce what's happened.
- Token Good Teammate: While nobody in the Guild are really "evil", Poe makes an extremely unconvincing villain and Louisa is obviously just doing everything Francis tells her to with no ill intent herself.
- Tomato in the Mirror]]: At the end of the first chapter, Atsushi is told he is the tiger he's trying to ran away from.
- Tough Love: A more charitable way to interpret Dazai's mistreatment of Akutagawa is that he's trying to make him strong enough to survive in the Port Mafia, but is going about it horribly.
- Kouyou tries this on Kyoka when attempting to force her to come back to the Port Mafia, but it doesn't work and she finally decides to let Kyoka go.
- Tsundere: Lucy obviously has feelings for Atsushi after he saves her life, but Atsushi is too self-deprecating to realise it, much to her frustration.
- Tragic Keepsake: The cellphone Kyoka always wears around her neck is what the Port Mafia use to control Demon Snow - it also used to belong to her mother.
- Yosano's hairclip was given to her by one of the soldiers she befriended. Ranpo proves his Ultra Deduction by finding it for her, even though Yosano had never told anybody about it or its significance to her. It turns out this was a major clue that the soldier was related to Tachihara because he manipulated metal to make it for her.
- The Smurfette Principle: Subverted. At first Akiko seems to be the only female member of the detective agency. By the second chapter we're introduced to Naomi, who was posing as a hostage for a secret test for Atsushi.
- Played straight with the Hunting Dogs, as Teruko is the only girl.
- We Used To Be Friends: Used twice with Fukuzawa, once with Mori until they had a falling out over his plans for Yosano, and once with Fukuchi.
- Dazai and Ango used to be friends along with Odasaku, but Dazai has never forgiven Ango for his role in Oda's death.