amazing (⌒▽⌒)☆ ( )

It's almost sort of interesting that this fantasy manga's characters are based on actual Japanese poets and writers, but the general set-up of super-powered detectives constantly fighting super-powered Mafioso isn't much of a hook for me.

I'm unfamiliar with most of the authors featured here, but it is funny that I was totally unaware of Osamu Dazai two years ago, but now here's the fourth book I'm reading about him. And this one tastelessly has him constantly trying to commit suicide as its comic relief.

Unless I learn that this gets truly awesome as it goes, I don't think I'm going to bother trying to get through this 23-volume series. ( )

Extremely clever, Bungo Stray Dogs' characters are all named after accomplished writers (or their works) from the Japanese Meiji and Taisho literary canon, though their personalities tend to be either hyperbolic recreations of their namesakes or else bare little resemblance to the historical named writer. Most amusingly, the character's supernatural powers are either taken from their namesakes' most famous/best work (finally a shounen attack I can wrap my brain around!), or else based on having an unnatural ability to survive what actually killed the named writer. Brilliantly, the story is set in time-skipping construct that features the historic appearance of Yokohama of that day, where writers, Westerners and the ill-repute abounded, but advanced to modern times technology (although I swear at least one image is based on a Yasukuni-Dori in Jimbouchou). Steeped in Meiji and Taisho historical happenings, much of the jokes featured in Bungo Stray Dogs will fly completely over the heads of a Western readership (unless one happened to major in Japanese Literature, and even then a good deal of the named writer's workers simply don't exist in English translation). Nevertheless, if you spend enough time researching every reference on Wikipedia, Bungo Stray Dogs can be quite funny. Highly recommended for the Japanese scholar, but I doubt the average teenage manga-lover would actually get anything out of it.

Additionally, the mangaka's penname, Asagiri Kafka, is an homage to the accomplished contemporary Japanese author Murakami Haurki's work, Kafka on the Shore (in this case "Kafka of the Morning Mist") that features Murakami's trademark alternating setting/protagonist trade-off style. Similarly, two of Bungo Stray Dogs characters, Akutagawa Ryounosuke and Higuchi Ichiyou work together as members of the mob in this volume, but in actuality they didn't even live during the same time periods.

Finally, one thing I particularly liked about this edition is that Yen decided to retain the under-obi gag strips that usually appear on Tankoubon's covers hidden by the dust jackets. They're usually never brought over into English publication except as extras in the back of the book. That Yen has decided to retain them on the inside covers of the book actually makes the experience feel a lot more like reading a traditional Japanese manga. Ironically, however, if you're reading a library-owned copy, the inside covers will probably be bound over. ;) ( )