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For me, Bungou Stray Dogs is one of the best animes this 2016 Spring Season. Take that as you want.

Before anything, you should know something: If you expect seriousness… you’re in the wrong train. Does this mean that everything is comedy? No.

If you expect something to do with mysteries and well… “detectiveness” you’re going to get HUGELY disappointed (yeah, with CAPS). Probably the only time (the only time I can actually remember) where they do resolve a mystery, they resolve it so quickly that would put L from Death Note in shame. So yeah, in that aspect is pretty terrible. The way I see it, ... Ranpo is a parody of the typical detective, and the personality of him is not bad.

Another thing that I think most of the people will hate is the protagonist. Is your generic protagonist with a trauma that lives like shit until something amazing happens to him. And the importance of the trauma that they want to give after some episodes it’s just bad, and some people would agree in thinking that is annoying.

Now let’s begin with more subjective things:

In Bungou Stray Dogs is common for the characters to be in a certain mood, let’s say childish, and in the next second be all “let’s kick some ass with our awesomeness”, and some of the antagonist are not that different, probably the only ones that maintain their characters is Kunikida and Akutagawa, the main villain, they don’t get easily swayed by the situations like most of the characters, but are still affected by them, and you can see it in their expressions. And yes, even the villains change their mood very easily with the expressions of either “You killed my sister” or “I’m going to rape you”.

Another important aspect is the comedy, which a lot of people would agree it’s not appealing to everybody. While some say that if you didn’t like the first episode, don’t watch the other ones because you’ll not like it, I disagree, I think you should give it a try till episode 3, if you’re not comfortable then drop it like it’s hot.
The plot of the series is not that good. Remember Kekkai Sensen? Yeah, the show that just had a detective agency as an excuse to have adventures in the world? Well this is pretty much like it, and of course it’s the most recommended show if you like this one or Kekkai Sensen. Only that in this series, the bad guy acts relatively quickly compared to KS. Nothing great about this villain but it works with the function so that’s something.

The OST is meh~, I can barely remember the OP and ED, because of the first notes, I always skipped them. Nonetheless the ones used in the series as atmosphere is relatively good.

Now the big question is; Why did I gave it a 9? Easy; Because I don’t care for most of the flaws that I mentioned.

I NEVER expect seriousness and detective mysteries in this anime, and in my opinion Ranpo is a pretty likeable character. In fact, all of the characters are likeable, nothing special (except for Dazai and Kunikida) but certainly they appeal to my tastes. Even the protagonist that while it has some flaws I can see some development in him. He starts as a coward that sees no other way to survive than to do bad things, and then at the end of the series he’s a person that has suffered but still looks out for the others because he knows how it feels to be in their position. While the trauma is relatively bad, it works. I also love the way the characters change their personality quickly, it shows me that they feel other things than just their archetypes, makes them a little bit more realistic, and the ones that we see their past we see more development and more reasons of why they’re the way they are. The comedy is not perfect but it’s entertaining and sometimes might give you a little laugh because how absurd it is. And the main problem that I had with Kekkai Sensen is that the plot and villain are bad, in Bungou Stray Dogs they try to fix this, with a decent plot and villain.

And MY GOD THE 1OTH EPISODE WAS AWESOME. It was the best episode I’ve seen in months, and hey, I’m following about 24 animes this season and watching some other in my free time, so something good was done in that episode.

Bungou Stray Dogs is an anime that started good, it had some decent moments and some great episodes and a finale that makes you want more. And I personally enjoyed that a lot.

This second season is certainly better than the first one. While it’s still melodramatic the execution is way better. Nonetheless, the fact that the anime keeps reminding me what happened before is terrible, it’s like if the anime didn’t have the confidence in me remembering it.

Another thing is the relationships between the characters which in my opinion while they were not excellent, they were very well develop. Yet, the execution of some key scenes weren’t the best ones.

Code Geass in this second season looked like a combination between Death Note in the first episodes, and Evangelion in the last ones. While this is not ... bad, it’s certainly not even as good as the originals. The first episodes were great in my opinion, because they had that Death Note atmosphere of mental challenging for the protagonist, nonetheless the contrast in the scenes that were in the school were shockingly different, this due to a poor execution. While in this first arc of Code Geass was acceptable due to the situations, after that it’s just feel forced.

In the end of Code Geass it resembles a little bit of Evangelion, with all of this philosophic dilemma, nonetheless, this dilemma has been put better in other animes such as Psycho-Pass, and it just seems that the mechas are there just to please the audience that loves mechas. It’ more like a got used to it more than an actual reason to be there.

The execution of a lot of things were getting better the more it advanced, then again, a lot of things are resolved in Deus Ex Machina for most of us that have an anti-bullshit eye, just by luck more than any other thing or plan, or just put in there without any logical explanation.
A lot of potential in some characters is lost due to Lelouch, which in my opinion is not that big of a deal, I don’t get how can people compare him to Light in some things, I mean, in war it’s obvious that Lelouch, but pretty much other things, such as a plan to know things and get what he wants in a subtle way in order to protect his identity or clean his hands, Light is way out of his league. Anyway, Suzaku was very well executed in this second season, and while we could appreciate more C.C. a little bit more of her and explanations wouldn’t have hurt anybody. And yes, I hated the fact that the creators putted a lot more fanservice in this season and yes, that they pretty much made Kallen a blond character with big boobs and good fighting skills.

While it’s better, for me it was not worth it of that much of time. I watched this saga in 1 week, when I watched FMA: B in 3 days in pretty much the same conditions (summer vacations in both of these).

In total I would give 70/100 to this saga and a 74/100 to this season.

*Sees that some people rise their guns towards him* Wow! Hold on! Let me explain why a 6, okay!? ...
*People lowing their guns*

Ok... *clears throat* Code Geass is what you have when a pussy tries to be Light Yagami. *people rise their guns again* Okay, fine! I get it. You guys just love Code Geass!

*Sigh* Even before I started to watch a lot of anime like I do nowadays about a year ago, I knew about Code Geass. It's just one of those great 00's Animes like Death Note (that actually were emitted at the same time), Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, Samurai Champloo, Full Metal Alchemist, ... Ergo Proxy, Welcome to the NHK, etc. And well... I thinks I was expecting more.

If there's one word that would describe Code Geass for me that would be: Melodramatic. Honestly, I have seen "Telenovelas" less dramatic that this series. I have only watched the first episode of Season 2, but in Season 1 they pretty much forced a lot to feel something, without a proper construction.

One of the things that I expected the most were brilliant plans by Zero, similar to the ones from Kira in Death Note... And well for me that never happens, the only time that I can see a plan similar to Kira is the one to (Spoiler) save her sister Nunnally from Mao. (End Spoiler) And it's just amazing how they ruin everything so fast, I mean, the construction itself by the end-half the season is quite good, and it has some amazing scenes, but oh my god do they ruin every scene in the end at the worst way possible. For example, the fact that (Spoiler) Shirley knows about Zero, the way the arc ended while it was quite good, the way they continued the story was just mediocre. While I can see how the strategy worked for Lelouch at the beginning by convincing everyone, the fact that they never ask a thing to her it's just shockingly stupid. (End Spoiler) Something that I loved from Death Note was that with these types of situations, Light tried his best to get out of them while taking a risk to get more involved in it, a bigger lie to cover a lie and so on, in Code Geass this never happens. Another really good scene is when (Spoiler) Zero kills Euphemia, this scene is actually really good, but by God does the production of it it's stupid, I mean seriously a fucking sentence that he didn't wanted to say and boom, everything fucked up. I cringed and watch the following scene in little jumps because I was ashamed of watching this. In the end, when Zero kills her, he says that she was probably his first love... Are you fucking serious!? We never had a romantic scene between you, not even as kids, I believe Shirley was more your first fu***** first love. (End spoiler). While you can see some decent military tactics, at least 3 times Lelouch is saved by luck *cof* *cof* C.C. *cof* *cof*. Which comes the next point.

There are actually some pretty good characters and construction of them, such as C.C., Mao and Shirley, but they are wasted by the end or how they act in the end and doesn’t let them appreciate them. The episodes where Mao appears are for me the best ones that this series have. But again, the strategies from Lelouch are not quite good, for example (Spoiler) If Mao could read the mind… What happens if you think in another language? Apparently Lelouch is good in English and they’re speaking Japanese, what would have happen? Or any other language. Other thing is in the last game of chess… If everything reduced to the weight of the pieces why not simply put yourself in the balance to deactivate the bomb? Because as far as I know, if he got the balance to be in his favor because of the weight, he would deactivate the bomb, and yes, it might have not work out, but I’m just surprised that this obvious option was never mentioned (End Spoiler). Yet, the romance is relatively good in this series, not anything exceptional but certainly not bad.

I consider an insult (at least in this first season) to compare Lelouch and Light, it’s pretty obvious that in getting information and doing a plan with it, Light is WAY better than Lelouch, otherwise, Lelouch would have known in short time that Suzaku was the pilot of Lancelot.

Anyway, CodeGeass has a relatively good construction, and some great scenes, but these scenes don’t last too much because of the execution that they follow and plot armor Lelouch has. This is why I consider Code Geass to be tolerable, not bad, but certainly not good.

I really hope it gets better in Season 2, and by the scores it appearently is.

I've seen that a lot of people don't like this movie, and personally I can understand it, some of the points are:

- It's more centered in the action that it's in the psychology of the characters.

And yes, I can see why people are pissed because of this. Evangelion always centered the things and dialogs in the characters more than in action.

Nonetheless, just because there's more action it doesn't mean that it doesn't take some development.

In this new movie, we can see a stronger bond in Kaworu and Shinji, I've heard that some people think that this bond is poorly executed because it seems like a ... bad Fanfic work, but honestly I don't think so, it's a little more developed that it was during the original series, with new metaphorical phrases and a somewhat familiar angle from Kaworu, and the contrast between the knowledge of both characters shows you that something big has been hidden from Shinji.

Which comes to the next point.

- No need for a 14-year skip.

This might be true but if the movie developed right after the second movie, let's be honest, at some point Shinji had to know about what happened, and it would have to be double work and it would be more boring if we already know the things that are going to affect Shinji. This skip I think is a good thing because it shows us the confusion of Shinji in this new post-apocalyptic world with the same incertitude of the protagonist. Which leads us to the next point.

- Everyone's a dick to Shinji.

And while I can't completely understand it I get an idea: How would you feel if the person that send the world to the toilet just to try to save someone he loved and pretty much destroyed everything at its pace woke up not knowing what he did. And not only that, not that much caring about the world but caring only about that other person... You would think that the person is egocentric, right?

"Oh but he didn't cause the Third Impact". No, it was a Near-Third Impact, and let me tell you about the "Eye of the Storm", you see, in a natural event that has a circular effect, the "Eye of the Storm" is relatively calm, while in the exterior it's pretty much the opposite, I think this is what happened with the Near-Third Impact. And while this might not be true, remember that Gendou apparently did some other things (implied in the Kaworu's final conclusion) in order to get what he wanted, probably causing that and blaming Shinji for it so that everything would be in his plans, but this is just mere speculation.

- This movie gives you more questions than answers.

Yes, this is true, but I think this is what a good pre-movie does, it shows you the world and what happened and how things are in order to have a better conclusion. While this movie lacks a proper conclusion you could say, there's an emblematic fight between the kids, yes, all of them, at least in the Rebuild Time-line, that honestly I think it's pretty good.

- This movie doesn't tell you shit

Ok, being completely honest, when has Evangelion been explicit in things? Is really ambiguous at least in the original series and in this movie they slow-down a bit, but with the idea of Showing things to people, not Telling them what happened. And this could also be good because it lets you imagine what happened or what's going to happen next.

Look, if you don't like to be shocked by the things happening, or that things are not explained to you objectivly, you're not going to enjoy this movie. But personally, this is what I love about this movie and what I love from Evangelion, is ambigouse in a good way, and lets you form your own interpretations about it, while they're accurate to the universe. And I think this movie rejected a lot of the theoris that a lot of fans had and that's why they didn't like it.

88/100.