Admit it, while you were watching this series, you were at least curious as to why the show is called Bungo Stray Dogs like there’s a deeper meaning to the title. To tell you the truth, there actually is a beautiful reason why the show is entitled Bungo Stray Dogs and we will try our best to explain it to you in more or less three hundred words, so read on.
Bungo Stray Dogs translates to “Literary Stray Dogs,” and while the narrative isn’t fully centered on literature, practically every major and minor character is named after renowned deceased authors and poets, with talents linked to their literary styles and works.
It’s quite an amusing thought actually, that the story centers around Atsushi Nakajima, an orphan, abandoned all his life by the people who he thought would keep him safe, he can be compared to an actual stray dog. As the story further progresses we find out that his colleagues at the Armed Detective Agency pretty much have the same narrative. They were all lost, at some point in their lives, they were strays until they found their purpose at the ADA.
Now that we’ve explained the Stray Dogs part of the title, let’s move to the literary side. As mentioned earlier, Bungo Stray Dogs directly translates to Literary Stray Dogs, and the literature side of the title is evident in the name of the manga’s characters and their given abilities which mirror real-life authors and their novels or characteristics.
Let’s take Osamu Dazai for example. Osamu Dazai is a real-life Japanese author who died of Suicide. One of his greatest novels was called No Longer Human and in the manga, this is also what the authors decided to call Dazai’s ability. He is able to null or cancel out another ability simply by the touch of his hand.
Many never understood the complicated plot of Bungo Stray Dogs because they think it’s way too deep for them to comprehend, but that’s the beauty of this show, it encourages you to think more.
The fourth season of Bungo Stray Dogs is currently streaming on Crunchyroll in Sub and Dub
Read More: What is Bungo Stray Dogs Season 4 About?
