Bungo Stray Dogs Anime to Return for Fourth Season

A fourth season of Bungo Stray Dogs is now in production.

The series' official Twitter account announced the return of the popular supernatural detective anime series. While no release date has been announced yet, Crunchyroll  confirmed that it will stream the series when it premieres. The new season will once again be directed by Takuya Igarashi, who directed the previous three seasons of the series, as well as episodes of Ouran High School Host Club and Soul Eater. Writer Yoji Enokido will also return for the show's fourth season. Enokido is also known for their work on classic 1990s anime series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood's Nobihiro Arai will reprise his role as the series' character designer. The season will once again be animated at studio BONES, the animation studio that has produced many successful anime adaptations of manga, most notably My Hero Academia and Mob Psycho 100.

Bungo Stray Dogs tells the story of Atsushi Nakajima, a teenage boy who possesses the ability to transform into a were-tiger. After Atsushi gets kicked out of his orphanage by its abusive caretakers, he is taken in by Osamu Dezai, a suicidal detective. The detective teaches the young boy to control his powers and eventually hires him into the Armed Detective Agency, a group of gumshoes who utilize a variety of super-human powers to solve mysteries and fight crime within the Yokohama area. The series' characters are named after famous authors from throughout history, such as F.Scott Fitzgerald and Mark Twain.

The series was originally created by writer Kafka Asagiri and artist Sango Harukawa in 2012. The manga is serialized within Kadokawa's Young Ace magazine and has sold more than 6 million copies since it first began publication. The anime adaptation premiered in 2016, and has continued with three 12-episode seasons, the last of which was broadcast in 2019. An animated movie, Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple, was released in 2018 to generally positive reviews.

The series has inspired multiple spinoffs, including the Bungo Stray Dogs: Wan! anime series, which aired in early 2021, and the upcoming live-action movie, Bungo Stray Dogs the Movie: Beast, which will open in Japan in January 2022. Actor Shohei Hashimoto, who portrayed the character of Ryunosuke in the stage adaptation of the series, will reprise the role in the live-action movie.

The previous three seasons of Bungo Stray Dogs are available for streaming on Crunchyroll. The manga and light novels based on the series are also available in English from Yen Press.

Source: Twitter, Crunchyroll