Bungo Stray Dogs with studio BONES

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Bungo Stray Dogs Season 4 release date was recently announced by BONES at Crunchyroll Expo 2022. The highly popular series set to premiere in January 2023. In addition to the announcement fans also got a look at a brand new trailer for Season 4, along with brand new key visual art during the Bungo Stray Dogs panel.

Following the panel, we got to sit down and interview BONES President Masahiko Minami and producer Chiaki Kurakane. During the interview, we discussed the BONES team’s collaborative process, exciting things coming up in Season 4, and more.

BUT WHY THO: Bones has been producing Bungo Stray Dogs since 2015. What has it been like working on a series like this for such a long time?

Masahiko Minami: Purely, I think that it really is thanks to being able to work off of the original source material that we can continue with this one adaptation for a very long time. And it is really thanks to the fans’ love, appreciation, and enthusiasm that we can bring such great results. So it is a really great opportunity for us to continue on a long series.

BUT WHY THO: What has been your favorite part about working on Bungo Stray Dogs?

Masahiko Minami: For Bungo Stray Dogs, the director is Director Igarashi, and his drawings, his sketches, and his storyboarding for Bungo Stray Dogs are always very inspiring and very creative. And that is one of my favorite parts.

BUT WHY THO: What can fans of Bungo Stray Dogs look forward to for the upcoming season?

Chiaki Kurakane: In the fourth season, it continues from where the third season left off, with the Armed Detective Agency wanting to protect Yokohama. And then, once we go into the fourth season, there is some confusion. There are a lot of difficulties figuring out what is going on with the Armed Detective Agency. And with the introduction of some new characters, we really want to emphasize their appeal, the cool parts about them. So I think these are great things that we can expect from season four.

BUT WHY THO: To follow the manga storyline, Bones has taken multi-year breaks between seasons of Bungo Stray Dogs. What is it like revisiting Asagiri-sensei and Harukawa-sensei’s world each time? Does the time affect how much you approach the next season?

Masahiko Minami: So even though the audience sees about a one to two-year hiatus between the different seasons, there are actually no breaks in between for us. We always continue, and we are constantly working on the next season. So even though the broadcast for the seasons are separated, we always work in between these seasons, just trying to go beyond the expectations and exceed what we have done previously so that we can keep excitement and tension high and create something amazing.

BUT WHY THO: Bungo Stray Dogs is a franchise with canon spanning multiple forms of media besides its original manga. How do you decide which light novel storylines to adapt and where to place them in the season?

Chiaki Kurakane: For the anime, within our staff, we work with Enokido and the director, Igarashi. They both gather together very often, and they look at the themes. They look at it from a high level and try to organize what parts are appropriate for each season. And then they make that proposal and bring it to Asagiri, the author of the manga, to check, and then Asagiri helps with just trying to discuss things like maybe this part should be cut, but maybe we should add this part and so on. It is really a collaborative effort of discussions.

You can watch all of the previous series of Bungo Stray Dogs on Crunchyroll now.