Dogs: Bullets & Carnage

Rewatching this OVA in 2025 really made me reminisce and go back to the manga and read it again.

This short OVA covers the prelude part of the series - vol 0, Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark. It's main focus is getting us to know the main characters and set the tone and plot that is to transpire.

The plot was good at setting up the stage and its players, but not much could be addressed as this is an introductory to the plot and characters.
The soundtrack was ok, and the art style is cool. The setting is interesting and the characters are unique.

There could've ... been a pretty cool show if the manga were to be an anime, here's to hoping that we might see an adaptation in the future.

Dogs: Bullets & Carnage is an inoffensive little OVA from 2009 that barely takes an hour to watch in full and definitely feels like a product of its time. It is nostalgically edgy in that particular late-2000s fashion, but beyond that it's a fairly unremarkable show. Beginning with the story, it consists of a series of self-contained vignettes connected in some way to the criminal underground of a city "somewhere in Europe", as the anime puts it. It's perfectly serviceable, and only lays about as much groundwork as is strictly necessary for the vignettes to make sense. Even so, it ... does feel a little disjointed, and the dramatic moments feel both sudden and unearned due to a total lack of buildup, which I have seen done well in even shorter shows before.

The art is this anime's strongest aspect, though I say this mostly due to its nostalgia factor rather than anything else. Everything from the character design to the overall art direction just bleeds 2009 in a way that's hard to describe unless you were there for that era. The random scars, the tortured pasts, the unrealistic gunfights- they might as well have tapped Evanescence for the soundtrack at this rate. Don't get me wrong, that's fun and it takes me back, but the problem here is that there's nothing particularly notable underneath that aesthetic.

Speaking of which, the sound meets all standards of quality for the time, with a jazzy flare to the OST that adds to the criminal underground vibe.

Finally, the characters, while interesting in concept, are all pretty weak, with little substance that makes their actions really hit home. Overall, Dogs: Bullets & Carnage is an anime which is neither bad nor good. It simply serves as a time capsule for the aesthetics that were popular at the time of its production, which is a trip down memory lane I didn't mind at all. Give it a shot if you have an hour to kill, and want a glimpse into the edgelord anime culture of the late 2000s.

DOGS: Bullets & Carnage is an example of how NOT to make a thrilling gangsta story.

DOGS is a 4 episode OVA from 2009 that follows 4 individuals that have an inseparable connection to a mysterious underground city. See, I'd elaborate more but there's a severe lack of worldbuilding and depth for that to be the case.

Each episode focuses on a different character but the runtime of each episode is only 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES. David Production (terrible studio name, might I add) actually thought that 1/4 of an hour was enough time to have good characterisation and plot progression.

Speaking of characterisation, the characters are mind-numbingly ... dull. I don't care about them because they don't capture my intrigue, and they don't capture my intrigue because there's no depth or mystery given to them. There is one semi-interesting character, Naoto, and her episode makes an attempt to give her some depth, but the keyword is "attempt." It's unsurprisingly unsuccessful and her story is never fully expanded upon due to the short runtime of her episode.

The soundtrack is flavourless. The art is insipid. The animation is mediocre, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the action scenes. You know, the aspect that you should be hyped for. Not that the scenes themselves are good to begin with. For instance, there's one scene in episode 2 where the opposition of our MC, Badou, miss him while he's standing still. How do you miss your shots when the target is STANDING STILL!? HOW!? Another instance is that there's a time delay on the bullet shots. Wow. As if this anime couldn't be even more incompetent.

Arguably the most disappointing aspect of DOGS is the immense lack of gore, despite the anime literally being subtitled "Bullets & Carnage" and being tagged as 'Gore' on MAL. Now, I'm not saying the amount of bloodshed should be on the same level as Elfen Lied. But if you're gonna have "Bullets & Carnage" as your subtitle, yet have no more gore than a slightly darker than average shounen, just give up.

DOGS: Bullets & Garbage is unfathomably unremarkable and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.