The manga Dogs: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark and its follow-up, Dogs: Bullets & Carnage, received their own OVA by David Production this summer. I admit I was excited. As a normal, romance-loving girl it takes quite a bit more than good ol’ blood and guts to get me worked up (unless you count the awesome gore of Baccano!), but I’d been a fan of Miwa Shirow’s Dogs for a long time. The manga had beautiful art, characters with crazy lives and crazier clothes (one of the main characters, Heine, looks like he just left a rave…every day), and it still managed to have awesome action panels.

Yeah, I was excited. So I sat down and watched me some Dogs anime.

A little summary: The first OVA, “Weepy Old Killer” focuses on the ex(?)-mercenary Mihai and his bloody past with a boy he helped raise as one, Ian. Mihai (or Mihail) was an assassin for a mob, and one day the mob boss tosses his neglected son at Mihai for “training”. Mihai becomes a surogate father of sorts, and the kid, Ian, is raised by Mihai and his friends, including the beautiful and buxom Milena. Everything is peaches and cream, despite the kid’s obvious lack in social skills and his murdering tendencies- he kills his neglectful father with a ‘happy birthday, Dad’. One day, though, Mihai returns from shopping (this dude is ALWAYS grocery shopping, I swear) to see that Ian has murdered Milena. In a rage, Mihai goes to shoot him but can’t. Ten years later he meets up with Ian, who has become a don, and they have their final bloody farewell that ends in an unexpected manner.

The second OVA, “Gun Smoker”, focuses on Bado, the intelligence agent who…isn’t so intelligent at times, and has a serious smoking problem (he goes insane and kills people when he doesn’t have nicotine). Bado is also the partner, in a very loose sense of the word, of Heine, the debatably main charcacter who makes a cameo in this episode. Bado’s got his own messed up back story involving his dead brother, but that isn’t shown in the OVAs yet. Instead we come right into normal every day life for Bado- namely taking pictures of important people in bad positions (see: mob boss in s&m gear). Bado, with his bad luck, gets caught and chased….and chased. He calls his partner Heine for help (he’ll show up later) but Heine’s too tired from…not sleeping. So, Bado runs some more until he’s traced back to the Buon Viaggio restaurant where Mihai resides. There he has an old-fashion, OK Corral of a shootout with a whole gang, but only after they piss him off by destroying the last of his cigs. Message to kids: Smoking is good if you kill people. But boy do I love the whiny Bado. Good thing kids don’t watch cartoons.

Next up should be “Blade Maiden”, focusing on a girl out for revenge against the ones who killed her family, Bruce Wayne-style in front of her.

So, how was it? First, let me say that it is entirely true to the manga, following it bit for bit, and that always makes me happy. Second, the art isn’t too bad. Shirow is one hell of an artist, and it’s a tough thing to translate into something animated. That said, the animation is…okay quality at best. While the characters are good standing around with their glowsticks cool clothes,when it was action time, it didn’t really deliver.

The VA’s took a little getting used to (Bado’s especially for me) just because I’d already had some preconceptions about what they should sound like, but they grew on me quickly. The music is….passable. While I can’t rightfully harp on a music style choice as this is a bit of a genre-oddity, I’m going to do it anyways. Though there isn’t really all too much noticeable background music, the short opening clips with the happy, jazzy tone don’t seem to fit well. Forgive me for being a pessimist, but one of the main characters was named for the band Rammstein. Let’s get some hardcore stuff up in here that shows exactly how messed up these dudes’ world is (I can feel my girliness disintegrating right now).

So, yes, I’ll watch the third OVA. Will I really, truly enjoy it? Probably. (I can’t wait for the blind priest with a loli fettish.) Will someone without prior love of the manga enjoy it? Sure- it’s got action, dark pasts, and hot girls. If you’re looking for a high-quality production, with sleek animation and a good soundtrack though, Dogs can’t throw you a bone.

:EDIT: I forgot to mention that the first volume of Dogs:Bullets&Carnage is out in English now from Viz Media.

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