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Crunchyroll Serves as New Publisher for Bungo Stray Dogs: Tales of the Lost Smartphone Game
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Crunchyroll announced on Thursday that Crunchyroll Games is the new publisher of the English version of Ambition's Bungo Stray Dogs: Tales of the Lost iOS and Android smartphone game. The game is available "in territories across North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia."
Ambition originally released the game in English on July 4. Crunchyroll is serving as the game's new publisher effective on Thursday. The game underwent maintenance while Crunchyroll prepared for the new launch. The new release features "season 2" content for the game, as well as other new updates. Current players will be able to continue where they left off in the game.
The game debuted in Japan last year under the title Bungo Stray Dogs Mayoi Inu Kaikitan. The "free-to-play mobile bubble shooter RPG" features an all-new scenario and character side stories untold in the anime, and also features voice actors from the anime series.
Bungo Stray Dogs: Tales of the Lost is Crunchyroll's second project after releasing the Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? -- MEMORIA FREESE -- smartphone game in English in March.
Kafka Asagiri and Sango Harukawa's original Bungo Stray Dogs manga centers around a league of literary figures with supernatural powers. For example, in real life, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa wrote acclaimed stories that inspired Akira Kurosawa's Rashōmon film and the Aoi Bungaku Series anime's Jigoku Hen (Hell Screen) arc. In Bungo Stray Dogs, he has the power to transform and manipulate his cloak into a monster-like entity. Together, some of these writers solve mysteries as part of the "Armed Detective Agency," while others appear as antagonists.
The first television anime adaptation aired in April-June 2016, and Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan. The anime's second 12-episode series aired from October-December 2016, and Crunchyroll again streamed the series as it aired. Funimation and Crunchyroll released the series on home video with an English dub on March 6. An OVA shipped with the manga's 13th compiled volume in August 2017.
An anime film, titled Bungo Stray Dogs: Dead Apple, opened in Japan on March 3. Crunchyroll began streaming the film in September. A third anime season is in the works.
Yen Press is publishing the manga in English. The manga has also inspired a series of stage plays. The third stage play debut in summer 2019.
Source: Email correspondence
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