DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionDorohedoro
OVA ComedyDorohedoro: Ma no Omake
ONA ActionDorohedoro (Zoku-hen)

REVIEWS

• 

  planetJane

  78/100
  "What did the guy inside my mouth say?"

  All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

  ---

  Dorohedoro is something of an ideal seasonal. Well-made, interesting entries into undersung genres tend to make the best seasonal anime short of actual capital-I Important shows, and Dorohedoro is indeed that. Trafficking in the same broad blood-n’-mud action-seinen aesthetic as things like the more serious No Guns Life, Dorohedoro puts a distinctly oddball twist on that genre.

  The series is set in a fairly detailed constructed world--or rather, a pair of them. Our heroes, the lizard-headed Caiman and his BFF/possible-romantic-interest-but-we-haven’t-really-gotten-there-yet the blonde Nikaido, hail from the town of Hole, a city full of ordinary humans that just so happen to be preyed upon by the mysterious mask-wearing sorcerers who live in the next dimension over.

  

  The show splits its time about evenly between these two settings, both are quite distinct, as much from each other as from general cliche.

  The series’ plot is complex enough (and just plain weird enough) that summing up the plot beat by beat risks lapsing into dry recapping, but the generality of it is that our protagonists are split between the “Hole group” centered around Caiman and Nikaido, and a second “Sorcerer group” introduced a bit later on who live in the Sorcerers’ world. These characters are largely the henchmen of wizard/mob boss En, who has punk rocker hair and can turn anything he breathes on into mushrooms.

  

  This is what villains should look like, just for the record.

  ---

  Over the series’ twelve episodes (which cover less than a quarter of the manga, which ran for nearly 20 years from 2000 to 2018), Caiman’s quest to figure out what sorcerer turned his head into that of a lizard’s and moreover, why, dovetails into larger intrigue that involves the En group, some of Nikaido’s own secrets, and dozens of other things.

  Along the way we get to witness some of the better CGI to hit TV anime in recent years, not to mention some wonderfully gory action scenes that are guaranteed to make you wince at least once. The directing (courtesy of Yuuichirou Hayashi) keeps the whole thing tight, preventing it from getting lost in its own admittedly wide-ranging plot.

  To say the series is a little gonzo feels like underselling it. The whole thing is delightfully out-there. Original mangaka Q Hayashida has a talent for this kind of thing, and it colors the entire work. This is actually something that helps the series keep from falling prey to the common problem of over self-seriousness in this kind of work. There’s a healthy dose of humor in here. Both classic slapstick and more bizarre running gags. My personal favorite being a roach-man named Johnson. He’s introduced early on as a monster-of-the-week, and is defeated, only to later return as a sort-of ally capable of saying the word “Shocking!” and nothing else. Dumb? Yes, but that’s not a bad thing here.

  

  Even the series' gorier moments are often cut with humor to take the edge off.

  ---

  The other main thing that keeps Dorohedoro ticking is its character writing. You wouldn’t necessarily assume that something that stars a lizardman and is this hyper-violent would be particularly well-written, but the characters come alive through their motivations and backstories. There’s a hard-to-qualify “realness” to the characters that makes even the villains a joy to watch--something that’s quite easy to do wrong, especially in this genre.

  If it seems like there’s not much else to say about Dorohedoro, that’s only because it’s so good in such a self-evident way. This is a series that is often content to speak for itself.

  ---

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• 

  yabp1600

  68/100
  Un Gore con muy buena historia pero con un arte pobre y una mediocre y muy regular animación.

  
  
  Es un Gore en un mundo de magos y no magos, donde se marca claramente la discriminación entre las dos razas, la violencia y la sangre son el plato principal en esta obra y el segundo plato la amistad, aunque este es menos relevante para la misma.
  
  Historia: 9/10
  La historia tiene un toque de misterio al presentar al personaje principal como alguien que ha perdido sus recuerdos y su apariencia humana quedando con una horrible cabeza de “Caimán” remplazando la que alguna vez fue una cara humana, razón por la cual  hará lo que sea para recuperar sus recuerdos y forma original, en este punto la amistad hace su aparición con la amiga que lo acompaña en este viaje por encontrar sus recuerdos, logrando así un dúo de protagonistas los cuales se muestran bastante fuertes frente al promedio de los demás magos y humanos de ese mundo. La trama respecto a la pregunta de ¿qué te dijo el chico dentro de mi cabeza? le da un toque de misterio bastante perturbador, siniestro e interesante, enriquecido cada vez mas la curiosidad sobre el pasado del personaje, sin embargó en el desarrollo del anime se ve claramente que no solo el personaje principal tiene una buena historia, sino que la protagonista su compañera y los antagonistas también tienen historias interesantes las cuales crean un nido de gran misterio bañado en sangre que te hace querer saber más, sin duda el fuerte de este anime es la historia y la misma se desarrolla a un buen ritmo a través de estos primeros 12 capítulos.
  
  Características de los personajes: 8/10
  Los característica y personalidades de los personajes principales héroes como antagonistas se van desvelando cada vez más claro a través de la historia dejando marcada la impresión de cada uno de ellos en el espectador, es fácil aun con tan pocos capítulos poder describir e identificar  a fondo como es cada personaje, sin embargo aun queda mucho por saber de cada uno de ellos.
  
  Animación y arte: 3/10
  Tristemente este apartado es muy muy malo de lo peor que he visto este año no es que tenga nada en contra de “NETFLIX” pero cuando mire que eran colaboradores del anime recordé lo que hicieron con el anime “AJIN” cuyo manga es muy bueno una historia con mucho potencial pero no temo decirlo “NETFLIX” hizo una muy mala adaptación anime del mismo, algo similar paso acá, sin embargo la historia compensa lo grotesco y mediocre de la animación y el arte, ver caminar a los personajes alejándose de las escenas era un dolor para mis ojos.
  
  Disfrute: 7/10
  Lo disfrute la historia me permitió disfrutarlo, de no ser así habría sido imposible ver esa mediocre animación, pero como siempre digo en mis reseñas cumplió su cometido de entretener me tubo enganchado mirando los 12 capítulos de corrido y eso solo se logra cuando hay un gran disfrute en lo que se está mirado.
  
  En general: 7/10
  Es un gore que vale la pena ver su historia es muy interesante y presenta cierta oxigenación al anime y específicamente a este genero ya que hace mucho no veía un gore que valiera la pena recomendar, lo recomiendo, pero no es de mis favoritos como para verlo una segunda vez es unos años, tristemente la animación me defraudo mucho y por ultimo pero no menos importante,  la música del inicio y final de capitulo me gustaron mucho obviamente hablo de los ritmos, por que la letra no es que mi nivel de japones actual me permita comprender mucho, sin embargo el ritmo es muy parecido a lo que escucho normalmente. 
  </center>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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• 

  TheGruesomeGoblin

  100/100
  Welcome to chaos. Absolute (and wonderful) chaos.

  

  Dorohedoro is a twenty three volume long manga by Q Hayashida that is packed from beginning to end with weirdness, quite often over the top yet imaginative gore, and an ensemble cast of sorcerers with fucked up magic.

  

  And also a lizard man who murders sorcerers to death with a knife usually after chomping on their head to force them to be seen by the man who lives within his mouth.

  Upon seemingly the moment this manga ended after going for eighteen years, it was announced that there would be an anime adaptation by the studio MAPPA. Immediately, I was awash with two very different emotions. Unbridled excitement with a deep undercurrent of overwhelming dread. After all, the last time I was probably this excited for an upcoming anime adaptation was Berserk 2016.

  

  And back then before it actually aired, I remember my often repeated mantra being along the lines of “even though it’s CG, it still has the potential of being an at least okay adaptation.”

  And of course, because of how absolutely horrible it turned out, that’s how I ended up starting to review anime on this site.

  ...So it’s super refreshing that I don’t have to write that exact same review again four years later with Dorohedoro.

  

  ---

  “Unadaptable”

  

  That’s the word that would come to my mind when I tried to imagine… a whole bunch of scenes from Dorohedoro being animated. Before the anime was even announced, mind you. I couldn’t imagine it in my head without sanding away the artstyle or the overwhelming darkness of the Hole. Or the absolute lunacy of day to day life in the Sorcerer world.

  How would they handle this scene? How would they handle this character? How would they handle this moment?

  

  Then the anime aired and I had a hammer repeatedly bashed into my skull until those thoughts ceased. Very quickly indeed, this adaptation proved to have an incredibly firm hold on the admittedly very odd tone of Dorohedoro. Like the general setting of this series is a town comprised of humans who have been victim to sorcerers, having their lives ruined or completely altered as they suddenly find themselves with the head of a lizard, missing a couple of limbs, or worse.

  

  You would think comedy wouldn’t belong in a series with a setting like that, yet it is. It’s present throughout the entire manga. And I thought it’d be pretty difficult to nail it down in animated form, yet the light hearted and more comical tone of the series is just as present and perfectly handled as the manga.

  

  ...But then every once in a while, we get a nice little dream sequence of say... a blood covered mystery fellow emerging from the jaws of our favorite lizard man.

  

  In my opinion, the staff that worked on this adaptation were handed what I thought would have been an insurmountable task. Or at the very least, a task that could have been handled wrong in dozens and dozens of different ways. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here because I've been disappointed so many times, but it's just amazing to me that they actually managed to nail the spirit and the tone of Dorohedoro so perfectly.

  

  ---

  Ensemble Cast

  Dorohedoro is probably home to one of my favorite cast of characters ever. Like if you ask me, hey, who's your favorite Dorohedoro character? My gut reaction is probably Shin. The sorcerer donning a heart mask whose magic, get this, doesn't even kill you. It just cuts you into pieces. While keeping you alive.

  

  So to actually kill people he just hammers them to death.

  How about Noi? Shin's partner? Well, she's the healing sorcerer. On the brink of death? She'll just vomit some smoke your way and bam, good as new. So you would think this would cause her to do pretty much nothing but heal the other characters throughout the series but... well...

  

  ...Let's move on. There's En, who is basically the head of the Sorcerer world. And his magic is... mushrooms.

  

  To be honest, in the manga, I didn't even like En that much. BUT HE LOOKS SO FUCKING COOL IN THE ANIME.

  He can turn things and people into mushrooms. And he's essentially the head figure of the Sorcerers. He has his own mansion, he's got a movie about himself he's making, he had a ramen chain until there was a bunch of cases of food poisoning via the mushrooms... I mean he even has his own goddamned song. And it's just him singing about mushrooms.

  As if that wasn't enough, he also even has a pet catlike creature (?) who can bring the dead back to life.

  

  And I could just keep going. I mean, I'm still on Sorcerers. I haven't even gotten to the lizard. And he's the main character! It'd just be quicker to just jump to characters I don't like so much. That of course being Ebisu and Chota. Chota doesn't have that much time in the anime so he's not that much of a bother here. Although, seeing his smoke animated was cool. I never really liked Ebisu in the manga because for sure to an extent, her character is moreso comedic relief than anything else. Not that you can blame her for it.

  

  After having a traumatic experience where a lizard literally chomps your face off, you'd probably never be the same too.

  ...That being said, her being animated and voiced adds a whole lot to her various shenanigans.

  

  ---

  Fine Tuned Chaos

  

  The heart of this series is chaos. Pure, simple, and unadulterated chaos. Yes, there is still a plot to be followed from beginning to end, but I would definitely urge you to not take it too seriously (though I very much enjoyed it myself) and just revel in the chaos.

  I mean if you watch this and get to the part where there is a baseball game held in the Hole, you'll get exactly what I'm saying.

  

  As one of the members of a team is literally just a gigantic talking cockroach. There's also the Frankenstein'd corpse of Fujita's partner who Caiman (the lizard) murdered in the very first episode.

  As can be gathered from what we see of the daily life in the Hole, a lot of Sorcerers are complete assholes and definitely deserve to be knifed to death by a lizard. That being said, it's kinda hard to not feel bad for Fujita. Still in mourning for his dead partner and oh there he is, playing baseball...

  

  Though, probably the earliest piece of world building that caused my love of Dorohedoro is because of all of the fucked up magic from the Sorcerers, the Hole has a certain event every year. It's called the Day of the Living Dead.

  

  On this special night, corpses just get up and start walking around and brainlessly attacking whoever they see. And one thing this series makes abundantly clear from start to finish is that there are a lot of fucking corpses in the Hole.

  

  My favorite thing about this is everybody treats it as completely normal. Rather, it's a contest. The plates you retrieve from downed zombies, you can redeem for various prizes. Really, the only ones who find the fact that the living dead are roaming the streets strange is sorcerers.

  And they're the chief cause of it!

  

  ---

  Conclusion

  Dorohedoro is one of my utmost favorite action manga. Would I consider it my #1? No, but I simultaneously can't really say that the other ones I hold above it have what Dorohedoro has going for it.

  

  No other series have I seen a character catch a man's brain with a baseball cap after cutting his head open with a spear. Also, there's a lot of lizard chomping people. And that's pretty great.

  And for the anime adaptation to capture the spirit of Dorohedoro so wholeheartedly and to include so many scenes from the manga where I would go "yeah I'd fuckin' love to see this animated" and then go "wow, they didn't ruin it!" is amazing.

  

  I basically already said this exact line verbatim earlier in the review but I'm not removing it to drive the point home.

  It's a 100 out of 100 for me, but I acknowledge it may not be that for other people. I, on the other hand, will desperately be hoping for a second season every day until it's announced.

  
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