Review of Dorohedoro

At the time of writing this review, there hasn’t been confirmation that Dorohedoro is going to be renewed for a second season, which is dependent on the success of the first season. This series deserves a continuation, and it’s disheartening that I feel this series is heavily slept upon by the community by certain circumstances. Dorohedoro has the potential to be one of the top anime of 2020, and I hope I will persuade you guys to give this series a try. Before reviewing Dorohedoro, let’s take a quick detour of setting the stage of what the series is about. In a nutshell, Dorohedoro feels likeif J.K Rowling, (the writer of the Harry Potter franchise) has written a massive magic lore, that expands to the heights of Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings while smoking weed with Happy Tree Friends’ grotesque gore in her tv on. These amalgamation of ideas and aspects, resulted in Dorohedoro having a very unique handling of world building and unique storytelling that makes the audience scratching their heads (in a good way) Now the positives.

1). World building
This is the first positives that I want to highlight, because it is truly the star of the show for me. With the aforementioned vast lore of the manga l, the series impressively remained faithful to the source material and how it approaches making an interesting, and dark fantasy world. Unlike any other fantasy world of having excessive exposition to flesh out the world, Dorohedoro does not hold the viewers’ hands on what the hell is going on. Instead treats us smartly and feeding us with bits and pieces of lore throughout each episodes, and trusts the viewers to piece together on how the world works. This is why I mentioned that the viewers will scratch their heads from time to time (I certainly did), but this type of world building is certainly refreshing and makes the world of Dorohedoro alive and it’s own beast. Certainly the world is miss fire, if the characters are not interesting and compelling, however the series does not disappoint.

2). Characters
As the world of Dorohedoro being a war between the sorcerers and humans, the characters complement the setting and each have their own conflicts and arcs. Almost all the characters are well-written, that I don’t have anyone that I feel is a bad character. The two protagonists that we mainly follow are Kaiman and Nikaidou, both are very entertaining, and to watch their relationship grow and solve the mysteries of Kaiman’s head.
Even characters that us as viewers at first glance, thought that is a one-off character, that is only there to serve the story, subverts our expectations and became mainstays and personal favorites of the fandom, is really impressive. The quote on quote “villains,” which are: En, Shin, Noi, Ebisu, and Fujita are one of the most memorable and lovable characters that I have watched for a while. They are not even villains to be honest, they are just sorcerers that directly conflict the mc. The series flushes out each and everyone’s backstories, leaving no one behind. Why do they do what they do, their motivations for being this way, and making us genuinely care about them. Personally, I love these characters more than the mc, due to how well and memorable these characters interact. How does Johnson, a giant cockroach that is artificially controlled who was only one line, make me care and laugh, is impressive.

3).Fast Pacing/Themes
Now this part is weird to put into the positives of a series, but let me explain. Due to the nature of this series being confusing and heavily focused on fleshing out the world, the characters, and the story all in a span of 12 episodes, each episodes feel like a breeze on how the pacing is so fast because it has too much to explore. These are one of the things that people may notice as a negative, because it contributes to the confusing and information overload of the viewers. However I argue that this is directly intentional of the themes and overall style of the series. It wants to make the viewers feel the randomness, and confusion, and openly acknowledges it.
Few examples that highlights the randomness of the series, in each ending of the episode, there are some what call backs to information on the episode like “Kaiman is great at playing cards,” and so on. Some are relevant to the story, and some are just for giggles and laughs.
Another is the multiple EDs, scattered throughout the series. There are multiple songs that are very fun and banger of a songs. My personal favorite is D.D.D.D. an homage to the classic FPS Doom. Does this make sense narratively? Does En play Doom? I guess not, but it fits well with the random and confusing nature of the series as a whole.

4). The Soundtrack
Speaking of songs and osts, the songs are highlights. There isn’t a song that feels weak. It is very punk rock inspired, and are also vastly different tone wise. This is somehow a negative because the score has no cohesion to it, unlike Beastars it has cohesion to the score, but again I argue it’s due to the random theme that Dorohedoro has.

Unfortunately, there are flaws to the series that brings this back. And I elaborate I am not a professional writer or animator in the anime industry, I am just one weeb’s opinion that loves the medium. I respect every person working to make this show for us to enjoy. I only give criticisms because I want anime to be the best as it possibly can. Now, going back.

1). The Animation
Getting CGI to look this good is an accomplishment in its own right, however just like Beastars, the fight scenes feel clunky at best. That are very obvious.

2). Prioritizing the mc
This is sort of a nitpick and does not affect the series as a whole, but because of how lovable the villains are in this series, It felt like the spotlight of the mc had been stolen in a good portion of the run time. Which is a double-edged sword to the quality of character development of the author.

Other than that, this is genuinely a great anime that I hope gets renewed to have a second season.