Review of Dorohedoro

Somewhere at the MAPPA offices there's frequent conversations about resurrecting teenage girls as zombie-idols and giant lizard men cutting people in twain with a knife. This fact, while troubling to some, is a big draw to check out their line-up each season and has brought forward several great shows in recent memory. Dorohedoro is arguably near the top of MAPPAs recent works, due to the visceral action scenes and the absurd themes fitting just well enough to be impossible to explain to more casual anime fans. To begin, the world of Dorohedoro takes place in two realms between the world of the Sorcerers and thatof Hole; a dark underground society where humans fight for survival. Hole is plagued with frequent human testing from sorcerers that seek to improve their magic, and often suffers from abominations that seep into Hole. The aesthetic of Hole and parts of the Sorcerer's world are gritty with heavy black and brown tones that lend well to portraying a post-apocalyptic hellscape, in strict contrast to the more glossy and rainbow pallet of the more privileged sorcerers. Dorohedoro reminded me frequently of hours playing through Shin Megami Tensei games, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can provide in comparison.

Characters in Dorohedoro are nearly impossible to explain in an adequate way without spoiling major plot points, and this adds to the idea that Dorohedoro is a mystery wrapped in a bundle of enigmas, with a giftwrapped bow made of entrails. With little knowledge of the Manga for reference, it would be a disservice to describe the main protagonist Caiman as "Amnesiac goofball with a penchant for cosplaying Killer Croc". It's a fair assessment to say that all characters in Dorohedoro are easy to summarize in a few sentences, and have superficial elements, but are wholly charming and with enough eccentricities to make them enjoyable.

While amnesiac characters are often a trap that leads to poor plot development, Caiman works as a protagonist due to the rather absurd nature of the story. Caiman's search for his identity takes the form of swallowing a sorcerer's head, and a second head inside of his mouth determining if they were the sorcerer that had cast the spell to transform him. There is little explanation as to any of this through the first twelve episodes, and this is overlooked in the progression of the series.

Similarly, Nikaido as the best friend of Caiman brings up several questions of her origins, and these are mostly pushed to the side in favor of seeing our favorite kick-boxing, restaurant owner fight zombies and play baseball. En, a sorcerer with no relation to Jeff Bezos, shoots black smoke over a city and turns the city into a field of mushrooms, and makes several claims of impressive feats that we only hear of out of scene. En's constant lies and fading motivations are lost through the series, because it's deemed more important to see how he adopted a demon dog with the power to resurrect the dead, that has an adorable mushroom bed and mask. Will the healing powers of the series' best girl Noi be further elaborated on? It's unlikely, because as a viewer you'll care more about if Senpai will actually notice her.

Art in Dorohedoro is an odd mix of CGI and traditional animation that does have some clunky moments, but is far better than previous CGI MAPPA works like Zombieland Saga, which felt clunky and uninspired. Fights in Dorohedoro are not overly artistic in the fluidity of knife swings or flying jump kicks, it's a visceral experience where blows exchanged leave pools of blood and saliva splattered. The CGI usage is fairly conservative, and compliments the show far more often it hinders it. There are moments that the show's clunky turns or slower character movements in a conflict seem out-of-place, but it is far fewer than other shows in recent memory.

The story pacing of Dorohedoro can be seen as somewhat episodic with overarching elements and interwoven stories that do lead to a open-ended finale of the First Season. As stated, the absurdity of a large amount of situations presented can feel disjointed when then faced with the serious existential existence that is life in Hole. The ending in particular has a final confrontation that provides little to no closure to any of the established story threads. Pacing in this first Season can be seen similar to previous MAPPA productions storytelling in Dororo.

There are clear concerns that seem to be more than sufficiently answered in the source Manga, and the Second Season will almost certainly be a welcomed treat. Due to the tone of Dorohedoro, it's hard to recommend the violent and sometimes nihilistic show to everyone. However, for fans of horror or some dark seinen shows it definitely fits a unique role. It's hard to compare Dorohedoro to any shows when there's unique throwaway additions suchas that the ending theme playing along side a fully stylized "Doom" parody, however the closest summary at first glance may be: "Samurai Champloo had a baby with Paranoia Agent".

Dorohedoro get's a Solid:

Dude Where's My Body / 10.