Dorohedoro (Season One)

Caiman has lost his memories and doesn’t know how he came to have the head of a lizard. So, with his best friend, Nikaido, they hunt sorcerers who enter the Hole to experiment on its residents, hoping to reverse Caiman’s fortune.

Dorohedoro (Season One)

What did you watch?

I’ve been vaguely aware of Dorohedoro since it was released in the Winter of 2020. It didn’t immediately jump at me as something I should watch, but over time I learned that there was a man with a lizard head and a muscular woman. Surprisingly, that’s enough to pique my interest… Anyhow, I was looking for my next series to watch while I worked out and Netflix recommended it at the top of the page, and who am I to argue with their algorithm? So, I dived in expecting a man with a lizard head and a muscular woman. Let’s see if I found what I was looking for!

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What happened?

The Hole is a desolate place filled with horror and suffering. The residents have to fight for what little they have and even then, everything can be taken from them by the sorcerers who come to experiment on them. Caiman has the head of a lizard and his memories have gone. Now, he searches the Hole looking for sorcerers in the hope of finding the one who did this to him. Luckily, there’s a person inside his mouth who knows who did it. However, the only way for Caiman to find out is to bite the head of the sorcerer responsible and ask them what the man said. If it wasn’t them, he would kill them without hesitation. No one is going to miss another sorcerer.

However, the missing sorcerers have been noticed. In fact, one of the major players, En has put his two cleaners on the job of hunting down Caiman and killing him. The fact that Caiman is impervious to magic makes him a very dangerous threat to their way of life. Shin and Noi accompany Fujita, one of the sorcerers to have survived an encounter with Caiman as they search for him and the sorcerer responsible for his transformation. Maybe, they can solve the issue of magic not working on him.

And then, there’s Nikaido, Caiman’s friend and owner of the Hungry Bug cafe. She makes incredible gyoza. Anyhow, Nikaido helps Caiman to hunt sorcerers, but she has a secret that she’s been keeping from him. A secret that could change everything if Caiman or En were to find out.

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What did you think?

To answer my earlier question, yes, there was a man with a lizard head, Caiman, and a muscular woman, Noi. So, that’s good, right? Well… There were interesting parts and not-so-interesting parts to this series. For the longest time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that didn’t click with me. There were issues with plot armour and how none of the main characters could die despite death being an everyday occurrence in this place. I wasn’t in love with the animation and even the style of the faces. Too often, they looked vacant and emotionless. Then, I came across the answer. Dorohedoro isn’t a dystopian or post-apocalyptic series at heart. It’s a slice-of-life story set in a dark and disturbing world. That didn’t really work for me. It was fine, but that’s about it. And I got so excited for something dark and gritty, too!

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What was your favourite moment?

I’m actually really struggling to come up with a moment that I want to highlight. The Blue Moon arc was one of the more interesting sections of the story and also had some very dark moments such as the sorcerer who was trying to force a contract with Shin who was then turned into a giant meat pie by another sorcerer who was friends with Caiman. Later on, Noi, who was looking for Shin with Ebisu came across the giant meat pie. Ebisu then ate the pie while Noi sat on the bodybag that hid Shin within. It was funny and very dark, however, it also typified the type of humour that this series relied on – shocks and toilet humour.

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What was your least favourite moment?

I found the whole slice-of-life nature of the show to be incredibly offputting. Rather than pushing on with the story, there was a baseball match, a cooking competition, a masked ball, etc, etc. I’m starting to think that the reason this story didn’t get on with the story was because there really wasn’t that much more for it to reveal. From what we saw, I’m assuming that Caiman is Risu’s best friend, Aikawa and I wonder if that makes him the one who killed all of En’s family. He escaped through a door to the hole without a head so it seems likely. I understand wanting to delay the reveal, but I think they took things too far. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the humour in this series.

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Who was your favourite character?

It’s pretty much a tie between Nikaido and Noi. Nikaido had her mystery that we need to get to the bottom of, however, if she has the power to control time with her magic, that feels like she could easily just undo everything anyhow and I’m not sure I want to be around when that happens. Time manipulation can get really messy when not given reasonable constraints. Noi, however, was the muscular woman that I was looking for. She was completely crazy too, although her magic was one of the more frustrating parts of the series since she could heal anyone from pretty much anything. She healed Risu’s entire body from just his head.

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Who was your least favourite character?

It has to be Ebisu. I can see people liking her because of her quirky behaviour and strange demeanour, however, that just annoyed me. She had the occasional moment, but it wasn’t enough to save her from this honour.

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Would you like some more?

So, I watched the OVA, Dorohedoro: Bonus Curse or Extra Evil because it was the thirteenth episode on Netflix. In reality, it’s a series of six shorts that were all hand-animated (kind of) and I watched it simply to clear the show from my currently-watching list. It was fine but didn’t really do anything to make me want to run out and find out more. A second season is being planned, but there are no details on when and I’m fine with that. I don’t even want to check out the manga. Someday, I might watch the next season… maybe…

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What have you learned?

Dorohedoro’s world is dark and depressing. The characters are all reflections of that world in that there are no heroes. Even Caiman mercilessly kills without hesitation. Then, the supposed villain, En is looking after his family and just trying to run his businesses. But then, he’s not without fault either. Not even close. I feel like this series tried to make everyone good and bad in their own way and that left it without a place for people to channel their feelings. Combined with the slice-of-life feel there doesn’t seem to be any direction with the story. Sometimes, it reveals something important, other times, it’s just someone doing something irrelevant. This series has quite the following and that’s great, it’s just not something that I’ve particularly enjoyed. If you enjoy stories like Tank Girl or the 2000 AD comics then you might want to give this a go.

Series Information

English Title	Dorohedoro
Japanese Title	Dorohedoro
Genres	Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Gore, Horror
Demographic	Seinen

Anime

Season One

Season	Season One
Released	Winter 2020
Animation Studios	MAPPA
Episodes	12

OVA

English Title	Dorohedoro: Bonus Curse or Extra Evil
Japanese Title	Dorohedoro: Ma no Omake
Released	Spring 2020
Animation Studios	MAPPA
Episodes	6

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