#dorohedoro quick review : dont read if youre hungry but dont read if youre eating either

[ja-khajay]

Wanted to post this before but I forgot ^^’ so here we go! I read all of Dorohedoro, here are my thoughts on the series :) (spoilerless for those who want to read it later!)

Spoilers : I loved it a lot. Stellar character writing and worldbuilding with a unique graphic style, strongly recommend it to anyone who can stomach how graphic it gets (which is a LOT). If you’re like me and dissapointed by the lack of originality in post apocalyptic and/or fantasy settings, it’s a blessing

artwise : technically speaking it’s not the most advanced shit you’re gonna get but it’s got a very distinctive style. I rarely see manga who stand out that much graphically and it was a pleasure. I know the author’s anatomy gets criticized but it wasn’t much of an issue for me - lots of her characters have the same body types but thats extremely common in manga/comics in general and it’s sweet to have the default body type be “brickhouse” instead of some variant of muscle twink

the backgrounds are amazing, the sketchy grit works wonders with her urban cluttered designs

characters design are great too : iconic, diverse and practical, even if there’s a big sameface syndrome to lament. I’m usually not a fan of such cluttered designs but here they work in the setting and in logical terms too. just a look at the devils or at the mage’s masks would showcase how creative the author gets

the action scenes : loved the how absurdly graphic they get, very disturbing but in style! however i found most of the fights to not be boarded very well, resulting in a confusing mess. couldn’t see what was happening, who was hitting who until the very end so i skimmed through most of them. shame, the ones i do remember are very fun

similarly the story/dialog gets SUPER CONFUSING at times. i managed to understand all of it at once by some miracle but i know a lot of people for whom it took several reads to understand it all. since it includes time travel and identity as major themes thats surprising but still. damn bro

it was written by a woman and like most manga written by women you can feel the difference and it’s a breath of fresh air. expect way less nasty tropes than what you normally see, even if it’s not perfect either. I especially disliked the writing of Ebisu as a character ): and if Chota is a character I like he’s not great either

what stood out most to me were the characters. i’ve rarely seen such weird, well written characters and especially their interactions!!! it feels organic and extremely wholesome (funny given how it’s also famous for being extremely violent but i mean it). i love seeing relationships depicted so well - you see characters living alongside each other, being friends or enemies, spending time together before they go fight and each moment reinforces their personality. the bonus chapters are a lovely addition in that regard, since they focus even more on showing characters living their life outside of the main story. given how wild and fun their personalities get, it’s really sweet! you don’t normally see this sort of stuff outside of fanfiction

related to what i just said but i usually cannot stand romance in media because i am an anti-corny person and find most love tropes unrealistic : here the few instances of romantic love you have are very well written. my favorite being “married couple of 25 years and how their love evolved during that time but stayed there” godspeed

the worldbuilding!!! it’s original, it’s fun, its well done. nothing felt weird or out of place and its frequent reimaginings of classic elements are fun as hell. having the worlds meta lore and divinities being regular characters mentioning how they created the universe as a casual thing was also a treat

this is a personal thing, but i usually end up disliking the near-end of manga where everything escalated right before being epically resolved, but it wasn’t the case here. if i still liked the beginning better, as i do for most media, the ending doesn’t seem to break the pace much. if the story does get very confusing at parts, it doesn’t abruptly clear itself and has more of a bell curve of adding elements that are later solved one after the other. and surprisingly, the “final epic battle” was fun as hell, i usually hate those a lot lol

TLDR : skyrocketed among my favorite series, hyped for the anime, wish more series made girls this buff for no reason, wish more series showed characters having a good time with the lads, wish more series got as weird on the art style, prof haze was my favorite character