Dorohedoro Season 1 Review: A Unique Experience

Dorohedoro is about Kaiman, a human that was experimented on by a sorcerer and was given a lizard’s head. Kaiman together with his friend Nikaido spends their time hunting for sorcerers in hope of finding the one that experimented on Kaiman, and hopefully, return him to his usual self. The story is pretty simple but it’s very entertaining. Kaiman and Nikaido are very likable characters and they are easy to get behind. They do things that we would consider horrible  (and they are), but in their eyes it’s normal. The world they live in is a violent and cruel one and it’s not unusual to kill for anyone. When Kaiman, Nikaido, or anyone else for that matter does something horrible like killing someone the show still maintains this good and fun vibe. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it doesn’t try to be edgy. I personally like that it doesn’t hold back on the gore, it’s not afraid to show someone bleeding out or getting cut into pieces. A lot of crazy and violent stuff happens and it gives the show this raw feeling and it adds some great shock value.

Dorohedoro has a good amount of characters. What makes these characters so interesting is first of all their character designs, they are amazing and some of my favorite in anime, but more importantly their morals. No one is good or bad, no one has good morals or bad morals, everyone has grey morals. This makes the conflict between the protagonists and the antagonists interesting because you don’t always know who to support. I like the antagonists in this show just as much as the protagonists. I would love to see Kaiman get his head back but if it would cost one of the antagonists their life I wouldn’t want that. There are no shows I can think of that does this and it’s very unique and it feels refreshing. You get to know the majority of the characters and they are all given a good amount of screen time, which is impressive for a 12 episode show.

The animation is something I feel like holds a lot of people back from watching Dorohedoro. It’s CGI with 2D animated backgrounds. I think it looks relatively good for the most part and it works well for this show. I’m not a fan of CGI in anime but I actually liked it here. I think that even if you dislike CGI you should give this show a watch, or perhaps read the manga instead.

Follow @animes.reviews on Instagram!