This is one of those shows that sneaks up on you because you don't expect something this strange to also be this good.
Dorohedoro is a 2020 dark fantasy anime from MAPPA, directed by Yuichiro Hayashi, based on the manga by Q Hayashida. It ran for 12 episodes in Japan between January and March 2020, then landed on Netflix worldwide that May.
Genre-wise it's a mashup: horror, action, comedy, with a heavy dose of body horror and gallows humor that shouldn't work together as well as it does.
The Setup
The story follows Caiman, a man with a lizard head and no memory of his old face or his old life. A sorcerer did this to him, and now he's hunting them, hoping anyone can undo it or at least tell him what happened. His partner in this is Nikaido, a fry cook who fights like she was built for it. The two of them roam a grimy, decaying place called the Hole, a district where sorcerers use regular humans as target practice for their magic experiments.
On the other side of things is the world the sorcerers actually live in, a place with its own politics, gang rivalries, and a crime boss named En who's obsessed with tracking down the lizard-headed man who's been killing his people. His enforcers, Shin and Noi, also get pulled into the hunt, and their dynamic ends up being one of the most unexpectedly sweet parts of the whole show.
What worked:
The characters are the whole show for me. Caiman and Nikaido have a friendship that feels lived in from episode one. There's no forced backstory dump to explain why they trust each other, you just watch them operate as a unit and understand it. Nikaido in particular stood out. She's not written as "the strong female character" in that stiff, checkbox way a lot of shows do it. She's just strong, full stop, and the show never treats it as a novelty.
Then there's Noi. She could have been a throwaway muscle character attached to Shin, but the show gives her actual depth. Her devotion to En, her friendship with Shin, the way she handles herself in a fight, all of it makes her one of the most memorable people in the cast. Shin and Noi's relationship ends up being weirdly tender for a show this violent, and that contrast is part of what makes Dorohedoro click.
The world-building deserves credit too. The Hole and the sorcerer's world are visually and tonally distinct, and the show trusts you to piece together how the magic system and the gang politics work without over-explaining everything. It respects the viewer's intelligence, and I really appreciated that.
Fair Warning:
The CGI takes some getting used to. MAPPA leaned into 3D animation for a lot of the character models and movement, and the style is a real departure from traditional 2D anime. The first couple of episodes, might be a bit jarring for some viewers.
That said, I wouldn't call this a real downside. Once the story pulls you in, the visual style stops being a distraction and starts feeling like part of the show's identity. By the midpoint, I wasn't thinking about it anymore, I was just watching the story.
Rating
8.7 out of 10.
The story, the characters, the tone, all of it worked together in a way I wasn't expecting going in. I loved almost everything about this season, and the parts that took adjusting turned into strengths by the end. If you haven't watched Dorohedoro yet, this is your sign.
PS: Noi and Nikaido are the reason I'll be thinking about this show for a while. More buff women in anime, please and thank you.
Which of the two is your favorite: Noi or Nikaido?
Drop your pick below, no wrong answers here.
More reviews and takes at The Watchlist Chronicles.