Talk:Dorohedoro

Editing
With respect, this page is in need of editing. Made in DNA (talk) 10:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll look into it after a while. For now, I added a bunch of cleanup tags. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 18:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, vast improvement! I think it a little odd that many of the characters are described as androgynous. Sounds a bit too much like opinion. I myself have been reading the comic since around 2001, and I never once thought that myself (thus, my own opinion). ;) Also, as of December there are 13 volumes of Dorohedoro and the comic started publication in 1999. There are quite a few little tidbits that could be added from the Japanese version of the article. I would like to help edit myself, but I am not sure how it works (as in, do I need to ask permission first). I don't want to just jump in on people's work. Made in DNA (talk) 23:02, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Reviews
--KrebMarkt 17:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * ANN: right turn only vol. 1 vol. 2 Right Turn only vol. 3
 * CBB: vol. 3
 * AICN: vol. 3

ANN review
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/dorohedoro/gn-4

But the problem with Dorohedoro, as it enters its fourth volume, is that even the creator doesn't seem to know what's going on. Q Hayashida seems content to explore the world she has created in this series, but without any sense of purpose. Individual scenes and snippets of plot make for light entertainment, but fail to come together as a whole. For every forward step that the story takes, there are two sidesteps into confusion and distraction, it seems.

Whenever the story does make progress, it's always in fits and starts—Nikaido's brief stay at the hospital, for example, allows time for a flashback of how the animosity between the Sorcerers and the citizens of the Hole got started. But that interlude is barely over before another wild, all-over-the-place action sequence begins. ...Even the visual style, distinctive as it may be, proves to be a hindrance to the story: it's hard to get a hang of who's who in the Sorcerers' faction when they're all wearing strange masks and outfits that hide their gender, their abilties, even their ranking in the group. Sure, Hayashida knows them by heart after drawing them all the time, but for readers, it's more like seeing random names and faces flash by ("En!" "Ebisu!" "Noi!") then disappear a few pages later after serving their purpose. So, while the characters are creatively designed, their haphazard treatment in the story keeps them from truly coming to life. The scribbly penstrokes also hold the story back, making it hard to pick out who's attacking each other, or even how they are attacking each other, during key action scenes. These are supposed to be the parts that bristle with fast-paced excitement—and instead they're being slowed down by messy, confusing artwork? ...Every sound of a collision or an explosion is edited from Japanese into English in this edition, and while some of the lettering stands out a bit too conspicuously, the various fonts and styles match the art well. The translated dialogue also gets into the spirit of the series, with a few swears and colloquialisms thrown in to add personality to this edgy, post-apocalyptic universe. When the time comes for clarity, though—like the long-winded explanation about lizard magic—the writing shifts styles and makes things easy to follow. ...After four volumes, Dorohedoro is indeed starting to show progress, but it continues to be a laborious trek with lots of sidesteps and potholes. We get some big, concrete clues about who and what was responsible for turning Caiman into a lizard-man—but not without having to wade through a messy pile-up of flashbacks, fight scenes, and a local baseball game. There's nothing with throwing "whatever you think is cool" into a series, and having a sense of humor about it, but at some point people still expect a story. Ultimately, that's where Dorohedoro fails to deliver. With all the mad monsters, otherworldly structures, and mysterious masked Sorcerers, this is truly an eye-opening world to explore—but what happens when no one has any sense of direction?

--Gwern (contribs) 15:54 21 August 2011 (GMT)

Seattle Post-Intelligencer review
http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Manga-Review-Dorohedoro-01-by-Q-Hayashida-886036.php

An over-the-top piece of slice-and-dice ultraviolence, Q Hayashida’s Dorohedoro (Viz Signature) is set in a dreary city harassed by an amoral clan of sorcerers who see the city’s residents as little more than subjects for their horrific magical experiments ...Hayashida is cheerfully unrestrained when it comes to depicting the gory deeds in this shrink-wrapped “Mature”-rated manga...But Dorohedoro’s characters are so matter-of-fact deadpan in their grisly actions, the overall effect is more splatter comedy than horror action. ...I was unfamiliar with Hayashida’s work before I read this manga, but I was quickly won over by her aggressive artwork, with its in-your-face action and punkish scratchiness. Her splotchy dystopian landscape looks like something Ralph Steadman might’ve dreamed up in a hadacol-induced nightmare, only more claustrophobic. Mid-book, we even get four pages done in color, though to be honest I’d take more story over unnecessary coloring. Compared to all the other Viz Signature books I’ve read (Biomega, Ooku, What A Wonderful World!), Dorohedoro falls about 40 pages short of material.

Still, what beautifully outlandish material it is

--Gwern (contribs) 15:57 21 August 2011 (GMT)

"Magic Users" or magicians?
The article uses the term "Magic User" throughout, but that sounds rather clunky in English. The original is 魔法使い, which is an ordinary Japanese word meaning magician/wizard/sorcerer/witch. Translating it as "magic user" seems overly literal? Vilhelm.s (talk) 15:10, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I think the term "magic user" is awkward as well, but it seems to be the word used by the official English translation so it seems like the best word to use. To be fair there is precedent for its use in English in old versions of D&D, so it's not just a bad literal translation. --Polm23 (talk) 06:13, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Actually nevermind, looking at this it looks like the official translation is "Sorcerer", so the article should probably be changed to match. "Caiman" should also have a "C"... --Polm23 (talk) 06:25, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank's for the research! I have edited the article. Vilhelm.s (talk) 23:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)