Dorohedoro – 10 [Manju Terror]

Dorohedoro’s rampage continued this week, with sorcerous abductions, fungal transformations, and severed body parts aplenty. I managed to watch this episode twice before writing the post you’re reading now, so both its violence and its central mystery have had extra time to sink in. That mystery, of course, is the identity of the man inside Caiman, who was recognized as “Risu” by a fellow Cross-eye this week (just before his untimely death). After episode 9, I was convinced that the Caiman/Risu connection was less direct than that, but now we have evidence supporting the shared identity theory. There are other possibilities, of course – mistaken identity on the Cross-eye’s part, a fragment of Risu’s consciousness inhabiting someone else’s body – but I won’t dwell too intently on them. This show moves quickly enough that there’s always something new to consider (and in my case, to write about), so let’s get to it.

In terms of moving character pieces on a metaphorical chessboard, this was one of the most active episodes yet. Nikaido started the half hour as a queen, but in the wake of the contract signing ceremony, she’s been demoted to pawn. Stripped of the powerful mask that Asu gifted her during childhood, she now sports a fitted black hood with metal fixtures that represent her enslavement. It’s wild that the same demons who honored Nikaido with their business cards would force her to sign a partnership contract with En, but I guess that’s how things work in the sorcerers’ realm. Speaking of which, the shot of Nikaido and friends falling into another dimension really underwhelmed me – that might be the reason why I’m not totally sold on the urgency of her situation. After En’s mushroom friend bled out and transformed into a trapdoor, I would have loved a slower shot of their decent through the frame. Following them from above or tracking their fall from the side were both good options, but the show’s version was a mess.

The contract-signing scene was accompanied by lively accordion music, as well, which doesn’t exactly match the feeling of your free will being stripped away. Since the episode positioned Nikaido as its lead character via the cold open, you’d expect the soundtrack to be tense or ominous in that position, but Dorohedoro’s use of music has been a weakness since the start. Plus, there were other characters in the room during that moment, including Fujita, who missed his chance at partnership due to Ebisu’s stomach troubles. The guy’s whole life is a tragedy of errors, but he’s stayed semi-relevant until this point, so I assume Hayashida had an important role in mind when designing his character. At least he doesn’t have Kasukabe’s problems – the Professor escaped from his torture chamber this week only to get his hand cut off by Shin. Kasukabe posed a good question in this episode: if En has already secured a time-manipulating partner in Nikaido, why did he order his men to ascertain Caiman’s location?

The aforementioned characters might not know where lizard man is hiding, but the audience sure does. He’s still working for Tanba at the pie restaurant, plagued by uneasy dreams and doubting that he’ll ever learn his true identity. The thing I loved about this plot was that Caiman’s rescue of Fukuyama in episode 8 came back around to help him; Tanba cites that intervention as his reason for assisting Caiman with his quest. The idea that friends look after each other gives Dorohedoro a simple but powerful moral underpinning, which we’ve also seen in the Caiman/Nikaido and Shin/Noi relationships. Tanba’s connections push the series in the right direction on a narrative level, too, with their prison visit to the Cross-eye member leading to an encounter with Asu. That whole scene was so vivid that I don’t feel the need to describe it – the takeaway is that Caiman learned of Nikaido’s capture, and is set to infiltrate En’s mansion as a meat pie salesman next week. I’m expecting Tanba to die in the chaos, but though his body may perish, his status as a true bro will never fade.