I think the main problem I have with Dorohedoro – the reason it’s still firmly on the bubble after three episodes – is that I still haven’t figured out what it is.  Some things are clear enough: it’s wilfully irreverent about its non-stop graphic violence, for starters.  That’s obviously done with a specific purpose in mind, so fair dos – but the larger question of why the series exists at all remains.  It certainly aims for humor (often successfully) a lot, but it’s not a comedy.  Is it social satire?  Is it a straight-up action series?  Is there any point to it – and does there need to be?

The fact that I’m unable to answer those questions is a point in Dorohedoro’s favor, because it speaks to what a singularly quirky series it is.  Uniqueness is good, but I still have to like a unique series to follow it, and that circuit hasn’t been closed yet.  Stuff like the zombie apocalypse at the beginning of the episode is a good example.  I guess it was supposed to be comic in an absurdist sort of way, but it really wasn’t all that funny.  But it was irreverent enough that it wasn’t at all scary either, if it was even trying to be.  Where it landed was just sort of gross and a little too long, and the showdown between Caiman and Nikaidou and Shin and Noi certainly could have happened without it as a preamble.

The upshot of that encounter was multifold.  In the first place Noi and Shin are certainly strong even without magic, seemingly more than a match for Caiman and Nikaidou and we’ve seen how strong they are.  It also gives us Caiman’s head being severed, which is going to prove important later in the episode.  But the headline is probably that Nikaidou is a sorcerer, which shuffles the cards quite a bit.  Caiman seems OK with it, but this development carries a bushel of questions with it, starting with why a sorcerer would end up fighting on the side of the humans in Hole in the first place.

As for the head (Caiman fortunately grows a new one), Doc immediately wants to dissect it but Caiman is understandably hesitant.  There are obviously answers to be found there, since someone goes to the trouble of killing the power and stealing the head before Doc can open up the throat and look inside.  But that makes me ask – since we know Caiman will grow a new head anyway, why not just decapitate him again and have a fresh head to dissect, this time with better security protocols?  Or does whatever information the invader was protecting only exist in the original head?

Is that an interesting mystery?  Yeah, to an extent.  And Caiman and Nikaidou are likeable enough, though their main distinguishing character trait is being totally desensitized to killing, which makes them considerably less sympathetic.  It all comes back to that nagging question of why Dorohedoro exists.  Right now it’s just a bunch of people indiscriminately killing each other, one side seemingly in self-defense but indiscriminately just the same.  That and modestly effective discordant humor are what the series is selling at this point, and I’m still not sure I’m a buyer.