Doron Dororon: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Title seems to be based on the sound effects monoke make when they fight per tucker
• Author: Gen Oosuka
• Author’s other works:
  • Golem hearts bb
  • Been doing 5 different one shots that didn’t become series
  • Was an assistant for Tabata of black clover fame
• Run dates:  Nov 29, 2021 to Aug 29, 2022
• Replaced Red Hood or Neru so we’ve now covered every series that started when they were canceled, Maxybee is very proud
• Was replaced by Tokyo Demon Bride
• Chapters/Volumes: 36/5

About the Manga

• Plot
• Jordan
  • Mononoke are invading the human world. Mononoke are just demons who eat people btw. Dora Sasaki is a really strong guy with a mom who was killed by one. Because of this he wants to become a samurai working for the Izanagi corps and save people from them. Unfortunately he lacks any spiritual energy which is the only thing that can hurt them, meaning he can’t fight. Luckily while trying to save a kid from one, he meets a tiny adorable shapeshifting Mononoke named Kusanagi. When Kusanagi transforms into a sword, Dora is able to use his crazy strength to kill the evil Mononoke and save an elementary school.
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  • Kusanagi doesn’t eat people which means he’s hungry and weak but also very sweet, and Dora bonds with him immediately. However, after saving some samurai from getting eaten, the two are discovered by Ginchiyo, a career focused Izanagi member who gets Dora to help her in exchange for paying his rent.
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  • Dora, Kusanagi, and Ginchiyo take down some small fry when they face off against the Hanya Gyuuki, a powerful Mononoke who killed Dora’s mom. Dora is enraged but Kusanagi calms him down because he doesn’t want him to get hurt pursuing vengeance. The two save Ginchiyo who’s not doing too well, and manage to defeat the big Hanya, but uh oh, a way more powerful mononoke named Hidehisa rips open his stomach and steps out. The trio’s lives are saved by Heisuke Ujii, a powerful samurai officer with a chip on his shoulder. Hidehisa escapes and kills a bunch of people oh well.
  • Ujii decides not to kill Kusanagi and instead brings everyone back to Izanagi HQ. Ujii is arguing with Ginchiyo’s dad who runs the place in order to save Kusanagi’s life until Dora walks in and the two are so cute together that her dad says to let him live for now. Ginchiyo is gone for most of the series after this. She’s training or something.
• David
  • Dora is then confronted by Toda, who used to get his ass kicked by him. However, now Toda can use spiritual energy and explains the power system to Dora which I guess no one did before. Kusanagi then manages to replicate it, allowing Dora to lose one of the things that made him interesting. Also they meet a nice samurai named Ichiya.
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  • Flash over to the big bad Mononoke who are hanging out just killing a bunch of kids and one samurai. They hatch a plan to draw out samurai officers and kill them alone. The Izanagi troops then deploy to where the bad guys are. Dora and Touma defeat an alcoholic mononoke cuz Dora and Kusanagi learned to fuse. Meanwhile Ujii defeats a mononoke who posts thirst-traps and that Hidehisa dude from before, but their boss Kanbeh escapes and uh oh they have a mole on the inside.
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  • Dora teams up with Naotora Kamiizumi, a samurai officer who has a maaaassive crush on Dora to the point where she stalks him. They wind up hitting it off and Naotora kills an octopus mononoke like it’s nothing.
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  • Then a big mononoke is summoned by a human. He knew Kusanagi in the mononoke world and took advantage of how sweet of a boy he was to kill his friend. He tries to do it again but Dora snaps him out of it. Naotora and Dora manage to defeat it but not before it steals some of the Dora/Kusanagi fusion energy which was stolen by that Kanbeh guy from before.
• Meghan
  • Then the author got told the series was getting canceled so we meet Goki Tsukahara, the guy who made the Izanagi corps in the first place. A long time ago he was training in a dojo with a fellow student who was stronger named Hanzo Miyamoto, and- say it with me: Goki got selected as the master and Hanzo got so mad he turned to dark magic. He summoned all the mononoke so that’s why they’re here. The Izanagi headquarters are built on top of the immortal mononoke and Hanzo wants to get it back. Then the mononoke lay siege on the HQ, using Dora’s energy to pierce through a barrier I forgot to mention, and kill some beloved officers. You remember that traitor from a while back? Well that was Ichiya but it wasn’t really. He was just possessed and Dora saves him pretty easily.
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  • Hanzo releases the immortal mononoke and fuses with it. Mr. Tsukahara blinds Hanzo but it made him so tired that he dies. Dora then uses his and Kusanagi’s merged powers to strike Hanzo’s glowing weak point, reducing his HP to zero and killing him. Unfortunately all the mononoke then have to go back to their world including Kusanagi aww :(
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  • Then they start cleaning things up and Dora wants to be a cop, the end.
• Characters
  • Dora Sasaki
    • No powers
    • Dumb and strong kinda guy
    • Mom was v supportive
    • Mom killed by mononoke
  • Kusangi
    • Good monoke or whatever
    • Feels like a pochita ripoff
    • Kinda realizes it?
  • Ginchiyo Yagyu
    • Female hunter
    • Wants a promo
    • Disappears during the series
    • Rich parents
    • Fucking disappears lmao
  • Heisuke Ujii
    • Sauske
    • Super samurai
    • Rodney Dangerfield just wants respect
    • Says what he's thinking lmao
    • I think he's the best character and is kinda funny
  • Touma
    • Emotionsss
    • Hot blooded
    • One sided rivalry with mc
    • Shield
  • Naotora kamiizuni
    • Crazy hair
    • Excentric
    • Likes compliments
    • Stalker
    • Senior officer
    • Is she wearing the JJK uniform?
  • Kanbeh
    • Fox guy
    • Only recurring bad guy lmao
  • Hanzo Miyamoto
    • Mummy guy
    • Actual big bad
    • Load bearing boss
    • Winds up being an example of the single most ancient manga trope. A trope so old that it hasn’t been used in a while.

Why it failed

• This series is just bland city
• Art is ok
• Nice having a protag that finished hs lmao
• It just seems kind of lazy having the one good lawful good monoke
• There's a weird tonal disconnect in the nature of the monsters vs the world itself it's like a pg vs r rated world that I feel doesn't seem unique just more bland
• I feel the pacing of the humor is bad, like the punchline is told in the same panel as the joke for a comedic reaction so it had no time to breath
• Ultimately this series has the sin of being forgettable
• I dislike when the mc completely disrupts the power scale of everything else and only they can defeat bad guys now
• The series doesn't really explain the why behind characters personalities besides the mc drive to be a police officer
• Minor nitpick but having a character talk from the neck can make the speech bubbles kind of confusing. I think having a monoke-specific bubble would have helped
• I really dislike the dosan stuff, like Kusangi can’t be that fucking stupid and it feels like he’s had no character development

What it did well

• Competent female MC
• I like the monoke designs
• The art while generic is consistent and well detailed
• I really liked kusangi asking if he’s just a tool for revenge
• I respect people actually died in monoke attacks
• This series has nothing going on besides fighting monoke
• I will give some partial credit for it knowing how tropy it is but not full marks as it's still tropy
• It has a few minor in-between moments after the major arc that are nice but not enough ofc
• The final arc when he burned through his ideas is pretty good

Where it could have gone

• It’d have been nice to see the monoke guy have some villainous side or some downside to him rather than him just being good all the time
• More art variation his base art style is so bland but he clearly can draw differently that looks pretty cool
• Have the samurai not be paid well and talk about actually acab shit, like yes even in this world
• Since the monoke doesn’t need to be a sword he could have a lot more variability in his combat
• See more inner turmoil about is dora another human just using Kusangi based on his simple nature. Make this series like what if yoko taro made a action manga
• Firmly establish the villian hierarchy sooner or have more independent agents this hur always a bigger fish thing is kinda lame
• I’d have been really cool to have Kusangi be a cultural interpreter for everything, like he explain their behavior in a way they’d never understand before

Misc Thoughts

• I can’t tell to what degree this is homage vs ripoff of every other manga
• The lesbian assistant was unexpected but was unexpected
• Man a lot of characters in this series have low self esteem
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • Is it awkward that a former assistant of Yuki Tabata does a series about a hero with no powers and how actually that’s a good thing? Even down to the absurd physical strength.

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker:
    • Maxybee: Doron Dororon doesn’t demand, didn’t deliver
    • Xylon: My Bankai can't be this cute
    • Genericman: Buddy cop downgraded to regular cop
    • Duderocks:
      • A C A B by gen oosuka
      • N O R O
      • I  P  E  R
      • M S      I
      • E         N
      • G
      • 
        
    • ChemyChems: Soul Eater but poorly trained cops.
    • The Laughing Fool: A kinder world, or just average
    • Riel: Extended Dorayaki Comercial in Manga Form.
    • Twolfwood: Painfully mediocre, 5 years improvement where?
    • Daniel - A Smashing Theory: You’ll get em next time, Oosuka
    • TheBBKingBBTHE: He forgot the first girl existed
  • David: generic manga needs return to monoke | wholesome and not horny Bone collection
  • Jordan: samurai fighting manga made for babies
  • Guest:
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about