May 15, 2024
TLDR: Dia Dark has boring one note characters unprompted to change by a vague plot all while taking place in an uncomfortable liminal meat-scape 6/10.
To start, I loved Dorohedoro. I love Q Hayashida's writing and panel layout. The things that pulled me through Dorohedoro and ultimately the reason I gave it a 10, was the characters and worldbuilding; each character feeling grounded in the world with real motivations and emotions as well as the world itself feeling fluid and flexible in its worldbuilding but still using an explicit set of rules to govern the direction of that flexibility. In Dai Dark, I find both
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of those categories to be lacking to a point I simply dropped the series.
To start with characters, I feel absolutely nothing for any of them. While I initially found the contradiction between the liminal meat-scape that seems to be make up the world, and the happy go lucky nature of so many of the characters interesting and unique, that cognitive dissonance eventually really got in the way when it came to exploring characters personalities. Because they are the way they are, they don't feel like real individuals with real emotions. Almost ever character is a Shonen Jump comic relief character who's not taking the plot seriously and their only job is to just hang out.
Going off that, what is the plot here? Over the course of the 19 chapters I did read, that's still unclear. These past 19 chapters we've spent simply bumming around introducing places and characters. 19 Chapters in and we're just setting stuff up with little indication of where this is all going. And because the narrative haven't gone anywhere yet, no character has been prompted to change or evolve in any way, feeding the prior issue of the characters having these bland one note personalities. Further the reason the characters travel to any one location within the narrative seems to be chalked up to, "eh seems fun, why not."
This last section is much more personal to me and some might have an issue with this while others are the exact opposite. That being the setting. Every environment the main cast makes there way to is either make of indiscriminate organic shapes or seems to be made of stitched together meat. Further every space is a liminal one, giving the whole setting a deeply f*cked up vibe. Some people might love this, personally I found myself having a gutteral discomfort while reading. I don't mind gore at all but this is something different, a step beyond. Personally this was the biggest reason I stopped reading. Again this may affect you, it may not, either way its a very unique and very strong atmosphere.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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