Dorohedoro/Characters
Hole Residents
Kaiman
The main protagonist. He's lost his memories and got a Caiman Lizard head. He seeks to regain both his face and memories by hunting down Magic-Users, whom he believes to be responsible for his state. His M.O.? Find em and stick their heads in his mouth, where they meet a strange man later revealed to be a duplicate of Risu who, so far, has said nothing but,"You're not the one." Yes, this man is living inside his mouth. Then he pulls em out, and when they tell him that they are not the one, he kills them. Horribly.
- Amnesiac Hero
- Anti-Hero: Type III, though he's rather nice with those he considers his friends. It's mostly because he lives in a Crapsack World.
- Anti-Magic: He's immune to Magic, which makes him very dangerous to the Magic-Users, who often are too reliant on their powers. Unfortunately, this only makes him immune from being transformed or affected directly by smoke. Magical items can still hurt him, as seen when he fights En.
- Baddass Adorkable
- Big Eater: So much so that Nikaido is in debt because he does not pay his tab.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Does a miniature dance of joy at being allowed to fight Shin and Noi.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: He hunts down Magic-Users in order to regain a human head and live a life as normal as Hole permits him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Being rather lazy and sometimes violent aside, he's a pretty nice guy. It helps that he usually targets Magic Users and jerks.
- Knife Nut
- Laser-Guided Amnesia
- Lizard Folk
- Mage Killer
- Put on a Bus: Sort of. He's actually Kai.
- Spell My Name with an "S": Rendered "Caiman" by the Viz Media translation.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Nikaido's gyozas.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He is afraid of ghosts. But okay with zombies. Apparently zombies are just hungry. Which somehow makes them better.
Nikaido
Kaiman's friend. She follows him into his quest of regaining his memories and human face. She runs the Hungry Bug restaurant and makes the best gyozas of the city. She's a Magic-User who came to Hole and vowed to never use her Magic again. She has the ability to manipulate time, and gets hunted down by En because of it.
- Action Girl: Strong enough to fight Noi.
- Anti-Hero (Type III): Nice gal all around, yet it's wisely recommended to don't get on her bad side. Or hurt her friends.
- Brainwashed: When En hunts her down and makes her his partner.
- Chef of Iron: She makes the best gyozas of Hole (according to Kaiman anyways), and can karate-chop off your head.
- Cute Bruiser
- Dark and Troubled Past: Her life was not that bad, seeing as she had friends and a family of sorts. The dark and troubling part about it is that she erased it with her Time Travel powers.
- Little Miss Badass: As a child, she could defeat adults in hand-to-hand combat.
- Ms. Fanservice
- Took a Level in Badass: After training under Kawajiri.
Dr. Kasukabe
A scientist and Hole resident who studies magic users. He was married to magic user who later became a Devil.
- For Science!
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Whenever he interacts with Shin. The two of them are downright friendly and even end up helping each other.
- Haunted House: Lives in one due to magic users' smoke filling the place.
- Mad Scientist: He has a lab filled with the corpses of magic users and a door that he made out of magic user body parts. He also operated on Shin to help him use magic. For no apparent reason. See For Science! above.
- Older Than They Look: He's actually in his sixties but looks like a teenager. His explanation is that he was a test subject for a magic user.
Jonson
A cockroach changed by the residual magic in the Hole to become human-sized. Wears sneakers and proclaims, "Shocking!"
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: A seven feet tall roach wearing baskets and who can say "Shocking!".
- Team Pet: Kasukabe has him trained.
Thirteen
A Hole resident who eats at Nikaido's restaurant and plays baseball.
- The Rival: He considers Kaiman to be his rival about gaining Nikaido's love.
- Unknown Rival: Kaiman doesn't get a clue about it.
Magic-Users' World Residents
Tanba
Owner of a restaurant in the Magic Users' World.
En's Family
En
A Magic User and gang leader of a sort. His "Family" engages in various enterprises, obviously quite successful as he lives in what amounts to a small town. He has great influence in the Magic Users' world and has connections to Devils. If the origin story in his movie is to be believed, his magic was strong enough as a child to turn both of his parents into mushrooms. Afterwards, he was abducted by weak Magic Users who held him prisoner and sold his smoke on the black market. Eventually, he was discarded and ended up in hell, where he apparently impressed the Devils enough to escape. He returned to the place where he had been imprisoned and freed the others, starting his "Family." Somewhere along the line he sent his men to fight the Cross-Eyes, and many of them died. After that, En decided that his destiny was to take down the boss of the Cross-Eyes.
- Anti-Villain (Type I): Orders to kill his enemies around the town and threatens to turn his subordinates in mushrooms if they double-cross him. In the other hand, he does care for his subordinates and despises injustice despite the whole Yakuza-like behavior.
- Avenging the Villain: His whole involvement with Kaiman came about because Kaiman killed Matsumura.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: He's always dressed like a Mafia don.
- Benevolent Boss: He's quite nice to his subordinates. Can overlap with A Father to His Men.
- Bunny Ears Lawyer: His estate is truly bizarre, and he also does some really weird things. For example, he creates a mushroom version of himself to sell, and casually admits that it is in the testing phase just as it latches onto Fujita and refuses to let go. He also creates a dream mushroom which he feeds to himself and his subordinates, giving them all horrible nightmares. And finally, there is the way he landscapes an entire area for his pet. Despite this, he is calculating and obviously very good at what he does.
- Curb Stomp Battle: Delivers one to Kaiman.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: His smoke grows mushrooms of various sizes and transforms basically anything into mushrooms.
- Even better, he can then use these mushrooms to fight, with devastating results.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Serves the mushrooms he makes out of people in his restaurant, much to Shin and Noi's disgust. He claims this is because he despises waste.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He starts off being rather harsh to Fujita, threatening to kill him if he uses a gun (which En considers a disgrace to Magic Users). As time goes on, he is shown being much friendlier to his men.
- Killed Off for Real: Though he makes an appearance in Hell.
- Large Ham: He makes a movie about himself, with an overly dramatic origin story and description of the Cross-Eyes' boss as his fated enemy. And in a visual example, his estate has statues of himself everywhere.
- Mask Power
- Papa Wolf: You do not mess with his subordinates.
Shin
A Magic-User who works for En as a "Cleaner." He wears a heart-shaped mask. Underneath, he has an ordinary appearance. He likes to eat and engages in casual conversation with Noi. On the job, he becomes bloodthirsty and ruthless, ripping apart anyone in his way. His magic involves vivisecting people, who remain alive no matter how much he tears them up. He comes from the Hole, where, due to being half-Magic User, he was attacked by the militia from the Hole. After cutting off his arms in an effort to use magic, he gets Dr. Kasukabe to help him. He uses his newfound power to massacre the militia and heads to the Magic Users' world. There he meets and fights Noi, and gets a job working for En.
- Ax Crazy: Only when he fights. he's otherwise a rather reasonable person.
- Anti-Villain: Mostly Type IV.
- Blood Knight: Gets an expression of crazed excitement when En tells him that Kaiman will try and kill him.
- Body Horror: His victims, who usually end up as a head and a few assorted organs while still alive.
- Drop the Hammer: He favors fighting with a hammer rather than Magic.
- Freudian Excuse: He was hunted down by the Hole militia for being half-magic user.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Half human, half magic user, which proves useful to him a few times.
- Mask Power
- Punch Clock Villain: It's just his job to 'clean' some people.
- Deconstructed: The Mood Whiplash from him on the job and off the job gives his Punch Clock Villain status a nudge in the creepy direction.
- Sempai-Kohai: He's Noi's Sempai, though she has been with En longer.
- Sympathetic Murderer
- Those Two Bad Guys: Him and Noi, as much as you can call them "bad".
Noi
En's cousin and Cleaner. Works with Shin. Large, pretty and extremely tough.
- Action Girl
- Anti-Villain: Type IV, even moreso than Shin.
- Boisterous Bruiser
- Combat Medic
- Friendly Enemy: When she meets Nikaido, she is pretty impressed by Nikaido's strength, and declares that the two of them should be friends.
- Genki Girl: Borders on being really creepy because she stays this way while killing people.
- Healing Factor: Cut up? Rotting? Have large chunks of flesh missing? Zombified? She can help. Getting up after a fatal headshot is a matter of seconds for her.
- Her ability is the reason why Ebisu's frequent mishaps are Played for Laughs.
- Mask Power
- Punch Clock Villain
- Sempai-Kohai
- Statuesque Stunner
- Those Two Bad Guys: With Shin. Those Two Punch Clock Sympathetic Anti Bad Guys, to be precise. Think Vincent & Jules, with magic and UST.
- White-Haired Pretty Girl
Fujita
A weak Magic User who works for En. Despite being something of an errand boy, he ends up getting involved fairly regularly with the higher up members of the family, most likely because of his connection to Kaiman. Who, incidentally, killed his partner Matsumura.
- Avenging the Villain: Wants revenge for Matsumura's death.
- Butt Monkey
- The Chew Toy: This verges on being downright sadistic, like when he ends up playing baseball against a zombified, disfigured Matsumura.
Ebisu
A young female Magic User who loses her memory and her sanity after getting her face ripped off by Kaiman. She gets "rescued" by Fujita, who wants her for her expertise in reptilian transformations, thinking she might have a connection to whoever cursed Kaiman.
- The Chew Toy: Even more so than Fujita. At times to the point of deconstruction. She gets eaten, disemboweled, zombified and otherwise nearly killed on a regular basis.
- Cloudcuckoolander
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: When using black powder. She turns into a large lizard and chomps down on her opponents.
- Killed Off for Real: Until Kikurage helps her out.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Had Fujita arrived a moment later the whole incident with her face would not have happened (Kaiman would have spat her out to ask what the man inside his throat said to her).
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Until her memories come back as a result of tripping on En's mushrooms of all things.
Chota
A Magic User who works for En. Wears a bird mask and can reverse magic.
- Anti-Magic
- Camp Gay and Manly Gay
- Ho Yay: With En, to the latter's dismay.
- Stalker with a Crush
- Walking Shirtless Scene
Kikurage
En's beloved pet. Likes to play with Ebisu. Can also revive the dead.
The Cross-Eyes
A gang which sells black powder, a substance that dramatically increases the amount of smoke a Magic User can produce. They set themselves up as the heroes of the weak Magic Users, who are treated little better than humans.
Kai
The mysterious boss of the Cross-Eyes. He was originally a human from Hole, who asked Kasukabe to make him into a Magic User. After he met Dokuga and his friends, about to be exiled by some Magic Users to the Hole, he killed the Magic Users, took them along with him through the door into the Magic Users' world, and formed the Cross-Eyes. He was attacked by Risu's Curse power after killing Risu and ended up in the Hole as Kaiman. Due to Mega Manning and his own strength, he is an extremely formidable fighter.
Also rather insane.
- Ax Crazy: And how! He leads a Kill'Em All against Magic Users.
- Badass Abnormal: He often fights with a knife, but also uses stolen magic abilities with devastating results.
- Bad Boss: Kills Natsuki to get her defensive magic. Also kills Risu for a similar reason.
- Body Horror: C'mon, he can sprout multiple heads, which just hang there from their own spinal cords. He also puts the devils from the heads of Magic Users into his own head.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: He starts out as a kid in the Hole who wants to be a Magic User. He ends up (briefly) ruling the Magic Users' world.
- Humanoid Abomination: He removes his own heads when he switches personalities and his mere presence makes Magic Users see their surroundings distort. Fujita sees the headless/shoulderless person from Kaiman's dreams when Kai is near.
- Jekyll and Hyde: The Hyde to Kaiman/Aikawa's Jekyll.
- Knight of Cerebus: After his appearance, the whole story becomes Darker and Edgier. He kills En and takes over the Magic Users' World, leading to wholesale slaughter. The Gorn gets taken Up to Eleven, as does the High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
- Knife Nut
- Mega Manning: His M.O. It's pretty creepy.
- Pet the Dog: Saving Dokuga and his friends, and giving Ton one of his hamburgers. Though it just makes what he does to Natsuki worse.
Dokuga
A member of the Cross-Eyes who went into hiding after the boss vanished. He is extremely skilled in hand to hand combat and can kill Magic Users with ease. Solemn and serious, he is also capable of wreaking havoc when needed. He is devoted to his small group of friends, who, like him, live in poverty to make sure that En does not find them.
- Almighty Janitor: The second-in-command of the Cross-Eyes, an organization that even En takes seriously, and also a termite extractor, bath attendant, and whatever else he can land as a job.
- Badass Normal
- A Father to His Men: Dresses up like a woman and sneaks into a party of Magic Users and kills them all in order to get high quality healing smoke for his friends.
- He also tries to save Natsuki from Kai.
- Poisonous Person: His saliva is toxic. Which is why he eats, bathes and brushes his teeth separately from his comrades. Of course, if he wants to poison the punch at a party...
- Played for Laughs when he uses this to exterminate termites in order to earn some money.
- The Stoic: He actually can't laugh, or he'll end up killing his friends.
Risu
A former member of the Cross-Eyes, who is searching for his killer. He is the man in Kaiman's mouth, having cursed him after the Cross-Eyes' Boss (a.k.a. Kaiman's Split Personality) killed him. Shin and Noi find and restore his head, and he eventually gets his normal human body back. He wields Curse magic.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: He just wants to be a Magic User, and goes to a magic academy to try and develop any latent abilities he might have.
- Knife Nut
- No Ontological Inertia: Subverted. His Curse power is the only type of magic that remains after the Magic User's death.
- Super-Powered Evil Side: His Curse ability. Complete with dark smoke, a skeletal head, too many eyes, and a tendency to duplicate your attacks and injure you seriously.
- Weaksauce Weakness: A Devil's song will weaken or destroy his magic.
Natsuki
A cheerful girl who joined the Cross-Eyes because she saw them as heroes, sticking up for the weak and powerless. However, she is disillusioned with her boss when he attempts to con said weak and powerless. She follows Kaiman, thinking him to be a real Cross-Eye and eventually joins Dokuga's gang. Her magic is defensive, manifesting itself as a large, impenetrable blob around her body.
- Blob Monster: Her magic, sort of. It does leave her impervious to attack.
- Eyes Always Shut
- Genki Girl
- Killed Off for Real
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played for Laughs when, being the kind person she is, she asks the wish-granting Devil to let Dokuga laugh. Cue Dokuga laughing uncontrollably and spraying his poison spit everywhere.
- Sempai-Kohai: Considers Kaiman her sempai.
- Took a Level in Badass: After getting her arm cut off and discovering her magic. She even fights off Risu's Curse power, which Dokuga and the others were unable to do.
Devils
Asu
A Devil who knows Nikaido and helps her out on several occasions. A former Magic User.
- Body Horror: He gets butchered (as in gets his horn cut off and then has his skin and several inches of flesh taken away to be sold) and turned back into a Magic User. A bloody, nearly dead Magic User.
- Childhood Friend: Nikaido's. Though, since she changed the past with her magic, he doesn't know it.
- Fantastic Racism: Used humorously with him and Thirteen.
- Teleporters and Transporters: His magic.
Chidaruma
An apparently high-ranked Devil who knows En. He loves pranks, but will unflinchingly inflict horrible deaths upon people. Poor Asu.
- It Amused Me: A bonus curse story shows him pulling pranks on anyone he can. Said pranks involve scooping up bird poop and throwing it at people, and making En's mushrooms rot.
- Jerkass
- The Man Behind the Man: Presumably to Kai.
- Rich Idiot With No Day Job: Why he has time to scoop up bird crap in the first place is a mystery.
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