The trailer for Dorohedoro’s second season dropped a few days ago (as of writing this) and I’m getting pretty excited for it. It looks to have the same strange energy that the first season had, but with more going on? More order to find amidst the chaos? That or the trailer just took every bit of available “order” from the show and slapped it together in some kind of classic mislead that tends to crop up in trailers where they hint at something that doesn’t actually exist in the movie by showing you all of whatever it is in the trailer. I don’t think they’d do that with Dorohedoro Season 2, but anything can be made terribly, even things six years in the making (especially because it probably wasn’t being worked on for six years, but I don’t really know much about that), so I’m trying to avoid getting my hopes up too much. Which feels odd to say because, while I definitely enjoyed it while I was watching it, I thought I was much more neutral-trending-positive about it. Now, as I look back on it, I find that I feel more warmly about it and more actively engaged with it, maybe because my mind has had time to work through everything I saw, whereas I didn’t really give myself that when I first watched it? I mean, I binged the whole thing is a single go, more or less, so it stands to reason that I’d feel differently about it once I had time to let it settle, but this is maybe the first time I’ve liked something more as a result of that. Usually I either like it less or just appreciate some of the details more, which isn’t the same thing as liking it better.

I think I might go back and watch it again. There was so much going on all the time that I’m sure I missed plenty of details and now that I’ve learned a lot about the show, I’m curious what connections I might make as a result. It’s difficult to say whether or not Dorohedoro Season 1 is well or poorly plotted–though I’d definitely be comfortable applying the work “haphard” in regards to its plotting–because some amount of mess and chaos isn’t a bad thing, especially in a world as messy and choatic as Dorohedoro’s. It would be really fun to see if that evaluation stands up when watching it a second time since something that only makes sense in retrospect or upon a second viewing can be a lot of fun. It can also be incredibly difficult to get into and appreciate, since not a lot of people repeated watch or read media like I do (relatively speaking, anyway–I’m sure the percentage isn’t huge, though the absolutel number probably is) and something that doesn’t make sense right away isn’t exactly earning the audience’s time and attention. I think the show had enough other stuff to carry me along until it started to make more sense, but I haven’t forgotten that I almost bailed on the show completely and only my common refrain of “I’ll just give it one more chance” kept me from missing out on what has become one of my favorite recent shows.

There’s so much that just doesn’t make sense yet. I mean, it all fits within the logic of the world as I’ve come to understand it, but we got so many loose threads and open questions in season 1. Season 2 looks like it will provide some amount of answers, but I have no idea how many or if those will be enough to really figure out what’s going on. I have some suspicions, many of them now drastically altered by the contents of the trailer for season 2, but very little certainty and nothing I’d voice without stating that it was pure speculation based on weak data. There’s mysteries from the get-go that are somewhat explained over the course of season 1, but they really do a good job of giving you more questions than answers, so while I do know SOME stuff, it feels like barely anything at all. I’d be much more involved in rampant speculation about the series if it weren’t for the fact that the tagline of the anime is “lost in chaos” (used at the end of each episode as part of the narratorial discussion of what’s coming up, to indicate that the full details and outcomes of what the narrator says will remain unrevealed for the moment). When I run into something that’s actually leaning into the mystery of it all, that clearly has a plan for how all the information will be revealed, I tend to stop trying to actively figure it out and let the media take me where it will. I wouldn’t want to jump the gun on it, after all…

It’s just nice to have something to be excited about. There really isn’t much in my life these days that actually feels exciting. Most of it is stuff I know I’ll enjoy or appreciate, sure, but it’s not really exciting, you know? Which sucks. I don’t like spending so much of my life devoid of excitement or any kind of eager anticipation, but it’s the back-end of winter, I’m still incredibly burned out, and my job is making my life difficult (entirely separate from the burnout), so I’m not terribly surprised that little excites me these days. Maybe once the weather’s nicer or thing at work stop sucking so much (unlikely) or I finally find a way to feel rested (also unlikely), I’ll feel a bit better about things, but that might not be enough to make me feel excited about stuff again. Thankfully, to help get me through to the point where literally any part of my life improves, I’ve got Dorohedoro season 2. Just two weeks away as this gets posted and I’m sure I can make it through another two weeks of this anticipation and monotony.