The first three episodes of Dorhedoro came out last week. Another two episodes are out by the time this post goes up and while the fourth was out when I was writing this, I hadn’t had the time to watch it yet. Which is a real disappointment because it has been everything I could have hoped for so far. Things are just as weird and zany as they were in season one, but with the threat of it all dialed up a notch. Everyone’s at risk this season, even the supposedly invincible characters, and it looks like they’re not holding back at all. Three episodes is about a quarter of the first season and sees to be par-to-the-course for a show developed by netflix to release a triplet of episodes when they’ve only got a twelve-episode season, so I do feel a bit sad that a quarter of the experience is already over, but maybe it’ll be different. Maybe there’ll be more than twelve episodes this season or maybe a third season won’t take another six years to come out. Who could say? I have no idea what might be in store for us since I’m trying to avoid looking anything up about the show while I’ve still got unwatched episodes ready to go. I wouldn’t want any spoilers, you know?

So far, the biggest difference between Season 2 and Season 1 is a toss-up between the actually coherent storytelling that’s happening right away and the fact that the ending credit haven’t varied at all. I mean, the real variation in the end credits showed up after the first three episodes, so there’s still plenty of time left for that latter bit, but I almost stopped watching Dorohedoro because of how incomprehensible the first two episodes were until the later ones started providing a little bit of context and doing some backfilling. But with season 2? They started off strong right away and while it took a surprisingly long time for there to be any proper developments in the arc of the main characters (Caiman, the lizard-headed man who lost his memory and his ally/friend/maybe eventually more Nikaido, who also happens to be a sorcerer who has some kind of time magic that she refuses to use because of how it has gone awry in the past, so much so that she left the world of sorcerers behind to live as a human and helps her pal Caiman hunt down and kill sorcerers as he tries to find the one that put the spell on him that turned his head into a lizard head), but there was plenty going on in the meantime. N, the main villain and potential other protagonist even if he is a crime boss (neither side could really be described as “the good guys”), is just as much of a funny little weirdo as he ever was, and his underlings/family members are as entertainingly competent and imcompentent in turn as they were last season. It’s a great recipe for a story that makes every second of it fun to follow, no matter who the camera focuses on.

I am still excited to keep watching, only held back from watching each episode on release day by social obligations and my own exhaustion, and I am hopeful that this excitement will continue. One of my Final Fantasy 14 friends also enjoys the show and we’ve been talking about it a bit as we both catch up on, so it’s nice to have that built in. I still need to plan some time with a friend to catch up on Trigun: Stargaze, even if I’m not as excited by what’s going on there. I like to spend time with that friend, after all, and it’s mostly my own anxiety and general trepidation about an adaption of my favorite manga/anime series landing in rather “meh” territory with the middle of its season that is preventing me from continuing. I’ve watched a lot of “perfectly fine” shows and no amount of love for the older show or manga series should keep me from enjoying a perfectly fine adaption of this story, especially since I don’t actually know that it will be “perfectly fine” since it has already gone off course from everything I’ve already seen. I should just get over this anxiety, watch the dang anime, and cross one thing off my to-do list so I can start to have less stuff on my mind all the time. Maybe after I do my taxes this weekend… A little treat. A new episode of Dorohedoro and however many new episodes of Trigun: Stargaze are waiting for me to deal with my fiscal responsibilities. Just gotta… plan it now. Make it happen and all that. Small labors.