Dorohedoro season 2 has concluded. At only eleven episodes long, it feels distinctly shorter than the first season, but also a little bit longer if only because it does not spend the first few episodes spinning its wheels. While it is clear that the information within those first episodes is important in retrospect, season 2 does not rely on the long view of the series to make its episodes relevant. Every seemingly disjointed moment, all of the action and reaction that weaves through its first episodes, comes together quickly, breaks apart, and then returns for the conclusion of the season. It is incredibly clear, from the pacing of the season and the final beats of the last few episodes, that there is more to come. Unlike the first season, which left on a a downbeat, a retreat from the action and a moment of setup for the long-haul, season 2 ends on the climb up to what feels like the story’s finale. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the next season (which has been formally announced even if no other information has been provided yet) is only going to be six episodes. There may be plenty more story to tell that I can’t anticipate, but it really feels like we’re heading toward the end of things at the pacing that Dorohedoro likes to take.
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A Eulogy To Akira Toriyama: How The Dragon Ball Manga Changed My Life
Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball and so much more, passed away this month. I learned about it last night (on the 7th of March, since I’m writing this on the 8th and you’re reading this on or after the 15th) and have spent the last day reflecting on the impact he had on my life. I don’t really talk about it a whole lot (because it was more than two decades ago and for other reasons that will become apparent soon), but I got into manga, comics, and graphic novels as a whole because of Dragon Ball. Before finding those bright red volumes on the “new” shelf at my local library one day when I’d ridden my bike there for some books to read, my entire conception of comics was confined to the syndicated comics that ran in newspapers, so much so that I didn’t call them comics. I called them “funnies” because they showed up in the “funny pages” of the newspaper. Sure, I’d read tons of picture books as a kid and a few things that rode a fine line between graphic novels and picture books, and sure, I knew what comic books were, but they’d never been a part of my life before I picked up one of the brightly colored books and was transported to a whole new world via a whole new type of story. That moment, that first borrowing of the first Dragon Ball book, was a major inflection point in my life to the degree that I can’t even imagine the person I’d be if I never picked it up. The change wasn’t drastic in the moment, but it laid the groundwork that I’ve built a huge portion of my life on since then.
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