Dai Dark

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If you've read Dorohedoro you should have an idea of what you're getting into.

Ultra-creative, ultra-violent combination of horror, comedy and sci-fi.

This mangaka has a style that is so idiosyncratic and bizzare that it's almost hypnotizing.

This new adventure shows that she is hitting her stride and it's been a blast so far.

We've only scratched the surface of what I'd wager will become an awesome story.

... A lot of the art and character designs are very similar to those of her first work. Which is neither here nor there. Though I do not think the two worlds are connected.

I feel like this is an easier world to initially digest in than Dorohedoro (even though I adore Doro ^^).

There is little to no exposition and it's super easy to jump into and become immersed in the strange, gross and dazzling universe.

Hop on while it's still early and enjoy the hype!

I noticed that at the time I am writing this, no one else has reviewed the artistic genius that is Dai Dark--and so I have come to answer the call. This is also the first review I've written on MAL despite the fact I've used it for like 2 years.

Anyways, to summarize the manga in a few words: beautiful, dark, and morbidly funny. The concept of Dai Dark is so weird and out-of-nowhere, but the worldbuilding is fantastic and it makes you want to learn more. This really is a refreshing, original manga with its own unique balance between horror and comedy. Are you a ... fan of gore? A fan of space? A fan of pun-loving skeletons? Then this is the manga for you.

Story: 8

Intriguing, believable (in a Sci-Fi Fantasy sense), and carefully put together. The story is still ongoing, so I can't say a whole lot about wherever it's headed. But so far I'm loving it.

Art: 9

Very reminiscent of Junji Ito works, but of course with its own style. The art suits the tone of the story perfectly, depicting a kind of gritty realism. As an amateur artist myself I know how hard it is to draw some of (a lot of) the things in this manga, so I really really respect the art.

Character: 8

The characters are honestly my favourite thing about Dai Dark so far. Their witty banter gives a new life to the story, and it was my curiosity about who they were that made me keep reading.

Ah! Where to start? Dai Dark is the second full-fledged manga from Q Hayashida, the zany mangaka behind Dorohedoro. It's a deeply imaginative take on far-future space travel seinen with all the over-the-top violence and low stakes that make Dorohedoro great. If you've read Dorohedoro, read this. If you haven't, well...

Art:
What can be said? Q Hayashida simply kills it. There's no one like her. Both her charming character design and mindboggling background work demand a 10. The story notwithstanding, this one of those mangas you can read just to gawk at the gorgeous, uber-distinctive art. I'd put it up there with Hellper, Blame!, and CSM. ...

Story:
As with Dorohedoro, the one-two punch of whimsical art and bonkers worldbuilding does a great job to carry an otherwise straightforward plot. While there's plenty of gore to go around, the tone is largely lighthearted and it's hard not to have a good time. I'm normally one to dislike stuff with weaker characterization, but the tradeoff here is well worth it. It reminds me of why I got into reading manga in the first place -- it's good, clean fun.

Final Verdict:
Lord knows that Dorohedoro probably won't get a second season of anime, so it's doubtful that this manga ever blows up in the way I wish it might. That said, it's easily my favorite ongoing release, and I'd recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat. Go read it!

Great manga so far, very promising.

If you like Hayashida Q's previous work you will likely enjoy Dai Dark. Imagine the same kind of unique macabre atmosphere of Dorohedoro but in a sci fi future setting instead that sort of feels influenced by Blame's mangaka Tsutomu Nihei a little, but has the unique lighthearted charm that Hayashida's writing and style are known for. I look forward to following this I think it might even turn out better than Dorohedoro if it maintains this quality which im sure it will. I love the way the characters have been introduced and how you're just in the middle ... of an adventure immediately instead of the usual build-up and introductory formats you see copy and pasted in alot of other manga.

Bleak, grotesque, chaotic, lighthearted. Q Hayashida's craft is embodied by these traits and excellently incorporated them into the seinen cult classic known as Dorohedoro. Turning the clock back to 1997, Hayashida's debut one-shot, Sofa-chan, already laid the ground work for and implicated her distinctive style. A bizarre narrative, surreal personifications of mundane objects, a murky, heavy use of black, and an equilibrium of lightheartedness and horror.

And today, this style has earned Hayashida to be one of the faces on the non-existent seinen Mount Rushmore. Seinen is often viewed as an umbrella term for anything gore, violent and dark. Which Dorohedoro and Hayashida's other work unapologetically ... are. But giving them more than a brief glance, you'll see how carefully crafted her stories are. Beyond the extravagant bloodiness and chaotic narrative, Hayashida crafts marvelously fun characters, multiple engrossing mysteries and a memorable story. Of course, I wholly understand those who aren't fans of her style. But there's no denying the popularity her work has garnered, which is now focused on her most recent and on-going work, Dai Dark.


Dorohedoro ... in Space

While Dorohedoro was set in two separately connected worlds, Hayashida makes a grandiose move by setting Dai Dark in the vast universe, complementing her style extremely well. The vast outreaches and "emptiness" (fun fact: space is actually not empty!) of the universe contrives the common man's fear of the unknown and dark. And Hayashida capitalizes on this to create simultaneously craft grand world-building and a spice of horror. Unknown territories, creatures and phenomenon are constantly explored, enrichening the story's world.

The plot itself consists of 14-year old Zaha Sanko, legendary throughout the universe for the rumors of his bones fulfilling anyone's wish, and his wisecracking, grumpy and boney companion, Avakian. In their quest to release Sanko from his tragic situation. From the get-go, fans may see that Dai Dark bears some similarities to its popular predecessor. How Sanko and Kaiman bear unfortunate fates, one stuck with a reptile's face and one hunted down anywhere he goes, and their goals to escape them all while encountering many people along the way.

But I'm not suggesting Dai Dark is simply riding the tail coats of Dorohedoro, this series has its own unique and enjoyable charm. Most notably, its space setting. Expanding more on it, Hayashida manages to flawlessly weave in different planets and places in a single chapter from another. It'd normally seem like a tedious challenge to characterize the immenseness of the universe and end up scrambling and lost in that immensity. However, Hayashida doesn't trip herself up in this grand setting and info overload her audience, but instead takes her time to lay the ground work of the story. While some settings, like the Dark, are essential to the overarching plot that is still being crafted, others exist for episodic misadventures. Or in short, Hayashida places differing importance in the changing sub-settings while retaining enjoyment in every chapter.


Oh, the horror!

And additionally expanding on the horror, it's expectedly enjoyable. Hayashida's trademark lighthearted horror plunges in strong in this series, with its persistent gore and frequent skull and bones imagery. And thanks to its space setting, Hayashida creates a plethora of uniquely horrific aliens and species, from three-headed giants to a skull-faced dog(?). It also provides interesting abilities to its diverse cast, often gorey. Sanko's abilities all have "darkness" in their name and include melting bodies into bones. And there's Shimada's ridiculously overpowered death abilities, allowing them to casually blow enemies up in a frenzy of organs and guts. So as long as you follow the mischievous protagonists desensitized to gore and death, you'll be guaranteed to witness humorously bloody massacres.


Buff women and excessive gore

While Dai Dark has an array of unique looking aliens and creatures, you'll be sure to notice hints of Hayashida's memorable art-style and design. The characters are generally towering, with 14-year old Sanko measuring in at 190 cm (6'3" in burger units) and others following in similar suit. Sanko also bears striking resemblance to Shin from Dorohedoro. And of course, what's a Q Hayashida series without muscularly loveable women?


Besides character design, Hayashida's excessive use of black is blotted in nearly every panel. In conjunction with the gore, it adds greatly to the bleak and chaotic nature of the series. There's also the occasional stand-out panels permeating an unsettling tone and sense of surrealism that I adore.

Admittedly, I suppose the art and paneling can be hard-to-follow at times if you're not used to the deranged use of black and general chaotic nature of Hayashida's art and narrative. I see this as strengthening that chaotic and erratic personality of the narrative, but it's something that may turn some off.

And to once more fawn over the space setting, Hayashida creates a diverse cast of unique aliens and creatures that constantly reminds of us that it's set in different planets and places in the vastness of space. While Dorohedoro had Devils and peculiar masks that erased the presence of humanoid characters, Dai Dark features different species nearly each chapter and cloaks humanoid characters in unsettling garbs.



Silly and Goofy

And again, Hayashida's trademark style is found through the casual and dismissive nature of death. Even if you're new to Hayashida's work, you'll find yourself rapidly desensitized to the gorefest of spilling organs and torn faces and instead smirking at how comical these deaths can be. Provided you have a somewhat tolerable stomach, that is.

But Hayashida's comedic repertoire also extends to humorous dialogue and lighthearted banter between characters that offsets the rampant chaos from the previous panels. Sanko's skeleton companion, Avakian, is perhaps my favorite character whose sarcastic and irritated wisecracks I look forward to the most. And there's also some downright silly sides and traits to our seemingly hardboiled and daunting protagonists, like Sanko's obsession with mespa (*meat-ball and spaghetti sandwich) and Shimada casually eating the deceased's spirits like chicken wings.



Conclusion

Fans of Dorohedoro and dark comedy, praise be to the almighty. Though just under 20 chapters of the series have been published as of now, Dai Dark is shaping up to be a worthy replacement of Q Hayashida magnum opus. The dichotomous personality between gorey horror and lighthearted fun that earned her a cult following runs strong in this series' blood. And with its grand setting in space, you'll be sure to enjoy the prolific misadventures our protagonists get themselves into and the idiosyncrasy of the character design. I'm confident that this sci-fi move Hayashida made turns out to be one just as enjoyable as Dorohedoro with its own charm.

(First MAL review boysssss)
Extremely promising manga thus far, and is being CRIMINALLY under-read. Q Hayashida doing amazing work, as per usual. The macabre, zany, and comedic elements of Hayashida's work shine through superbly in Dai Dark, and I hope more people will check it out.

Story - 8

An intriguing premise so far, and is similarly set up to Dorohedoro in the early chapters, as both have a relatively simple "goal" in mind (Kaiman's head, Sanko's freedom). I'm enjoying the wacky Sci-Fi setting, and the world (or should I say dimension?) building has great so far, I'm eager to learn more about it. I'm super ... excited to follow this narrative and see where Hayashida takes us.

Art - 9

If you know Hayashida, you know her art style. Extremely gritty and gory in the best way possible.

Characters - 9

I LOVE our main cast so far, with the dynamic between Sanko, Shimada, and Avakian being a high point for the story already. In addition, the zealot-esque organization "Solar Mass" is shaping up to be a great main antagonist. Also, a few of the character designs are VERY reminiscent of a certain someone *cough* NIKAIDO *cough*, but it doesn't personally bother me at all.

-

Overall, I'm absolutely enthralled with Dai Dark in a way I haven't been with an unfinished manga in a while, and hope to see more chapters soon!

q hayashida marry me
anyway this shit is real good. if u liked dorohedoro ur in luck bcuz many of the character designs, cute lil faces, food obsessions, extreme body mods, wanton but not heartless cruelties toward poor beings lower down on the big old scala naturae, extremely heartless cruelties toward the same, are basically lifted straight from it, not in a bad way, its very early but 10/10 why not. i think Q Hayashida's art gets really underrated because people want nice clean lines and neatly ordered architectural panoramas pointing to a complex and organic communal life, not brutal slave societies and lines that constantly ... remind them of rotting offal, still dont understand this one. Working on this by reading "Dai Dark" by Q Hayashida, hopefully it can reveal some of these secrets everybody is always talking about as explicitly as possible to each other except in my presence, or failing that teach me whatever psychic autosurgery i need to figure them out.

Alright, to be honest, you really can't write a conventional review about Dai Dark, its a monthly release, by the same author as Dorohedoro. But none of that matters, Dai Dark, is all about not caring, Q Hayashida, threw the "how to make manga" book on the ground, stomped it, shred it, and threw it inside a volcano. The art is outstanding, the characters have great potential, world building rivals all time greats, and the comedy is up there. Doing all of this, in a style anybody but Q, would have been unable to. So far story wise, we know nothing, there is the basic ... premise but that's it. The potential is out of this world, and I could see this, not only surpassing Dorohedoro, but also becoming a masterpiece, and putting Q's name in the books. Looking forward to what it's got in 5 years. chapter 17

If you have read Dorohedoro, expect the same craziness or wackiness that you get when reading Dai Dark. At the time of writing, there's only 12 chapters translated. So far, I've enjoyed reading the story.

The story started slow since it wanted to establish the world and get you familiar with the characters. The series already give a hint on the end goal at early chapter so its good that you are able gauge the end of the series. The one thing that may throw you off a bit that some of the chapters feel like a filler chapter.

Art is great, as expected from Hayashida-sensei. The ... sketchy style emphasize the horrish world of Dai Dark and she's very good at drawing gore scene.

Characters are crazy and fun at the same time. They are not exactly evil nor good so its great to have these kind of character.

Overall, if you enjoy Dorohedoro and wanted more, read Dai Dark.

Im really disappointed because Dorohedoro is one of my favorite mangas of all time, this has none of the charisma that made Doro great. I have no investment in any of the characters, the way i can describe them is meeting people at the waiting room of your dentist office, you genuinely couldnt care less about these people. The plot has no direction whatsoever, I tried giving it 10 chapters before dropping it since i was Hooked by the 5 chapter of Doro. the gore is decent at best but the comedy feels kind of dry.

If we can recall why the ending of dorohedoro was ... so generic, was because Hayashida was drawing the story with what she felt like drawing at the time, it was draw first, think later, which i can respect in all honesty but that at the end brought upon such a rushed and unfinished ending.

I think the same happened with this one, i dont think Q is sure what she wants to do with Dai Dark, which makes me really sad that we wont see a piece of what made her magnum opus so good to read.

It gets a 4 only because of the art and character designs.