Dai Dark
a review by saulgoodman
a review by saulgoodman
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.
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 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, they encounter many enemies hunting down the two down and strange experiences. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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's 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.
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