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"What did the guy inside say to you?"
Dorohedoro is a Seinen series created by Hayashida Q. First premiering in 2000 in Monthly Ikki (a magazine specializing in underground or alternative manga), it ended in 2018 after almost 18 years being serialized, with 23 volumes. However, it changed magazines a few times during its run; it ran in Monthly Ikki from 2000 to 2014 before moving to Hibana in 2015 after Ikki ceased publication, and then to Monthly Shonen Sunday in 2017 after Hibana also ceased publication. Described by the creator as being like "a song with really dark lyrics, but a melody that's so happy that you want to dance to it," it manages a delicate balance of gratuitous amounts of gore, a fondness for displaying the random boobie or two, and a stark-black sense of humour.

In the gloomy, dank and dystopian underworld so dismal it's known only as "the Hole," sorcerers from a different world, the so-called "Magic Users", have been plucking people off the streets to use as guinea pigs for atrocious "experiments" in the black arts. The series follows the story of Kaiman, an unlucky fellow who had such an encounter with a Magic User, that left him with his head transformed into that of a reptile's and unable to remember who he was before the transformation. Since then, Kaiman has been travelling around the Hole, accompanied by Nikaido, his female companion, in hunt of any Magic Users he can come across, hoping to find whoever cursed him and that in doing so he will be able to reclaim the lost memories of his past.

As alluded to by the quote from Hayashida Q above, Dorohedoro is a series best described as "a bunch of nice, friendly characters making the most out of living in a place that is simultaneously a Crapsack World and a World of Badass". Despite the grim setting and copious amounts of gore and Squick, the series has a very offbeat sense of charm and places heavy emphasis on both The Power of Friendship and The Power of Love. The series is also well known for its quirky sense of humor. The juxtaposition between the grim setting and the comedic elements of the story creates a very strange but engrossing atmosphere as the world of Hole and the intricacies of its society are revealed to the viewer. The result is a setting of borderline psychopaths living in absolute squalor that nonetheless maintains a positive, if not downright cheerful atmosphere for most of its run time, and it makes for an unconventional yet fun experience.

There's an OST in the making, approved by Hayashida Q.

It was announced in the final volume that it would receive an anime adaptation by MAPPA, which began airing in January 2020 in Japan, with Netflix streaming the series worldwide in May 2020. In January 2024, it was confirmed a second season is in the works and will be released at an unknown date.


Provides examples of:

  • 12-Episode Anime: Though with promises of another six OVA episodes bundled with the second Blu-Ray.
  • A-Cup Angst: Played for laughs with Ebisu, who is quite underdeveloped in that area. She even tries stuffing Kikurage down her bra once.
  • Abbey Road Crossing: Chapter 99 has one.
  • Abhorrent Admirer:
    • Chota has a huge crush on En. He doesn't reciprocate.
    • The bloated, warped landlady apparently has the hots for some of her Cross-Eye tenants. When one of them has to date her to prevent her from evicting them, it's treated as a parody Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Action Girl: Most prominently Nikaido and Noi. But also the Devil, Haru. Ebisu can be one when she's lucid, but that’s very rare.
  • Advertised Extra: The Sorcerer turning people into bugs was shown quite prominently in the trailers for the anime and one could be forgiven for thinking he was a major character. The fact that he doesn't even have a given name should probably clue viewers in that he's just a punk who Kaiman kills at the end of the first episode.
  • Affably Evil: Devils, when they aren't randomly killing people for fun.
  • Alien Blood: Magic-users can be identified by black particles in their blood.
  • Amnesiac Hero: Kaiman doesn't remember anything before being transformed.
  • Anti-Climax: After En is resurrected, instead of going after the Cross-Eyes' Boss he ditches everyone to return to his mansion and is promptly incapacitated by the magic-sapping rain.
  • Anti-Magic: A few variations:
    • In general, someone who is already affected by magic is resistant to other magic.
    • Kaiman, being hexed by Risu's Curse and Ebisu's smoke is immune to smoke.
    • Chota's smoke reverses the effects of magic.
    • And Noi can restore a body to its normal state (healing Shin's arm after a Magic User starts to melt it). And, if the Cross-Eyes are well informed, Noi's smoke could have undone Kai's transformation into a pie.
    • Normal and half-humans aren't affected by the rain, which is so full of concentrated magic that it sickens magic users (it never rains in their world until it starts to towards the end of the story).
  • Anti-Villain: Most of the main cast.
    • En's Family are a bunch of brutal murderers, but every single one of them is more than capable of being completely amicable and nice to not only one another but outsiders. In addition, they all have several sympathetic qualities, like Shin and Noi's love for one another and En's desire to keep his family safe.
    • The Cross-Eyes are a group of drug-peddling thieves and bandits but they're all also poor and destitute to the point of hilarity. Dokuga and his gang are emotionally vulnerable despite being grown men, and they live in a society that oppresses them due to their inability to produce smoke. They also follow their boss not out of a sense of respect, but for the obligation of being saved by him. It's sad that he doesn't give two shits about them, and is easily able to kill them without hesitation.
  • Art Evolution: So much. At first, it was extremely detailed but rough at, well, everything. Kaiman looked more monstrous, Nikaido's hair was done in a more realistic fashion, En looked psychotic and angry the whole time, Risu had his hair up, and everyone, while they were always strong, looked a bit shorter and anatomically a bit rough. Also, the girls' breasts looked like they had silicone implants (i.e. they sagged little to nothing). After years of evolution nowadays Kaiman is positively adorable, Nikaido has Anime Hair, En looks bored or serious (and when he's angry he doesn't look like a madman any more), Risu has short Wild Hair no longer standing like a pack of needles, everyone has better anatomy and finally the girls' breasts sag properly (like natural boobs, if you don't believe it check the latest chapter as of this edit (131) and see for yourself). Sadly, this came at a price, with the art becoming more sketchy, at least, in the backgrounds...
  • Asshole Victim: Why most of the Gorn is Played for Laughs. During the second half of the story from En's death on things start getting a lot less funny, and as such the Gorn becomes Squick.
  • Author Appeal:
    • Food and cooking, especially if it's Japanese street foods like gyoza or nikuman. Several main characters are restaurant owners, and others like Asu are amazing cooks even if they don’t cook professionally. Many important conversations take place over meals, and the eating habits of characters receive special attention that’s unusual for an action manga. In fact, the first opening for the anime is just Nikaido cooking. Intensely cooking, but still. Which is between various copies of Kaiman marching and splatting on the ground, with the second time having their heads replaced with gyoza.
    • Q loves shonen manga and battles. It's quite telling considering her work.
    • Nudity, both male and female.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Why En is in charge of the Magic Users world.
  • Avenging the Villain: The main plot gets started when Kaiman kills Fujita's partner Matsumura. Which gets En after him, which gets Shin and Noi after him.
  • Ax-Crazy: Shin during work, even if he actually uses an hammer.
  • Bad Boss: The Cross-eye's leader will kill even his most trusted friends to get what he wants: their magic powers.
  • Back from the Dead: In general, this is Kikurage's ability. In one specific instance, En's after being killed by Kai.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: En's family, being vaguely mafia/yakuza-like, embraces this, although there does seem to be a degree of leniency, as Shin and Noi seem to wear T-shirts or hoodies under their jackets quite a bit.
    • This only applies to the higher-ups. Fujita (when not at social occasions), wears shorts. And most family members wear some sort of garment that resembles a boiler suit.
  • Badass Normal: The Cross-Eyes. In theory, at least. Only Dokuga is consistently able to stand up to the stronger Magic-Users.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy: Subverted in how the women are drawn – they usually have nipples and pubic hair. The men, however, aren't drawn with nipples, and the man inside of Kaiman's mouth is drawn with a featureless crotch. Curiously, the men aren't drawn with nipples, but at one point some En-shaped plants are.
    • Played straight in the anime, where the women are drawn without nipples (if their breasts aren't obscured, that is).
  • Bash Brothers: Characters in this series always tend to come in pairs; Nikaido and Kaiman, Ebisu and Fujita, Shin and Noi, Jonson and Kasukabe, Risu and Aikawa. In the case of Magic Users, it's a societal norm and an actual institution. Magic Users are expected to find, and be dedicated to, a single partner. They can gain extra abilities regarding it (like being able to sense when the other one is in danger) if they sign a contract on Blue Night that forces them to stay together (willingly or not) for the next four years. That being said, partnerships between Magic Users don't have to be Blue-Night official to be effective, as seen by Yaku and Baku, and even without a contract mages will gravitate into forming extremely tight-knit pairs.
  • Battle Couple: Blue Night partnerships don't have to stop at Bash Brothers, and can be romantic, though they are rarely seen among named characters. This is one of the (many) reasons En reacts with Squick at the thought of being Chota's partner despite Chota's incredible magic; Chota would inevitably misunderstand it as a go-ahead to try and take things farther than En would be at all comfortable with.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For:
    • Happens with Ebisu's parents. After Ebisu leaves home, they ask a shady magic user to create an exact replica of Ebisu to replace her. At first looking like a perfect copy, the fake Ebisu is actually a dangerous demon who goes berserk for very petty things, making Ebisu's parents flee their own home in sheer terror.
    • Deconstructed with the wish-granting devil. He prefers granting stupid or selfish requests, so if you want your wish fulfilled you have to make it sound silly or greedy. When trying to get their friends healed, the Cross-Eyes wish for things like money. Natsuki, being Natsuki, decides to wish for Dokuga to be happy... and the Devil makes him laugh, sending his poison spit everywhere.
  • Benevolent Boss: En is terrifying, but seems to take good care of his men.
    • Subverted with Kai. Given that the Cross-Eyes idolize him and he gave them a reason to live, one would expect him to be A Father to His Men. If he finds out that one of his comrades have magic he wants, he will kill them just like anybody else.
  • The Bet: The devils are betting their powers on whether the Cross-Eyes' leader succeeds or fails. Considering they'll be turned back into magic users and the Cross-Eyes' leader wants to kill all magic users it's a pretty huge one. They lost and Store painfully gets rid of all their devil bodies. Fortunately Asu is there, has all his body parts, and is willing to help them... after he does "The Spiteful Dance".
  • Beware the Superman: Magic users experiment on humans, with humans for the most part unable to do anything about it. High class magic users like En also appear like this to weaker Magic Users, like the Cross Eyes.
    • Thirteen freaks out when Nikaido returns to the Hole with a bunch of (friendly) sorcerers.
    • The devils are this to everyone, even the strongest magic users are afraid of them and are forced to worship them. Kneeling down before a devil slightly reduces the chance of being killed or horribly mutilated for fun.
      • Store, in turn, is this to devils. It seems pretty tame and often does business with them, but they can't quite get over the fact that It can kill them and does so in a manner that's horrifically brutal even for this series- it quarters them before violently peeling off their "devil suits" and leaving them to rot.
  • Big Eater: Kaiman, Shin, Noi, even the little Ebisu can eat quite a bit.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Johnson is a 2-meter tall cockroach.
  • Black Comedy: Extremely so. Comedic Sociopathy is in full effect for everyone in this story.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: The Viz translation has many issues, for starters:
    • Fukuyama (Tanba's male employee) was called a waitress, or a little girl, when he's in fact a young man. Conversely, Kirion (Tanba's female employee) is referred to as male in later volumes.
    • Kikurage is literally called Judas's Ear and is mistakenly called "he" - it's a "she".
    • When Chota is listening to the radio about his horoscope, the radio announcer says the "Taurus" prediction, when in reality, it's a "Capricorn" prediction; En's Capricorn, not Taurus.
    • There are many unnecessary swearwords all around. Though characters do swear, it's not to that extend.
  • Blob Monster: Natsuki's magic. She can cover herself with blob-like substance to protect herself from attacks.
  • Body-Count Competition: In episode 2, Noi compares her brutal kills to Shin’s.
  • Body Double:
    • Turkey's ability is to create doubles (from cooking ingredients). These doubles can't speak, and instinctively seek out their original's body.
    • Asu uses his devil powers to make Chota into Nikaido's double so Nikaido and Kaiman can escape En.
  • Body Horror: What magic users (especially amateurs) do to muggles. Kai, what with his multiple heads and all (some of which are rotting). There's also the Cross-eyes in Kasukabe's wife's house who had so many failed surgeries to use magic they look like they're wearing masks but they aren't.
  • Body Motifs: Heads, especially multiple heads, are a recurring motif in the series:
    • Because so many characters wear masks, that being particularly relevant in the magic world, the heads of characters are even more important to the general design of each character. Kaiman, the main character, also has a mask and an unusual head, which is a focal point of his design and of his character's story.
    • Because magic users get their powers from a devil in their brains, and En's family's member Kikurage can bring people back as long as their devil is intact, heads are also important in fights as destroying the head becomes the main way to kill a magic user for good. Similarly, the devils also become relevant for a way to make the black powder, leading Kai to have an entire room made out of nothing but the heads of magic users he keeps as prizes. Although that's not something Kaiman knows, during his fights with Magic Users, he also aims for the heads, but with the intention of putting them into his mouth.
    • The main villain for a good chunk of the series has multiple heads, and can regrow them at will, and especially when their multiple personalities are switching. Over the course of that conflict, each head represents a life he has, which requires him to be killed nine times to eliminate all the heads. Multiple heads get killed through damage to the heads themselves, like the Tanba magic users cutting his head longitudinally with a cleaver, Shin beheading Kaiman, Curse beheading Kai, Risu beheading the final head, etc.
    • The final enemy of the manga: Hole-kun turns into a giant head with the lake of sludge for an eye.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Kaiman and Noi. It gets really creepy when they act like this while killing people.
  • Boobs-and-Butt Pose: Cover 16.
  • Bowdlerize: Interestingly, the anime has little to no censorship, gore and nudity are shown without problems in the Netflix broadcast. Most of the instances of nudity that the manga had uncensored remained without the nipples. However, the scene in episode 10 where Noi and Ebisu are charged with giving the Bound and Gagged Nikaido a bath has Noi and Nikaido still dressed (and cuts away before either woman loses their clothing), whereas the manga version of this event had them both naked. Ebisu is also shown wearing panties in this scene, while her bare butt was exposed in the manga.
  • Brainwashed: Making a contract to be someone's partner doesn't seem to require the consent of both parties. Nikaido becomes loyal to En due to the contract between them that En forced on her, and even once it's removed from her body, she's told that she'll become loyal to En again if she ever lays eyes on him at any point before the next Blue Night.
  • Break the Cutie: Subverted with Ebisu in the first volumes since the author made it look hilarious.
  • Brought Down to Badass: Shin's smoke doesn't work on Kaiman, but then Kaiman makes the mistake of thinking that Shin is a Squishy Wizard, and gets stomped on.
    • Asu eventually cheeses off Chidaruma too much and loses his devilhood. Of course, you have to be an elite magic user to become a devil in the first place.
  • Bullying a Dragon: When a pair of bullies pick on Fujita and Ebisu, knowing full well that they work for En. Now, this would be fine, seeing as Fujita is a weakling... but his friends, Shin and Noi are not.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Mushroom-happy En. He lives in an enormous estate filled with statues of himself, sells mushroom items (including some that, when in the trial stage, attach themselves to people and refuse to let go), and decides that testing dream mushrooms on himself and his subordinates is a good idea. With all of these quirks, which are Played for Laughs, it is easy to forget that he basically rules the Magic Users' world.
  • Butt-Monkey: Fujita just can't seem to catch any breaks. Upon hearing that he will be sent on a dangerous mission, the other members of En's Family, somewhat surprised that they were not chosen, conclude that he was chosen because he is expendable.
  • The Caligula: Kai. Erratic, homicidal and prone to switching personalities, he takes to sending his men out to collect the heads of as many Magic-Users as possible. Which he uses to create and fuse with some sort of flesh monster for no apparent sane reason.
  • Cast of Snowflakes: While some characters do resemble each other and certain features are reused often, the resemblances are usually on purpose, and if you took hair and clothes away, the characters would still be very easy to tell apart by face and body type alone.
  • Cannot Cross Running Water: A variant: All Magic-users are weakened to the point of immobility by rain-it's mentioned it never rains in the magic-user world. It's a plot point several times in the series.
  • Central Theme: Racism Is Bad. You shouldn't look down on others because they're different from you, and real friendship can look past initial appearances.
    • The Vicious Cycle that dominates the series is rooted in Fantastic Racism. The only reason why things go as bad as the do is because Magic Users oppress their own people and torture the residents of Hole on a daily basis. This leads to the following: En dying, Kai coming back, the spirits of the magic user victims possessing a corpse and turning into an artificial demon, the Magic Users world being completely and utterly destroyed, widespread mass murder and more. Had the Magic Users exercised restraint on their own people instead of running amok, the story would have never happened.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Most of the main cast can slice and dice their opponents quite easily, with their bare hands if need be. They also happen to be fast enough to deal with guns.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • In a bonus chapter, Shin is plagued with a feeling like he's constantly being watched and goes to view his devil friend's concert with the intention of asking for his help afterward. It turns out that he was cursed by a magic user and a devil's song breaks curses. Later, Risu's Curse is about to attack Kai when Haru unknowingly breaks into song and scares him off, inadvertently saving Kai.
    • During his first fight with Shin, Kaiman is beheaded and killed, though he resurrects by himself. Vaux, him, and Nikaido attempt to dissect it to see if they learn anything about it, but it vanishes during a power outage. Risu's Curse is revealed to have stolen and kept it, and through magic, a Devil brings him back to life during the final arc using that head.
  • Clothing Damage: Generous amounts of it, especially for the ladies.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Ebisu, though it is due to brain damage caused by Kaiman. When she recovers her original personality, she is a quite serious and stoic girl, but in her resurrection, a magical hairpin ends up in her brain which returns her to her brain damaged personality.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Land: The Magic Users' world, full stop. Strange fashions, stranger masks, odd architecture, a restaurant whose main attraction is a toilet connected to Hell...
  • Combat Medic: Noi's magic is healing people. She's also a bruiser that can crush people with her hands.
  • Costume Porn: Is such a thing as costume Gorn? Welp, the clothes are VERY detailed, and are a pain for fan artists. You'll be surprised of how many folds and textures even a pajama can have!
  • Crapsack World: Oh boy. You could end up living in a filthy, crime-filled slum and die by way of criminals or Magic Users, who think that turning you into something awful is a really good time. Or you could be a Magic User, living in a similarly bad world with skilled Magic Users running the whole show. And when you die, if you were born a magic-user, you go to straight to hell.
  • Creepy Crosses: Upside-down crosses are a common motif in the Magic Users' land, and Magic User gravestones are upside-down crosses on top of large eggs.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ebisu of all people. When using black powder, she turns into a giant lizard.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Anyone on the receiving end of Shin's vivisection ability. Except it doesn't actually kill you, though it slowly wears off over a period of two months.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Two notable examples: En to Kaiman and Kai to En.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Most people - unsurprisingly - have one of these. A variation with Nikaido, who is troubled because her past doesn't exist.
  • Darker and Edgier: Once the Cross-Eyes take over the Magic Users' World and start killing off Magic Users. Arguably, the trend began about when En curb-stomped Kaiman, leading to the return of Kai.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The Bonus Curse chapters occasionally focuses in secondary characters like Natsuki, Risu and Ebisu.
  • Death is Cheap: Played with. Most of the main characters end up dying at least once, horribly maimed, or incapacitated by magic (i.e. being dismantled or turned into a pie) in a way that might as well qualify as dead. However, because of powers like Noi's Healing Factor, normally-fatal or debilitating injuries can be healed without consequence. It becomes somewhat more problematic if the victim is long-dead or killed instantly, but even then, En has a pet — er, family member that can bring Magic users back to life, so long as their Devil-Shaped Tumour remains intact.
  • Demon of Human Origin: Devils are magic users that have undergone years of training and passed the Devil Exam. Though given their origins as a similar but distinct race created by Chidaruma, the human part is somewhat open to question.
  • De-power: At the worst possible moment Risu fulfills his Curse against Aikawa by stomping on his head and loses his Curse powers, just as it's revealed Ai/Kai/Aikawa/etc. was just the host for something worse.
  • Devil, but No God: The setting has no "benevolent" deity, only devils.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: From the beginning it looks like that En is the Big Bad of the series (which isn't saying much thing considering the Black-and-Grey Morality in this manga), but after several volumes later it turns out that the actual Big Bad is Kai, as he schemes to steal the abilities of every Magic User. But then by the end of Volume 15, it seems like that the real actual Big Bad is Chidaruma.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Nikaido, who looks positively bored while killing people in horrible ways.
    • Becomes positively horrifying when, as Kaiman accosts poor little Ebisu, Nikaido stands there with a massive smile on her face.
  • Drugs Are Bad: The Black Powder is basically steroid for magic users: it greatly strengthens their power at the expense of utterly crippling them if they aren't prepared for it.
  • Dungeonpunk: The setting as a whole falls under this. The Magic Users' World plays this straight, but Hole tends towards more of a traditional Cyberpunk aesthetic as the Muggles there are completely incapable of using magic and use of regular old technologies instead.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Just about everyone who's still alive by the end receives a happy ending.
    • En's Family all get revived and make it through the mess with Noi, Shin, Fujita and Ebisu being able to move on with their lives.
    • Shin reassures Noi that he will stay in the sorcerer's world for the rest of his life and the same would go for the two's partnership.
    • Fujita is finally able to let go of his friend's death and is looking forward to becoming official partners with Ebisu. The same could be said to Ebisu as she is seen buying him a(very silly-looking)new pair of shoes in replacement for the funeral shoes he's been wearing for the entire series.
    • En is brainwashed by Shou into forgetting Nikaido, likely as a favor to Kaiman for saving them all, meaning Nikaido will live on without getting forced into a partnership she hates. It turns out later that the spell wears off since En keeps getting triggered into remembering Nikaido, but then Asu informs him that Nikaido can't use magic anymore and En promptly drops her for good to the relief of the family.
    • On top of this, Shin realizes that Kaiman and the Cross-Eyes Boss are two different people, and lets him off the hook for all the trouble his alternate selves have caused since he now owes Kaiman his life.
    • The two remaining Cross Eyes officers are shown mercy by Kaiman, who wordlessly gives them a gift of Noi's healing smoke in a gesture that simultaneously fulfills his obligation to them as the Boss and ends his involvement with them, to the betterment of both parties (though he still regularly runs into them later as coworkers for Nikado's Hungry Bug restaurant).
    • Chidaruma is forced to live a life as a human for fifty thousand years as punishment for losing his game note 
    • Risu and Asu decide to take the exam to become Devils together.
    • Professor Katsukabe returns to Hole and reunites with Jonhson, but keeps in touch with his ex-wife Haru.
    • The residents of Hole manage to set up a religion to Hole-kun and make a monument out of his corpse- while this sounds gruesome, his bones still have the debilitating effects of the rain, and will thus cause any magic user to pass out in pain. This means that the people of Hole finally have a defense against rogue magic users and the era of "Magic Practice" has finally ended after millions of years.
    • Lastly, Nikaido reopened the Hungry Bug with Kaiman working for her, just as she wanted to.
  • Eldritch Location: The Hole Central Department Store is where the climax of the story takes place. The store seems bigger from long distances (despite being relatively small from up close) and is built on the Lake of Refuse, an enormous cesspool of blood, gore, corpses and trash. The effects of this lake are so strong that it affects the very city itself- the lake is where the magic-user debilitating rain comes from and reality is warped in and around it. Once Kai completes his ritual and becomes a Devil for real, the entire store loses all sense of location. Places warp back around on themselves in infinite loops, rooms appear and disappear randomly and people are teleported around inside of it. All the entrances become blocked by mysterious black walls, and it sinks into the cesspool of the lake it's built on.
  • Everyone Can See It: It's pretty obvious that Kaiman and Nikaido, and Shin and Noi don't want to confess their feelings for each other, leading to many She's Not My Girlfriend moments. Possibly the same with Ebisu's crush on Fujita as well.
    • Shin and Noi especially. Among the Mooks of the En family, it's pretty much taken as fact that they are already dating. One guy walks in on Shin straddled over Noi and his reaction shows he isn't at all surprised to see them "sleeping together" (though it was a misunderstanding). Instead he's just embarrassed he didn't knock first and worried they'll be mad.
  • Evil Costume Switch: Nikaido, upon being made to join En's family. Once again when she starts turning into a devil as well.
  • Eye Scream:
    • In a flashback sequence, it is shown that Tetsujo had his left eye stabbed by a Magic User wielding a pair of scissors.
    • Also in Volume 1, Nikaido makes the eye of some thug fly away by just kicking him in the face.
    • Nikaido does this to Noi, slashing her eye. But since this is Noi, it doesn't stick.
  • Eyes Always Shut: Natsuki.
  • Face of a Thug: Both played straight and averted. When masked all the cast look like it's out to get you (it probably is actually...), when unmasked they're all pretty cute. En even ventures into cute little boy territory in a flashback.
  • Facial Markings: The Cross-Eyes Gang have — you guessed it! — crosses tattooed over their eyes. This becomes important, as Kaiman has these tattoos, as well. There's also a wanna-be Cross-eye with a WW2 German-style helmet with Naruto-like "claw marks" on his cheeks.
  • Fair-Play Whodunnit: The first part of the story has shades of this, as the author provides plenty of hints (some easier to catch than others) that may allow readers to have a right guess at what is going on before they are precisely told. However, starting roughly by the time Kai is introduced, the story sharply turns into a Clueless Mystery, even tho is still kinda obvious, at that point, that multiple personalities are involved.
  • Fake Boobs: Ebisu orders a pair of these along with an outfit in order to compete with Noi. Nobody except Noi pays any attention, though.
  • Fantastic Caste System: Dr. Kasukabe notes that, as far as weak magic Users are concerned, the Magic Users' World is little different from the Hole.
  • Fantastic Drug: The Black Powder is essentially this, allowing weak magic users to temporarily power up their abilities. It is produced by extracting and distilling all the smoke from the Devil-Shaped Tumours of powerful magic users.
  • Fantastic Racism:
    • Magic Users and Devils consider humans to be little more than trash only fit for performing experiments on or eating.
    • Played for Laughs when Kawajiri (Asu) says something along the lines of "Shut up, human" to Thirteen.
  • Foil:
    • Shin's magic can slice people up; Noi's magic can heal them.
    • Nikaido is a magic-user who lives as a human; Ai/Kai/Aikawa/Kaiman was a human who wanted to become a magic user.
  • Forced Transformation: Transformation is a very common type of magic, usually limited to specific forms (for example, En can turn anything into mushrooms).
  • For the Evulz: Devils mess with people for the heck of it, ranging from throwing crap at them to growing to enormous size and stepping on them. To be fair, this basically appears to be their job description and a side-effect of becoming a devil at all.
  • For Science!: Kasukabe. He even tells Kai that he wants to help him in order to study him (and was responsible for turning Kai, then Ai, into a magic user.) He even struggles to record explanations on phenonenon on the brink of death.
  • Foreshadowing: That Nikaido is a magic-user: she "gets sick" when it rains in Hole in chpt. 4, and all magic-users are weakened by rain. Also with regards to Nikaido, when she becomes En's unwilling partner he gives her a costume with devil horns; many chapters later she's turning into a devil with real horns.
    • Nikaido's door is shown to be designed like a cassette tape, and has fast forward and rewind buttons on it, hinting that her magic is time manipulation
    • When Kaiman and Nikaido go shopping for clothes, a certain outfit catches Kaiman's eye but the significance of it is very easy to miss. It's the outfit Aikawa wore during Risu's flashbacks, and the connection Kaiman feels with it is evidence of him being Aikawa.
    • Also, Nikaido at the first opening is shown with a laughing while chopping meat, this foreshadows when she starts becoming a devil at the end of the manga.
    • We learn very early in the story that the Cross Eyes boss orders his men to fetch every possible magic user corpse to study them and become stronger and, on several other occasions, that magic users get their magic from a little devil-shaped tumor in their brain that produces smoke. We get the full picture of this only much later, when we learn that the Cross Eyes boss get his magic powers by implanting the devils of powerful magic users he has killed into his own brain, and the devils he won't use are grinded up and turned into black powder.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Ai. Started out as a kid in the Hole who wanted to be a Magic User. Ends up ruling the Magic Users' world.
  • Flying Broomstick: "Broomsticks" are more like wheel-less flying motorcycles, though they can be used for cleaning. And taxis.
  • Gender Bender:
    • When Asu transforms Chota into Nikaido in Volume 7.
    • Happens later in chapter 78 with Nikaido and Asu.
    • When Nikaido becomes a full devil, her outer appearance becomes very masculine, albeit, handsome. The "real" Nikaido is still female.
  • Genki Girl: Natsuki and Noi.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser:
    • When Fujita ends up playing baseball against Kaiman and crew (and Fujita's zombified partner Matsumura for good measure).
    • Kasukabe and Shin end up working together or hanging out with each other.
  • Gorn:
    • Oh, lord. Every time there are fights, expect body parts flying around.
    • The Cross Eyes Occupation and Central Department Store arcs have absolutely incredible amounts of gore every few pages. Things like Kai's room full of magic user heads, the unsettling way in which Kai regenerates, and everything to do with the artificial Devil suit that Kai manages to create are absolutely Nightmare Fuel.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Chota is viciously envious of Nikaido for having been chosen by En as a partner (even though she was forced into it), and will mistreat, disrespect, and even try to maim her at every turn.
  • Grey-and-Grey Morality: You couldn't honestly call anyone in this manga good or bad with a straight face.
  • The Grim Reaper: Risu and Aikawa meet one of these in a Bonus Curse story.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Since humans and magic-users are two different species, Shin and possibly Kirion, who are not as affected by the rain as pure-blooded magic-users.
  • Healing Factor: Noi, who can regenerate an entire body provided that her head survives.
  • Hell Gate: The Magic Users' world has toilets and dumpsters that connect to Hell.
  • Heroic BSoD: Kaiman has one when, led by a small fraction of memory, he goes to an abandoned school building in the Magic Users' world and realizes he was actually Aikawa and not Risu.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Aikawa tries to get rid of Kai by letting Fukuyama turn him into a pie. Unfortunately, the Cross-Eyes find some of Chota's smoke lying around.
  • Hope Spot: While exploring the underground looking for Kai, Ton is knocked over by a tide of blood and gore after opening a door. He wakes up unharmed, eventually comes across Natsuki unconscious in a liquid-filled hole. He manages to pull her out and resuscitate her. After wandering around a bit more, he realizes that he had just been killed and devoured by Kai, that Natsuki was dead as well, and that they have been reduced to little more than devil-shaped tumours absorbed by the monstrosity that Kai had become.
  • Hulk Speak: Slightly subverted; Ebisu talks in a childish, stilted manner.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Stoa, a horrifying bird-man-thing capable of killing even devils. It's invisible to normal eyes. It's implied to be an "angel" in opposition to the "devils" that live in hell.
    • Kai. Whenever he appears, everything seems to twist around, Magic Users feel ill, and see the headless/neckless man that Kaiman/Aikawa meets in his dreams. When he changes from Aikawa to Kai, his head explodes off of his body.
  • I Just Want To Be Abnormal: Ai was a normal human from Hole who wanted to become a magic-user; unfortunately magic is restricted to the Mage Species. He eventually succeeded and became Aikawa/Kai, and now he wants to become a devil, which the other devils find highly amusing.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal:
    • Kaiman wants his head back. As in, he wants to look human again.
    • Risu and the other non-magic-users of the magic-users' world who attend the school for Magic Users. All they really want is to be Magic Users.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: En serves the people he turns into mushrooms in his restaurant.
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit: Devils, no longer constrained by mortal limits, love these. Actually averted for everyone else when they are in their combat gear. Badass in a Nice Suit Shin pointedly wears sneakers because running or fighting in dress shoes would suck. The monks of Hole wear tracksuits and running shoes underneath their robes when they have to deal with zombies. Most characters actually have a separate, practical outfit for when they expect to fight.
  • Invisibility: Shou. This, combined with him being difficult to notice (he was the En family's assassin before Shin and Noi) makes most people forget about him. Except for En. He later enchants Fujita.
  • Institutional Apparel: Striped prison uniforms are worn in the jail in the magic users' world.
  • Invisible to Normals: The Gyoza Man. Apparently he's a fairy that oversees Nikaido's restaurant.
  • Jekyll & Hyde: It is gradually revealed that Kaiman, Aikawa and Kai share the same body.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Applies to many characters, but Tanba is possibly the most notable example. Despite beating his employees for incompetence and constantly insulting them, he actually shows concern for them. He is also the one who helps Kaiman after he comes alone to the world of the Magic Users to find about his past.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Tetsujo. Though it gets averted once he fights really strong characters and his katana doesn't help much.
  • Killed Off for Real: Thanks to Kikurage's ability, this trope rarely happens. But it still has limitations. Basically, anyone too damaged or rotted away is impossible for Kikurage to heal like Matsumura, although Noi can "freshen up" the body back to suitability like with Risu's mummified head, Ebisu and En's corpse.
  • Knight Templar: The Hole once had an anti-magic squad, who brutally killed any Magic user or anyone involved with them, until they killed Shin's father for marrying a magic-user and Shin discovered he really likes using his hammer on people's heads. When Kaiman learns this he blames Kasukabe for helping Shin and destroying the only people who ever stood up to magic-users in Hole.
  • Large and in Charge: When Aikawa/Hole becomes a devil-like being he becomes four meters tall and immediately starts thrashing magic users.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Kaiman, a.k.a. Aikawa. Twice. He also somehow managed to forget being the Big Bad.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Fukuyama can beat opponents instantly by turning them into pies. He beats some of the Cross-Eyes this way, and even Aikawa (who admittedly let it happen). En's mushroom power is similar, just substitute mushrooms for pies. He can also propagate them through spores without directly using smoke. This bites Kaiman, who is only immune to smoke, in the butt. En even manages to take down the Cross-Eyes' Boss by filling him with mushrooms until he nearly explodes and dies — unfortunately that wasn't his final form.
    • Natsuki's magic is large and blobby, but becomes less funny when even Risu's Curse ability can't hurt it.
  • Lizard Folk: Kaiman. Also, Ebisu's ability is transforming people to reptiles. And it is indeed Ebisu's smoke that transforms Kaiman into his lizard form, though it wasn't by her hand directly.
  • Mask Power: Freaking everyone.
    • Masks are a status symbol in the magic-users' world. If you prove your magical skill to a demon, it will make a mask for you. Those with lesser powers emulate this with home-made or store-bought masks, such as Ebisu and Fujita.
    • Gas Mask Mooks: En's henchmen.
  • Mad Doctor: Kasukabe seems pretty happy about having made his magical door out of human Magic-User skin.
  • Made of Plasticine: Sure, Noi is strong, but it's supposed to be nigh impossible to karate-chop a person in half.
  • Mage Killer: Kaiman (who gets introduced as this in a boxing match) and Dokuga. What the Cross-Eyes' leader really is — the rage of all the human victims of Hole using Ai's body on a quest to kill all magic users, even talent-less ones like the Cross-Eyes.
  • Mage Species: The series has a very biological approach to magic: Magic Users have a special organ in their abdomen for producing magic smoke, with smoke ducts running along their arms to their fingertips. They also have a tiny devil-shaped tumor in their frontal lobe. It appears magic users were created by devils, and Chirudama creates a magic user for fun.
  • Make Way for the New Villains: Although the Cross-Eyes had been introduced earlier, they were little more than side characters to the main conflict... until their boss comes back. Their revived boss effortlessly kills En, scatters any En Family members he didn't manage to kill in time, and resurrects the Cross-Eyes as the new main villains. Weirdly, thanks to his Split Personality, he's able to do this again after he completes his human sacrifice and becomes Artificial Devil Kai. The Cross-Eyes leadership, previously shown to be able to kill Magic-Users by the dozens, are slaughtered by his bestial new self, leaving Hole-Kun (Devil Kai's final form) and his zombies as the final threat.
  • Meaningful Name: The Cross-Eyes have a few. Dokuga, a Poisonous Person, is the name of a poison moth. Ton, a fatty, is the name of a pig. Lampshaded during their part-time jobs, where they each where costumes related to their names. Shin, whose name means heart, wears an anatomical heart-shaped mask.
    • Hole itself: The town got its name from Chidaruma "admiring" the giant sink hole that swallowed a mountain of human corpses made by ancient magic users, which later became the waste pit where the human Ai transformed into the magic-user Aikawa.
  • Medium Blending: The anime is mostly 3D animated, with some sequences and effects done in 2D.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: This and that the victims decided to fight is the reason that the wholesale slaughter unleashed by the Cross-Eyes isn't treated as a Moral Event Horizon.
  • Mood Whiplash: The Boss, the character perhaps taken the most seriously in the entire manga, transforming into a Humanoid Abomination not even capable of speech anymore, horrifying and mystifying his subordinates...only to have to have Dokuga make him stop eating garbage off the ground and trying to drink water from a sewer.
  • Mook Horror Show: The first few panels look like a couple of innocent people getting massacred by a lizard monster; this scene loses none of its disturbing quality when the two are revealed to be Magic Users. For bonus points, Matsumura's last action was helping Fujita escape...
  • More Dakka: Fujita attempted to blast Kaiman and Nikaido with a machinegun, En told him to don't try it. Also, his door is fashioned after a lot of magazines and pieces of guns stacked together.
  • Mugging the Monster: Some thugs decide to mug Nikaido and get killed horribly for it.
  • Muggle Born of Mages: Anyone from the magic-users' realm who can't use magic (or is really poor at it) is regarded as no better than a human from Hole.
  • Muggle Power: The Hole militia, Option 2.
  • Mundane Luxury: After taking over En's house Dokuga and friends are much more impressed by the stash of food than the gold.
  • Mundane Utility: Fujita's nigh-useless smoke makes him an incredible pitcher.
  • Mushroom Samba: En gives himself and his subordinates mushrooms that allow them to have lucid dreams... which promptly turn into nightmares.
  • New Weird: Where to start? Not a typical horror or urban fantasy story: sorcerers with masks using magic smoke, becoming a demon from hell being treated as a job, weird science that exposes the rules of magic, undead removal treated like a community anti-litter day...
  • No Ontological Inertia: Everything a magic user has done decays and stops upon their death.
  • No Romantic Resolution: There is plenty of Ship Tease between Kaiman and Nikaido and Noi and Shin respectively (even Fujita and Ebisu get some). However by the end neither of the pairs end the manga as a romantic couple. They do affirm the deep bond they have with each other, though
  • Nothing but Skulls And Heads: The Cross-eye leader has neatly stacked collection of skulls and heads that goes to the ceiling. When it gets knocked over during a rainstorm the result is messy.
  • Number of the Beast: Comes up so often that it's more of a Red Herring. Conversely, pretty much any three-digit number other than 666 is important.
  • Older Than They Look: Professor Kasukabe is well over sixty, and looks maybe sixteen. Justified, as he used Magitek to make himself appear younger. This could also apply to his wife Haru, who's also a devil.
  • One-Winged Angel: Kai. By fusing with something he made out of flesh and a bunch of heads.
  • Our Demons Are Different: Magic-users can become devils if they can survive Training from Hell that includes not using their powers for a year. Noi failed because she used her powers at the last minute to save Shin (En doesn't mind because Shin saved Noi); Nikaido is turning into a devil because Asu's helping her relearn to use magic and she's accustomed to not using her powers. Other magic-users-turned-devils are Asu, who was literally stripped of his powers after it was discovered he was helping Nikaido; Kasukabe's wife, who can get out of her devil "body-suit" for a limited time, and apparently Aikawa/Kai who made a "devil suit" that the other devils find intriguing.
  • Pac Man Fever: A bizarre aversion happens in the third ending of the anime. It showcases a parody of a cross between Wolfenstein 3-D (the level design) and Doom (the HUD) with En as the "player" and using shrooms as his weapons. The "gameplay" shown is very, convincing to the point an unsuspecting viewer might think it's a real custom Doom wad, given the rather faithful "graphics" and "gameplay" compared to the original game.
  • Perpetual Poverty: The Cross-Eyes in Berith. They keep the light off as long as possible to save money and take whatever (crappy) jobs they can get. They almost lose their house until they (accidentally) kill the landlady. Justified in that they need to keep a low profile and cannot take any major jobs.
    • Nikaido is almost perpetually broke, to the point where she is eventually forced to enter a prize fight to pay for rent and keep the Hungry Bug in business. Subverted in that it turns out the reason she is broke in the first place is because Kaiman never actually paid for all the food he's eaten at her restaurant, and that his frequent visits scare off customers. Once Kaiman leaves on a quest to discover his identity in the Magic World, business starts booming.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: En, whose mushroom power covers an entire village with mushrooms during his battle with Kai. The Cross-Eyes Boss also qualifies.
  • Phlebotinum Pills: The black powder, which dramatically enhances the strength of Magic Users.
  • Pinky Swear: Kaiman and Nikaido share one.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Nikaido as a child. She was even able to take down adults in hand to hand combat.
  • Planetville: The Magic Users' world has multiple cities but The Hole seems to be one Mega City.
  • Plot-Triggering Death: The series opens with the protagonist goes on his daily Magic Users hunt routine and kills off a weak, unimportant mob. Turns out killing the henchman of the most powerful mafia family in the Magic Users world makes you their target, kicking off the series of events of the story.
  • Poisonous Person: Dokuga. He takes baths after his companions and eats alone to avoid poisoning them. He does manage to kill an entire party of Magic Users by taking a bite of something and throwing it into the punch bowl.
  • Power Copying: In hopes of becoming a sorceror, Ai takes Little Devil Tumours and implants them in his own brain. Kai does it by outright devouring his victims whole, ripping out their tumours in the process.
  • Psycho Knife Nut: Kaiman, Aikawa, Risu, Kai, Dokuga, Ton... Three of these are actually the same person. Kai still takes the grand prize for putting the "nut" in "Psycho Knife Nut".
  • Psycho Supporter: Chota was locked in his tower for four years before his introduction, and isn't pleased when En chose Nikaido to be his partner over him (Chota) and plays many cruel pranks on her like dropping bowling balls on her head
  • Puny Humans: Haru thinks of humans this way. She even makes a song about it.
  • Put on a Bus: Kaiman. After getting beaten up by En and losing his lizard head when Ebisu dies, Aikawa's personality becomes dominant.
    • The Bus Came Back: Kaiman comes back though, when it turns out Devil!Nikaido resurrected Kaiman with his original personality from his preserved severed head from close to the beginning of the manga.
  • Putting on the Reich: Nikaido's (and Chota-as-Nikaido) costume when she's En's partner.
  • Reincarnation: Kai/Ai/Kaiman/Aikawa. Whenever he gets killed, a new head appears on his body. Though the same personalities reappear, his inner world is filled with various corpses, presumably previous personalities. Occasionally, one of these return, such as the original one, Ai, who is rotting.
  • Ret-Gone: What happens to Nikaido's surrogate sister. She also erases her entire past. Nikaido manages to make it better though.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Cross Eyes, who started out as the oppressed in Magic User society, stigmatized, tormented and forced to live overall sucky lives because they lacked magic power. Once they gain political power, Kai decides that it is time to begin the slaughter. Mountains of corpses result.
  • Rule of Three: Chapters typically end with three things we learned. From chapter 113:
  • Samus Is a Girl: You have no idea that Noi is really a girl until she takes off her mask by the first time.
    • Ebisu was less obvious with her skinny body but unless you're already used to Q Hayashida's style, you don't expect a young girl under that skull-faced mask.
    • Kirion has a very un-girly, bulky "fursuit" and even without it looks only slightly more feminine than Fukuyama.
    • Haru, Devil!Nikaido, and an unknown number of female devils on account of their "outer selves" being very masculine.
    • This ends up being the case for Turkey, who on a whim decided to slowly transform himself into a woman using high-level magic.
    • Considering the tone of the manga and ambiguous pen name, you could say the author herself is an example.
  • Scaled Up: This turns out to be Ebisu's power.
  • Secret Identity: Several examples: Nikaido is a magic user; Aikawa is really the Cross-Eyes leader and Risu's killer; Shin's dog is actually a devil; Kirion is a human when she is not affected by things that would weaken magic users
  • Shout-Out: Ebisu has a poster of Jason Voorhees in her room.
    • The fully demonized Aikawa/Hole looks like a ragged version of humanoid Sauron.
    • Risu is an Expy of Tetsuo Shima, there's a panel that ]homages it. Also, his appareance is based on that of Billy Idol of all people! Go check the Shock to The System video.
    • OH MY GOD! SHIT!
    • In episode 4, Ebisu is seen holding a CD of the manga's soundtrack and reading the list of songs.
    • The third ending is a straight up parody of Doom, with En in the role of Doomguy and using mushrooms as his weapons.
  • Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Bones occasionally feature in character designs, and devils are said to like wearing bones as fashion items like necklaces.
  • Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: There is nothing shiny here, even elite places are filled with stains and scuff-marks (though that could just be the artist's style).
  • Spell My Name With An S: The Viz releases change Kaiman's name for "Caiman".
  • Split Personality: Aikawa/Cross-Eyes Boss Kai/Ai/Kaiman literally has different heads for each personality.
    • Literal Split Personality: The four main personalities are Kai, Aikawa, and Ai Coleman- Kaiman is just Aikawa with a lizard head and no memories. Despite this, later in the manga a second Kaiman is created (complete with a whole new body), and Aikawa hijacks it to save the day, seperating the personalities into the original body (just Kai) and the newly made body (Aikawa, Kaiman and Ai Coleman)
    • Split-Personality Merge: What happens as a result of the above. Aikawa remembers everything from all three of his lives- his life as Ai, his life as Aikawa, and his life as Kaiman, creating a combination personality of all three. This is symbolically represented by the new personality looking like a combination of Aikawa and Kaiman's outfits- Aikawas mask with a backwards cap (complete with Kaiman's spikes jutting through it) and Kaiman's Mage Killer outfit.
  • Spoiler Opening: Besides being loaded with Food Porn, the anime adaptation's intro symbolically foreshadows the true nature of Kaiman, his "death" midway through the series, and the madness that will eventually consume Nikaido.
  • Squishy Wizard: Averted with the main ensemble. Many powerful Magic-users including the heroes have Charles Atlas Superpower to go along with their magic. The aversion is justified with Noi, whose magic lets her heal her own injuries. Outside of that though, average magic-users are still basically people and go down as easily if their magic can't prevent it.
  • Serial Escalation: Just when you thought the Gorn couldn't get any worse, the Cross Eyes begin collecting heads...
  • Stalker with a Crush: Chota is unashamedly gay for En. The feeling is NOT mutual.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Noi is one of the tallest members of the cast and is tied with Nikaido for having the most sex appeal.
  • The Stoic: Dokuga. Justified in that he literally cannot laugh out of fear for killing his friends.
    • Nikaido when she's unwillingly made into En's partner; she has a blank look no matter what's happening to her. She goes the opposite way when she's hopped-up on devil powers, then swings back to blank when she becomes a full devil. Her "outer self" is still smiling under its mask.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: Risu's Curse form.
    • The cross-eyes' boss to Aikawa.
  • Supreme Chef:
    • Turkey. His recipe for clones is delicious.
    • Nikaido during her transformation into a demon, whose gyozas send everyone into a frenzy for more.
  • Surreal Horror: It gets particularly blatant in dream sequences, when it gets harder and harder to tell who is speaking to who, or when it was supposed to take place, or what the hell that actually is. The author's art style makes a good part of the main story have this feel to it as well.
  • Sympathetic Murderer: Shin, whose father was killed simply because Shin's mother was a magic-user. Shin took revenge by murdering the entirety of the anti-magic squadron, thus dooming the entirety of the Hole. But he's still rather sympathetic, probably because of his easygoing personality.
  • The Syndicate: En's family is this in the magic users' world.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: Kawajiri's magic.
  • The Reveal: Why rain weakens magic users, why the victims of magic users rise as zombies, and what exactly is going on with the Cross-Eyes' leader: According to Ai's "ghost", it's collected rage of the human victims of magic users that congealed at the bottom of the pit. It went into him and now its goal is to kill all magic users, even ones with no magical abilities like the Cross-Eyes.
    • Kaiman's identity is that of one personality living in Aikawa's body. The others include the original user, Ai Coleman, and the Big Bad himself, Kai.
  • Three Shorts: While almost every episode adapts at least three chapters of the manga, the actual episodes are inconsistent on having them be separate segments of the episode; generally, every even-numbered episode is broken up into three segments (except for episode 8, which had four), while every odd-numbered episode (except episode 9) has just one.
  • Time Travel: Nikaido's magic power, which is why En wants her as his partner - he wants to go back in time to when he fought an extremely powerful Cross-Eye member, and find out who he was and whether he actually survived their encounter, since all he remembers is seeing that Cross-Eye's headless body get up and escape through a magic door.
  • Token Mini-Moe: Ebisu. Though, her actual age is never mentioned, so she may simply be flat-chested.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Kaiman is actually a homicidally berserk Magic User. And the Big Bad of all things.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
  • Torture Is Ineffective: Not explicitly stated, but the determinators who make up the cast aren't often affected by it.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Kaiman loves Nikaido's gyoza, En loves mushrooms.
  • Training from Hell: The Devil Exam, which involves wearing massively heavy armor, carrying around giant bats, and — the hardest part part for most magic-users — no using magic for a year. It's also a literal example, in that devils live in an actual Hell.
  • Transhumanism: Replace becoming another human/going into a more powerful, robotic body, with becoming a devil, and it's the same.
  • True Companions: The En family, Kaiman and Nikaido, Dokuga and his friends.
  • Unreliable Narrator: En's biopic, although Shin and Noi back up the part where the Cross-eyes leader curbstomps them.
  • Urban Fantasy: A variant in some way. The Magic Users ride on brooms (basically flying, smoke-powered broom-shaped motorcycles) and use cell phones. Plus, the whole setting reminds a cyberpunk-like esque universe.
  • Viler New Villain: En's family are fairly easy to sympathize with. The villains who take their place, the reformed Cross-Eyes, start their reign by committing out-and-out genocide against Magic-Users, something En's family would never even think of doing towards humans.
  • Villain Episode: This manga concentrates just as much on the "villains" as the "heroes".
  • Villains Out Shopping: The En family will often be shown engaging in everyday activities. In the case of Shin and Noi, they will be at some fancy restaurant. En runs his many non-evil businesses, and Ebisu plays with Kikurage. They also actually go shopping.
    • The Cross-Eyes in Berith (Dokuga, Ton, Tetsujou, etc.) live in poverty and try to find whatever jobs they can. For much of the series, their appearances involve keeping the lights off as long as possible to save on expenses, freaking out because they missed recycling (which they turn in for money), or finding various strange jobs (termite extermination and hot springs workers).
  • The Voiceless: Kirion.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Rain physically weakens Magic users. When Kai going One-Winged Angel makes it rain in the Magic Users' world, most of the Magic Users start collapsing and feeling ill. Kai seems to have absorbed some of the rain's toxin, as being near him gives Magic Users the same effect.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Oddly enough, Kaiman is terrified of ghosts. The same guy who is alright with zombies. According to him, zombies are only hungry.
  • "With Our Swords" Scene: Fujita gets loaded up with Family magic before he goes to recon the Crosseyes leader. Subverted, in that he has to leave it all behind, so that he doesn't fight recklessly.
  • Wretched Hive: The Hole. The gritty artwork makes the entire place look dark and dirty. Houses are cobbled together out of who-knows-what or are part of a disheveled urban sprawl. Though good people can be found, having to dodge the crime and the zombies as well as Magic User attacks makes it not so fun to live there.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Hole gets one regularly, possibly due to the fallout of magic smoke from the Sorcerer's world having various effects on Hole's corpses. The people turned this into a money-making event.

All of this is still... in the most chaotic shambles.

That is... DOROHEDORO.

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