Dorohedoro Creator Q Hayashida's Dai Dark Is a Hilarious Sci-Fi Manga - CBR - Comic Book Resources

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Q Hayashida is one of the most unique manga creators working today. Her chaotic and detailed visual style is instantly recognizable to anyone who has read her work and her wild imagination allows her to build incredibly eccentric worlds. Best of all, her uncanny ability to combine dark and gory elements with a quirky, whimsical tone is a refreshing twist on traditional genres like sci-fi and fantasy. All these qualities are brilliantly showcased in her latest work, Dai Dark.

Half a year after Hayashida concluded Dorohedoro’s 18-year manga run, Dai Dark began serialization in March 2019. Both series share some similarities: they both follow a protagonist with a mysterious background who is somehow cursed, and both protagonists are trying to find the person that cursed them with the help of some weird and powerful companions. Both series are also very comedic despite having dark themes.

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Dai Dark tells the story of Zaha Sanko, a 14-year-old creature of Dark who is famous around the universe for having bones that can grant anyone’s wish. This means he's constantly chased by aliens for them. Sanko travels with a sentient backpack/skeleton robot named Avakian, who is very protective of him. They meet other strange figures along the way, including a traveling merchant of Dark equipment aptly named Shop Valley Box, and Shimada Death, a fellow creature of Dark that consumes death for food, has a plethora of skills and is probably immortal.

Similar to Dorohedoro, Dai Dark takes its time to get to the main plot of the series, which seems to be about Sanko trying to find the person who put the curse on his bones so that he can be free. But so far, the main characters are nowhere close to solving this mystery; instead, the series focuses on Sanko’s various adventures across the universe and on setting up the vast and strange world of Dai Dark.

This blending of sci-fi and fantasy gives Dai Dark a very distinct visual style. When most people think of a sci-fi world, it's usually a clean and sterile environment with a minimalist, high-tech look. But the aesthetic of Dai Dark’s world, especially the world that our protagonists dwell in, looks like it belongs in the dark ages. It is messy and gruesome, full of bones, dead bodies on skewers and flesh-eating bugs because, among other gory things, the world of Dark is basically hell in space. But this world strangely feels tangible, even somewhat comfortable thanks to Hayashida’s incredible artwork and the detailed and hilarious world-building that is naturally weaved into character interactions.

As always, Hayashida has created some incredibly likable characters for Dai Dark. Zaha Sanko is a young kid who has had to fend off attackers coming after his bones since elementary school. But he's still able to maintain a positive and cheerful attitude under all kinds of unusual circumstances, often involving others trying to kill him. His backpack Avakian is an overprotective and reliable companion, though his serious -- but sometimes obtuse -- personality also makes him quite gullible. The narcissistic and careless Shimada Death might be one of the best portrayals of a gender-ambiguous character in the manga, the up-front way that Hayashida introduces this character makes their gender irrelevant to the plot, and it is an admirable feat.

Despite the seemingly dark story and visuals, the tone of the series never feels depressing, mainly because of Hayashida's morbid humor. Sanko lives in a world where flesh and bones are currency and the villains are either incompetent evil-doers or over-the-top cult members, so naturally, they all end up as money for Sanko or food for Shimada. Deaths are never treated seriously, in fact, they're usually a gag or a necessity. The absurdist humor is usually juxtaposed with realistic scenarios like bargaining for equipment, cooking spaghetti and even vaccination, making the characters and the situations strikingly relatable and even more entertaining.

With Q Hayashida and Dorohedoro finally getting the attention they deserve through the popular 2020 Netflix anime adaptation, now is the perfect time to get into Dai Dark before it gets its own anime. The official English localization of the first volume, which released in Japan in 2019, comes out on April 27, licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment.

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About The Author

Xianwei Wu (63 Articles Published)

A recent graduate from Journalism and mass communications from the University of Iowa, Xianwei has written academic papers on fandom and video streaming websites. But her true passion has always been anime and manga, something she has loved since first grade. She is also a massive fujoshi and is unashamed of her love for everything Boy's Love related.