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What would you do if you were to awaken with no memories, oh, and your head is now that of some reptile? That’s the kind of situation the man called Caiman finds himself in. His world is strange, his life is stranger, but he’s got a good outlook and lots of friends. That’s what counts. How do you make a new life for yourself when this sort of thing happens? Let’s find out!

Caiman would wake up in an alley way, confused, no memories, and his head is now that of a lizard. Living in the Hole, a place where mortal humans try their best to live as normal lives as they can, because sorcerers come from their own dimension to perform horrific spells on humans for experiments, or just for fun. So, Caiman’s predicament was not as unusual as one may think but still not ideal.

Thankfully, Caiman was discovered by Nikaido, a friendly, local, gyoza restaurant owner. She would be the one to give Caiman his name, since his head is like that of caiman reptiles. Caiman would learn that he also had even stranger features beyond his head, if he enveloped someone into his mouth, there was a man within a pocket dimension who would look upon Caiman’s victims to judge if they were the sorcerer who did this to him. On top of this, having a spell like this on him, made him immune to other sorcerers’ spells.

Nikaido and Caiman would decide that they could help protect the people of the Hole and find the sorcerer who changed him by fighting off sorcerers as vigilantes. The two would spend their usual day to day going to work, Caiman found work as an orderly at a local hospital that specializes in sorcerer victims. His great strength would be very helpful in holding people down as they struggled in agony from their magical curses.

When he isn’t fighting sorcerers or helping tend to their victims, Caiman is at Nikaido’s shop eating as much gyoza as he can get. Being known as a kind and strong protector, the people of the Hole don’t fear the lizard-headed man, they welcome him. Day in and day out, he’s nearly chomping on sorcerer heads to find out if they are the one who cursed him and when he finds out they aren’t, he finishes the chomp.

There was one chance Caiman had when he found a lead on a sorcerer, but she was taken back to the sorcerer’s world just as he was about to find out if she was responsible. This would lead to Caiman realizing that they must find their way to the sorcerer’s realm so he could find the one who did this to him. This would begin a whole new set of adventures for Caiman and Nikaido, all the while, Caiman would make friends in both the Hole and sorcerer’s world.

Caiman comes to find out that his vigilante work and noticeable head have gotten the attention of En, the sorcerous mob boss. Now, Caiman has an entire magical mafia family coming for him, if they can find him. Another power is discovered about Caiman when a fight goes really badly, he can lose his head and still recover. This means that Caiman is effectively immortal and his spare heads can be collected as a morbid shelf piece.

Another feature of Caiman and the strange man in his mouth, they both have these eye tattoos and there is a gang with the same eye tattoos. This links Caiman to the gang but now he has to figure out how they’re connected and if the man is a member. This further entangles him the sorcerous world. To make matters even more complicated, Caiman would learn that Nikaido was a sorcerer.

There you have it! There is far more to Caiman’s story and the truth will be revealed, but not here. Dorehedoro is a manga series that ran for eighteen years and has recently had a small screen adaptation anime. Not wanting to spoil what happened to make Caiman so you go check it out for yourself. Also, it’s complicated to really explain and you should decipher it all on your own. See you next time!

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Dorohedoro

Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net