Doron Dororon: Research Notes

Tucker

Title:

• Doron Dororon ドロンドロロン
  • Just written out as syllables (katakana, which is the same as is usually used for words borrowed from other languages and onomatopoeia)
  • “Doe-rone, doe-roe-rone”
  • Seems to be based off the sound effect of the mononoke they fight in the first chapter?

Author:

• O’osuka, Gen 大須賀 玄（おおすか げん)
  • I put an apostrophe between the two Os in the author’s family name to emphasize that it does not receive a U sound as it would in most English words spelled with two Os (like boob and poop). Instead, it is a long O vowel that is pronounced with two beats of rhythm. Or you can think of it as two short O sounds that are pronounced one after another with no break between them.
    • [You might be thinking, ‘But wait, doesn’t ~ou~ represent an O vowel that takes up two beats of rhythm?’ and you would be correct! That is how it is written out in hiragana and katakana for the great majority of words (as おう). However, there are some exceptions where it is written as おお instead, such as for readings of the character 大, meaning “big.” There are reasons for this including possible historical sound changes and conjugation and all that jazz, but it’s way too complicated to get into any further here. Just know that for practical purposes, whenever you see a word in Japanese spelled with ‘ou’ or ‘oo,’ these are pronounced the same (as a long “oh”) and are just retaining Japanese spelling shenanigans.]
  • The “suka” in Oosuka gets the whispered vowel effect and is reduced to sounding like “ska”
  • Gen gets the g sound like in ghost and gate
  • Put together, it’s “oh-oh ska, gen”

Characters:

• Sasaki, Dora 佐々木 ドラ（ささき ドラ）
  • Sah-sah-key, doe-ra
  • The  佐 (sa) means aid/save/help/assist
• Kusanagi クサナギ
  • Ku-sah-nah-ghee
• Yagyuu, Ginchiyo 柳生 ギンチヨ（やぎゅう ギンチヨ）
  • Yagyuu rhymes with wagyuu (Wagyuu just means “Japanese/domestic beef,” btw)
  • Gheen-chee-yo

Other:

• Mononoke 物の怪
  • Covered this before, but the word roughly means “mysterious/suspicious thing”
  • Break it down in your head as mono-no-ke
• Izanagi Force
  • Izanagi is a Shinto god involved in the Japanese creation myth. Very similar to the Greek tale of Orpheus and Euridice. Izanagi tried to bring his dead wife, the goddess Izanami, back from Yomi, the land of the dead, but failed after fleeing when he saw his wife was now covered in maggots. Izanami cursed him and all humanity, because of course.
  • Ee-zah-nah-ghee

MaxyBee

Author: Gen Oosuka

Prior works:

- Golem Hearts (2017, Weekly Shonen Jump, 2 vols, 15 chaps)

- Had two one-shots for this, in Jump Plus (Aug 2016) and Weekly Shonen Jump (Jan 2017)

- Various one-shots from 2009 to 2019 (around 5 different ones that didn’t become series). So he’s been around a while.

Who they were an assistant for:

- Yuki Tabata (Black Clover)

Notable assistants:

- None I can see. Didn’t credit anyone in Golem Hearts, and I’ve not bought Doron Dororon to check for assistants there.

- BONUS: He was classmates with Kentaro Hidano, artist of ZIGA and Super Smartphone.

Publishing

Series it replaced:

- Red Hood or Neru. We’ve now covered all three series that started when they were cancelled. Well done!

Series that replaced it:

- Tokyo Demon Bride Story by Tadaichi Nakama.

Will finish out at 5 volumes long, including extras.

Manga Itself

• Is it awkward that a former assistant of Yuki Tabata does a series about a hero with no powers and how actually that’s a good thing? Even down to the absurd physical strength.