Shonen Jump’s Doron Dororon is Haunted by Another Manga’s Failure

Warning! Minor spoilers for Doron Dororon chapter 4!

Doron Dororonis Shonen Jump‘s latest manga to rise from the ashes of axed series that failed to sell enough copies, but things don’t look good for the newcomer even though it has barely begun just because it’s essentially a blander version of another failed title called Bone Collection.

In Doron Dororon, a boy named Dora dreams of becoming a samurai to save humanity from the evil mononoke that plague his world but doesn’t possess nearly enough power. So, he ends up pursuing a ridiculous alternative instead by meeting probably the only kind mononoke in existence named Kusanagi and wielding him as a blade to rid the world of these monsters.

Bone Collection‘s Kazami Jinai was in a similar predicament except he’d already achieved the status of his world’s equivalent to samurai known as exorcists. The problem was that he was incredibly weak and only became an exorcist because he came from a powerful family who were highly proficient in their ability to exorcise their world’s version of mononoke known as yokai. Also like Dora, Kazami had a special connection to his world’s evil spirits. He could perform the forbidden yokai spell that allowed him to borrow their power.

However, Kazami’s relationship with his equivalent of Kusanagi provided a whole wealth of dynamics in the first two chapters of Bone Collection currently missing in Doron Dororon. Kazami got entangled in the life of a voluptuous female yokai named Paira who had a much more complex dream than Kusanagi. This, in turn, complicated her relationship with Kazami in ways that somehow make Kusanagi and Dora’s unique alliance seem dull. Kusanagi just wants to create a nicer world. Meanwhile, Paira yearned to be human, and, of course, Kazami was uniquely suited to make that dream a reality. Whenever he performed the yokai spell with her, he pulled a bone from her body that transformed into a different weapon, and as he pulled more bones from Paira, she got closer to becoming a human. Best of all, she was attracted to Kazami and articulated her desire to marry him by chapter 2. She was quite persistent, too, a headstrong mentality that intensified every time Kazami tried to get out of it.

Unfortunately, Bone Collection quickly lost all focus and became a caricature of itself by centering almost completely on ridiculous situations and over-the-top emotions, possibly because Shonen Jump had already put it on the chopping block. Regardless, the manga had an amazing amount of potential in the early chapters and promised a lot more than what Doron Dororon currently offers. In fact, Doron Dororon feels as though it will likely fail more spectacularly than Bone Collection did even if it avoids falling into the same rut as its predecessor. In addition to lacking compelling relationships without even a hint of romance, Doron Dororon desperately needs to introduce some twists soon to jumpstart the story. As of this writing, the fifth chapter hasn’t been released, and by that time in Bone Collection Kazami was being hunted by exorcists for using the forbidden yokai spell, there was a character who evoked some of the more disturbing qualities of Hunter x Hunter‘s Hisoka who wielded a power much like Goku’s Dragon Fist, and Bone Collection was creating the impression that Kazami’s ability to wield the yokai spell was similar to why Naruto could summon so many Shadows Clones. Yes, Doron Dororon has a long way to go.

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