Why did Dorohedoro change magazines three times?
It never changed magazines by choice. Two of its magazines died under it.
Readers meeting the series in book form see one label, Ikki Comix, on all 23 volumes, and assume a quiet life. The chapters tell another story: three magazines in eighteen years, and both moves were funerals.
The short version: Dorohedoro was a launch title for a new magazine, outlived it, outlived its replacement too, and finished in a magazine aimed at a different audience entirely.
IKKI
2000 to 2014 · the home it was born inA launch tenant
Spirits Zokan Ikki was a new seinen magazine from Shogakukan, and Dorohedoro was in its first issue, dated 30 November 2000. The magazine was built as a home for auteur manga, and Hayashida became one of its defining names.
The rename
In 2003 the magazine settled into its lasting name, Monthly Ikki. Nothing else changed: same publisher, same monthly cadence, same editor culture of letting artists work slowly.
The end
Monthly Ikki published its last issue on 25 September 2014. Fourteen years of the series were orphaned at a stroke, with the story deep in its final movements.
HIBANA
2015 to 2017 · the replacement that also diedThe rescue
Shogakukan launched Hibana as Ikki’s successor and Dorohedoro resumed there on 6 March 2015. The tankobon line did not even blink: volume 20 arrived in September 2015 under the same Ikki Comix label.
Two years
Hibana ceased publication on 7 August 2017. The replacement had lasted barely two years, and the series was homeless again, one year from its ending.
MONTHLY SHONEN SUNDAY
2017 to 2018 · the unlikely last homeA seinen guest in a shonen house
From 10 November 2017 the series ran in Monthly Shonen Sunday, known as Gessan, a magazine for a younger audience than Ikki’s. An eighteen-year-old seinen epic finished its run between schoolboy adventure serials, unchanged in tone.
The finish line
Chapter 167, the last, appeared on 12 September 2018. The magazine that hosted the ending would also host Hayashida’s next series, Dai Dark, from the following spring.
THE EVIDENCE ON THE SHELF
How to see it without this pageRead the book dates
Volume 19 is dated January 2014 and volume 20 September 2015. The twenty-month silence between them is Ikki’s death, visible in any complete set.
One label, three magazines
All 23 volumes say Ikki Comix. Japanese tankobon labels follow the book line, not the magazine of the month, which is why the odyssey hides in plain sight.