Doro’s Journey from Meme to Official Mascot

Written by Rei Caldombra 10/10/25 Video: https://youtu.be/b642o0anmDg

Opening

Hello everyone, Rei Caldombra here. I am a huge Doro enthusiast and have put an unnatural amount of time towards thinking about Doro and ingesting content about her. Something about this goofy gremlin creature really captured my heart through all the fan works and eventual promotional material surrounding her. Lots of people know of Doro, having come across some of her many edits and memes, without knowing Nikke or her origins. I want to share my obsession with you, diving into the journey Doro / Dororong has gone through from a drawing on a forum to an official mascot of Goddess of Victory: Nikke who has traveled around the world in real life. I had a lot of fun putting my strange passion towards Doro into writing, so I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Me guzzling everything I could find concerning Doro like a drug addict.

Please do keep in mind that the legacy of Doro involves sources in multiple languages from various places across the internet. So there could be some minor inaccuracies and will definitely be some details left out. I love to talk about Doro but I can’t mention absolutely everything. I also cannot credit every single drawing, meme, edit etc. as most of them have been spread around a ton and do not have watermarks. But I will cite everything I can, and if any Doro creators see something that you made here feel free to shout yourself out. I also include a lot of links and pictures for your reference. If there is anything genuinely incorrect, let me know with evidence and I can add annotations.

And no this isn’t sponsored in any way; I just love Doro I so will promote Doro related things.

Origins

Doro / Dororong is loosely based on Dorothy from the Goddess of Victory: Nikke video game. Nikke is a gacha game featuring behind the back (emphasis on the behind) shooter gameplay following the story of a world where Raptures have taken over Earth, forcing humanity underground and to rely on cyborg soldiers called Nikke to defend themselves and retake the surface. The game first released in July of 2022. I had heard about it at that point but just thought of it as the gacha game that puts the most emphasis on butts (based). Eventually I picked up the game in December of 2022 after hearing even some people I know praise the game’s story and character writing. And they were right; I became a big fan of the series soon after. I do not play it consistently at this point, but I pop back in and play for a bit every few months or so. The game really picked up this Summer, with said events in the Summer inspiring me to put this deep dive on Doro together. We’ll get into the summer event later. Part of what makes Doro funnier for people who know Nikke is her contrast with Dorothy. Dorothy has a very serious role in the story and is a very dramatic character. Nikke does genuinely have great writing when it comes to the story and Dorothy contributes heavily to that. So out of all of the characters in Nikke that could have become a fan meme character, she is the least fitting in canon. But that juxtaposition just makes it better from a meta standpoint.

Doro and her mother Dorothy.

In terms of the wider use of Doro as a meme, Dorothy’s involvement mostly just comes down to the design of Doro. We will see her as she looks in her bare body form, taking Dorothy’s head and chibifying it, and her wearing Dorothy’s dress, both of which are in the thumbnail. Both of these designs will be used across the fandom.

Now let’s get into the true history of Doro. Her origins lie on the South Korean message board Arca.live back in 2021, where chibi art of Stella Unibell from SoulWorker with her head simplified and on top of a bar white body was apparently a popular meme. Then a drawing uploaded by user Kakarot showed her running while pulling a sled behind them. This will set the framework for Doro, as her design and the movements most associated with her come from this and the surrounding memes that cropped around Stella through to 2023.

Then in June of 2023, Arca.live user 수어리해변야스마렵다 uploaded emotes based on the body with the head of Dorothy from Nikke instead. And thus Dororong / Doro was born.

Much of this info was sourced from the Dorong Know Your Meme page

This is the design that is used for the vast majority of Doro related things. Though there are a few alternatives like different outfits used in different memes and fandoms.

Fandom Growth

It was around August that Doro started to get noticed and see more use outside of the South Korean fanbase. And from there the meme slowly gained in popularity across the Nikke fanbase. Resulting in late 2023 when the meme really exploded. This is when most people who didn’t already know about it start seeing it in their feeds, either as reaction images, memes and animations. DORO [NIKKE] - YouTube was my first exposure to Doro, which came out in November of 2023. This one also serves as an easy way to see many of the memes, edits, animations etc. that has been made about Doro up until that point.

There are so many people who have created things around Doro, all of which should be given their respect. Everyone creating and sharing things helps to grow the community, both big and small. But for the sake of the discussion some people can be focused on for their large contributions. One person who has to get credit for popularizing Doro is Musan Pro. He is an animator on YouTube who has primarily done animations of Nikke since late 2022. His first Doro focused animation came out in November of 2022 and has over 500,000 views. I think this video both exposed a lot of Nikke fans to Doro and reached a wider animation viewership, also exposing them to Doro. THE DORO [ NIKKE ] He is to my knowledge the biggest art type fan work Nikke creator, with his videos consistently hitting hundreds of thousands of views. Many people have said they discovered Doro through seeing something from Musan on their YouTube feed. Since then, he has created many more animations of Doro and is a big contributor into keeping Doro exposure alive. GIFs from his videos are highly used in the community. He also can be noted as popularizing the version of Doro that wears the dress (which we will see later).

Doro doing the rat dance meme from Musan’s Rat Dance Doro short.

There are a countless number of memes and edits made of her. At this point, Doro can be and do absolutely anything.

In terms of personality, she is most often portrayed as a chaotic gremlin, intentionally causing trouble and/or destruction. These are most of what you will see (many showcased in the video titled DORO [NIKKE].

But she can also be portrayed more like a cute humanoid child or animal who deserves love and has no ill intentions from her actions. This is the less noticed and talked about side of Doro that I want to focus on for a bit.

Some of the rarer but appreciated wholesome images of Doro that contribute to the more lovable and/or pitiable side of Doro.

On this note, I want to talk about one side of the Doro fan creations that really struck me and had a big effect on the fandom. Which also takes us to the Chinese part of the fandom. While the majority of Doro related content is purely for goofs, this is the opposite. And that is what made it extra effective on me and many others in the fandom who stumbled across it. As sad as it is, the contrast is genuinely very interesting and it did have a notable impact on Doro’s identity. Warning that you can skip ahead if you would rather be ignorant, I was shocked by how emotionally affected I was by this story along with the fanworks and discourse that came from it. I will be providing the story through a translation done by Joe Haku on Twitter below as the original is in Chinese, along with the images that were apparently used in or as a result of the original. If you don’t want to read the full thing, skip past the image and read the summary.

Orange Story Beginning

“I liked the original story so much I rewrote it, as it had a lot of translation errors. I tried to keep the simple tone intact. Doro couldn’t speak; she could only carry two bags of her favorite oranges, slowly following behind you. She very much wanted to catch up and give you oranges. But since Doro didn’t have the money, she stole the oranges and was beaten up, leaving her with a limp. Seeing you trying to get on the train, Doro tried to chase after you, but she stumbled and fell due to her limp. The oranges scattered everywhere, and then the train doors closed. After watching you leave, she struggled to pick up the scattered oranges and limped out of the station. A few years later, you came back, wanting to see little Doro, but you couldn’t find her. You searched everywhere and finally arrived at the river under the bridge where she loved to come. The riverbank, once barren, now bursts with life, vibrant with orange plants someone had planted. You picked an orange and tasted it, it was very sweet. A sudden pain gripped your heart, and you turned to look under the bridge, at a pile of leaves against a wall. The wall over it depicted a person holding a small Doro as they walked toward a train, drawn in charcoal, smudging at the edges. A gentle breeze blew past, scattering the pile of leaves. A small, curled-up skeleton lay on the ground, its tiny hands clutching a rotten fruit that could barely be recognized as an orange.” Joe Haku’s translation.

A short summary is that the perspective character befriended Doro and eventually left the city they both lived in at the time. Doro wanted to give them the oranges they had previously shared in together but could not afford them. She stole them and got hurt, leading to her tripping and dropping the oranges as she failed to catch up to them as they leave by the train station. The perspective character eventually returns years later to find Doro dead under the train station, alone but surrounded by orange trees.

I really was shocked by how emotionally devastated I was by the original story. I am not going to call it one of the best short stories ever written, but I cannot deny it’s success at getting various messages across with good writing. It being about Doro definitely hurts someone like me more (aka carries it), but I know people who read this on its own without knowing much about Doro and still got hit in the feels. I genuinely could not stop thinking about it and felt straight up depressed and deep in thought for awhile. There is a mix of factors and ways to interpret it that caused so many people to resonate with it so much. The most obvious is that it is a very sad story of a Doro being emotionally and physically hurt. But there is more to it than that. The story left me with a contemplative mood about love and regret. For me, it was incredibly sad because I saw it as a story of someone not appreciating what they had in front of them. They threw away the loving relationship they had, not understanding what they had lost until it was gone. Following the symbolism of the orange they ate being incredibly sweet but hurting their heart. You could also see the ending as representing life going on- Doro may have lost the person but her love and life was still able to have a positive impact on the world through the beautiful orange trees she planted. As mentioned before, Doro is a goofy meme character who people just associate with silliness and cuteness. This took that warm perception and stabbed it in the heart. The contrast of using a silly and beloved meme character in a genuinely sad story worked so well as subversion. It shows the desire for love and tenderness a lot of people on the internet have. It made people contemplate their own relationships and actions towards others. Which is crazy to say about something spawned from Doro. The user apparently took inspiration from the story My Father’s Back” by Zhu Ziqing. This along with the cultural knowledge of oranges being a “poverty food” for some made it resonate with a lot of people outside of what I’ve already mentioned. This is also an example that shows how once a character truly becomes big, they can be used in anything and have a range of impact. The tripping scene has even been reenacted at conventions Doro in real life#etamecosplay #cosplay #cos .

Some fans who connected with the story but disliked the sad ending wrote and made creations with their own ending. Some of the alternatives are that Doro did not in fact die (that was the corpse of an old character who helped Doro) and she re-unites with the perspective character, and one where the perspective character brings Doro with them. An animation of the latter scenario got very popular and is the reason why I and many other came across the story in the first place This Doro meme made me cry #Nikke #Doro #memes - YouTube (this is a re-upload with English subtitles, you can find the sources and more information on the original creator in the tweets in the pinned comment). I much prefer these happier endings. Doro may be a being of chaos, but I don’t want to see her sad. I am one of those people who Doro has become a comfort character for. Sorry if I made you sad lol, but now you know how I feel. I genuinely do think it is important to have media that emotionally impacts us, even when it is genuinely sad.

Orange Story End

As a result of this story and the discourse surrounding it becoming popular, Doro became synonymous with oranges. There is a lot of fanart based on this story and with the oranges even appearing in memes that have nothing to do with that story, usually as a symbol for Doro other than her face. Musan Pro has used them in his animations multiple times for example. For Freedom 🍊 #nikke #doro #shorts #musan This is a strange but important aspect of the Doro saga that I really wanted to talk about.

Let’s move on from this melancholic side of the Doro fandom and get back to having fun with our favorite pink meme creature. Purely for fun: If we wanted to try to take stock on her abilities across her appearances in the fandom, she can: Doro-fy people via tongue, run faster than most vehicles, utilize modern weaponry like pipe bombs and machinery like helicopters to form the Doro Nation military, perform dances such as twerking, do a kickflip on a skateboard, operate a food delivery service, survive re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, and otherwise be infinite in scope and power.

Many of the creations surrounding her have her in the world of Nikke but she grew to be used in pretty much anything. She even has many reaction images and memes that people use outside of direct Doro or Nikke related discourse. Doro has often been used by the community in mainstream memes that have come out, such as the Thour meme, where she is one of the only ones who can overpower the lemon. People have made mods for Doro in various video games (usually replacing animals like dogs), I have seen DIY craftworks made with Doro (such as MelonShu’s DIY Doro), and I’ve seen so many Doro-fied media characters and OCs. Me being among them. I’ve been using the Rei Caldombra Doro head as my icon on most of my social media. So in a way Doro Rei is an official mascot as well. Mine was made by @Chocobw (who still has his Doro meme pack request open in Vgen btw) but you can find lots of people online who would do it or directly offer commissions for you or something you like to be Doro-fied.

All in all, Doro is a character that exploded in popularity with memes, edits, fanart, fan works such as stories, animations and more that cover pretty much everything you can think of. When it comes to Doro herself, she can range from a gremlin creature who can make you laugh through her appearances in all manner of shenanigans to more of a humanoid who can make you cry in genuinely thought provoking works. You really feel the community’s passion for Doro through the massive variety of fan works. I hope I have done a good job of showing off many of the community’s fan works that birthed her, and I hope you enjoy my own contribution to the great legacy of Doro.

Annotation 10/11/25: I wanted to bring attention to another incredible Doro fan creation that was pointed out to me, Elotes Doro. It’s a snack and drink store in Mexico themed around Doro! I’m happy to add in some representation from the Mexican side of the fandom too. Worldwide Doro! Here’s a google maps link if you’d like to check them out. https://maps.app.goo.gl/QCWytxkX4RFQJEPJ6

Official Mascot

Now we are moving on to Doro becoming an official mascot for Nikke. Which I am considering to be her involvement in official products made by the companies involved with Nikke such as Shift Up. I’ll go through the events I’m mentioning here in relative chronological order.

For Nikke’s April Fool’s Day in 2024 they added Doro versions of Matis, Maxwell and Drake into the game in the burst animation of Syuen. This is genuinely my favorite April Fool’s related thing in a game so far. It also references a few other memes outside of Doro. Even people I know who don’t play Nikke thought it was hilarious. (the animation) NIKKE - Syuen Burst Animation (April Fools event 2024)

In June of 2025 Doro made a cameo in Stellar Blade (another game made by Shift Up) in the Stellar Blade x GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE DLC.

Doro mid Akira slide during her entrance.

Stellar Blade x Nikke DLC - Secret Doro Cutscene (4k)

They did a great job putting her extremely simplistic 2D design in 3D, I couldn’t imagine her looking any other way. And I love how ridiculous they went with her here. Her steps sound like horse hooves despite her limbs being blank nubs. She does silly poses with goofy sound effects, goes back and forth between running bipedal and quadrupedal while tripping over herself, and when you shoot at her she dodges your bullets and laughs at you. If you continue to chase her and successfully hit her once she stops to rest, you can get a sticker of her iconic 2D look with her being dubbed a “mysterious creature” who wants to be a Stellar Blade master. It really does feel like they ripped the goofy meme creature straight from the internet and threw her in the game. The way she mocks you represents the smug and deviousness she often has in the memes. Her most iconic movement is her running, so it makes sense for her to run away from you. Her both running on 2 and 4 legs represents how she is shown doing either across memes. Watching people’s reactions to Doro showing up has been very funny. Her inclusion in Stellar Blade is hilarious and truly a perfect representation of Doro.

During the summer of 2025 they made a big international promotional campaign centered around Doro: the Doro Family Summer Tour. A boat with a big Doro float visited major cities around the world. Fans could come up to the float and take pictures.

She visited Osaka (Japan), Seoul (Korea), New York City (The United States), Taipei (Taiwan) and Bangkok (Thailand). I genuinely wish I could have been there for the visit to New York. It came with the official song of the event DoroDoro SamaSama NIKKE DORODORO WORLD / 2025 SAMASAMA ver.│ 勝利の女神：NIKKE - YouTube (feel free to listen to it as background for this) It’s a very cute and upbeat song; I genuinely listened to it a ton over the summer. They also included Doro versions of a few other Nikke characters in the promotion with their own Doro-fied names: ELGRO (Elegg), RAPIRO (Rapi), ANIRO (Anis), and NERO (Neon, not the Nikke named Nero).

During this promotion, they held a creator event where fans could submit their creations for the chance to win prizes. With the grand prize being $500. They also sponsored multiple creators to promote the event. Such as MusanPro (who was mentioned earlier) and H and Mr.H (they’ve made a lot of great animation videos mostly related to vtubers) who both made an animated video in their usual styles. What makes these sponsorships work in my eyes is that it still feels like a creation of that person. It doesn’t feel like they were given severe restrictions or scripts that jeopardized their ability to keep it to their style and tone. Which again shows that they go about these things the right way. Nikke got a lot more reach thanks to fan creations (such as Doro), so the best way to have fans make things for them officially is to just let them do what they do. And I this this event fully embraces this. It’s been awesome to see some many new Doro related creations. When it comes to fan creator events, I think this was a good one.

I think this campaign was a great move from them, being fairly unique and a fun way to reach people. Doro has an easy design to adapt and is acceptable to show in public across the world (unlike a lot of Nikke designs). The simple cutesy design already fits in with the aesthetic you think of for mascots. And as clearly shown by the Doro fandom, she can be inserted into pretty much anything. Their embracing of Doro is one of many instances of the Nikke developers being genuinely smart and in-touch with their fanbase. They saw Doro take the world by storm and become beloved, so they embraced it to the point of making it a recurring part of their brand. And it feels genuine. I have never seen anyone try to make this out as pandering, everyone who likes Doro loves that the devs are playing into it. And if what I have read online is correct, they did actually get permission from the sources of Doro that they could when doing official products and promotions.

Merchandise

Since Doro’s official embracement by Shift Up, there have been various official pieces of merchandise featuring Doro. I’ve always been a big fan of cute and fun merch, so I wanted to talk about these. I’ll be mentioning some notable ones that you can easily find information on and be able to order online. Again a reminder that I am not sponsored by anyone, I just want to talk about Doro and her merch.

First, we have a simple small figurine from AmiAmi that is the quintessential Doro in all of her glory. There is a Doro inspired design version of Cinderella as well. This is the one I’m definitely planning to get, it’s so cute. I want this devious creature on my desk.

But that’s not the only Doro figurine. There’s another one that is a collab between AmiAmi and Snail Shell and is customizable. She has a normal, smug and sad face. And she comes with some props like a broom and plastic bags filled with oranges. You can also move her arms and legs.

You know that sad fan story about oranges I talked about before? If you didn’t connect the dots already, this figure intentionally references it. And they even show you in the promotional images.

They made the conscious decision to have some of the display photos on the shop page have her walking wall carrying oranges and then crying while surrounded by trash in an alley that definitely looks like it’s in a city. Those trash cans don’t even come with the figure. Those cruel monsters went out of their way to show us a sad impoverished Doro left behind by the perspective character in that story. Thanks for making me depressed all over again! Jokes aside, it is genuinely very cool to have official merchandise that directly references fanmade stories. While I have gotten over my trauma from the orange story, I’m not sure if I will get this one too.

There’s another set of Doro-fied figures from Hobbysakura that include Doro, Syuen, the 3 members of Syuen’s Matis squad, and Shifty. These picks also reference the 2024 April Fool’s event. These are a blind box set, so I wish everyone luck if they are going for the whole collection or just want their favorite.

Outside of these I have seen some pictures of small pieces of Doro related merch like buttons and pins, but these are likely only available in stores in China and/or Japan. I was able to find two non-figure related merchandise that I’ll share. The Animon website lists a Doro plush pillow and a chain keychain coming out in 2026. If you want a Doro to cuddle or be violent towards, this smug pillow may suit your fancy. And if you want to show publicly show your Doro obsession to the world you can go with the keychain.

The sheer amount of Doro merchandise they have made proves they are committed to bringing this character to life. It’s important to note that some of the merch I shared here is not even out yet as of writing this. They didn’t make a bunch of merch just for their big Doro summer event when Doro hype was probably at its peak among big fans. So I expect Doro to continue to be a mascot for them and believe this shows how confident they are in Doro as a brand symbol.

Annotation 10/11/25: Another important note pointed out to me was that in September of 2025 Shift Up formally submitted to Trademark Doro. I do not fundamentally oppose them doing this considering they are fully adopting her into their brand. It makes sense for the company from a business standpoint, as they would want to protect themselves. I am choosing to give Shift Up the benefit of the doubt that they have gone through the proper processes for this from an ethical standpoint like reaching out to the original people involved if possible for permission and will not do anything with the Trademark that would hurt the community (like going after Elotes Doro or other fan works). They clearly know and appreciate their community as I specified before, so I don’t think they will throw away all their goodwill by attacking fan works that would not actually hurt their business (like Elotes Doro).

Closing

With that, I believe we are caught up on the current state of Doro. To summarize, Doro started as a chibi drawing of Dorothy from Goddess of Victory: Nikke based off another fanart on a forum. She then grew a life of her own in 2023, becoming a massively popular meme character spread across the internet by a passionate fanbase through a myriad of fan works including emotes, animations, edits and writing. Her popularity grew so much that she was acknowledged by the developers of Nikke starting in 2024, who have now included her in various games, real life promotions, and merchandise. I hope I managed to turn you into a Doro fan, accelerated the Doro brainrot of someone who already liked Doro, or at least satisfied your curiosity into how this strange creature you randomly saw show up on your timeline came to be. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for our cute and chaotic little Doro.

Thank you for listening to me gush about the story of this silly meme creature. I cannot guarantee you this brought you any useful knowledge for your everyday life, but I hope it brought you joy in some way like how Doro has brought joy to me. Jokes aside, I truly do want to show appreciation for how internet memes can genuinely bring people joy and foster positive communities and connects between different ones. Internet content like memes have become so normal to come across that we can forget how impactful they can be. For example, this is easily the most research-intensive thing I have done and did simply because I wanted to. Despite this requiring a lot more work, it is one of the most fun things I have put together and is one of my favorites. This is my first time doing one of these more research heavy sort of retrospective pieces, so I hope you enjoyed it! I plan to do more in this vein in what I am calling “Deep Dives” where I dive into the details on something I like in a more structured and informative way. Please let me know if you liked it and would want to see more of me gushing about things I love in great detail. Thanks for reading!

My Patreon if you would like to support me and the website: patreon.com/ReiCaldombra As a free member you can get notified about new uploads on Blog Under a Log and my YouTube channel. You can also become a paid member to financially support me, but any support is greatly appreciated! If you’d like to follow me on any socials, you can find them on the About page.

Here are some of my other favorite articles, including ones where I gush about something I love and really analyze the details.

Demon Girl Next Door Series Overview - I Love this Series Dearly. — Blog Under a Log

Attack on Titan - The Heart of Humanity - Cliff Baby Scene Analysis — Blog Under a Log

Grinch’s Ultimatum - My Analysis and Interpretations — Blog Under a Log