“Dororo” opens on a deal that should be impossible to forgive. A feudal lord trades his newborn son’s limbs and organs to twelve demons in exchange for prosperity. The boy survives. He grows up under the care of the doctor Jukai, who fits him with prosthetics, and at some point he walks out into Sengoku-era Japan to take his body back one demon at a time.
That is the engine of the 2019 anime, produced by Tezuka Productions and MAPPA and based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga. It is the second adaptation of the material, after the 1969 series, and it ran for 24 episodes on TV Tokyo, from January 7 to June 24, 2019. It is the kind of premise that could coast on gore and revenge. It does not.
Trailer, via Sentai.
A Boy With Prosthetics and a Thief Named Dororo
The setup is blunt and it works. Hyakkimaru cannot see, hear or speak at the start. He fights by reading the silhouettes of demons, a skill he develops after surviving an early attack. Each kill returns a piece of him — first the ability to feel pain, later his hearing. The show treats these returns as events, not housekeeping.
He picks up Dororo, a young thief who follows him and bargains for food when they pass through villages. The two travel together. Dororo teaches Hyakkimaru how to live among people; Hyakkimaru gives Dororo a reason to stay close to someone. It is a buddy structure, and the series is honest about it. Director Kazuhiro Furuhashi and the staff built the alternate take of Hyakkimaru deliberately — a weaker swordsman than Tezuka’s version, one who becomes a different person through the journey rather than arriving fully formed.
Rio Suzuki voices Dororo. Hiroki Suzuki voices Hyakkimaru. Naoya Uchida plays Daigo Kagemitsu, the father who made the trade. Akio Otsuka is Jukai. Shoya Chiba plays Tahoumaru, Hyakkimaru’s younger brother, and Mutsumi Sasaki is Biwamaru.
Mio, and the Rage That Follows
The season’s strongest stretch comes when Hyakkimaru regains his hearing. He falls in love with Mio, a young singer who has been selling her body to soldiers. Enemy soldiers believe she is a spy and kill her, along with the orphans in her care. Hyakkimaru kills all but one of them.
Dororo stops him. Dororo hands him a bag of rice seeds that belonged to Mio, and Hyakkimaru keeps it in his clothing.
This is where “Dororo” separates itself from a standard demon-of-the-week show. The revenge is not cathartic. It is frightening, and the series knows it. The camera stays with Dororo’s face while Hyakkimaru does what he does. The relationship carries the weight the plot hands it.
Daigo, Nui no Kata and Tahoumaru
Hyakkimaru eventually meets the family that sold him. Daigo, his mother Nui no Kata, and Tahoumaru. Daigo fears the land will fall apart if Hyakkimaru recovers his full body, so he and Tahoumaru try to kill him. They fail.
The family material is the part critics of the source material flagged as a strength, and it holds up. Daigo is not written as a monster. He is a ruler who made a calculation and has spent years living with the result. Tahoumaru is caught between a father he serves and a brother he was raised to replace. These scenes give the revenge plot a cost that a demon fight cannot.
Not every episode lands. Some of the standalone demon encounters in the middle stretch run thin, and the episodic narratives do not carry the same pull as the arc material around Mio or the Kagemitsu family. That is a real weakness, not a nitpick. When the show has nothing to say between kills, it stalls.
What Jukai Tells Hyakkimaru
Late in the season, Jukai tells Hyakkimaru he needs a person to rely on, or he will lose himself in wrath. Hyakkimaru chooses Dororo, who had left after a disagreement and has since been captured. He goes to find him.
That choice is the thesis. “Dororo” is not really about getting the body back. It is about whether Hyakkimaru can stay a person while he does it. The prosthetics, the demons and the twelve-part debt are the frame. The bond is the show.
The adaptation departs from Tezuka’s manga in several ways, and the departures mostly serve the story. The weaker Hyakkimaru is the better Hyakkimaru. A hero who has to be taught how to feel pain is more interesting than one who was simply born to swing a sword.
“Dororo” is available in English through Sentai Filmworks and Amazon Prime.
The series was widely listed among the best anime of 2019, and it earns the placement. It is not flawless — the middle episodes sag, and a few demon fights blur together — but the Mio arc and the Kagemitsu family material are among the best television the year produced. The show understands that the horror is not the demons. The horror is a father who did the math and a son who has to live in the body that math produced.
Key facts
- Score: 8.5/10
- Episodes: 24, one season
- Aired: January 7 – June 24, 2019, on TV Tokyo
- Studios: Tezuka Productions and MAPPA
- Based on: the manga by Osamu Tezuka
- Director: Kazuhiro Furuhashi
- English release: Sentai Filmworks, Amazon Prime
- TMDB audience score: 8.5/10 from 1,352 votes
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