Review of Dororo

-SPOILER FREE!- First of all let me start off by saying that I am very picky when it comes to giving an anime a 10 rating. However just because I gave it a perfect score doesn’t mean you might agree with me. What might be a 10 for me might not be attending for someone else, but for me, when I give an anime a 10, It means that it touched me in a unique way and had me captivated the whole time. Not too many shows manage to tick all the right boxes for me; most shows I enjoy come close, butit takes something really special for me to go ahead and mark it a 10.

By no means is Dororo a perfect 10 in EVERY category, but to me, the story makes up for any minor imperfections that I noticed. I don’t think there is an anime in existence that is truly perfect; but this is one of the few shows I think is close enough in deserving a 10. I will explain my reasoning below.

-STORY- (10/10)
I’ve had discussions with my boyfriend about how some anime fall short in certain areas. To me the most important area to get perfect is the storytelling. A show can be beautifully animated, but if the story is stale or uninteresting, then what’s the point? Luckily, Dororo was never stale or uninteresting to me, but kept me on the edge of my seat every week. The “monster of the week” format helped I think, because the stories felt satisfyingly conclusive for the most part each episode, but left me curious and excited for the next episode! The length of 24 episodes was PERFECT as well, since they were able to take their time in progressing the story, and were able to sprinkle a few lighthearted episodes between the heavy ones to give the viewers a breather. It also made the impact of the heavy episodes much greater imo, since they never rushed them and gave you time to really digest what was going on! For me, what really made the story was the rich symbolism EVERYWHERE. From inside the episodes, to the creative uses of the OPs and EDs. Some scenes were more subtle than others, but each bit of symbolism enriched the lessons conveyed so beautifully! I had so many moments after I’d watched an episode where a parallel would finally register, and it never ceased to make me go “oh, wow.” The ending was quite satisfying and just what I was hoping for, and even though I don’t want the party to be over (heh), I definitely don’t want to see a 2nd season. It wrapped up absolutely perfectly.

-ART- (6/10)
Ok, now here is where I had the biggest problem overall. It’s not enough for me to knock my overall rating down, but it is what I would consider the show’s only real weakness. At times the animation could be janky as all hell, to the point where it really took me out of a scene. But credit where credit is due, there was also a lot of really well directed/animated, cleverly done scenes. If they decide to fix up some of the iffy scenes for the Blu-Ray, then that would definitely solve my biggest complaint. Honestly, it was perfectly fine up until about the halfway point, where there began a pretty sharp decline in animation quality. It picked back up towards the end, but that little dip is where most people seem to be put off. As I mentioned above, the story is the most important part to nail. I love to see top tier animation, but I can also forgive less than awesome animation as long as it has a strong story to carry my interest. This was definitely one of those scenarios, because even when some episodes had very questionable animation, I was able to get through it due to my emotional investment to the story. Also, I definitely would be harder on the art quality had this only been a 12ep show, because they had twice the amount of episodes to animate, and I can understand the need to stretch their assets out. Heck, I’ve seen TONS of anime that ARE only 12 episodes with worse overall quality, so the staff doing Dororo can be forgiven here in my eyes.

-SOUND- (10/10)
Really not much to say here; I think the sound was overall perfect. The voice acting was superb (especially the VA that did Dororo!) and the music was PHENOMENAL. The ED songs were both some of my favorite EDs EVER. Sound effects aren’t something I pay much attention to, but since nothing stands out to me in a bad way, I’d say that means they did a great job!

-CHARACTER- (10/10)
I fell in love with the main duo. They were fascinating to watch develop, and they developed WONDERFULLY. Their struggles and motivations were portrayed in a great way, and I truly felt conflicted WITH them. Even the villains I found myself sympathetic towards at times; they were realistically written and had REAL motivations and reasons to do what they did. It was never just “be evil for the sake of being evil”, but rather because they were doing what they truly thought was right. There were a lot of morally gray situations that really made me think, and have a hard time taking a single character’s side fully. Also, the designs were pretty great!

-OVERALL- (10/10)
I truly think Dororo is something special and it will be one of those shows that stand the test of time. (Especially since the source material already has!) It never felt empty; instead you could feel the lessons they were trying to convey. It provoked deep thoughts in me about morality and sacrifice, love and kindness. It was absolutely a story that will stick with me for a long time.