Review of Dororo

When you combine an old school samurai revenge story, the companionship between the two main characters in the same vein as Sword of the Stranger or Lone Wolf and Cub, and add supernatural elements, you are going to have a compelling show on your hands. Although the quality of the show has its highs and lows, this is an easy recommendation from me. The first half of this show was very close to a 10/10 show for me. The plight of the main character was immediately gripping and you were rooting for him to not only get revenge on the despicable villains, but also to get hislife and body back as he vanquishes the supernatural entities that stole them. Then, as the show goes on, you learn about the child’s dark past which added a new layer of character depth that continued to improve the story.

The show’s structure is similar to Cowboy Bebop; It is mostly episodic stories while stitching together the main arcs of the characters throughout the series duration. Some episodes are heartbreaking while others are more action oriented or comedic. For the episodes that don’t connect to the main character’s stories and are more like a monster of the week episode, most are great stories, although some in the second half of the show felt like padding and were boring. Also, the show weaves the stories of the villains as the main character get closer to revenge.
This is where I lead to some flaws. Personally, I wish the character arcs for some of the villains had ended in a different way, especially the villain’s son. The ending was still good, but there were many better ideas in my head how I felt their stories should’ve ended that kept nagging in my mind as the last few episodes completed. I felt like the characters were set up so well that there was an opportunity to write something more emotionally powerful than the ending we got.
Another flaw is the animation quality dropped sharply after the first half of the show. After episode 12, there was a really bad stretch for a few episodes where not only did the animation look awful, but many of the episodic stories were very boring. I took a break from this show around this time and went back to the show months later because of this. Thankfully, The animation quality did recover after this and I’m glad I came back to finish it, but there were still some episodic stories after this stretch that were not great either.
However, like I said, the overall quality of this show is so good that I can still make a strong recommendation for this show. Samurai fans will be happy, and fans of demons and supernatural stories will also be invested. Give this one a shot.