Review of Dororo

In this day and age we have been presented with remakes of classic anime from various decades. From Magical Circle Guruguru, Fruits Basket, Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Bogglepop Phantom. With the few exceptions that shall not be named theses remakes have been well received by fans and critics. This leads me to on of the more recent anime remakes Dororo. Unlike any other remake minus Fruits Basket 2019 I had high expectations as this being done one of my favourite directors Kazuhiro Furuhashi the same director that gave us the underrated cop drama Your Under Arrest, the flawed but highly enjoyable Rurouni Kenshin adaptations and theatmospheric Hunter x Hunter 1999. Fortunately the series managed to almost perfectly deliver my high expectations as this is easily one of the best anime remake I have seen period.

The story follows a ronin named Hyakkimaru who is born malformed and is required to kill demons to obtain his missing body parts. He is accompanied by a troublesome orphan thief called Dororo during his travel. From there the duo roamed around various countries, hunting for ghouls and demons.

There a lot of things to like about Dororo. For starters this show is very dark both visually and narratively.
It's Sengoku-era of Japan after all. The most darkest period for Japan. The dark nature of Dororo is only enchanted with the show asking us the viewer various deep questions what makes us human and what defines a machine and what makes a monster. Hyakkimaru character arc is a brilliant case study of this. From the first episode he has a personality of a machine where he hunts down demons without breaking a sweat.

As he gains more body parts he starts to becomes more human where he starts to understand the world that he is in but at the same time Hyakkimaru's journey of collecting body part's is slowly breaking him mentally.

Not only the harsh reality of the world starts to mentally creep him he also has to face the fact that he has killed various people along he's journey hunt and as a result it makes Hyakkimaru less of an actual human. This is Dororo biggest strengths by a long shot as it makes you the viewer think about all the actions that Hyakkimaru has done thought he's body part journey.

This is the main reason why it was hard for me to call Dororo a full out episodic series.
Similar to Cowboy Bebop and to a less extant Ouran High School Host Club the series has all the elements of a standard episodic series yet the characters are developing along with the plot.
When the series starts taking the overarching plot approach towards the end it's feels natural thanks to the series strong direction and build up. It didn't pull it's overarching plot from its ass as every single episode of Dororo had a purpose despite it being mostly episodic.
The second best thing about Dororo is how brilliant the world-building is. The series is set in Sengoku-era of one of the most darkest periods for japan yet it does a splendid job of making the world of Dororo feels alive thanks to the spectacular attention to detail towards various locations and races.

Unfortunately Dororo does have some minor faults.
To say that at times Dororo doesn't have enough substance at times is an understatement. Granted that compared to any other MAPPA series excluding Banana Fish. Dororo has the most substance thanks to it's setting, characters writing and thematic exploration but at same time Dororo clearly had its fair share style over substance moments where the writing was put in a bus in favour of visual presentation at times.

This also leads to my second and final problem with Dororo the inconsistent quality of the episodic episodes. Granted there was not an episode in Dororo that I consider to be bad or even average but I still felt like some episodes had clearly better written than others.
The weakest episodes of Dororo went for the more typical approach by featuring less memorable one off characters and stories.
Regardless theses two flaws did not shut down the adventurous party that was Dororo.

A silent protagonist in any fictional work is very hard to pull off as can easily becomes blank stake for that particular work.
Fortunately Hyakkimaru doesn't fall into the same traps of other silent protagonists he is an interesting character from start to finish. His character arc was well-handled thanks to great writing, and he's just a sympathetic character overall despite him being mostly silent.

Similar to a silent protagonist a child protagonist in any fictional work is very hard because they can easily be the most annoying thing in your story. Fortunately the character Dororo doesn't fall into the same traps as most other child protagonists as he's a great and enjoyable character.
She's the perfect companion for Hyakkimaru as she tries to best to help Hyakkimaru succeeds of his journey of getting his body parts back. Her personality is full of life and humanity despite being a child living in a harsh world.

The best part about these two protagonist is their strong character chemistry with each other. I really loved the dynamic duo of Dororo and Hyakkimaru as they have a strong and unbreakable bond. Both Dororo and Hyakkimaru would do anything to ensure that their partner is safe from danger.

The rest of the characters were good. Some of them are better than others, but they all served they roles and purpose in the story.
If, I had two words to describe the visuals of Dororo it would be atmospheric and gorgeous.

MAPPA did a fantastic job of bring this classic series to life with its beautiful soft colour palette, well-drawn characters designs and splendid background secretly that is filled with attention to detail. This is only enchanted with the fantastic visual direction. When the show decides to have a flashback the entire show minus the blood goes to black and white which homages the visual presentation of the original series.
The animation was for the most part is beautifully choreographed and well-animated. It does dip at times notably episode 14-15 but it never dipped to a point of being ugly.

The soundtrack is outstanding. The series uses a mixture of Melancholic and Japanese folk music pieces only enhances the plot and setting.
The same thing can be said for all the opening and ending themes that Dororo has to offer.

The voice acting is strange in a good way.
The Seiyuus that did the voices for Dororo and especially Hyakkimaru were newcomers. With this in mind you would think that the voice acting would be bad because of this but no. In fact, they were amazing as they fitted with they respective roles perfectly.
My favourite Seiyuu out of the two is Rio Suzuki as Dororo as she did an outstanding job at being the cheeky Dororo to life.

There is currently no English Dub as from June 2019 then again the show has gained a big following from both vintages and casuals watching meaning the series will someday get a quality dub and I hope Bangzoom will be the ones that will dub it.

Dororo is what an anime remake should be.
It takes everything that was great about the original series from 1960s and expanded it to new heights with its beautiful presentation, smooth soundtrack, strong characters and intriguing plot that has a purpose.
It did have a few faults along the way but the faults didn't shut down the grim and fascinating party.

Amazing job MAPPA.
You finally made a modern anime classic.