Review of Dororo

Tales of samurai and supernatural beings are commonplace in Japanese culture, and Dororo, an old anime that has gotten a reboot after decades, is one such story. This anime tells your typical story of a man wronged by practically everything ever who goes on a journey to discover himself. No, not in a spiritual sense or whatever like you might suspect. This dude is literally searching for his body parts. Which, might I add, were sacrificed to demons by his dad. Yeah, it's pretty intense. Unfortunately, while the creator of Dororo thought up quite the dark and gruesome setting for his work, he failed toconvey a significant message due to a variety of both narrative and technical flaws.

The stoy centers around Hyakkimaru and his child companion Dororo as they travel around the country slaying demons who have stolen Hyakkimaru's body parts. They also encounter both friend and foe along the way. The problem is that this anime lacks central direction. It takes an episodic approach for the most part that features a bunch of hit or miss (for me they mostly miss, bruh) side stories that don't really go anywhere. They feature new characters who are usually killed off or never seen again and the episodes don't really contribute to the narrative. I mean Hyakkimaru just comes in, kills some monsters, grows some body parts, and then moves on with Dororo in tow. There's next to no development of any character in such episodes and they have practically no impact on the overarching story. Only a few of the mid and the last several episodes tackle the the central conflict between Hyakkimaru and his family. And these episodes actually aren't that bad. They address themes such as the value of one weighed against the value of a land filled with many and feature some interesting confrontations. Had this anime been one cour and more focused, I might have actually found it to be decent. Unfortunately, it's just held back by a plethora of bland and in some cases plain bad episodes.

One of my problems is that I don't really get a lot of the traditional Japanese monsters/spirits. Call me uncultured or whatever, but when I see a dude riding sharks or a giant floating baby head thingy, I can't take the story seriously. I think the plot is at its best when it doesn't have a bunch of weird creatures that spawn out of nowhere to randomly help or hinder the protagonist. Plus most of the demons that Hyakkimaru fights are usually bland creatures with no originality. Now there are a select few that I did enjoy and thought were handled well, like the spider lady. Nonetheless, I found most of these monsters to be pretty mediocre. I get that this is a supernatural show and not some historical documentary, but I honestly think that its fantasy elements were generally utilized poorly.

Studio MAPPA obviously isn't known for having pristine animation, but their works usually incorporate eye catching color schemes and the like to make up for the generally average animation of their shows. Yet with Dororo, I just couldn't help but be bored by its visual presentation. I get that its monochrome look fits with the style of the story it's trying to tell, but its dull and uninspired visage left more to be desired. Top that off with the plain character designs and uninspired backgrounds, and you get what I find to be a poorly animated anime.

The most annoying aspect of Dororo would have to be the voice of the titular character herself. I rarely give harsh criticism on voice acting, but this seiyuu unfortunately deserves it. I would cringe internally almost every time she spoke. My poor eardrums just couldn't take it! Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit, but I just didn't like her performance. Maybe her voice sits fine with you, but I for one just couldn't wait for her to stop talking. The other voices were, uh, fine I guess? None of them were really that memorable to be honest.

Speaking of forgettable, how about dem characters! I've already mentioned how annoying I find Dororo to be, but how about everyone else? The best one to start with would of course be Hyakkimaru. He has a pretty messed up origin story, which was the sole reason as to why I bothered to watch this anime in the first place. His character is basically what you would expect from a lifeless husk of a man...you know, lifeless. And empty. He's honestly a pretty boring character who instead of developing just seems to get more angry as the show goes on. Which I guess you could call development from a certain point of view, but I don't see it that way. His stagnant nature only serves to hurt the story. The saving grace would be the bond between Hyakkimaru and Dororo. I thought their chemistry was good, and the development of their relationship was handled a lot better then the development of their individual characters.

As I mentioned before, the rest of the cast are pretty bland, though there are a few stand outs who, uh, still don't really stand out that much. I'll give some of them a brief mention. There's this old priest dude who is wise and stuff but doesn't really contribute to the story. There's a cute girl named Mio who had potential, but was grossly underutilized. Hyakkimaru's parents are ok, and they honestly fulfil their role well enough. I think Tahoumaru was handled well for five seconds before they turned him into a carbon copy of his father. The last character I'd like to mention is Itachi, who actually ended up being my favorite character in the show despite his small amount of screen time. The way the anime made him out to be so despicable yet make me actually like him by the end was impressive, and I have to commend the good writing of his character.

Since I don't want to be all edgy and depressing like this anime, let's end on some positives! Dororo boasts some pretty great music, and I do enjoy the more traditional Japanese pieces. The first opening theme song is of course the highlight of the sound department. It gets bonus points for fitting perfectly in my own vocal range, so I sing it like, a lot (to the misfortune of those around me I'm sure). As much as I bashed Dororo's execution, I do think that the premise is quite interesting and unique. Hyakkimaru's predicament really is a cool concept. I just wish it was handled more appropriately. And as much as I disliked the show's episodic approach, I did end up liking a few of the stories. Though of course the main conflict between Hyakkimaru and his family ended up being the best part of the show that kept it from sinking into awful territory in my eyes.

Being grim and violent doesn't automatically make something deep and thought provoking. Dororo tries hard to tackle dark concepts, and you know what? It succeeds. It just fails to do anything significant with its dark material in my eyes, and it ended up being quite mediocre because of it.