Review of Dororo

"Party is over." Yeah, you bet your a** this party's over alright... It has been already 4 years since I last picked up my pen a.k.a. keyboard, to actually write a review. And while I originally intended to do a review on an anime I actually like, followed by a 5-Part JoJo review, I somehow just felt this one way more. Which is pretty ironic, because well, it's about a boy who doesn't really feel a whole lot, you know? DISCLAIMER: No, this is not a trollpost, and I appreciate comments and encourage discussions. Also, this Review should (to my recollection) contain no spoilers. Enjoy! DISCLAIMER#2: There wasn't reallya need to edit this after the ending, but I didn't want it to be preliminary. *Shrugs*

So, I heard, the best point to start is at the beginning, so lets do just that. When I took a look at AniChart for what I wanted to watch in 2019's winter season, Dororo was something that literally jumped at me. The story sounded promising, I love the setting, and heck, even Studio MAPPA had a bit of credit for me at this point, because I really enjoyed Zombieland Saga the season prior, and even their Kakegurui adaptation didn't suck a**. If I had taken a look at what other atrocities made their way out of this hellish pit, I would've probably skipped this one and wouldn't have to write this. Well, my fail.
Like I said, the setting is naturally great. We have the Sengoku Jidai, including demons/yokai and the whole plethora of japanese folklore. This is like a treasure trove of story telling. But sadly, the anime didn't do a whole lot with it. This story could've used a Cthullu monster instead of japanese demons, or even some evil scientists, who dish out free money for donating children to them.
The same can be said about the story arc. On paper the story sounds simply amazing. However, if we take a closer look at the story and condense in simple words what happens, most of this amazement goes flying. Because, this is what the story turned out to be: Roadtrip, in which the maincharacter kills the villain of the day to gain a powerup, before facing the final boss. For a game in the year 1996 this would have been pretty interesting. Because in a game we ourselves are the ones doing the fighting. In an anime, this is absolutely repetitive and unengaging. This isn't however the final nail in the coffin, because we might have still good characters, right? Wrong.

Unfortunately, I can't say that the characters had any more favorable treatment than the story. Because, lets face it, the characters are that flat, I feel sorry for the sheet of paper I would have to compare them to. Hyakkimaru sounds on paper, just like the whole story, interesting. That guy has so many chances to develop in all kind of interesting characters. He could become a villain, a hero, everything in between. But instead, by not giving him a way to convey emotions (Inner monologue would've been a good idea, because hey, that guy still can THINK, right?) MAPPA made Hyakkimaru into nothing more than a robot, who kills demons. Title - Namesake Dororo isn't any better. Contrary, even worse. I couldn't describe it any better, so I just quote Karhu's review: 'Dororo [...] is a generic brat who is at best uninteresting and at worst annoying' My sentiments exactly. From a writers standpoint, I feel like Dororo's only reason for existence is as a mouthpiece for Hyakkimaru. Are theside characters any better? No. Of course not, why would they? At best, the sidecharacters are cliché but halfway decently executed, at worst, they are as much of an annoyance as Dororo.

But hey, perhaps we can still save this anime with MAPPA's production values, right? Again, no. Unfortunately, MAPPA attempted to not just air one, but two anime in the Winter 2019 season, with the other one being Kakegurui xx. Of course as someone, who doesn't work in the industry I can't say with any confidence how much this affected Dororo (and Kakegurui xx for that matter), but Dororo's Art and Sound is far from stunning. The characters look to me like a discountversion of Naruto: Shippuuden's more samurailike and older characters (Like Madara or Hashirama). The animations are somewhat fluid for the most part, but taking a look at especially the fightscenes I can clearly tell that nobody at MAPPA ever thought of the implications of having two wakizashi as arms. The scenes are random and badly choreographed and just hurt to me as ex-Kendoka. However, one thing I HAVE to give credit for are the backgrounds. Sure, it isn't even close to the level of the likes such as Mo Dao Zu Shi, but the backgrounds sure enough are decent.
As for sound design, I could pretty much just go ahead and copy the Art part, and replace the art terms with sound terms. The seiyuu didn't do much to impress me, with Suzuki Rio, Dororo' seiyuu, as extraordinarily annoying (however, I don't blame her, I think that she got hired to do that). I absolutely hate the opening and ending songs. Sure, 'Kaen', the opening song by Ziyoou-vachi, is extremely popular. I am aware of that fact. And if you like it, fine, listen to it all you want. However, thinking about it from a rating standpoint, how much does this OP actually fit the anime? The short but nonetheless shocking answer: 0. I don't know who came up with this, but when I think of Sengoku Japan I certainly don't think of high screeches, which yell FAAAAIYAAAA into my ear. I think of something like Wagakki Band. The second opening, fittingly titled 'Dororo' doesn't fare much better. I already mentioned, how the character artworks feel to me like discount Naruto Artworks, right? Well, same thing. ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION did an awesome job with Haruka Kanata back in the day when Naruto was all the hype. And even now, Haruka Kanata's Bass Line is just so darn awesome, and the song still exudes energy and excitement like I exude sweat after 3 hours basketball in a gym with bad aircirculation. 'Dororo' however doesnt. In fact, I think that this is one of the weakest songs I heard by ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION ever. And once again, mirroring the Art department, the classic japanese BGM reminds me again, why I picked up Dororo. Thats what I wanted, a good combination of historically acurate Sengoku Jidai merged with the japanese folclore, supported by those classic japanese sounds of Shakuhachi, Shamisen and Koto.
Well, unfortunately I only got the decent Soundtrack, which feels to me like haughty laughter. 'We could've made the anime you wanted! Are you not entertained?!'

After writing all this I probably don't need to mention, that I didn't enjoy this anime one bit even though I looked forward to the first episode, right? Well, duh. I will watch the rest of this trainwreck and hope to find at least something of value, but I highly doubt it. I have one last thing to mention though: Through the whole anime I got the feeling, that the main reason for this whole anime is a (not so) subtle critic of the Sengoku Jidai and praise of the modern times. In that way Dororo ties into the same line of anime such as Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop. Most poeple who watched Bebop and Champloo probably also like Dororo. And as you might guess, yes, I hate all three of these (Champloo not as much, but still...). I absolutely despise such messages, because they tend to be uninformed and preacherous. Of course, the Sengoku period had dark phases, and so did every other period of human civilization (including today), but strangely enough all those idiots tend to target the european and japanese medieval periods first.

But ranting aside, here's the WTLRAH;DRATS (Way too long rambling and hating, didn't read all that s**t) a.k.a. TL;DR: Good Ideas condensed to generic boredom, no use of it's unique chances, cheap production values except for Backgroundarts and Backgroundmusic. Highly unenjoyable.