どろろと百鬼丸

DORORO TO HYAKKIMARU

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
26
RELEASE
September 28, 1969
LENGTH
26 min

DESCRIPTION

Hyakkimaru is a young man who lacks 48 body parts because they were taken from him by demons before birth, as payment by his father, Kagemitsu Daigo, to obtain his wish to take over the country. When the baby boy was born he was missing 48 parts of his body, and thus was abandoned—thrown into a river. Hyakkimaru has grown up and now has obtained fake body parts so he can eliminate the 48 demons that were made from his body, and to retrieve his missing parts. Along for the adventure is the boy thief, Dororo, with whom he becomes friends.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Hyakkimaru
Nachi Nozawa
Dororo
Minori Matsushima
Mio
Reiko Mutou
Tahoumaru Daigo
Shuusei Nakamura
Nuinokata
Haruko Kitahama
Bandai
Haruko Kitahama
Hibukuro
Takashi Toyama
Ojiya
Reiko Seno
Kagemitsu Daigo
Gorou Naya
Osushi Niki
Mariko Mukai
Hamegg
Masaaki Okabe
Kane-Kozou
Kinto Tamura
Tanosuke Niki
Gorou Naya
Sukeroku
Katsue Miwa
Itachi
Masaaki Okabe
Narrator
Gorou Naya

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

Not available on crunchyroll

RELATED TO DORORO TO HYAKKIMARU

MANGA ActionDororo

SPECIAL ActionDororo (Pilot)

ANIME ActionDororo

REVIEWS

TheGruesomeGoblin
95/100
The classic adaptation of the Osamu Tezuka manga stands strong even following half a century.

Dororo is an anime from 1969 and it is an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Osamu Tezuka. Fifty years following the original, Dororo received a new anime. But of course, I'm here to talk about the original 1969 anime.

The 1969 anime by Mushi Productions was airing at the same time as the manga was still being published. The manga was actually canceled once but then brought back in a different magazine. Hence due to this and the fact that it was still going, there are various episodes of the 1969 anime that are completely original.

Nonetheless, these original episodes are either entertaining or interesting enough for that to really not matter. In my opinion, they fit well enough along with the episodes actually adapting chapters from the manga.

Anyways, Dororo is a series about a crippled samurai wandering the land as he’s on a journey to kill various demons to reclaim body parts that are rightfully his. Hyakkimaru, sacrificed to these demons while just a mere baby by his father, won’t stop until he’s slain all 48 demons. Equipped with prosthetic limbs and arms that double as blades, he kills demon after demon.

Eventually, he meets a young thief by the name of Dororo who proceeds to try and steal one of Hyakkimaru’s swords. The two proceed to go on and have numerous monster slaying hijinks.

Granted, I use the word hijinks, but despite some of the more light-hearted or comedy focused episodes, the original Dororo and this adaptation of it is still fairly dark. Osamu Tezuka actually did a Dororo pilot that was fully colored, but due to budget restraints, they ended up going back to black and white.

Due to the general dark subject matter what with all of the demons and how fucked up feudal Japan was, this was of course the best decision. The demons of course looked better and more frightening without the color. But additionally, in general, it just serves the overall tone of the series much better.

As this might be a problem with me rather than any one series, but over the years, I've become more or less completely desensitized to blood and gore in shows and movies. You can go ahead and throw as much red on the screen as you want, but you're gonna really have to try to make me flinch.

...And yet, I kept finding myself thinking the impact of the gore and the various deaths that litter Dororo 1969 as really effective. At its best moments or rather my favorite moments of Dororo 1969, it manages to be even darker than its purposely darker retelling that would follow it fifty years later.

There's one moment in particular that remains still fresh in my mind even though I believe it was from one of the first couple of episodes. It was actually from the very first. Dororo is begged by a starving monk for food, who he proceeds to tell to just go and steal his own food. But of course Dororo ends up going off and stealing food for the monk anyways. Only... when he comes back...

The cheery music that usually accompanies Dororo's scenes just sharply cuts off. It doesn't just stop. It is abruptly cut off as a smiling Dororo sees that he was too late. But then relentlessly, the show hasn't forgotten about the samurai that Dororo stole that food from, as they arrive and promptly begin to punish Dororo for his theft which... accomplished nothing.

They may have made the opening of the show a lot cheerier (the original was apparently Dororo wandering a field of corpses) and also added an anime original dog to tag along on Dororo and Hyakkimaru's journey to lighten it up a bit but...

...Even with the addition of Nota, I'm amazed that nobody still stopped and went "wait no, this is still pretty fucking dark."

Actually speaking of Nota, I did figure the moment he showed up that he was probably added with the purpose of lightening it up. Yet you would think this cute little dog would feel way more shoehorned into this series than he is.

Yet despite straight up not being from the manga whatsoever, Nota fit perfectly well. Nota even actually like on repeat occasions comes face to face with the monsters of the series right along with Dororo and Hyakkimaru. This show is so good that an element introduced solely to lighten it up actually melds perfectly with it.

Nota is the best dog.

Conclusion

~~I feel like I got sidetracked a bit there.~~

Dororo 1969, despite its age, is great. Even with some of the goofier original episodes and even despite the fact the anime eventually comes to a point where Hyakkimaru almost verbatim says:

"Well. It's the end, so I have to go have a demon killing montage scene because we're still nowhere near 48."

Normally, I would find that a sour note for a series to end out on. But even though I watched Dororo 2019 first which had the advantage of having the full and long completed manga at its fingertips, Dororo 1969 arguably had a stronger impact on me.

I'd actually even go as far as to say despite all of that, that Dororo 1969 as it is didn't even need a remake. Granted, I'm of course glad that it did get one as it introduced me to the original and the manga. Plus obviously, Dororo 2019 isn't so much a remake but a modern retelling that is much more focused on making the fights bigger and gorier than ever, while also upping the focus to the plot rather than sticking to the "monster a week" formula.

~~Though despite that, there's still plenty of monsters.~~

It's precisely because Dororo 2019 takes a different approach that I can actively enjoy it and Dororo 1969 simultaneously rather than just bluntly saying "yeah the original is better" as I sometimes often do with other various series that get new adaptations.

...So yeah, I love Dororo 1969. And Dororo 2019. And the original manga, though I still ~~shamefully~~ haven't finished reading the whole thing at the time of this review.

Dororo 1969 is a 9.5 out of 10.

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