Dororo(manga) Review

Unfiltered Thoughts + Opinions (and spoilers!!)

This is a really fun manga overall, however I am very dissapointed in the ending. Or rather, the non ending. I was enjoying the adventures that the characters had been going on, and was excited to see what direction the story was going to take, but as the pages dwindled down, it (very) slowly dawned on me that the ending would be quite abrupt.. and so it was. Either way, it was still a super fun and trippy read.

The list:

• The forth wall breaks and sci-fi references that happen earlier on are so goofy.
• I really liked how Dororo developed as a character, he probably had the most development of anyone else.
• Hyakkimaru's quest to find the demons and get all his body parts was very bizzare but pretty tragic. In all the fights that Hyakkimaru wins, his various compartments and detatchable limbs are seen to be very important assets. He uses his augments to his advantage. I suppose he'll never know peace if he continued to live like this, which I guess is understandable. But it also makes it so that after every fight he has to re-adapt to his progressively more fragile body. He'll be almost completely made of flesh in his final battle. Bro seriously got fucked up by Daigo's devious demons.
• This series is super dark, people fucking DIE outright constantly. I like that.
• The augments were SO cool! Hyakkimaru's a clockwork cyborg.
• I sorta wish the series had more reocurring characters. Dororo's lost treasure arc was interesting, but at the end of it, only Hyakkimaru and Dororo remained to wander on. The format of the story lends well to that of a saturday morning cartoon. Each ark is pretty self contained. HOWEVER it would have been way more engaging if they had at least one active sub plot going on in the background. What if we had a bigger idea of Diago's plans? What if we had more from Hyakkimaru's inner reflections on finding his own happiness? When they encounter that old man for the last time, he asks Hyakkimaru these questions directly - Will finding all these body parts give you happiness? What will you do after that? Why don't you look for the treasure? None of these questions get answered. We never see him find all his body parts. We never see what happens after. We never get to see the treasure. We never even get to see Dororo learn to master a sword. Dororo certainly, and I mean certainly grows as a character. In the beginning, Dororo is fleeing from brutality to brutality, and known accross many towns as a dangerous child. By the end, he's directing militias of men and helping Hyakkimaru defeat demons. This is a serious glow up, but it never really resolves.

As formulaic as some of these stories were, I think the part where it ended could ahe been a great part to change the format a bit. Add another character into the mix that we may have forgotten about. Switch the focus to Daigo, give us a sequence where he begs the demons for more power and they make him go on his own quest or something IDK! We don't even need to see all 48 demons get killed, but at least giving the story some closure other than "welp Hyakkimaru fucked off and Dororo sobbed" would have been way better. If I didn't enjoy the story, I would not have cared this much. The individual arks are all pretty fun, and the bizzare demons are what really drew me back each time. I suppose it is a dark story, and I'm not nessecarly saying it had to have a happy ending.... well basically nobody else got one, perhapse I shoulda taken the hint that I wouldn't get one either.

I need to watch the modern anime. Also the streets are informing me that the manga was like totally cancelled. Figures...