Dororo continues to be a contradictory experience for me, at least to a certain extent. On the one hand it’s clearly the best series of the first half of 2019, and it really isn’t that close. And it continues to pump out tremendous mostly-original material. Despite being adapted from a manga by the greatest name in anime and manga history, the TV series has become that rare anime that pretty much transcends the source material in every way. Even given Tezuka’s well-chronicled struggles with this series in its later days, that’s no small accomplishment.
At the same time, though, I continue to be troubled by the conflicting message Dororo seems to be sending. I’m still not buying that there’s any moral ambiguity to Hyakkimaru’s situation – not after his father literally made a deal with the devil to make himself more powerful. These demons he conspired with have extracted a price from more than just Hyakkimaru – they terrorize the people of Ishikawa, too. I accept that Tahoumaru is a fundamentally decent person – that doesn’t change the fact that he’s made the wrong choice here (even if it was under extenuating circumstances).
That’s why it bothers me some when I see Tahoumaru increasingly emerging as a heroic figure – or at least that’s how I read scenes like we saw at the start of this episode. Being a tragic figure doesn’t automatically make someone a hero, nor does being a decent person. Hyakkimaru, meanwhile – though his deepening bond with Dororo is certainly painted in a sympathetic light – is shown as increasingly single-minded and desperate. All he’s trying to do, really, is to take back his humanity – and that doesn’t strike me as a morally grey area. Whether it strikes the series that way is another question.
Hyakkimaru’s target this week is a youkai called the Nue – a very famous creature indeed in Japanese folklore, and one of the four traitorous generals in Gegege no Kitarou 2019. And his foil is Saburota (Nakamura Yuuichi) who crosses paths with Hyakki and Dororo as they hunt for the demon that’s been terrorizing the local area, and informs them that he’s been hunting it for six months. Why? Because it killed and ate his mother right in front of him. That certainly sounds like as good a reason as any to want vengeance, but something seems a little off with Saburota right from the beginning.
The Nue is a nasty piece of work, no question – it was the final boss in the manga – but then, so is Saburota. It’s no surprise when he turns on Hyakkimaru, but his back story is an especially ugly one. When he and his aged mother were attacked by the Nue – and he wounded – Saburota fled and left her behind. Not only that, he actually cut off her arm as she clung to his clothing – a particularly grisly bit of symbolism. It’s no wonder that sent him round the bend mentally – I was prepared to be skeptical of why he’d be feeding innocents to the Nue, but after that I had no trouble buying it.
The whole notion of arms is a powerful image in this episode, no question – Hyakkimaru keeps damaging and dropping them, leaving Dororo to scoop them up and scurry after him. When the pair fall off a cliff during their initial fracas with the Nue (and Saburota), Dororo ends up with her arm trapped in the rockfall as water slowly fills the space in which they’ve landed. For a minute there it really seemed we were headed towards Hyakkimaru having to chop off Dororo’s arm to save her life – that would have closed a symbolic loop, certainly – but Biwamaru shows up just in the nick of time. In doing so he points up one of Hyakki’s vulnerabilities – he certainly could have saved Dororo as Biwamaru did, had he kept his wits about him rather than banged his head on the rocks till it bled.
Eventually Hyakki does kill the Nue – which shows a gruesome regenerative skill by eating Saburota and incorporating him and his consciousness into itself – but there’s no commensurate reward of a body part (again). And something weird is happening in the Hall of Hell – one of Daigo’s retainers hears a heartbeat, and one of the statues seems to be regenerating itself. Meanwhile Hyakkimaru loses patience and decides he’s going straight to the source, Daigo – which is another one of those “keep your wits about you” mistakes, it seems to me. Whether Biwamaru is right about Hyakkimaru’s fate or not, he certainly deserves better than what Dororo seems to be setting him up for in its final four episodes.
Snowball
May 28, 2019 at 9:34 pmThe autumn foliage scenery is really beautiful. Looking at your thumbnails, it is quite clear a colour scheme was used for this episode starting off bright and positive, then gloomy and foreboding and finally the bloody mess. The demons seem to have an agenda of their own with regards to Hyakki’s body.
I am frustrated with how the writers can be so cruel to a completely pitiable character. I suppose only watching through to the end will tell whether all that sacrifice and suffering was worth it or not and find out the writers’ take on all this ambiguous morality.
Guardian Enzo
May 28, 2019 at 10:00 pmIndeed – the writing here is very smart, and already proven to be more than willing to go its own way where the material is concerned. I’m not assuming the worst about how this will be resolved – just uneasy about it.
And yes – fall in the Japanese mountains is insane. I think koyo is even more beautiful than sakura.
Snowball
May 28, 2019 at 10:18 pmAbsolutely agree on both points!
I’m reminded of a coach trip I once took from Tokyo to Hida Takayama in November. The colours on the mountains were stunning and breathtaking. Also, autumn is the most comfortable season without the agony of suffering from allergies that the Sakura season brings.
Nadavu
May 28, 2019 at 10:14 pmI feel compelled to play devil’s advocate here. I don’t think Hyakkimaru’s moral dilemma is as clear and self-evident as you present it to be. At the end of the day, it’s a question of how much suffering one is willing to take upon himself in order to save others. Of course, no one can deny Hyakki’s right to claim his body back, but it is a problem that he doesn’t give the slightest of fucks about the thousands or tens of thousands of people who are and will be starving as a direct consequence of his actions. Now, I’m not going all consequentialist on you. I’m not saying that it is right that Hyakkimaru gives up on his quest because that would ensure the most good to the greatest number of people (which isn’t even necessarily true. We don’t know the full extent of Daigo’s pact on his own people and the people outside his realm). Even if we accept that Hyakki is totally in the right here, he still isn’t giving the slightest fuck about anyone except himself, Dororo, Moma Geppetto and Mio, who is already dead. Now, granted, that’s not his fault; he has been living in a cave until he met Dororo, but lack of fault does not award him with automatic immunity when it comes to morality. If he doesn’t feel bad about innocent people dying, if he suffers absolutely no pangs of guilt, then he’s a psychopath. And a psychopath doing the “right” thing because it happens to fit his self-serving nature is not a moral success story. Unless, you know, consequentialism. I think this is what the show is harping on and building towards. That at the moment of truth, Hyakki will realize that his victory might come at a terrible price to others, and that it will actually mean something to him. And then, if he still chooses to go through with it, then we can talk about morality.
Another thing that makes me think the show isn’t adopting the view that Hyakki is necessarily in the wrong for wanting his body parts back is Shark Boy. While Hyakki is trying to recollect his body and doesn’t give a shit about who gets hurt, Shark Boy gave his arm to feed the sharks when they were hungry, and also doesn’t give a shit about who else gets hurt. I think the point to be taken here is that self-sacrifice is not necessarily good, and self-serving is not necessarily bad, and you can’t even tell them apart, some of the time.
soph
May 29, 2019 at 1:59 amI mean true, it would be nice to see some sympathy for the people who have died and will die indirectly because of hyakkimaru trying to get his body back. And yes, maybe that will still come in the future.
But I think the real issue is that the side effects of hyakkimaru’s actions are being used to garner sympathy for a system that is inherently evil and unsustainable. Those who berate and are against him just see that people will die because he wants his body back. They aren’t realizing that the real problem is the demon pact in the first place and instead try to make the terrible circumstances seem good and necessary to survival.
I do agree with you that hyakkimaru should not so single-mindedly pursue his goal that he stops caring about the lives of other people (aside from those important to him). But trying to show how “actually the demon system is good for people” is what is getting old.
slazer
May 29, 2019 at 2:52 amYeah – on this front I feel like the show is definitely making less of a statement that Hyakki’s actions are morally questionable, but more that sometimes responses to ameliorating great injustice come with some horrible consequences. Those horrible consequences do not make the action any less right, but they’re horrible nonetheless. I think that’s one of the reasons why this show is so doomed to be a tragedy – even as Hyakkimaru gets back what is rightfully his he definitely also has to deal with the repercussions of doing so. There’s no happy ending, but there is a morally satisfying one.
A.Sade
May 29, 2019 at 12:27 amAbout the scene where Dororo’s arm got stuck, some have pointed out that even if Hyakki kept his wits about him, he wouldn’t have been able to come up with the solution Biwamaru did because he couldn’t see the exact location to stab. Aaand just as I typed that I realise that neither could Biwamaru, but well. Point is Hyakki felt the helplessness of his condition in that moment. Even if he wanted to give up his quest, he probably can’t unless he’s willing to risk a scenario where an old wise monk doesn’t show up in time to save the light of his life. Feels like this episode made me sympathise with Hyakki’s need to get his body back more than the abstract ideas of “body = humanity”.
Guardian Enzo
May 29, 2019 at 6:40 amInteresting point.
Stephen Malone
May 29, 2019 at 6:49 pmIf you’ll allow a meta question, can I ask why you (and many other anime bloggers) include so many images in your posts? As an amateur blogger myself (anime-a-day.com) I only include one picture per post, but I’m wondering why others use more. Thanks for the wonderful content, I’m binging on your archives right now :).
Guardian Enzo
May 29, 2019 at 6:56 pmBecause I don’t walls of text, for starters… Also, that’s just kind of how I learned to do it. People seem to like it, generally – the caps give you a different sort of idea of what the director was trying to do with the episode – a wider all-at-once view, as Snowball alluded to above.
Thanks for binging, LOL.
Nadavu
May 29, 2019 at 8:06 pmHi Stephen, if you don’t mind some feedback from a non-blogger: Having a few pictures thrown in with the review does serve to make it look more inviting, and it feels more immersing to read. That being said, the wall of captions that many bloggers use always seemed to me like a lot of work (and storage fees) for not really that much additional value. I personally just page-down past them to see the comments. I guess it can be considered a realization of the handicap principle, broadcasting to your readers that you’re super committed, but if you think the extra work would dampen your enthusiasm for reviewing, or worse still, somehow compromise the quality of your writing, then you should definitely not opt for it.
I like the concept of your blog, by the way. I’ll give it a deeper dive during the weekend 😀
Stephen Malone
May 30, 2019 at 9:35 amThank you so much! For me I’m much more interested in character and narrative than I am in the animation (although that’s still something I pay attention to), so my reviews are just a neatly formatted block of text with one header image for some visual flair. I think Enzo is right, we all learn how to do this in different ways. Enjoy your weekend!
Earthlingzing
May 30, 2019 at 11:30 pmIt seems likely that they’re setting up the new demon statue to be Hyakkimaru. That’s not an ending that’ll cheer me up, but it seems in line with the little Tezuka that I’ve read.