What a strange position I’m in with Dororo at the moment. It keeps delivering stellar episode after stellar episode while at the same time worrying me more and more than it’s all going to go very wrong. I still absolutely, legitimately hope it’s going to stick the landing – there’s been so much greatness in this series for 22 episodes that there’s no question it’s capable of pulling this out. But boy, it sure is digging itself a deep hole – even if it’s doing so in massively entertaining fashion.
The crux of the issue is that I’m still honestly not sure just what Dororo wants me to think about what I’m seeing on screen. With each injustice it perpetrates against Hyakkimaru, I grow more and more angry on his behalf. Yet at the same time it goes to great pains to show off how he’s turning into a demon, and to cast the ones who would sacrifice him for personal gain in a positive light. I get why Dororo (the girl) is fearful for Hyakkimaru, and I get that he’s no innocent at this point in the story. But he’s been driven and pushed into any foul acts he’s committed, literally from the moment he was born. And the last few moments of this episode really kick the injustice up to a new level.
Again, I feel no sympathy for Mutsu (who’s finally confirmed to be a girl – I don’t know why they didn’t just say that in the first place) and Hyogo – they attacked Hyakki with the intent to kill him, so they have no call for complaint about what happened to them. Mutsu has bigger problems – she’s got the plague that’s rampaging across the land (I wonder – did it ever occur to anyone that a land being riven by plagues and natural disasters might be karmically in the red?). She decides she’s going to offer own body to the demon who didn’t finish off Hyakkimaru, but come on – why would it have any interest in a dying peasant when it agreed a contract for a newborn infant and heir to the entire land?
If anything, the one person here who might serve as a replacement for Hyakkimaru in that contract is Tahoumaru – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For the moment the focus turns to Nui, who I suppose deserves a crumb of credit for feeling guilty about her role in all this – as she should. Nui decides to free Dororo, intent on not seeing another child sacrificed in her name (big whoop). That’s not a surprise – that she decides to follow Dororo herself in searching for Hyakkimaru no doubt is. I suppose she’s thinking she can salvage something in the end by trying (again) to sacrifice herself, or to stay Hyakki’s rage with her pleas for forgiveness. But frankly once she said she didn’t regret what she’d done it became pretty hard to take Nui seriously.
All of the major players are gathering – Biwamaru is in the shanty town where Dororo and Nui wind up after their boat capsizes in the raging river. Jukai is here too, apparently having decided that whatever his personal feelings about Hyakkimaru’s path, he has a responsibility to be present when everything comes to a head. As for Hyakki himself, he does indeed team up with Midoro (who is indeed one pissed off horse) – a pair intent on seeking justice from a world that’s wronged them. That Hyakkimaru’s mom is with Midoro’s child is certainly no coincidence at this stage of events.
The ultimate indignity for Hyakkimaru – the final slap in the face – is that the demon Daigo contracted with has given Hyakkimaru’s outstanding body parts to Tahoumaru, Mutsu and Hyogo – which explains the symmetry of their injuries from last week. It’s not enough that Tahoumaru still has one eye and Hyakki none – he wants three now? It’s a tragedy that Hyakkimaru has become a killer of men, but whose fault is that? And how in the world should he be expected to react upon seeing his body – divvied up between the brother who replaced him and his henchmen?
The potential for disaster is strong here – and I mean story-wise. But I still hope Dororo manages to avoid it. I have little doubt that Nui will arrive on the scene before her two sons manage to kill each other, but that’s the easy part – what then? How to resolve this story which has placed Hyakkimaru in the position of being held responsible for a litany of sins he didn’t commit? Whatever happens it’s pretty much a given that we’re going to find out just what this series really believes – and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find that prospect a little unnerving.
Yukie
June 11, 2019 at 10:29 pmI don’t think we’re suppose to see Hyakkimaru as the one in the wrong here. If anything, he’s like that horse, an innocent sacrificed by others. I think there’s still a difference between those that were made into demons by the world around them and those that choose to be demons. Personally, I see the show portraying the storyline of Tahoumaru and his two henchmen as the new crop of misguided people dragged into the swirls of wars and violence to end up perpetuating even more violence. My sympathies lie less with them since they CHOSE violence: to fight Hyakkimaru instead of looking for an alternative.
On the other hand, Hyakkimaru’s path to demonhood is very much reactionary; he started out fighting demons, because they were attacking him. And now they’ve taken Dororo, he must get her back. In a sense, he’s similar to mononoke or a natural disaster because of his childlike simple understanding of the world; what goes around comes around.
Regarding the mother, I hope her efforts to redeem herself to Hyakki work out, but I’d be very disappointed if she tried sacrificing herself again…
Guardian Enzo
June 11, 2019 at 11:17 pmAt this point I suspect Nui bears too many sins on her shoulders to survive the series. But what do I know?
A.Sade
June 11, 2019 at 11:30 pmWell, Nui did qualify her lack of regret as her decision made ‘as a lord’s wife’. It probably means she does regret it as a ‘mother’, and having fulfilled her duties as the former, she’ll probably try to do something more as the latter.
Nadavu
June 12, 2019 at 1:03 amMy understanding of the show’s philosophy is that trying to do what’s right can go horribly wrong if one is tunnel visioned: Tohoumaru is practically obsessed with being a good ruler and protecting his people (unlike his father, he doesn’t seem to think that his own personal good is the good of the nation), and that leads him first to partake in the injustice against his own brother, and eventually to a terrifying pact of his own with the demons. Hyakki is obsessed with getting his body parts back to the point where he doesn’t give a damn about anyone except three people (one already dead), and now his rage over Dororo’s kidnapping is turning him into a demon of destruction. Of course he is justified in being murderously angry (who wouldn’t be? but then again, who has the power to slaughter dozens of samurais in his rage?), but the question of who is more just seems to me to miss the more interesting question of what will one be left with at the end, after obsessions have been fulfilled and quenched. If Tohoumaru succeeds in killing Hyakkimaru (fat chance…), what kind of kingdom would he be left with, and what kind of ruler would he be? And if Hyakki gets his body back, what level of humanity will he still posses?
Also, when it really comes down to it, if we’re playing the “who has the worst, most-shittiest life,” I don’t think it’s even Hyakki. Just about every other peasant in this show has seen his entire family butchered, lost several limbs, starved half-to-death and then finally got eaten by some youkai in a meaningless, yet very painful end.
TorahSylphwind
June 12, 2019 at 1:13 amProps to Tahoumaru for finding a way to be even more blatantly evil than his father. I hadn’t considered it could be done. If the priest from episode 1 is to be believed, and making a deal with a demon makes you one as well, it seems Tahoumaru is hurtling in a singularly hell-bound trajectory. If Hyakki delivers the final blow that sends him there, I can’t blame him in the slightest.
Fanhunter
June 12, 2019 at 2:55 amWell, technically he didn´t make any deal with the Demon, Mutsu was the one who made it, Tahomaru and her brother were simply close enough to her when she id so.
Guardian Enzo
June 12, 2019 at 6:20 amI don’t think any of them would have been altered if they hadn’t agreed to the deal voluntarily, That’s how it works.
Guardian Enzo
June 12, 2019 at 6:21 am“We must sell our son/brother to demons, try to kill him, and become demons ourselves in order to fight evil.”
Kim
June 12, 2019 at 2:41 amI am conflicted personally. I feel for both Hyakkimaru and Tahoumaru I feel they both made the wrong choice at this point but I can understand why they did.
I mean we all sympathize with Hyakkimaru wanting to get his body back. In fact I think everyone wants that to happen in the story. I also think it’s telling they left sight and touch (being able to hold someone you love with your own hands) for last two very human things. We have grown to care for Hyakkimaru just like Dororo and we all want that for him. But we don’t want him to kill for it or to lose his humanity in the process. What drew me into this story in the first place was how it defined humanity. Hyakkimaru is not human because of the things the demons stole from him but because he is capable of caring about and loving others. At this point loving just Dororo though shouldn’t be enough. He himself needs to have empathy for others too I think. He doesn’t deserve to be the sacrifice for others but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to sacrifice others for his body. Because that is sacrificing his humanity.
As for Tahoumaru I do like that the story established early on that he cared deeply about his people. I don’t think sacrificing his brother for his people was the right decision. In fact I still think it is an evil decision. But just like I want Hyakkimaru to get his body back I also have come to care about Tahoumaru and the people in his village. Perhaps a bit less because we spend less time with them. But I think the story did a good job of showing us their suffering too. Those people did not choose to sacrifice Hyakkimaru either so should they suffer because Hyakkimaru wants to get his body back?
Personally if I have any problem with the story its the depiction of Daigo. It’s only later in the story I am told Daigo did it for his people. During the first episode it felt like to me he did it for power and riches. I also never really see that he is hesitant in his decision. If he cared so much why didn’t he sacrifice himself? Why sacrifice an innocent baby? Also why make a deal with the demons who are evil? What good can come out of making a deal like that? While I feel the series does a good job of showing both sides and these are just characters who aren’t evil but who make evil decisions to try to do good I just never bought that with Daigo. Maybe it was just too little too late.
As for the ending. I am worried about it too. There doesn’t seem to be a way out that won’t end in tragedy for everyone except if there is some Deus ex Machina. But I am still hoping for the best. If this series somehow nails the ending it could very well be my favorite of 2019.
Earthlingzing
June 12, 2019 at 11:09 pmNow that Tahoumaru has sold his soul to the devil, I think that there’s no chance the story would side with him. Only question is… are we going to get a happy ending for Hyakkimaru?
Gracie
June 18, 2019 at 1:47 amMaybe this has been covered before, but I don’t understand why the creators veered off so much from the original manga. I get that it’s was shorter and such, but still this direction it has been going ever since Hyakky’s family was introduced isn’t in the spirit of the source material.
It’s like you were saying with Mayonaka, why the need to have both ways. Why turn the victim into the aggressor? His actions in this episode with that indiscriminate killing are quasi-irredeemable and gratuitous where I’m concerned. Not to mention all the concern trolling from the monk, his adoptive father and so on. I fear it’s not going to stick the landing because of the way the creators build themselves into a corner.