Dragon Quill

So, let’s continue to talk cartoons.

I’ve been really enjoying the anime Dororo. It is very gory, and the lion’s share of that gore is the suffering of innocent people. I found it tasteful in that its focus is clearly to show sympathy/horror while samurai getting diced was just artful splatter because fuck them but it’s pretty intense misery all the same.

The pitch for Dororo is that this guy makes a deal with demons as a result his son loses most of his body parts to them an instant after being born. To regain his missing parts the son, Hyakkimaru, must go on a quest to slay each of those demons, and also he gets a small child following him around for comic relief. And this is true for the original manga and the original anime adaption.

The modern one, though, when considering the important question, “how would you tell a blind deaf quadriplegic kid this or, really, anything?” realizes the answer is “you can’t” rather than “telepathy!” And that’s how we get him wandering around running into monsters, murdering them for trying to murder him, and then being intensely distressed when sometimes, for reasons he can’t understand, that means he regains body parts and senses he didn’t know he ever had, with reactions varying from wtf??? :( to GREAT HOW DO I UNINSTALL IT. As a result, spunky kid sidekick Dororo turns out to really earn having their name be the title, as they’re the one making everything happen while Hyakkimaru is tugged along behind them.

An interesting then vs now comparison of a scene from the opening episode:

And with all that said, I’d now like to have a spoilerific chat about the character Mio and the roles (and fates) of women. (more…)