# Dororo (2019)

> A sightless boy with prosthetic blades and a young thief wander a demon-haunted Warring States Japan in search of his stolen body.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/70923

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 24
- Episode runtime: 24 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: animation, action, fantasy
- Created by: Osamu Tezuka
- Network: TV Tokyo
- Cast: Rio Suzuki, Chie Nakamura, Hiroki Suzuki, Naoya Uchida, Akio Otsuka, Shoya Chiba, Mutsumi Sasaki
- TMDB rating: 8.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9458304/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: bleak, melancholic, harrowing, mythic, tender

## What critics say

Audiences broadly acclaim the 2019 anime as a striking, darkly mature reimagining of Tezuka's classic, admired for its visuals, action and emotional weight.

## Synopsis

Dororo (2019) is a Japanese anime action fantasy series created by Osamu Tezuka and produced by MAPPA and Twin Engine for TV Tokyo, a single-season run of twenty-four episodes. Set in the Warring States period of feudal Japan, it follows Hyakkimaru, a sightless boy who wields prosthetic blades in place of his missing limbs, and Dororo, a young thief who joins him on the road. Hyakkimaru's father traded his body parts to a group of twelve demons for power, and a kindly medicine man kept him alive, so each episode turns on a new demon and a new piece of him returned. The engine of the story is a grim quest through an unforgiving land where villagers, warlords and monsters are often as cruel as the creatures themselves. The tone is bleak and mythic, with harrowing violence, body horror and a melancholic undercurrent, yet Dororo's loyalty gives the wandering a tender heart. Fans of Mononoke, Blade of the Immortal and Samurai Champloo will find resonance in its folkloric dread and its wounded samurai spirit.

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