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Dororo (Japanese: どろろ) is a manga series from the well-known Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka in the late 1960s. The anime television series (1969) based on the manga consists of 26 half-hour episodes.
During the late 1960s, manga with hobgoblins was popular among children. Dororo was serialized in "Shukan Shonen Sunday" for three years.
Plot
The story takes place in Japan during the Sengoku period, or the Warring States period. Forty-eight major demons, known as majins (lit. demon gods), sense the impending birth of a powerful human, who will grow up to be the vanquisher of demonkind.
The forty-eight majins trick the samurai Kagemitsu Daigo--who is the father of the yet-unborn child--into pledging forty-eight body parts of his unborn son to the majins, receiving in return the majins' guarantee that Kagemitsu will be unbeatable in any warfare and become the lord protector of the entire Japan. Indeed, the boy is born without forty-eight body parts; Kagemitsu, maddened with belated grief, puts the neonate in a basket and floats him down a river.
Fortunately the infant is rescued by a physician named Jukai who, over the period of many years, devises many cunning prosthetics so that the boy--named Hyakkimaru (lit. One Hundred Ogre Boy) by Jukai--can function like a normal person. Also Hyakkimaru has many supernatural powers which allow him to see, talk, and hear, despite having no eyes, mouth, or ears.
Upon reaching adulthood, Hyakkimaru embarks on a journey to vanquish the forty-eight majins and reclaim his body parts; he is soon joined by Dororo, a precocious street urchin and self-styled "greatest thief in all of Japan." Together, Hyakkimaru and Dororo travels the feudal Japan, helping the oppressed people and defeating the demons, in the hope that one day Hyakkimaru will win back all his body parts from the forty-eight majins.
Trivia
- Hyakkimaru has concealed weapons in his prosthetic arms and legs.
- A Playstation 2 videogame version from this manga has been made. The artwork in the videogame is that of famous manga author Hiroaki Samura.
- The manga's author, Osamu Tezuka , actually never completed the serialization of Dororo. Thus, the manga's plot is incomplete (however, the videogame offers an hypothetical conclusion of the story).
- The manga is currently being made into a live-action film starring Kou Shibasaki and Satoshi Tsumabuki. It is being filmed in New Zealand and will be released in 2007.
"Dororo"