Dororo and the Definition of Humanity
Dororo (2019) is a twenty-four episode anime series based on the 1967 manga of the same name by Osamu Tezuka. It tells the tale of a daimyo, who in desperate search for a solution to his province’s calamity, offers his son to twelve demons. The demons accept his offer, each taking from the child a part of his body, leaving it skinless, limbless, but somehow still clinging to life. The child is cast out by its father, but in a turn of luck, or perhaps fate, is rescued and raised by a prosthetic maker named Jukai. He is given the name Hyakkimaru, and in time discovers that with each of the twelve demons slain, he regains a piece of his body. While embarked upon his quest to rid the land of evil spirits, he encounters a young orphan boy, the titular Dororo, who becomes his companion throughout his journey of discovery. There are a plethora of manga centered around demon hunting. However, despite Dororo’s old age, its current anime adaptation seems a welcome twist upon a bloated genre. It is almost the antithesis to the brooding, remorseful samurai archetype. Hyakkimaru is a character raised in a figurative cave, with only the ability to see souls, just now gaining a complex perspective on life. Meanwhile, Dororo is a child born to a pair of brigands who targeted and ideologically opposed the shogunate, approaching maturity while forming his first familial bond since the loss of his parents. Together this pair comes to understand their roles in their respective family legacies and determine their personal truths in an expansive, cruel, and sometimes beautiful world.
Hyakkimaru’s life experience is a concentrated way to display the human experience. He seems in his innermost to be good, but faster than he can contemplate it, he is attributed a significant power to influence the world. At the start of the series, he is still childlike, with no initial grasp of the laws or social norms of the country. The extent of his ideology is limited to his natural opposition to malevolent spirits. With no knowledge of his lineage nor a trade, Hyakkimaru is essentially a drifter who does not fit into the feudal caste system. From his perspective, concepts of morality and honor are formulated around human connection. However, while this seems a pure lens through which to view the world at first, Dororo is quick to dispel notions of a simplistic method of thought. Instead with each addition to Hyakkimaru’s senses, his literal perception of the world is complicated, and so follows his engagement with it.
Just after Hyakkimaru obtains his hearing, he falls ill and is tended to by a woman named Mio who acts as the guardian of several orphaned amputees. With the new sensation of hearing, Hyakkimaru experiences constant discomfort and mystery. It is not until he hears Mio’s singing that his nerves are quelled. In turn, Mio is among the first to demonstrate altruism to Hyakkimaru in his expanding worldview. Unfortunately, after working as a courtesan to two opposing armies, she is suspected as a spy, and her and the children are murdered. In response, Hyakkimaru falls into a rampage, slaughtering all but one of the samurai before he is held back by Dororo. While the samurai may have been deserving of death, Hyakkimaru’s response highlights an inability to control his rage, and the killing of humans leaves a stain upon his soul. From this point forward, his ignorance can no longer shroud his ability for killing.
Even Hyakkimaru’s seemingly more reliable form of sight is not foolproof in discerning evil. This is illustrated when he encounters a demon who develops affection for a human. At first believing it is responsible for the disappearance of several villagers, he and Dororo pursue the spirit, whose aura still reads as blood red. However, it is revealed that the disappearance of villagers is actually linked to a man who smuggles residents of a grueling and highly fatal mining town out of the mountains. The smuggler in turn rescues and attempts to nurse the spirit back to full health, all the while prompting her to reconsider her view of humans. Hyakkimaru encounters the pair again as they flee from the local government. As the spirit fights in self defense, her aura reads still blood red. Dororo is first swayed by the sight of the human in her protection, but it is only after she recoils to watch over him that her aura’s color changes, and Hyakkimaru understands that spirits, too, are not bound by inherent malevolence. In turn, the encounter illustrates that one view is not the whole of a person’s soul.
As Hyakkimaru grows, he obtains personal desires and comes to know joy and desire. However, he soon loses himself to the quest of reclaiming his body. Hyakkimaru is forced to participate in a dilemma of consequence with every action. His very existence, having been revealed to only be alive because the twelfth demon could not devour him, is a barrier between the complete protection of the province. And while with each demon slain, he gains a piece of himself back, the land suffers in response. When finally reunited with his father figure Jukai, Hyakkimaru is asked why he desires to kill every demon and obtain his body. His best response is “because it’s mine.” It is only his answer to the question of whether he knows anything other than his quest that once again humanizes him to Jukai. It is at this moment of recognition that having one person he does care for more than himself: Dororo, and choosing to protect him, is a purpose more worthwhile than regaining his body. In these navigations of morality and personal desire, Hyakkimaru’s true path to humanity is to learn balance between oneself and one’s place in the world around them.
Dororo is descended not from royalty, but bandits. And though his father and mother lived as outlaws, they instilled in him a contempt for samurai. They are shown to be honorable by a different set of rules than bushido. They place the protection of their son above all else, dying for his survival, and ultimately entrusting a treasure trove to him. For them, family is of the highest value while the government is untrustworthy and most times immoral.
Dororo’s identity in the wake of their deaths is a more ambiguous journey. He is aware from just prior to his mother’s death that he has the map to his inheritance tattooed on his back, but he does not actively pursue the treasure. Instead, he lives by his mother’s statement that he would know what to do what to do with the money when he meets somebody he trusts. And as he does not understand her meaning, he resigns to delay his search. It is only after he is kidnapped by the former brigand Itachi, who exchanged the location of his parents’ camp for class standing as a samurai, that he is forced to uncover the treasure. In this reunion with the catalyst to his parents’ downfall, Dororo is forced to confront his family legacy, and in turn, the eventual trajectory of his life.
Dororo had in the past avoided mention of his family, only revealing more of their story when prompted by reminders of his past trauma. In his introduction, he lives as a thief with no close relationships or attachment to society. In contrast, Itachi’s life circled back to his time under Dodoro’s father’s command. Itachi has deserted life as a samurai and returned to being a ronin, leading a new group of bandits. He lives in disgrace, having abandoned his position and rejecting the shogunate just as Dororo’s father did. In his mind, finding the money is his last opportunity to gain a new lease on life. With Dororo as the final bridge to this goal, he must forcibly involve him in his attempt to move past the actions of his youth. In perhaps the most overt confrontation with identity, Itachi strips Dororo’s clothes in order to reveal the map tattooed on his back. Multiple times in the series, Dororo exhibits particular shame or secrecy around his naked body, but at this moment, it is explicitly declared that he is biologically female.
Itachi seems the villain in his parents’ story, but Dororo sympathizes with his struggle in the present. He sees the consequences of Itachi’s betrayal, and in observing that he spends his dying effort just to see the treasure, Dororo comes to comprehend its significance. Taking to heart his mother’s words, and the loss of life that occurred on this island, Dororo leaves the money until he can find a grander purpose for it. Now, having put to rest the mysteries of his childhood, he returns to traveling with Hyakkimaru with newfound motivation, and a determination to use his inheritance for good cause.
Dororo’s arc concludes in the understanding that his treasure is a powerful tool as well as a responsibility. In a fully realized take on his rejection of the shogunate, Dororo decides to use his wealth to fund an independent, non-militarized city. He moves forward from his tragic past and applies the gifts, both physical and intellectual, that his parents passed down to him, in order to forge a life of his own and for the betterment of others. As a result of the restoration of Hyakkimaru’s body, the demons’ pact is broken, but rather than lose himself to violence, Hyakkimaru reconciles his quest for vengeance. He spares his father, and slays the last of the demons — not just because it is his right to have his sight, but because their peace was a false one, built on the unnatural, for the purpose of conquest. In this new era, wherein the people live without an imperial government, individuals may strive for balance and community. For Dororo, humanity is the struggle between extremes. It is the duty of all to never give into their avarice and live in a manner that reflects that.
