Dororo and Hyakkimaru Winter Anime of 2019
“a bandit boy and a faceless samurai.”
Era of Japan where samurais are renowned and Feudal lords govern the land. A lord seeks domination of the land and of course, power. He would barter anything and reach incredible lengths to achieve this feat. A familiar story we all have heard of.
But this world coincides with the realm of the dead. Creatures and entities beyond human imagination seamlessly caress their way to what we call the impossible. The Lord was no stranger to this and sought to pursue this opportunity. He made his way to a temple into the “Hall of Hell” — a place that houses the sculptures of the 48 demon gods. It’s said that the sculptor himself went crazy after finishing his work.
The Lord expressed to the demon gods his thirst for power and willingness to accept any consequence.
It started to pour down that night. The winds roar, the rain swayed alongside and lightning ripped through the darkness of the night. The Demon gods showed their sign in the form of a dead rat. They want meat. They want flesh. They want life. With no hesitation, the lord offered his own soon-to-be born child. Wagering each body part and organ to the 48 devils.
The day of child’s birth came and the Lord rejoiced. The child was missing body parts. Eyes, lips, ears, and most of its limbs. It was like a shell of an innocent soul. A victim of his father’s greed and selfishness. The deed was done. The Lord gained power and ruled over the lands. He banished his absurdity of a son and let it drift away into the river.
All hope isn’t lost as a talented doctor found him and took him in. at first he thought it was some kind of animal. Being familiar to oddities himself. It didn’t take him long to realize that it was a deformed child.
He raised the child as his own — helped him in every way that he can to make the child’s life as close to normal. The doctor worked hard to develop prosthetic to fill in the missing body parts of the boy. It is also at this point where the doctor realized that the boy has a special way of seeing and hearing things. A prowess that makes up for the burden he’s been given.
As the child grew, the doctor trained him and gave him lots of love and knowledge as much as a real father does, in fact, even more. But things were taking a different turn. Different creatures and entities were finding their way to the boy. It’s almost as if the boy was a magnet for disaster. The boy was skilled, a prodigy at most. Every time he defeats a demon, a certain body part would grow back.
Having this revelation, both of them decided that the boy would go on the journey of finding himself and figuring out why was he given an uncommon situation to live with.
He was given the name Hyakkimaru. Hyakki meaning “Hundred demons” and “Maru” as feudal suffix for a boy’s name.
And thus his journey begins.
Dororo and Hyakkimaru airs on January 9, 2019 and is part of the Winter Anime line-up of 2019.