An introduction to Dororo preparing you for the 2019 anime, with new PV

The God of Manga

Osamu Tezuka's legendary manga is getting a brand new adaptation this coming Spring. If you heard anything about Tezuka, you'd know he was the author who practically propelled manga and anime into the Japanese consciousness with absolute storytelling classics like Astro Boy, Black Jack, Buddha, Phoenix etc. In addition to being a prolific manga artist, he also opened his own anime studio, Mushi Production which competed directly with Toei animation (At the time it was known as Toei Douga), and produced anime in the dozens to remain competitive.

In other words, not only did he bring really new innovative ideas to the medium during his era, he was also a tireless work horse, churning out series like a factory clothing line. Yet, every series he released brought new ideas and was unique to itself. It's no surprise that most authors in the next generations after him all cite Tezuka as their biggest influence, including Go Nagai, another author I respect just as much. He wasn't known as the God of Manga for nothing!

I'm by no means a Tezuka expert, but I read a few manga of his with gusto.

The smug face tells it all. You owe everything to his existence!

Manga

The series we'll be talking about today is Dororo, which was written and drawn by Tezuka in 1967. I fortunately had the chance to actually own the English licensed Omnibus Dororo manga. The gist of the story goes like this:

During the Sengoku period, a Daimyo by the name of Daigo Kagemitsu had decided to form a pact with 48 demons, which will help him rule the world. As a trade off, the Daimyo promised the demons they could all get a piece of his unborn child. This resulted in the child being born without organs, limbs, or even a face. The demons were also set free to wreak havoc on the human world as a result of this pact. The mother of the baby was faced with two choices. Either let his child be killed by his husband, the Daimyo, or abandon him somewhere hoping that someone picks him up and provides him with the care he needed. Of course, we wouldn't have a story if the baby was killed. He was well taken care of by Dr. Jukai, who provided him with the prostheses he needed to make up for his missing body pieces.

The rest of the story follows our grown up boy now known as Hyakkimaru on a quest to reclaim all of his lost limbs from the demons. Along the way he meets a young child, Dororo who's also on his own quest to avenge his* parents, and they'll both share their adventures together.

One thing you'll notice that's strange is the series' title. Why is it called Dororo and not Hyakkimaru, given the fact that Hyakkimaru is kind of the main character, and Dororo the sidekick? I don't know myself, and I'm no Tezuka expert as I've said earlier.

Hyakkimaru facing left, and Dororo facing right

Anime

For the anime adaptation though, Mushi Pro tried to rectify the misleading title by calling the series Dororo to Hyakkimaru (Meaning Dororo and Hyakkimaru). Released in 1969, the series comprised of 26 episodes, all in black and white glory.

While dying of stomach cancer, Tezuka uttered these last words "I'm begging you, let me work!" to the nurse, who was too eager to take his drawing materials away. It was in 1989, that he sadly passed away at the age of 60. It is a massive shame because he never got to see the game and movie that followed.

Video Game

You wouldn't have guessed it from the title. Funnily enough, I knew the game first before I knew what it was based on, long after. Heck, I didn't even know who this Osamu Tezuka person was!

Blood will Tell was released in 2004 by Sega for the PS2. Rarely did manga based games in that era receive official English localisation. Yet, Dororo did. They must have thought it had potential to sell to the Western market, and they were right. The game reception wasn't amazing, but it was good enough to justify its English release.

In 2007, a movie adaptation came to pass. For the record, I didn't watch this movie so I can't comment much on it, but from the reviews I read on IMDB, it seemed that the fans like it. But you know... Me and live action adaptations of anime and manga, huh, not a great track record personally.

One nice tidbit of information I found about this movie was that someone was working on his own live action Hollywood version of Dororo. The article is also from 2012, so I assume the project just died off.

Crossover

In 2012, Go Nagai decided to write a manga about Dororo crossing over with his own Dororon Enma-kun series, and the result was quite something. Since the manga isn't scanlated, I can't tell you much about it other than it was a very raunchy take on the franchise. This is not surprising considering this is Dororon Enma-kun and Go Nagai after all.

Tezuka's son and Go Nagai taking a picture for the occasion.

Does he even know and approve of what Nagai did to his dad's manga?

Reboot

Finally, here are the trailers for the upcoming reboot. Please enjoy them at your heart's content.

Anime studio MAPPA will be in charge of the animation. They were previously responsible for bringing Weekly Shonen Sunday classic Ushio and Tora back to life. Other animation credits include the Garo anime franchise, Rage of Bahamut, Kagegurui, Yuri on Ice, Banana Fish etc just to name a few.

The staff list can be found here.

I do have a minor pet peeve, and it's that the character designer is foregoing a bit of Tezuka's cartoony artstyle for something more to the taste of the modern anime audience. This happened earlier this year with Devilman Crybaby and I'm a little bummed out by this, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. Both previews look amazing otherwise, and I'm expecting MAPPA to bring on their full arsenal and honour the 51 years old classic the best they possibly can.

What do you think, fellow readers? Will you be checking out the new anime? I know I will.

Before I leave, I do want to let you know that a bunch of us have formed a new community of anime lovers on Steemit. The discord link is currently in my profile. Ciao.

*You will find out sooner or later.