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manga: Dororo
Dec. 20th, 2013 11:08 pmDororo is an Osamu Tezuka manga from the 60s, and the basis for the 2007 movie that is near and dear to the hearts of several people reading this right now.
The general plot is that a samurai makes a bargain with 48 demons that id they'll give him power, he'll let each of them have a body part belonging to his firstborn child. When the child is born, he has the baby (miraculously alive despite the missing body parts) sent down the river in a basket. The baby is found by a monk who happens to also be a mad scientist. The monk names the baby Hyakkimaru and builds him prosthetic body parts. As an adult, Hyakkimaru sets off on a quest to kill the demons and make his body complete. Somewhere along the way, he acquires a cocky pre-adolescent thief named Dororo, who also has an angsty secret past, and they proceed to spend about 750 pages squabbling and pretending that they really really don't secretly have squishy platonic feelings for each other.
It...is very very 60s, and the layouts sometimes confused me, having more in common with the page layouts for american comics than those for manga, both modern and what little older manga I've read. (By "older," I'm referring to 60s-70s series, almost all ones licensed by Vertical, like this one.) Despite the concept, it's considerably tame and far less madcap than than Princess Knight, the only other Tezuka manga I've read in its entirety (I also read some of Unico, but sadly couldn't really get into it) which made it easier to read in larger chunks. It's fun and its influence of later series is very obvious and interesting to see, but it's also very very dated in many ways.
However! I know that most of those reading this who have heard of Dororo mostly want to know about one thing, so I'll get on that.
( spoilers for gender stuff )
The series was previously released in individual volumes, but is now available in one ginormous omnibus from Vertical.
The general plot is that a samurai makes a bargain with 48 demons that id they'll give him power, he'll let each of them have a body part belonging to his firstborn child. When the child is born, he has the baby (miraculously alive despite the missing body parts) sent down the river in a basket. The baby is found by a monk who happens to also be a mad scientist. The monk names the baby Hyakkimaru and builds him prosthetic body parts. As an adult, Hyakkimaru sets off on a quest to kill the demons and make his body complete. Somewhere along the way, he acquires a cocky pre-adolescent thief named Dororo, who also has an angsty secret past, and they proceed to spend about 750 pages squabbling and pretending that they really really don't secretly have squishy platonic feelings for each other.
It...is very very 60s, and the layouts sometimes confused me, having more in common with the page layouts for american comics than those for manga, both modern and what little older manga I've read. (By "older," I'm referring to 60s-70s series, almost all ones licensed by Vertical, like this one.) Despite the concept, it's considerably tame and far less madcap than than Princess Knight, the only other Tezuka manga I've read in its entirety (I also read some of Unico, but sadly couldn't really get into it) which made it easier to read in larger chunks. It's fun and its influence of later series is very obvious and interesting to see, but it's also very very dated in many ways.
However! I know that most of those reading this who have heard of Dororo mostly want to know about one thing, so I'll get on that.
( spoilers for gender stuff )
The series was previously released in individual volumes, but is now available in one ginormous omnibus from Vertical.