Dororo

A ruthless feudal lord sacrifices his newborn son's body parts to a horde of demons in exchange for victory on the battlefield, leaving the infant abandoned and marked by fate. A wandering medicine man rescues the child and outfits him with crude but deadly prosthetics, and the young man, known as Hyakkimaru, sets out to track down the demons and reclaim his stolen organs one by one. Along the way he meets Dororo, a brash orphan who claims the title of greatest thief in Japan, and their uneasy companionship becomes the emotional heart of a brutal, often bleak world where questions of identity and humanity are constantly tested.

Released in 2019, this television adaptation brings Osamu Tezuka's classic manga to modern anime audiences, with Yasuko Kobayashi credited for the series composition and script. The voice cast features Rio Suzuki as Dororo and Hiroki Suzuki as Hyakkimaru, supported by Naoya Uchida, Akio Otsuka, and Shoya Chiba.

While it didn't dominate major international award shows, Dororo earned attention from critics and anime outlets and showed up on several 2019 year-end lists. Industry commentary often highlighted the voice performances, atmospheric score, and the series' darker reinterpretation of Tezuka's original material.

The remake helped reintroduce a lesser known, more mature side of Tezuka's work to a global streaming audience. Visual motifs like Hyakkimaru's prosthetics and the pair's shifting bond quickly became reference points in conversations about modern samurai anime, and the show prompted renewed interest in earlier adaptations and the original manga.

Audience and critical response skewed positive, reflected in an 8.5/10 user score from 1,272 votes. Reviewers praised the series' blend of visceral action and emotional stakes, and its recurring themes focus on identity, bodily loss, revenge, and the limits of human compassion. The tone is grim, but moments of tenderness give the series surprising moral complexity.