Category: Dororo

Fuck you Osamu Kobayashi. Your a terrible director and you ruin everything you touch. Welcome to another week of Dororo, where for once OPM isn’t the show I am most disappointed in. Lets dive in.

Let’s cut right to the chase, Dororo looked like shit this week. And all the credit goes to Osamu Kobayashi, the same man who butchered episode 4 of Gurren Lagann. He must have a fetish for blobs and faces, because it’s all terrible. Zoomed out, all the detail disappears into the aforementioned blobs. Meanwhile when zoomed in, while it looks fine, the direction is anything but. We cut from face to face at crazy times, mid speech or sequence, before randomly cutting to a wide shot of the cast. Its as if the man is deathly allergic to pan’s or stills. God, he even has me wishing for more pans and stills. This is how much the man has butchered Dororo this week. Luckily he only has this episode, so maybe Dororo will return to form next week. For for now, continue on if your ready to read a reaming.

Continue reading “Dororo – 15 [The story of the scene from hell]” →

Another week, another episode of Dororo. This time we learn the mystery of Dororo’s back, meet a new demon and get a lot of parallels to their current overall situation. Lets jump in!

Starting off, Dororo once again is a bit disappointing on the production front. There were a number of dull or sliding stills, such as the large baby ghost… thing. Where it basically slid across the screen most of the time it was on. That isn’t to say there weren’t some nice shots. Opening on the monochrome flashback with the red fire was nice. As was the short fight near the end and the transformation sequence. But all in all, Dororo hasn’t wowed me since coming back for the 2nd season. Considering how this first cour started and ended, this is more than a little disappointing. Even when it wasn’t particularly active on screen, it was at least visually interesting. However this is neither most of the time. At least the story itself remains interesting though.

Continue reading “Dororo – 14 [The Story of Sabame]” →

Hello everyone and welcome to the Spring season! While we are still preparing our First Impressions and picking what interests us, carryovers from last season are picking back up. That of course includes Dororo, which left off on a huge first cour finale. Lets jump in!

Before we get into the meat of this episode, I want to once more talk production. This was, honestly, rather weak. With lots of sliding stills and generally dull fights. With your main combatant being a giant statue, its natural that the fight would be slow. However multiple times in the combat it felt like nothing was happening, when they were fighting for their lives. I think this is a mix of the premise simply not being great for a fight, and MAPPA’s 2nd Cour curse. You see, MAPPA has a curse with their shows where production tends to fall off in the 2nd Cour. I don’t know if that’s just their inability to plan, or if its something else. What has helped Dororo a lot I suspect is that Tezuka Production’s have been working on it as well, lightening MAPPA’s load. Yet even still, this slipped through.

Continue reading “Dororo – 13 [The Story of the Blank-Faced Buddha]” →

Welcome to the first cour finale for Dororo! This week the Kagemitsu family reunites, Tahomaru turns a blind eye and Hyakki starts a war. Lets jump in!

More than usual, we need to talk about production, because Dororo really stepped it up this week. The direction, as always, was fantastic. There were a lot of shots I loved. From Daigo turning to face Hyakki, to Oku viewing him through the Buddha statue. Hyakki standing on the wall, forcing his way into the family and promptly being pushed away. There were a lot of great shots that stood out throughout this episode. Thats not even mentioning the step up in fluid animation we got this week in many of the fights. Sure, the archers are basically machine gun storm troopers, but hey. The actual sword and demon fights looked fantastic. The green flame flying through the air, taking shapes and lighting up the sky. Clearly MAPPA put a lot of care into the episode, and that’s not even mentioning the story content.

Continue reading “Dororo – 12 [The Story of Banmon, Part 2]” →

Lets skip the preamble this week and just dive in to Dororo! On this episode our plucky pair explore Daigo’s city, fight some fox spirits and get in a bit of a pickle. Lets go!

Startin off, Dororo had some interesting visuals and colors this week. With the Fox Spirits and the Crazy Woman sticking out to me the most. Both had some great colors and unique styles to them. The Fox Spirits for instance had some fantastic greens and blues, really selling that other-worldliness in a series that is mostly natural greens and browns. They really brightened up their scene and drew the focus. The crazy woman on the other hand had some nice blending. With the green/black drooping from her eyes nicely accenting her sickness. It’s a simple effect, but one I loved. So overall while Dororo is not the most visually impressive series in this season, I can say it has established its style. Unlike Mob Psycho, which changes every scene almost, Dororo is really sticking to its older aesthetic and that sets it apart, similar to what Megalo Box did.

Continue reading “Dororo – 11 [The Story of Banmon, Part 1]” →

Welcome to Dororo’s week of brotherly love! This episode, if the title wasn’t obvious, we look at Tahomaru and his relationship with various characters. Lets dive in!

Production wise, Dororo stepped it up a bit this week. As always, the direction and shot composition is it’s strong point. Doing a great job of conveying emotion. The surprise for me was the animation department, as Dororo really wanted to make a good impression for Tahomaru. His battle with the demon, along with the flowing of the water as it came down on them, was visually interesting. Take for instance the scene of Hyogo throwing the villagers to safety. It wasn’t huge, like Mob Psycho always goes, but it fit Dororo’s subtler style and stood out in the moment. Sure, it rarely wow’s me, but the landscapes are beautiful and do a good job of building up the world. Still, enough about Dororo’s animation, I talk on that every week. Onto the spoilers!

Continue reading “Dororo – 10 [The story of Tahomaru]” →

Hello everyone, welcome back to Dororo! Thanks again for understanding about my vacation, as we head into this weeks double feature. This time Dororo makes a friend, we get their backstory and a ‘he’ turns out to be a ‘she’. Lets jump in!

As always, lets start off with the animation and actual production of these two episodes. Animation wise Dororo continues to be a series of highs and lows. Often during its fights, like with the giant centipede, it can look great. Smooth motion and clear choreography. Other times though, outside of these fights, it can be very limited and often just unappealing. This isn’t to say Dororo looks bad though, as its direction at least is always very good. It has a clear focus on its cinematography. This can be seen most obviously in this weeks episode 9, with little actual animation, but fantastic coloring and camera-work. It engages the eye in a very different way from say, Mob Psycho 100’s bombastic animation and almost blinding rainbow of colors. As I have described in previous posts, Dororo is an exercise in minimalism I feel. But now, onto actual spoilers!

Continue reading “Dororo – 8/9 [The story of Saru/The story of the Mercilessness]” →

Hello and welcome to what is, I believe, an anime original week of Dororo! This time we have a sympathetic ghoul, Hyakki dealing with his emotions and a continually worse feudal landscape. Lets jump in!

Dororo was a rather disappointing one after last week, to be frank. Story wise there were some interesting ideas and it got its message across, as we will talk about. But visually Dororo fell very short. There were lots of dull stills, choppy or lazy animation and questionable transitions. Take the opening for instance, as Ohagi runs away after her first encounter with Hyakkimaru. The walk/run animation there is basically a loop as she slides across the screen. Or Hyakki and Dororo’s “search” as just the background fades and changes. Simply put, visually, I would not blame someone if they checked out while watching this episode. As much as the story does it’s job, it simply isn’t engaging compared to last weeks arc finale. It felt like filler, almost, which considering all the plot threads currently available and in the air isn’t really acceptable. Now, spoilers after the break!

Continue reading “Dororo – 7 [The story of the Jorogumo silk spider]” →

Hello and welcome to Dororo, your weekly dose of suffering for the season. This time Hyakkimaru get’s revenge, Mio proves herself Best Girl and Tahomaru gets some development. Lets dive in!

Starting off, this episode looked fantastic. Dororo is often very subdued with its animation. Either reducing details or going slow. This week however proved, without a doubt, that when Dororo want’s to it can get really smooth. Both the return fight with the Demon and the battle at the house looked fantastic. Not only was the animation beautiful, but Dororo’s muted color palette it had used up until now is starting to pay dividends. Making the bright color of the fire and golden rice incredibly striking on screen. Dororo also seems to know what character moments are important. As the facial detail and subtle character animation really ramp up during certain, emotionally important scenes. Such as when Dororo confronts Mio about her “job”, the focus on Mio’s face and the care put into her lips, hair and shading really make it stand out.

Continue reading “Dororo – 6 [The Story of the Moriko Song, Part 2]” →

This week Dororo is simultaneously at its brightest, yet possibly lowest, point so far. With Hyakkimaru adjusting to his new senses, a new character joining the cast and the Priest wandering back in, lets jump into the details!

Dororo was pretty good this week, all things considered. It went a direction I wasn’t expecting, and is starting to weave more anime original content in, but I enjoyed it. Before getting into spoilers though, there were some snafus I saw. Namely, animation and model issues. Take for instance the old mans re-entrance, cutting down the bird. In the moment, in motion, it looks great. But when you really look at the scene the old mans model after the cut is just… very blobby. There are no details and all the colors and lines sort of bleed together. Like the man isn’t entirely solid. There is a similar issue in regards to the characters feet. Where toes are all but non- existent. Considering the shots of feet, and how no one apparently wears shoes, this is a big issue for me. I just hope this is the worst we see.

Continue reading “Dororo – 5 [The Story of the Moriko Song]” →