Dororo, Vol. 3

どろろ [Dororo] #3

by Osamu Tezuka

Dororo is Tezuka's classic thriller manga featuring a youth who has been robbed of 48 body parts by devils, and his epic struggle against a host of demons to get them back.

Daigo Kagemitsu, who works for a samurai general in Japan's Warring States period, promises to offer body parts of his unborn baby to 48 devils in exchange for complete domination of the country. Knowing the child to be deficient, Kagemitsu orders the newborn thrown into the river.

The baby survives. Callling himself Hyakkimaru, ge searches the world for the 48 demons. Each time he eliminates one, he retrieves one of his missing parts. Hyakkimaru meets a boy thief named Dororo, and together they travel the countryside, confronting mosters and ghosts again and again. This the last in a 3 - volume series.

Tezuka's manga and animated films had a tremendous impact on the shaping of the psychology of Japan's postwar youth. His work changed the concept of Japanese comics, transforming it into an art form and incorporating a variety of new styles in creating "story comics."

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Comics, Fiction, Japan, Horror

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1971

About the author

Dr. Osamu Tezuka (手塚治虫) was a Japanese manga artist, animator, producer and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. He is often credited as the "Father of Anime", and is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during his formative years. His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga" and "the God of Manga."

Reviews

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art in Dororo is involved. It moves from solid thick lined action panels to heavily textured monsters, landscapes, and structures. The latter are a joy to get lost in in but the former can be muddled making it difficult to follow the action.

It’s the action that drives the story. Dororo and Hyakkimaru learn about themselves through the adversity posed by their human and demonic foes and the bond between them strengthens. Hyakkimaru literally becomes more human. Hyakkimaru’s characterization seems familiar but it’s depicted well. Their are also plenty of moments played for laughs.

It’s an enjoyable read but it ends abruptly. Seems like there should have been more resolution to both characters but there isn’t. Overall, it’s a fun action story with elements of horror thrown in.

[Natalya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have been a five if it ended differently but I understand why they ended it that way because of publishing issues I believe.

[Kulwinder Singh · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author didn't even bother to end Hyakkimaru's story. This miniature series was a complete waste of time!

[Noemi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third Dororo volume was just as great as expected. Little Dororo has a bigger role now that the third volume has begun and him and Hyakkimaru almost split up multiple times. Hyakkimaru finally decides to officially look for who he suspects is his dad and Dororo gets abandoned more than once. Hyakkimaru also finally reveals a huge secret about Dororo that even Dororo might not realize. This secret is hinted at multiple times in the book but never actually revealed until the final chapter in the third volume. The characters are still great as always and there is also quite a variety of demons. Lots of the demons do have similar characteristics but the different visuals help in identifying them. Many demons are tied in with humans in this books and of course in the end there is a big battle. The twist though is that Hyakkimaru's adventure doesn't stop there and he is yet to be whole. So the ending does leave a lot to the imagination which can be very frustrating for some but also very enjoyable by others who may prefer to envision their own ending.

[Sonic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thrilling conclusion to the fun and strange Dororo adventure! The ending felt a little abrupt, but still ended nicely without tying up every loose end!

[Mjhancock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed with this volume. The major plot points are wrapped up, but there's a certain rushed feeling towards the end that felt more like Tezuka was tired of these characters than their stories had reached a natural conclusion.

The story starts well, with a multi-chapter focus on the map on Dororo's back that had been set up previously. There's a major portion where the bandits kidnapping him are in turn prey for a boy who has bonded with a pair of shark demons, followed by a tense confrontation with a samurai and his army at the peak where the treasure's buried. Both of these stories work fairly well; there's the unsettling nature of the sharks and the boy's bond with them, and the bleakness of the peak battle, both traits that Tezuka has established as themes for the series. The following chapter on a grieving mare driven to accepting a demon is good, if a bit of a step down in terms of tension. But it does a nice job exploring the inhumanity that extends from those in power. The subsequent chapter feels a bit of the aforementioned rushedness; I didn't feel the pathos for Oyone that it seems like I was supposed to. Likewise, the demon priest story after that feels a bit weightless. I suppose it's possible Tezuka was just tired of the characters, and in that sense I can appreciate a final chapter where Hyakkimaru confronts his father (and to a lesser extent his mother) to save Dororo, and maybe to help the peasants being worked to death to build his father's fortress.

After hundreds of pages of Dororo fighting the demons pledged to his father one by one, being told that the remaining just combine to form a super tiger that is taken down in about five pages is a bit of a let down. They couldn't even be bothered to get the number of demons remaining right. "How many demons in that super tiger?" "Uh, probably about 48." "Exactly 48?" "No, no, just about. Probably." It almost would have been better to end the story at the peak--take a George Constanza approach, and go out on a high note. Instead, I'm left feeling a little let down.

Also a bit of a bummer: I know it was written in 1960s Japan, so I really shouldn't be expecting differently, but it's not great that the man who betrayed Dororo's father is more accepting of his chosen pronouns than his best friend.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave the first two volumes 5* each for their freshness of feel and pace, the wonderful fantasy of the ideas and the continued uniqueness of the settings. Hyakkimaru as a child loses all of his body parts and senses to a demon and somehow survives and thrives (so improbable but very cool) and spends his life tracking down and killing demons, each one he destroys returns a body part to him. He meets young thief Dororo and they form an unlikely friendship and get into scrapes together. There's a treasure trove of great stories contained in these three volumes, all drawing on Japanese supernatural folklore to create scenarios where demons and ghoulies occur in the most unlikely of places, my favourite perhaps where Dororo is tricked by a ghost into following a likeness of his mother but it's really the case that a demon is stealing faces for himself and a whole cave of creepy faceless bodies is discovered. There's also a completely different story about a wall keeping two villages apart and in eternal war, manipulated by the higher castes who brutally slaughter people who try to cross.

I'd be curious as to the reasons why, then, this series ended so abruptly at the end of this third volume. Did Tezuka just get bored with it or did his publishers? or did he just have too many projects ongoing (it does seem that h wrote a lot!) Either way it slices through what would have been a minor masterpiece and turns it into an ultimately frustrating experience, a gem but an annoyingly unfinished one. As viewers of anime I guess we're used to the industries tendency to wrap up great concepts swiftly and move on to the next one but I can't help but feel cheated anyway as promising storylines about buried treasure as well as genderbending are quickly swept aside and Hyakkimaru's quest never has a finale or feels complete. Ironically the 2019 anime adaptation promises to finally give us an ending to this wonderful little tale

[Carissa P · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story was going on just fine until it ended abruptly, like pretty much wrapped it up way too soon which left me pretty disappointed because everything that happened.. led to this..? Only for us to get a short text at the end saying “then he defeated the demon etc etc etc” leaving us to wonder what happened to our two main characters.

That’s just me being pissy though. I’m just sad because the whole story had me super hyped up, great story nonetheless though but if you don’t like stories that end on a somewhat cliffhanger I’d say just pass this series and read the author’s other works, you won’t be disappointed

[Anne Mey · Rating 4 out of 5]

C'est frustrant d'avoir une fin ouverte mais toute l'histoire est passionnante avec Hyakkimaru qui essaie de redevenir humain et se bat contre des monstres, il se retrouve toujours traité de monstre lui-même après avoir défendu les villageois. Le monde est cruel et Tezuka le montre bien, notamment avec l'enfance de Dororo et à quel point il a réussi à survivre durant toutes ces années avec tous les moyens possibles. C'est un vrai hommage aux petites gens qui arrivent à survivre malgré tous les malheurs qui leur arrivent. Vraiment une super histoire qui en plus a beaucoup de passages drôles et de blagues pour compenser la noirceur de l'époque médiévale qui est dépeinte assez crument.

[Bismah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having watched the 2019 anime adaptation, I wanted to read the original manga. I heard a lot about the lackluster ending and I have to say now that I read it it's a pretty bad ending . I can't exactly blame Tezuka for the ending because I'm sure there was some publication drama that caused it to end as it did which is why I'm glad the anime gave it a much more proper ending.

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy you can really tell the point where Tezuka just kinda got bored of the story and wanted to wrap it up quickly!! There's still some fun gags and adventures here but don't get too invested in the originally enaging plot. I really don't like the way Hyakkimaru is written in the last chapter, particularly the way he treats Dororo.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It ends a little too abruptly, but otherwise it’s a very solid volume. I wish there were more of this series.

Also, this dude really loves when girls dress like boys, huh? Dororo, Buddha, Black Jack, and Princess Knight all have female characters pretending to be men and/or not knowing their own gender.

[Roglin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like everything wrapped up too quick. We never know if Hyakkimaru gets all of his body parts back, or how everything progresses from there. It's still well done though, even if the story ends rather abruptly.

[October Murilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series that started off with a bang, really ended with a whimper. The stories in this volume just feel rushed and repetitive. And the abrupt non-ending felt like confirmation of my suspicion that the creator had just grown bored with the whole thing.

[Ettelie Lovern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am going to pretend that that last chapter didn't happen and they did not part ways are are out looking for the body parts together.

[aj · Rating 3 out of 5]

fun fact im still devastated over midoro and her colt

[Kurtis Burkhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not great but not horrible manga, the art style was different and alright and decent story 😤😁❤️❤️

[Mr B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nằm đọc một lèo luôn Dodoro, cốt truyện tuyệt vời, nhân vật cá tính, một vài đoạn thể hiện chiêm nghiệm sâu sắc của tác giả về cuộc sống. Xuất sắc

[bogo_lode · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid but doesn’t really feel finished

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could've kept on going for a volume or two longer. Get us a proper finish.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ending (if you can really call it that) was incredibly rushed which is such a shame as the premise was really good even if the overall storytelling was pretty chaotic.

[Trane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first two volumes of Dororo, especially for their yokai (a style of Japanese monster) weirdness. The third volume has some good yokai too — demonic sharks, a ghost horse that returns for revenge after it's foal is taken from it, and a giant demon turtle that sends its spirit out to enter into the belly button of a rich rice hoarder.

The problem with the third volume is that it ends so abruptly that it's jarring. The first two volumes set up quite a few interesting plot threads and fields of thematic development, but the third volume closes without wrapping up any of these, almost as if one were to come home to one's spouse of a decade to find them packed and ready to go without any prior indication whatsoever.

Okay, so what goes unresolved here? First, there is a map tattooed on Dororo's back that should lead to a treasure laid down by his bandit prince father that was intended to be given away to poor farmers (the class that Dororo's family comes from). There's a long sequence involving triple betrayals and an enormous battle, but when they finally find the spot where the treasure is buried, it's empty. Dororo's bandit father didn't trust his underlings, so he hid the treasure somewhere else. Okay, but then why tattoo the map on your son's back? Also, why let the storyline die out like this?

Then there's the secret that Dororo is really a girl. This comes up early on in the third volume, and it's clear that Tezuka has been setting up this reveal for a long time. But the fact that Dororo is really a girl never amounts to anything, and is barely mentioned again. Why even bring it up?

Although Hyakkimaru does end up finally confronting his father and seemingly winning, it's in a fairly unsatisfactory manner. He also meets up with his mother, who begs forgiveness. Normally this would be the place where a story should end, but Hyakkimaru still has demons to fight to become whole and the last story ends with a kind of "further adventures of Hyakkimaru" feeling, except that there are no further adventures.

Finally, Hyakkimaru decides to divorce himself from Dororo at the end of the volume, but this feels completely incidental and unmotivated. The volume ends with the unsatisfying line, "It is said that fifty years hence, the flames of war burned down the Hall of Hell that housed the forty-eight sculptures. Where Hyakkimaru went from there, no one knows."

The final story in this volume really feels like Tezuka's editor phoned suddenly one morning and said, "Hey, Tezuka — we've decided to end the Dororo series, so you've got one more story in which to wrap it all up. Good luck."

Of course the artwork is still brilliant, and if you have the other two volumes it's worth having the third one as well. As a way to end the series, however, it's a real disappointment.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

He'd dead. Dead. Another dead one. Deady. Deadified. Two more dead. Dead from the neck up, dead from the neck down. But that's life!



Its a bit generalizing but that sums up this entire series.

I was wondering how this story had only 3 volumes and its because it literally just ends abruptly. I think I'd give this one 3.5 stars for that. And because the story doesn't actually wrap up. An arc ends and then it just jump cuts to 50 years later. We don't even see Hyakkimaru's changes or how Dororo grows up. It felt like Tezuka got tired and figured the rest was self explanatory since each arc was pretty similar.

edit: Apparently the series was canceled so maybe there was initially supposed to be more. It would make more sense that way.

Since the story was literally called "Dororo," I thought that he would have some super special trait about him. I guess there was thanks to his parents, but not as big as I was assuming. I thought he'd be magical somehow. There wasn't anything to warrant his name being the title. Dororo really stepped up his usefulness this volume but he still mostly gets captured. Actually, Dororo is a she and was cross dressing out of necessity. Her parents raised her as a boy to protect her. But regardless, she's just kinda there.

I wouldn't call this story enjoyable. Its very sad but also the high speed pacing means there's no depth. People meet, fight, and die in less than 10 pages. If they're not Hyakkimaru or Dororo, just assume they're dying. Everyone's death is sad conceptually but one girl's was quite comical because of Hyakkimaru's reaction. This boy literally say "See ya" and then walked off. Didn't even bury her or anything. This girl apparently loved him in their two second encounter because he didn't mock her. Faster than a Disney romance there. This story had an interesting premise but the execution was off. I guess its good to have read purely from a history stand point to see where mangas branched from.

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conclusion to the Dororo trilogy. This contains 7 stories as Hyakkimaru continues on his quest to kill the 48 demons and regain his body parts, aided by his irrepressible thief companion Dororo.

I didn't find this volume as satisfying as the previous two, the demons weren't as interesting and the stories seemed rather rushed and lacking the metaphors that some of the previous encounters had.

The ending is a disappointment too. I was hoping for a big show down with his father which does sort of happen but the climax is not what you'd expect. I also hoped for some kind of conclusion where the 48 demons are defeated and Hyakkimaru becomes human instead there's an open ending with a tiny epilogue tacked on that suggests that our hero does succeed 50 years into the future. For any of you that have seen the film and were annoyed at its very open ending, having read the manga you can see why the film finishes where it does - the manga is somewhat inconclusive to begin with.

The artwork is of the same super cute standard as the other books and there's stacks of action. Also loved the reveal that Dororo is a girl. There's still loads to enjoy here, but just felt this volume lacks the imagination that the story started out with.

[Dave-O · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine ending to this collection of the ghost-busting and countryside wanderings of Hyakkimaru, the man with no body parts who seeks them through slaying demons, and Dororo, the hot-headed child thief. This final volume finds them in the hands of a merciless samurai who, among other things is a possessed killer.

The story is primarily a series of chapters centered around the slaying of a demon and the subsequent re-gaining of a body part by Hyakkimaru. As such, the format is a tad predictable, though always entertaining. Never does the format feel like it is not servicing the main story. The cuddly Disney-esque quality of Tezuka's characters against realistically rendered backgrounds turns out to be very appealing to the eye. The acts of horrible violence are softened by this clever art direction. Those looking for a decisive ending will be somewhat disappointed by the open-ended conclusion.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third and final volume of this story about a young warrior made of prosthetic body parts who slays demons and gradually turns into a real man, and the child thief who tags along on his adventures, continues with some excellent longer adventures, but then comes to a disappointingly abrupt end, with Hyakkimaru's quest still unfulfilled, the situation with his parents awkwardly "resolved," and a final revelation about Dororo that feels more than a little contrived. (Also, the plot thread about the money Dororo's father left behind is left dangling...)

Still, the artwork ranks among Tezuka's best, a perfect blend of his cartoony character style and a fluid, cinematic composition, so at least there's that.

[Yuval · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first part of this volume continued the exciting, imaginative demon-chasing from volumes 1 & 2, but the final chapters concluded the entire series so abruptly and in an unsatisfying way. I would have rather the series just remain unfinished than the haphazard conclusion tacked on here. It seems surprisingly careless for Tezuka, whose other series unfold so perfectly.

Luckily my Tezuka fix can still be satiated, since Vertical is finally releasing Black Jack this month, as well as reissuing the first volume of Astro Boy. So hopefully the unsettled feeling this volume gave me will soon be ameliorated by some of his other work.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dororo started out very promisingly, the story of a boy (Dororo's companion Hyakkimaru) whose father sold his body to 48 demons in exchange for power, haunted by the souls of the dead. (It had great resonance with the later series Berserk, which I much like.) Unfortunately, it never really went anywhere. Dororo and Hyakkimaru adventure and kill various demons, and develop somewhat as characters, but there's no overarching story, and as time goes on they spend less time talking and revealing and more time solely dealing with the Freak of the Week. After a while, it got repetitious. The end wasn't conclusive, and more than anything left me wanting to continue reading Berserk.

[Alex Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A satisfying conclusion to the Dororo story, still violent and filled with inventive demons, it also stops with the evil female demon, as I believe all the demons in this volume are men. There are some interesting revelations and surprises as well. I felt like I understood the setting of this volume better since I just went to the Samurai exhibit at the Asian Art Museum, which I must say was wonderful and very informative, especially if you read all the placards. The story is set during this time, so I got more of the setting.

[Emilia P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Animal demons! was the theme of this. The earth taking back what it gave to us! Got too far away from the stories of the characters though, and it didn't really work. Looked super-good doing it, though. Sharks! Mountains! I think the story is petering out a little bit too, and I'm sad, but I suppose I can console myself with Buddha ramping up. Bless you, O.T. for your prolificness.