Tags:Blood Will Tell, manga, Osamu Tezuka, Vertical
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Dororo is a series by the exceptionally talented and prolific Osamu Tezuka, Japan’s ‘Godfather of Manga’. While relatively little-known in America, the manga spawned an anime series, a Sega video game, and, most recently, a series of live-action films. American fans can thank publisher Vertical for finally bringing us the original.
The story begins during Japan’s Warring States period, when a daimyo (a feudal lord) conceives a desire to rule all of Japan. To this end he spends the night in a temple famous for its forty-eight fearful statues of demons. The daimyo pleads with the demons to fulfill his dream. In exchange, he offers them his unborn child. The demons accept, and the resulting baby is a disturbing sight: each of the forty-eight demons has taken a body part for himself, and the child looks like a slug with empty eye sockets. The daimyo’s wife wants to keep the baby, but her husband forces her to place it in a basket and send it floating down the river, Moses-style.
Luckily for the kid, he’s found by a kindly doctor who takes him in and feeds him. After a couple years the child learns to communicate telepathically, and to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ using a sixth sense. Encouraged by this development, the doctor gives him a name- Hyakkimaru- and some prosthetic limbs. As Hyakkimari grows and becomes proficient with his artificial body parts, he becomes a magnet for demons of all kinds, who sense his unnaturalness. Afraid for the doctor, Hyakkimaru sets off into the world to find his fortune (but not before the doctor makes some deadly modifications to his prosthetic limbs).
