Dororo

Osamu Tezuka's Dororo plunges readers into the tumultuous Sengoku period of Japan, a land scarred by war and shadowed by the supernatural. The narrative follows Hyakkimaru, a ronin samurai born missing 48 of his body parts, which were sacrificed by his ambitious father to appease demons in exchange for worldly power. Hyakkimaru's quest is one of desperate reclamation: to hunt down the demons that stole his flesh and reclaim his body, piece by agonizing piece. Along his perilous journey, he encounters Dororo, a resourceful young orphan who survives by their wits and quick fingers, often by pilfering from others. Their unlikely alliance forms the heart of this dark fantasy epic.

Originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Sunday from August 1967 to July 1968, Dororo was later concluded in Bōken'ō magazine in 1969. The title itself playfully echoes Tezuka's childhood memory of friends mispronouncing "dorobō," the Japanese word for thief. Spanning 210 pages in its 1990 Kodansha edition, the manga's themes explore the cost of ambition, the struggle for identity, and the harsh realities of survival in a war-torn era. Its enduring appeal has led to multiple anime adaptations, including the 1969 Mushi Production series and the 2019 MAPPA and Tezuka Productions version, as well as a 2007 live-action film. [edit]