CompleteMartialArts.com - Dororo Volume 1 (Dororo)
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List Price: $13.95
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Manufacturer: Vertical
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN: 9781934287163
ISBN: 1934287164
Label: Vertical
Manufacturer: Vertical
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 312
Publication Date: 2008-04-29
Publisher: Vertical
Release Date: 2008-04-29
Studio: Vertical
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Editorial Reviews:
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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 first 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."
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fun, fast-paced, demonic synergy
Comment: The first volume of "Dororo" has been put together by Vertical with wonderful aesthetics.
The story itself is fairly self explanatory; I'm sure if you've read this far you already know that it's protagonist, Hyakkimaru, is in search of his body parts, each protected by a demon which he must first kill. Sold off by his father in infancy, Dororo is picked up by a doctor and given prosthetics -- arms, legs, eyes, the whole works. He trains with them and eventually becomes a skillful swordsman without the use of any natural body parts (his own arms are actually swords!). Tezuka does a wonderful job of keeping the pace up. You never go more than a few pages without Hyakkimaru drawing his swords (uh, arms).
At just three volumes, Vertical could've easily published this as one single work. Hefty though it would've been, given the right (read: hardcover!) treatment, I'd trust it in the hands of Vertical. Otherwise, the publication is beautiful - sturdy cover, intricate and graphic cover art and Tezuka's drawings are all intact. This is some truly beautiful stuff to look at. I go about snatching up any Tezuka I can find and while this doesn't stand apart from things like "Apollo's Song", it's Tezuka nonetheless and that means it's better than 90% of anything else your comic-loving hands could find.
Volumes 2 & 3 look to be even better and with the upcoming re-publication of "Black Jack" forthcoming, it's a great time to fall back in love with Tezuka!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Pace and Direction for a Tezuka Work
Comment: I try and get my hands on all Tezuka's work I can. Phoenix saga was great, Buddha saga was great, Adolf and the list goes on and on. Dororo volume 1 is hot from start to finish. Good action, good art plus an interesting story line = a satisfied Tezuka fan. It almost reminds me a bit of the anime Inuyasha, but done by Tezuka. Volume 2 is on the way and I know Haykkimaru will encounter many more demons and regain what was fausted to the evil spirits by his father. I love being excited for Tezuka. Thanks.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lesser Tezuka, but still pretty darn good
Comment: If you've never read a manga by Osamu Tezuka before, Dororo is not the place to start. Almost any of his other works-- Ode to Kirohito, Apollo's Song, Buddha, Phoenix-- will give you a better introduction to the artistic depth and range of the "godfather of manga."
If you already like Tezuka, you'll like Dororo. Will you like it as much as the many great Tezuka works released in English over the past few years? Probably not. The artwork in Dororo seems rushed and relatively simplistic by Tezuka's high standards. Its story hints at deeper meanings hidden beneath the surface (as the back cover says, "nobody is born whole") but doesn't pursue those themes with enough depth, at least not in this first volume. We've seen characters much like the wild young thief Dororo in many other Tezuka works (Buddha and Apollo's Song, to name only a few). And, finally, it's unfinished, as Tezuka never gave it an ending.
That said, there is something very unique and special about Dororo. It's set in Japan's feudal era and follows a wandering swordsman named Hyakkimaru and his companion, a scrappy thief named Dororo. Hyakkimaru has been cursed and must battle 38 demons to reclaim various parts of his body. Dororo, orphaned, follows Hyakkimaru in a search for a normal life. There is something quite moving about this duo's quest-- to be happy, to be whole, to be safe-- and the incredible obstacles and challenges each must overcome to attain those simple goals. The manga follows many of the feudal genre tropes-- the plight of the peasants, tryannical samurai, ghost and spirits-- but is much darker than the films of Kurosawa and other works I know that portray Japan's samurai days. Finally, without giving anything away, there's a very Tezuka-like chutzpah in the way Hyakkimaru fights.
Like many Tezuka works, the second and third acts are best, and readers should keep in mind that this volume is largely an introduction to the characters. The series gets even better as it goes on.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dororo in English at last!
Comment: This is the first of the recent run of Vertical translations of vintage Tezuka to be in the original manga format. Personally I have been awaiting Dororo in English for close to four decades. I love that tag line [volume title?] on the back - NOBODY IS BORN WHOLE. The front cover is growing on me. The anatomical background not only reflects Tezuka's physician background, but it also reflects what was taken from Hyakkimaru by his father and the 48 demons. I will be eager to see what the image across the spine portrays when volume 3 arrives this fall.
Hyakkimaru's father promised 48 demons a portion each of his soon to born son then literally sends the result down the river in a basket. The basket is found by a doctor who cares for the baby. When the baby communicates telepathically with him, the doctor creates prostatic body parts to replaces those the demon took. Once he becomes proficient at propelling himself, Hyakkimaru leaves the doctor to find and destroy the 48 demons in order to reclaim himself. He is followed by death spirits that can take any form, but that deaf, dumb, blind kid sure wields a mean katana. He rescues and is joined by an even younger sidekick Dororo [the juvenile pronunciation of Dorobo - the word for thief].
Following just the cinematic visuals for forty years I thought that Dororo was a riff on Pinocchio. I was surprised that Hyakkimaru is a 14 year old telepath. Could Dororo in its Sunday Comics volumes and The X-Men at Marvel have reverberated on the same frequency when they first appeared in the 1960's?
This Vertical edition pretty much matches the Akita Bunko publication [minus the opening pages in color plus the creature from page 127 backing up the Table of Contents]. After re"reading" and enjoying Dororo visually for decades, I am eagerly await reading the entire saga "dubbed" with "subtitles".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Manga, too bad about the translation
Comment: Great Manga, too bad about the translation. Another beautiful presentation of Tezuka's work by Vertical. I just wish they would stop the insertion of unnecessary urban slang and colloquialisms into these fantastic stories. They stand well enough on their own. Hang the translator! Hang the editor! But keep the books coming!
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