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Review after seven episodes.

So, initially, I really liked the premise of this show, and I was hoping I would like the show, itself, more than I have so far. I'll keep watching to see if it gets better, but here are my thoughts as of right now.

The sound design for this anime is fantastic, and by far the best part about it. I've never described sounds as "lush" before, but I can't think of any other way to say it. Every single sound effect is a treat for the ears, and this show definitely deserves an award for the work they did here.

That said, there ... are big problems with this show. The plot is basically a monster-of-the-week style show that misses the point of those shows. For that formula to work, the main character typically first encounters people affected by a monster, then decides he needs to stop the monster, then he stops the monster so the people can get back to their lives. In this show, there's no real way for people affected by a monster to communicate that fact to the protagonist, so there's very little at stake for him emotionally in the battle. From the protagonist's point of view, the story is about a guy who wanders around in random directions until he encounters a monster, then he fights the monster because he has nothing better to do.

Now, to be fair, there are some times when the monsters, themselves, make for interesting characters, but this is more exception than the rule. Most of the time, the monster is just a mindless, snarling beast that moves through the world as aimlessly as the protagonist.

Character-wise, they took a big risk making the main character unable to communicate or receive communication, and it unfortunately doesn't pay off. As near as I can tell, he has no motivations at all. He just kills monsters because that's his intrinsic nature. On top of that, none of the recurring characters have anything I can latch on to in order to sympathize with them. The titular Dororo is shown from his introduction to be a certified scumbag who repays kindness with cruelty. When he meets the main character, he immediately tries to exploit him. We don't know enough about his backstory to know why he is like this. We know he's poor and a child, which I guess is supposed to make him sympathetic, but those are stats, not personality traits. We also know he has a "good soul". Not because of anything he says or does, mind you, but because the anime literally tells us so. Seven episodes in, and he's not built any kind of relationship with the protagonist, mostly because he can't. The protagonist, himself, is less of a character than a McGuffin, and the story treats him like he's a Fighting Log. He did eventually develop the ability to speak, but until he develops the inclination to speak, we've no idea what, if anything, is going through his head. We've also got a blind, elderly cryptic monk, who is the resident exposition potato. The demons, themselves, are also usually lacking in motivation beyond "be hostile".

Now, I recently found out that this show is a 26 episode title, which is good, as it gives it a little more time to hopefully develop its characters. For the first four episodes, they've basically been just running through a checklist of their twelve demons, killing about one an episode, so hopefully they'll be able to use the second half of the series to focus on a more dramatic conflict between the protagonist and his father. Although the two of them are just barely aware of each other right now, they're beginning to feel the effects of each other's actions, so I'm hopeful that the plot will get better, but that's little more than speculation at this point.

In order to reinforce what could have been an interesting dynamic between the two main characters, they probably should have made the Fighting Log a little less capable so that he was forced to depend on the titular side-character for food or shelter, or other basic necessities that don't involve fighting monsters, but they didn't. That would have made both characters more sympathetic. I'll keep watching for a little while, and my opinion might change, but right now, this is where I am.