Dororo to me was a breath of fresh air coming out from the usual ten million Isekai anime that release every new season. I tend to spend my time watching older anime rather than new ones, simply because the new ones never seem to interest me. Dororo, on the other hand, had a very strong summary that immediatly got me interested in it. Waiting for it to release, I watched the first episode the day it aired and then the rest of the episodes the same way.
Dororo is an amazing anime. The story is very unique and keeps the watcher interested, theres no confusing plot points, or holes in the storyline. The whole anime flows very well. What makes the story so good is in fact it's characters. Many times in anime we see great stories but bad execution or amazing characters with horrible plot, then at times we get somewhere in between the two. Dororo has amazing characters and if it wasn't for them, the story wouldn't be so good, in this anime they go hand in hand. The creators wrote the characters so well that they seem believable, you can understand their intentions, you may not agree with them at times but you can understand them. At times, I would even argue, it's hard to know which side is the good side as each of the characters has their own reasons. Dororo was not as dark as I was personally expecting, it was indeed dark at times but it did not go into the Berserk level of darkness I was expecting, again this is not a bad thing. The story does get dark at times, especially in the first few episodes but it's not just edgy stuff thrown in to attract a certain audience.
As for the art? Dororo had it's ups and downs with this one. In the beginning, the art was amazing and extremely well done. Seemless and well executed, the art and animation sliced through any doubt one may have. Towards the middle, though, there was an obvious drop in quality. Watching through and simply trying to enjoy the anime (as I definitely did) I barely noticed it but it was obviously there. The company did bring it back up towards the end however. Well it was not as well done as it was in the beginning, as you could tell where they took some shortcuts to save money, they did greatly improve from the drop they had in the middle of the series. But by golly those openings. The openings were very upbeat and would seem to fit more in an anime like Naruto. They were really good! Don't get me wrong, they just didn't seem to fit with the slight dark undertones of the story though. The voice acting is very well done, I found no problems watching through it. There was no unbearable voices, everyone did an amazing job on their part, the voices fit very well with their respective character.
Overall, I would have to give Dororo a 9/10. It has an amazing story with great characters, from the first episode, probably even the synopsis I was drawn in. Every episode had me constantly checking the calendar to see how far away they next episode was. The voice acting is incredible. The thing that kept me from giving it a 10/10 was the art and animation. If they company kept it at the same level they had it in the beginnig, this anime would have been a solid 10/10 in my book but the obvious drop in quality ruined that. By no means am I saying avoid this anime because of that though, no, this anime is great! It is one I would recommend to everyone, especially those new to anime.
