YMMV / Dororo (2019)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: In the lighthearted episode 19, after Hyakkimaru greets a horse with a head rub and tries touching various other people's faces, as well as expresses his lack of knowledge over weddings and metaphors, another part of the Western audience had decided that his mental age could be significantly younger than his physical age.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: "The Story of the Mercilessness" features what appears to be a Catholic nun offering her prayers to the Buddha rather than the Christian God. This isn't a failure in research, however. When Christianity was first introduced to Japan, Jesuits mistakenly assumed that many Buddhist terms were direct equivalents of Christian ones and used them as such. One of these terms was hotoke, which is the term the nun in the anime uses for "Buddha" (or for God, rather).
• Awesome Music:
  • One cannot help but get into the anime's first OP, Queen Bee's "Kaen"/"Fire", when it starts playing... It's so catchy. There's a reason why "Party is Over!" became memetic or memorable within the fandom.
  • The first ending sequence, "Sayonaragokko"/"Play Goodbye" is melancholic and calm in contrast to "Kaen", yet it's still a consistently relaxing piece.
  • The second ending sequence, "Yamiyo"/"Dark Night" by the utaite/singer Eve, has meaningful lyrics that perfectly describe the relationship between Dororo and Hyakkimaru all throughout the series. While the latter finds himself in the dark because of his lost senses, the former is his guide to understanding how the world is a nice place to be in especially if you have companions. The official music video's animation also alludes to Hyakkimaru getting his last sense back, sight, and finally being able to see the world.
• Catharsis Factor: Hyakkimaru's attack on the soldiers who massacred Mio and the orphans is incredibly well-deserved.
• Creepy Cute: Hyakkimaru. He has the social and language skills of a toddler so he can be incredibly cute and goofy when caught outside of his areas of expertise. On some occasions, he goes directly from one to the other.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Jukai is the source of fan affection, for having more development as a character and as Hyakkimaru's Parental Substitute.
  • Hyogo and Mutsu, Tahomaru's retainers, have gained popularity for their Undying Loyalty and skill at fighting. Mutsu in particular, probably due to her androgynous looks.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, due to the similarity between the protagonists and settings.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba goes well with Dororo since both of their anime adaptations aired in 2019 and both of their stories are told in Japan, they both show fighting demons, and both series are about recovering the humanity of a loved one.
• He's Just Hiding: With Never Found the Body in effect, the general reactions to the finale is that Jukai, Nui and Tahomaru survived the castle fire and are just laying low somewhere, with Hyakkimaru eventually coming across them while he's away traveling.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ever since Hyakkimaru tried to eat a live crab as a kid, the fandom (particularly the Japanese side) has run with the idea that he's mildly obsessed with crabs or associate crabs with him.
  • Comparing Tahomaru's hair shape to a crab. When Episode 10 introduced the Monster of the Week as a Giant Enemy Crab and gave Tahomaru central focus for the first time, the above memes gained traction.
  • In a Never Live It Down sort of way^note he's actually only tried to eat something raw twice on-screen., Hyakkimaru trying to eat things raw (fish, crabs) or things that aren't food (flowers, worms, bugs) has become something of a meme, usually with someone (Dororo, Tahomaru or Jukai) reacting to it in a funny way or trying to stop him.
  • "PARTY IS OVER", sometimes mutated into "PARTY IS STARTING" ^note  The first few lines of "Kaen" are often quoted whenever something very sad happens in the series. That and the song is catchy.
  • Hyakkimanju ^note  Hyakkimaru's first word, disregarding names, is "manju", repeating after Dororo. This made manju similar to the crab meme above, to the point where the anime's art director made a joke about it. Dororo also described manju as "soft and sweet", making it popular to use to describe cute things related to the series, similar to "cinnamon roll".
  • "Mama"/ Mama Jukai ^note Because of Hyakkimaru calling Jukai a mom due to his role as Hyakkimaru's Parental Substitute, fans started to refer to Jukai as such in respect.
• Narm: In episode 12, Hyakkimaru recognizes one of the soldiers who killed Mio, whose hand he cut off when he tried to spear Dororo. Once he realizes this, we get a dramatic camera pan and he looking like he's going to go berserk, but all he does is make a very weird groaning noise. He's used his voice enough that he can properly yell, so it comes off as very goofy and odd. It becomes more horrifying when you realize this is how the people of Daigo's army are introduced to him.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • At the end of episode 5, Hyakkimaru losing his actual foot. Alongside the gore one can expect from losing a body part, there's the fact that the bone is exposed. This, combined with Hyakkimaru's screaming, is not a pleasant sight at all. OUCH.
  • In the next episode, Hyakkimaru's Extreme Mêlée Revenge on the soldiers who killed Mio and the children she was caring for, screaming all the while.
  • In the past, Dororo and his parents are digging through the corpses of soldiers looking for food. Dororo stumbles upon a still-living soldier who has resorted to cannibalism because his limbs are all gone and he cannot move. And then there's the corpses of the mother and baby he sees in a destroyed village.
• Squick:
  • The ash rain caused by the Norosaregumo is actually giant centipede molt.
  • Hyakkimaru's spine growing back, forcing out the prosthetic one.
  • The second opening has a scene showing Hyakkimaru's partially decayed body eaten by bugs.
  • Itachi dug up the grave of Dororo's mother to see the half of a map on her back. He even says that to Dororo's face.
    • How Itachi learns that Dororo is a girl, since he can't find the map anywhere on Dororo's body. It is incredibly distressing not just to see Dororo whimpering and curled up into a ball as they took all her clothes off, but then the map slowly appears as she was close to the fire, so the men then hold her up to see it better. All the while her screams of protest take on a more disturbing tone.
• Ugly Cute: The giant deformed baby Dororo and Hyakkimaru encounter in Episode 14.
• Values Dissonance: The show tries to paint Hyakkimaru's quest as morally grey, arguing The Needs of the Many and that he's ultimately being selfish. While it can generally be agreed that his single-minded focus can be dangerous, the tone can come across as odd to Western viewers. Many Eastern cultures emphasize collectivism and group cohesion, so self-sacrifice is seen as the morally correct action. Therefore, Hyakkimaru putting everyone else at peril for his own benefit is looked down upon. However, many Western cultures emphasize individualism and it's generally more acceptable to pursue personal goals over the goals of the collective, particularly if it's for something minor or for good intentions. Thus, Westerners would see Hyakkimaru's quest as justified since it was his body that was appropriated, making the story seem less of a tragedy and more of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy produced by Daigo's act of hubris.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Some viewers mistook Mutsu for a feminine young man until Hyogo refers to her as his older sister.