S1E1 The Story of Daigo

Dororo's premiere is MAPPA's adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's 1967 manga, and the studio makes the visual register immediately its own: prosthetic limbs against Sengoku-era Japan, a muted palette broken by demon silhouettes, a protagonist whose entire sensory world was sold before he was born. The episode establishes the premise in its most brutal form - Lord Daigo's pact with twelve demons, the newborn sacrificed to grant him land and power, the resulting creature that survives and grows into Hyakkimaru - without softening the originating horror. Anime News Network identified the series as 'a contender for 2019's anime of the year after just three episodes,' and the premiere established the visual grammar that justified the assessment: the specific way MAPPA renders Hyakkimaru's perceptual world, where he cannot see, hear, or feel in human terms but perceives demons and other living beings through their spiritual presence.