Dororo · Season 1 · Episode 12 · 25 March 2019
S1E12 The Story of Bandai
THE MOMENT Dororo's full history with Itachi - the episode that turns a comic sidekick into a fully realized character.
The midseason episode that deepens Dororo's backstory and begins closing the distance between the two protagonists' emotional registers. The series is at its best when the episodic demon-hunting gives way to the question of what Hyakkimaru is recovering - and what he loses with each body part reclaimed.
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
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Dororo Episode 12 is the midseason episode that deepens the series' co-protagonist's backstory and begins closing the emotional distance between the two leads. The series' most consistent formal achievement is in knowing when to pause the episodic demon-hunting for the question that underlies it: what Hyakkimaru is actually recovering when he reclaims each body part from the demons, and what he loses in the process. Episode 12 works because it makes Dororo's history with Itachi - which had been telegraphed across earlier episodes - the subject of an episode rather than a detail, and the result is that the character the show had positioned as comic relief reveals a grief and a motive that reframes the entire preceding dynamic. The episode turns a sidekick into a fully realised character and clarifies what the series' emotional stakes actually are.