Reasons to have Dororo on mind lately

[F-Man]

I realize people around here aren't too much into Tezuka's other works, but seriously guys, Dororo is awesome.

A supernatural samurai tale about Hyakkimaru and his young tag-along sidekick Dororo, I often recommend it when I want to get people into Tezuka (though it hasn't worked so far) because it's one of his best works, but also very short so it can be read quickly. It was actually supposed to be much longer, but Tezuka had to stop working on it and thus set a very rushed ending. Despite this, it's still a very good manga worth reading again and again.

But the really good news, is that someone started translating the 1969 anime series.



Really! I'm still super excited about this. In my time as a Tezuka fan, I consider this to be one of the best things that's happened.

The manga was rushed, but not so much for the anime. It's 26 episodes long, and has a complete ending from what I can tell. You guys can't imagine how much I wish all episodes were already subbed so I could just go through them all right now.

There was also a live-action movie released in 2007 (it's on DVD right now from Univeral) which is quite decent, despite removing a lot of the horror element from the original manga/anime. It was a huge success in Japan and was at the top of their box office for more than a month. Well here's what's amazing: around the same day that episode 2 of the anime was finished being translated, it was confirmed with Tezuka Productions that Justin Lin, the currrent director on the Fast and the Furious franchise, signed a contract to make an American remake (he works a lot with Asian American actors, so the Japan setting will probably be kept).



Honestly, the Japanese movie was far from perfect, so I actually see a lot of potential in a remake. Hopefully they won't go shot-for-shot the same (I doubt they would with a movie like that) and decide to draw more inspiration from the manga/anime instead. The best thing is all the new fans it could bring. The anime started being subtitled more than a month ago, but there's almost no one to talk to about it and I just have to contain my excitement to myself.



If there's any gamer out there, they made a very good Dororo game for the PS2 in 2004. It's called "Blood Will Tell" over here. The story is so great. The gameplay is quite decent. The atmosphere is really bleak. If there ever was a golden age for Tezuka games, it was in 2004 with Astro Boy: Omega Factor and Blood Will Tell.

I'll just end with some neat fanart from http://fblg.jp/07mitsuboshi/

[Shiyonasan]

That actually looks pretty interesting! I love discovering good obscure manga/anime series. Perhaps I shall give the anime a shot sometime.

Thanks for sharing, F-Man!

[Tetsuwan Atom]

if you can find the anime online Shiyonasan better shot at the manga since that is actually offical in english the 3 in one volume is coming out soon so i should pick that up if i where you but the Japanse Anime set is only 80 dollars wich is really cheap for a japanse dvd set.

And F-Man Tezuka actually stopped Dororo because he wanted to make Prince Norman and i din't mind because i love Tezuka's SCi-fi but if you see how many atention dororo keeps getting time after time it is indeed kinda weird that he quit it.
but in any case compared to Speed Racer and Dragonball Dororo can be a holywood blockbuster.

And i'm not suprised that Tezuka productions agreed on it because pepole are going to look at based upon the Manga of Osamu Tezuka and Vertical's omnibous is actually going to be a big thing now not only that but when they try Buddha Black Jack MW Kirihito etc there going to like that also and many more Tezuka titles are going to come it's as simple as that we might even get a US release of the Dororo Anime xd.

[F-Man]

we might even get a US release of the Dororo Anime.

Gosh I'd love that so much. I've actually considered the possibility, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much. Has there been cases in the past where a 60's anime was released in the US because of a new movie? Maybe something like Speed Racer, though that's more like 70's, and it was already very well known unlike Dororo because it had been dubbed into English before.

Well, I guess the most likely possibility would be Crunchyroll picking it up for web streaming, like they alluded to a long time ago, but I think they might not do it if there's a fansub. Just like they stopped translating Black Jack after episode 28, most likely because of the fansub.