Dororo Episode 21 Discussion

the entire country is at war but you don’t see anyone else go whining to demons.!

ninka22 said:
This post sums up everithing I want to say regarding this anime.Thanks to chelsiegeorgia for it.

Ataraxette said:

Except village or may be two, where people lured strangers and fed them to demons. Or may be that one village, where people sacrificed young women to giant flying centipede. Ah, and there was a village, where people sacrificed entire orphanage for demon moths.

What is this person talking about.

P.S. I forgot to do add individuals like shark-boy and guy from episode 20, who teamed up with demons for their own personal reasons. Sure, no one, but Daigo used help of demons in the entire country.

elementex said:
why is this so boring

kater_tot said:
Ah man, this anime is tearing me apart...

I don't want Tahomaru to die because he's just trying to be a good ruler and i don't want Hyakkimaru to die but he's getting so cold and hard hearted and it's so sad. I thought he'd turned a corner recently but it feels like he's taken 3 steps back.

I also have a theory that the old blind man is the demon that didn't take a part of him but i'm not sure what that would mean for the plot...

I've kinda given up on a happy ending... just preparing for the worst now 😭

kater_tot said:


Ah that makes sense. I might sound really stupid here but how do u know that Hyakki is protected by Buddha?

SparkleDuck said:
Chill on the edge. Also, MANY people view the greater good as more important than a few individual lives. What Daigo did benefited way more people than it harmed. I don't necessarily agree with his ambitions, but it's pretty understandable why some would. There's a reason why Fate/Zero is held in such high regard, half of its plot is literally focused on this topic: is it better to sacrifice a few for the greater good? It's in no way comparable to Hitler. Hitler didn't make it so his people weren't starving and dying at insane rates by killing Jews. You're making really bad comparisons.

seafirefly said:
I'm surprized at people calling Tahomaru a plain villain or just a spoiled brat. Maybe you people perceive him through the manga prism, idk, but this adaptation basically reinvented his character so referencing to the original makes no sense. As for me, Tahomaru’s character in 2019 version totally steals the light. While Hyakkimaru’s motivations are basic like those of a child who is fighting just to be born into this world, Tahomaru’s motives are complex and his choice conditions are harsh. Calling him a plain villain is just ignoring everything this anime tried to convey up to this moment.

First, there is a huge and constant emphasis on Tahomaru's noble and caring attitude. He cares for his people and land to the point of constantly risking his life. He does it for his pride? Nope. He just feels personal responsibility, it is clearly stated several times. Like when he attacks Hyakki 3 on 1 or brings a whole army to kill him which is obviously harmful to his pride, but more efficient. He needs the work done to secure the safety of his land, not to indulge himself or to prove smth to his father. (Btw, it was shown that he actually tried to prove himself to his MOTHER ("tell father to send me to war, maybe that will make you proud of me"), while he had no problems with his father who did praise him and notice his successes). So, there is no evidence of him doing it just to prove himself.

Second, Tahomaru doesn't believe that sacrificing Hyakkimaru was a right thing to do. He said it himself. He accused his parents and his father, straightforward saying that he did it for his own ambitions and not for the people. That alone draws a line thick enough between his and his father's motivations.

Why Tahomaru called Hyakkimaru a demon then, if he does consider his brother to be an innocent victim? Because he has made the decision, chosing to protect his land over his brother, and once he made it, he should follow it through, otherwise he would be just a weak emo kid driven by his sentiments, wavering and fluctuating. Sentiments are good for the mellow people of 21 century who don't want to decide and just want to enjoy life. For a ruler, especially the one from the Sengoku era, sentiments can't be good. If you have no advanced medicine to stop epidemics, you have to burn down the village. If you can't do anything against floods, droughts and other calamities other than killing one guy, you have to kill the guy. The price - just 1 life - is ridiculously cheap for that era.

Does Tahoumaru enjoy it? Did he lose his humanity? No. He clearly says that he forbids himself to let his feelings get in the way. So, he does have them. His feelings. Meaning it is absurd to label him as a plain villain even from the emotional perspective.

Notice how he never once called Hyakkimaru "brother" after their first battle. But during their first battle, he still called him exactly that. Brother. Meaning this is the very sentiment he has sworn to not let blunt his sword ever again. It makes him weaker. So he tries to depersonate this as much as he can, calling him just Hyakkimaru and a demon. This is not malice; this is a desperate attempt of a boy to manage his feelings in order to do his duty.

Tahomaru's line is downright tragic: he did nothing wrong, he managed to grow up a noble and caring man, and then he was set between the hammer and the anvil and made to take responsibility for everything his father had done. And he took it. This is admirable.

Back to why Tahomaru has made this decision at all: he couldn't find how to oppose his father's argument "The ambition of the lord is the ambition of his people", following with how he sacrificed his own son and not ashamed as a samurai. This one is about his political interests, not about calamities even. And yet again, we have to mind the era: the country was a mess of constant feuds, the Ashikaga shogunate being weak and failing to control the local daimyos, Imperial court having no political power either. Daigo basically wanted to pull out an Oda Nobunaga and grab the whole land. He wasn't the only one like that. If he wasn't attaking, he would be defending, that's how it was. You can't be a pacifist in the Warring States era. Now, Oda Nobunaga along with Toyotomi and Tokugawa are considered the unifiers of Japan. They killed thousands of people, and Oda, for one, was named a Demon during his lifetime. Did they do it for their ambitions -- or to unite the country, put an end to the feuds that drained it and reestablish the law? Both, obviously. No idealist can conquer and unify the country without being ambitious. And vice versa, no ambitious man would conquer the country without having a high ideal in mind, just out of greed.
If i was drawing parallels, i'd rather draw them between the abovementioned historical figures but not Hitler who killed millions just because he wanted them not to exist. Daigo has found the way to obtain his prosperity and political success by killing just one. And yes, it does make a perfect sense to sacrifice 1 for many. The whole human history is the story of such sacrifices. Army, for one, is the potencial sacrifice material for the benefit of the whole country.

What doesn't make sense is to make deals with demons, obviously.
If you can't be a great ruler and conquerer by yourself, it means you simply can't. You lack qualities or conditions necessary for that. No demons will make you one. Daigo failed to realise it.

Now, I don't know if Tahomaru's objectives are, like his father, to conquer the country and thus make the wars stop. Mutsu said he hates wars. I guess it's the same for Hyogo and Taho. Tahomaru seems more like a local ruler who will just try to protect his own domain. But he also has shown the ability to control his sentiments, a quality without which you can't be any good as a leader.

HShouyou said:
if it's boring, don't watch it. Simples

SparkleDuck said:
Except... Hyakkimaru is killing the remaining demons that actually were proven to make the land more plentiful and healthy...? Both sides clearly have actual reasons. Tahomaru doesn't want his entire country to be in ruins like it was before. The people the demons killed are a FRACTION of the suffering that was happening before. That's one of the points the show has been drilling our heads since early on. Tahomaru definitely has noble ambitions.

kater_tot said:
Ah man, this anime is tearing me apart...

I don't want Tahomaru to die because he's just trying to be a good ruler and i don't want Hyakkimaru to die but he's getting so cold and hard hearted and it's so sad. I thought he'd turned a corner recently but it feels like he's taken 3 steps back.

I've kinda given up on a happy ending... just preparing for the worst now 😭