The story of Dororo is by the esteemed Manga-ka Osamu Tezuka. It was written as a Shonen manga or a manga aimed at a young male audience. It is about a ronin during the Sengoku period named Hyakkimaru and his friendship with an orphan thief named Dororo. Hyakkimaru was born severely deformed and disabled, without internal organs, limbs or facial features as a result of his father’s pact with 48 demons. His father offered the body parts of his unborn son in exchange for the demons ensuring him the power to be ruler of the land through ensuring their clans military perseverance. As a result, his mother was sadly forced to abandon him setting him afloat down a river to save him from his father murdering him because he was disgusted by his disability and misshapen form. After he was abandoned he was mercifully saved by a kind-hearted, medicine man who used his powers in healing magic to give the child prostheses made from wood and ceramic. As a result of his transformation he developed the amazing superpower of being nearly invincible against mortal blows. Hidden in his arms are special katana blades that are used to kill goblins and other supernatural entities after directly slaying each he regains a missing body part.
The selected manga Dororo deals with the topics of minority, as well as class because the disabled, abandoned boy was actually descended from Daigo Kegemitsu, a very high Lord, and the last samurai of the Daigo clan. The story also has topics concerning child abandonment and also some gender issues since Dororo is a gender-ambiguous character/ a woman in disguise as a man and one of many orphans of the war. In this essay I will analyze the semiotics of the manga Dororo in the three specific categories of: tropes, intertextuality, and context as well as its sociocultural context and how it relates to gender and minority.
Tropes: The story of how Hyakkimaru’s father made a pact with 48 demons is a metaphor for him making a deal with the devil. In a desperate act out of lust for power and revenge he offered the dark forces a shocking sacrifice- the organs and body-parts of his unborn son. After which a mighty wind blew through the temple, followed by a bolt of lightning that hit Lord Daigo in the head, causing a mysterious cross cut into his forehead, a striking visual metaphor for the supernatural power of this exchange. He then killed the priest that mistakenly witnessed his deal with demons, as his first offering to the evil spirits. After which lightning burned the priest’s corpse into ashes, a bad omen and representation of Lord Daigo’s decent into demoralization, illustrating that there is nothing he would not do to get what he wants. These sort of deals are symbolic of a psychology that has an established belief in the supernatural as elements of life that are believed to be genuinely real beyond imagination.
Ghosts of the dead can shape shift becoming inanimate objects, animals, and invisible shapeless forms that Hyakkimaru could only detect through his intuition. Hyakkimaru is the embodiment of the ironic trope of disability superpower. A person who has suffered the loss of all their organs, limbs and facial features would be unable to survive but because of his magical transformation and supernatural power he has abilities that exceed the norm, a disability superpower pulling katana-blades from his arms, slaying demons and fighting as a skilled samurai warrior. Every demon he kills allows him to regain one of his body parts that was traded to a demon by his father, Hyakkimaru is a wonderer on a quest to become whole again. A story motif much like that spoken of in the text of a “hero’s journey” (Joseph Campbell/textbook) His ability to possess disability super power was illustrated by his heroic nature in the way he saved his foster-father from an evil demon posing as a young woman and also saved the young Dororo from a pack of thieves and evil spirits.
Hyakkimaru is often able to detect evil spirits that are able to fool those who have normal abilities. Through possessing a very strong sixth sense he can intuitively sense the presence of supernatural beings even when they take deceptive forms and illusions. What he refers to as his “inner eyes” (his ability to sense things) is symbolic of him having psychic powers. A metaphor we also see in the character of the blind monk or Biwa-hoshi who is so intuitive and skilled he is able to chop a fly in half mid-air with his sword in just a fraction of a second. From the time that Hyakkimaru was a baby he could communicate with his adopted father through ESP and had the gift of being able to interact with the world without the use of his eyes, ears, or mouth.
The act of Hyakkimaru’s mother putting him adrift on the river in order to save him from his father as a baby is symbolic of the trope of parental abandonment. Even-though she didn’t want to abandon him she knew it was the only way to avoid him being slayed by his cruel father. This act is also highly symbolic of the practice of Mabiki where newborns or young babies that suffered from some sort of physical disability, deformity, visual or hearing impairment were abandoned by their parents and essentially left for dead or killed by their own hand through different methods such as smothering. A socially tolerated practice in ancient Japan meant to improve the quality of life for those remaining during such times as food shortages. Often the parents who committed Mabiki lived in fear that the ghosts of their dead babies would haunt them. (Japanese mythology in Film Okuyama 2015)
Intertextuality: An example of intertextuality in the story Dororo is the act of setting the young baby Hyakkimaru upon the river in order to save him. This has been seen in other stories such as in the Bible story of Moses and in the film Willow. I can also see some parallels between this story and Peter pan where a gang of orphans like the orphans in Dororo overcomes their circumstance banding together to fight against the forces of evil, in Peter Pan it’s against the pirates and in Dororo it’s against the demons. In addition, the special bond between Hyakkimaru and Dororo is comparable to the I-Ching where two individuals share what is like a timeless bond and attraction. In this story there are also amazing examples of transformation such as Hyakkimaru’s ability to conceal a katana blade within his prosthetic arm and his ability to transform taking on new body parts after slaying each demon this kind of supernatural transformation has been seen in a lot of popular folk tales and legends like the story of Dracula and how he can change from a bat to a human, the little mermaid, werewolves, several of the characters in Miyazaki’s Spirited Away like Haku the river spirit and the witch, and many others. It sparks the imagination to visualize people transforming shapes possessing powers beyond the ordinary. The character Hyakkimaru is sent away by his adopted father because of the constant harassment from demons and becomes a wonderer, a traveling samurai with the unique purpose of killing 48 demons. The theme of the traveler, or wondering samurai is an intertextual that can be seen in many wonderful stories such as those about the “watari, those who would wandered about for a living” (textbook)
Context: A definition of a minority according to our class lectures and according to Dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com/), defines minority group as a “culturally, ethnically, or racially distinct group that coexists with but is subordinate to a more dominant group.” The character Hyakkimaru’s experience growing up disabled in ancient Japanese society caused him to be a minority being treated differently, with a greater likelihood of being bullied and treated as an outcast, as compared to the children not suffering with the physical impairments. Another minority is Dororo who was orphaned and survives by stealing. She stalks Hyakkimaru out of the supposed desire to steal the sword in his arm, ensuring her lasting reputation as the bandit king. Although at first this character seems like a young man it is discovered that he is really a sexually ambiguous and elf like girl in disguise who breaks through a lot of female stereotypes and behaves in a non- typical way. It is suggested that the social pressure of being a gender minority in the time would mean that being perceived as a male would give Dororo the advantage of being treated with more respect with less vulnerability.
The baby Hyakkimaru took the role of a minority through not only his disability but in his position as a child in ancient Japanese society which essentially made him a commodity that his father Lord Daigo had the right to sacrifice for what he viewed as the greater good. This choice would have been socially tolerated by the society he was born into where the practice of Mabiki was still practiced. In addition to the absence of Hyakkimaru’s rights his mother as a gender minority also had no say in the final outcome even though their baby was within her womb, she was forced to accept the outcome decided by her husband.
In one example of minority and context a blind monk leads Hyakkimaru to a town that had been devastated by war, to a home full of abandoned orphans who suffered from many physical impairments as a result of the war. In the orphans, we can see Hyakkimaru identify with them finding a sense of belonging. Many had suffered greatly with burns and missing limbs but were still alive. He adopted the orphans and eventually met Meo the beautiful girl he loved despite the fact that he could never see her or hear her voice, he sensed her kindness. Sadly, Meo and all of the orphans were tragically burned alive by a bunch of murderous soldiers, an example of class minority where the poor were oppressed by those in power.
In conclusion the manga of Dororo is a very entertaining story of several people who thrived despite being in a position of minority. The struggles of the time for those of a minority gender, class and situation must have been overwhelming which makes the story of these characters even more amazing.
Source:
Japanese Mythology in Film: A Semiotic Approach to Reading Japanese Film and Anime by Yoshiko Okuyama, Lexington Books, 2015
www.mangareader.net/dororo
Images from Dororo the manga and the film