Dororo Episode 16 Review: The Story of Shiranui

I’s all about Dororo in this episode as the little rascal remains calm in front of an old enemy and two giant sharks.

Plot

Poor little Dororo get kidnapped by an old friend, Itachi, who is (surprisingly enough) not bound to a samurai lord anymore. He now runs a group of brigands and returned to his old ways. What a circle for the little traitor who, for some reason that escapes me, dug up Dororo’s mom and got one half of the map. His deduction skills allowed him to assume that the other half was on Dororo, and on a land without a GPS (I guess he knows the scriptwriter) he finds Dororo, learns that she is a girl, finds out how to get the other half of the map, and takes her and his group to Cape Hakkotsu where the treasure of Dororo’s father is located. I wasn’t surprised that the little viper called Itachi would betray his friend, but I was suprised to see him later in the episode respect Dororo and her leadership qualities. Maybe this is a precursor to Dororo’s future?

Long story short, they meet a crazy guy with one arm, Shiranui, who keeps two giant sharks for pets. Call me crazy, but I was sure there was something going on from the moment he stepped his scrawny legs in the scene. That guy was designed to look crazy. What followed was Dororo’s time to be on the spotlight. He leads half the group to safety after crazy man revealed that he feeds his two little sharkies with human flesh. The other half was eaten by Jiromaru, one of the two sharks (of course he would name them). Saburomaru is slained by the brigands who find their way to the shore and manage to lure crazy guy there and capture him. But wait… The other shark has some demonic determination in it…

Episode Highlights

Deranged: Shinarui had all the characteristics of a madman and yet they all failed to see the signs. Get them to the island without half the money upfront? I mean, come on, guys. Even in feudal Japan that kind of behavior should have rung a bell or two.

Sharks: I am not sure how big sharks can get, but these two were extraordinarily huge. It took just 9 sword thrusts to get one of them down. Now I am wondering if their meat is edible.

Comments

This time I want to address something that many seem out of place if you are not a denizen of the internet. Yet, the community online is something harsher than a grinding stone. I advise against it, but if you want to know more, go to fan pits like Reddit and see what the people there are saying for the last two episodes. It’s not pretty. My take on this: A story is part its storyteller and in anime that job falls to many hands. The director, the screenwriter, the scriptwriter, even the music director, all need to coordinate their efforts to tell one bit of a bigger story in just 24 minutes. Sometimes we forget how difficult that must be and we tend to complain about things that we feel should have been better but fail to realize the amount of work that needs to go into an episode to meet the expectations of the most grumpy of us. My advice: forget the still frames and just enjoy the story. It’s good. And sometimes that’s all that matters.

Brother, where art thou?

It all comes down to Hyakkimaru to get a new leg, find his little sister (I think we can safely call her that by now) and save her and the rest of the brigands from the giant sharkdemon

What did you think of Episode 16 of Dororo? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check the rest of our episodic review for Spring 2019.