Dororo Episode 19 Review: The Story of the Amanojaku

Dororo and Hyakkimaru travel a mountain (or rather three mountains) to find a blacksmith called Munetsuma. What will they encounter in Episode 19 of Dororo?

Plot

Not all episodes of Dororo need to be full of demons and swordfights and bloodshed. Sometimes you can tell the strongest stories with the most lighthearted plot. This is exactly what happened in Episode 19 of Dororo, The Story of Amanojaku. Dororo and Hyakkimaru arrive at a small village to find Munetsuna, a renowned blacksmith. From the very first minutes, careful viewers could tell that something’s terribly wrong. The first villager they encounter tells them, while blushing and smiling, of a terrible blacksmith who has an ugly daughter of questionable character. A few seconds later, Dororo cuts a log clean with a hatchet made by Munetsuna and when they visit his house they see that Okowa, his daughter, is both beautiful and sweet. At first I thought we were going to deal with a village of pathological liars, and that wasn’t too far from the truth.

The village temple served as prison to a mischievous little troll whose special power was to make people do or say the opposite of what they intended. After inflicting Hyakkimaru with the power of indirect lying, hilarity ensues. Okowa mistakenly believes that Hyakkimaru wants to marry her and Dororo keeps congratulating the couple on every chance he has to tell Hyakkimaru off. Hyakkimaru tells Dororo that he wants to settle down and that he doesn’t care about their journey when he meant to say the opposite. I wonder what would happen if they decided to write down their thoughts. They probably would have written the opposite of what they would have been thinking.

After 24 minutes of sword-purifying, lying, and troll-spanking, Dororo and Hyakkimaru leave Okowa behind to marry a villager who could not express his admiration because of the troll’s magic and get on their way.

Cute episode. Back to the demon-slaying now.

Episode Highlights

Rubbing foreheads: I find Hyakkimaru’s new habit to be awfully sweet. What a great way to show affection. And I have never heard of someone’s head turning pear-shaped fro rubbing. I am sure I am missing some important cultural tidbit here.

Comments

There is a certain appeal to short breaks like the Story of the Amenojaku. I have written many times that when it comes to television, I prefer either miniseries of really long episodes that tell a unified story or one-episode stories that can stand alone. It is the same reason I don’t like book sequels and really long series with a story you need to have followed from the beginning. Dororo is a combination of both, but does neither really well. Yet, this story was short, fun, and I actually enjoyed it very much. After all, anime’s primary goal is to entertain.

We Look Happy

Yes, that you do. Dororo and Hyakkimaru have gone through a little incident that wasn’t dangerous but firmly bonded them even more. This is their story and it can only end happily (well, no, but that’s at least what I hope for the finale).

Did you like Episode 19 of anime Dororo? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check the rest of our Spring 2019 reviews!