Dororo: A Novel - Translator's Foreword

Dororo: A Novel

Tsuji Masaki 

Translator's Foreword: A Children's Novel from a Children's Manga

    Dororo: A Novel has the distinction of being very closely associated with the original manga and anime while also being the most divergent, characters-wise, due to a single bizarre choice.

    The novel was written in 1978 by Tsuji Masaki, who worked on many early anime that Osamu Tezuka wrote and/or produced. These included Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, and Princess Knight, all of which were originally manga penned by Tezuka, just like Dororo. He did not, in fact, work on Dororo, which might explain why the character of Dororo is a boy in his novel.  

    This is the only existing adaptation of Dororo where both protagonists are unequivocally male. Surprising, since the book was written well after Dororo's biological sex was revealed in both the original manga and anime. However, this changes little: Dororo is an adventure story originally written for kids, and Dororo and Hyakkimaru are very much just kids running around in a monster-infested ancient Japan. So much holds true across most adaptations, and the change makes for a much lighter tone and story. This is a children's novel in a pure sense, albeit one with some fairly frightening subject matter.

    I've translated quite a few Dororo adaptations, so it's interesting, if somewhat maddening, to see what Dororo's birth sex being taken out of the plot actually accomplishes for the story. Dororo's parents hide nothing from him or their friends and followers, and Dororo is not in special danger because of his birth sex. He still refuses to bathe, but it's not because he's afraid of people looking at him and discovering the secret. The humor is considerably more juvenile than in the original anime, and to a certain extent the manga as well. And the world seems less cruel than it is at certain points, since the whole point of Dororo passing as a boy was that the war-torn world of the past was so much worse for women. Mio's role in events is muted as a result, and she is all but forgotten the instant she dies.

     As for the plot: Dororo, a little orphaned sneak-thief, plans to steal Hyakkimaru's sword arm. Aside from gender, his backstory is unchanged. Hyakkimaru is a demon hunter who is missing body parts because his father sold his body to demons at birth. This version, tragically, leaves that father alive and kills Hyakkimaru's younger brother Tahoumaru for no reason at all. 

    Most of the novel hits common plot beats from the original manga and anime; the following chapters from the manga are treated in some depth:

- The Hall of Hell Demons

- Deiki (Mud Demon) 

- Lady Bandai

- Hyakumen Fudou (Demon of the Thousand Faces)

- Nihil (The Demon Sword)

- Banmon 

- The Cruel Cape (Dororo's Past)

    The ending two chapters are original and feature a new demon in Yamajiji. 

    Tsuji Masaki seems to have taken many of the completed portions of the original story, cut out some of the more disturbing aspects (like the on-screen deaths of Hyakkimaru's mother and Dororo's father), added a few others, and created a novel-cum-monster tour of Japan that never quite hangs together, but also never quite falls apart. In the end, Hyakkimaru regains all of his limbs, Dororo takes one of Hyakkimaru's sword arms, and the two of them gain a friend in each other. It's very simple, as expected of a children's novel, but it's by no means bad.

    A note on the style: unlike the other Dororo novels on the market, this one features an intrusive narrator. Toriumi Jinzō's Dororo series features frequent authorial, scholarly asides, but these were not done by an I-narrator: the narrator of this novel is much closer to the action and sometimes makes personal observations in addition to providing commentary on the demons that the heroes encounter. I find the voice somewhat silly, chaotic and (rarely) confusing, but it's certainly fun and keeps things moving at a brisk pace.

    This is probably the worst of the novel adaptations for fans of the original manga and anime, but for a kid (or anyone curious) unfamiliar with Dororo as a work, it's not a terrible place to start.

Ainikki the Archivist

November 2023