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Has anyone read the volume of Osamu Tezuka's Dororo that Vertical released recently? Based on this Onion A/V Club interview, it sounds like it's worth reading (scroll down a little):

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/79824

Stan even got a mention in the review:

In typical Tezuka fashion, the story wanders all over the place, devolving into episodic explorations of the supernatural landscapes of local towns, in a way that would doubtless inspire modern creators like Rumiko Takahashi and Stan Sakai.

Dororo is my favorite Tezuka series. It's too bad that it was abandoned so early.

There is a Dororo movie, made a year or so ago. I have not seen it. Dororo was changed from a boy to a teenage girl.

I have just read the begining so far. The art is amazing as always with Tezuka: It is nearly as sophisticated as in Phoenix but with especially light and abstract moments in the character lines.
I have played the Dororo game on Playstation before, because I had read the story was inspired by Tezuka, so I have already been familiar with the story. But anyway it is always a personal gain to read works of Tezuka.
Go and get it!

I just saw this at the store recently. I thumbed through it briefly. looks pretty good, I will probably pick it up sometime. I will let you know what I think.

Monkey

The movie is going to come out on Region 1 DVD on September 23:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=68019

i recently read the first volume of Dororo, and I liked it quite a bit. I definitely plan to buy the other two volumes. With that and the Black Jack volume that comes out this week from Vertical, I'm going to have lots of Tezuka reading to look forward to.

There are a few clips from a 1960s Dororo anime series on YouTube, including the color pilot (there are no subtitles, but if you've read the manga, you'll be able to follow the basic plot pretty easily):

Dororo color pilot part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmm3RBbh0OY

Dororo color pilot part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cX7a8W4 ... re=related

Dororo color pilot part 3 (this is just music and storyboards): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBPVNzDu ... re=related

I did not like the translations of the English volumes, but am glad they were published.

I will be looking for the movie, but still would have preferred Dororo to be played by a kid, rather than a teen. I can see the rationale from a marketing standpoint, though.

Stan Sakai wrote:I did not like the translations of the English volumes, but am glad they were published.

What did you not like about them?

I watched the live-action Dororo movie last night. It's probably worth a rental if you enjoyed the manga, but I still found it a little disappointing. It's sluggishly paced (it really drags out some stuff that the manga managed to get out of the way pretty quickly), it's about 30 or 40 minutes too long, and it never gets the tone of the manga quite right. On the plus side, most of the monster fights are pretty fun, and it includes some beautiful New Zealand scenery (that's where it was filmed). It keeps the same basic premise of the manga (although Hyakkimaru's origin story is a little more Frankensteinian in this version) and incorporates elements of a few different storylines, but somehow this feels like a case of getting the "words" right but not the "music."

I think I would have liked the movie more if the filmmakers had found a way to keep a little bit more of Tezuka's aesthetic. Of course, his manga works have a style that is somewhat difficult to translate to film.

For those with Comcast On-Demand, Dororo is now available as a free movie!

I was expecting it to be little bit more on the horror side side of things, but it kinda felt at times like it was borrowing elements from The Mummy, Big Trouble in Little China, Star Wars, Army of Darkness, Miyazaki's films, the Samurai Champloo anime, and others. There were a few parts that felt close the original manga, but the movie seemed way more lighter in tone than the original source material.

I will say that it was refreshing to see the hero NOT getting kissed by the heroine at the end...

Stan Sakai wrote:Dororo is my favorite Tezuka series. It's too bad that it was abandoned so early.

There is a Dororo movie, made a year or so ago. I have not seen it. Dororo was changed from a boy to a teenage girl.

Little late to respond to, but after our talk at Baltimore and reading this again, Sensei did you ever consider asking Tezuka's estate to take up a small project, like writing what you felt would have been to continuation of Dororo? It is a silly question to ask because you are very busy, but if you were given the chance to do something like that would you?