Dororo

The Dororo anime most people mean today is the 2019 remake: a 24-episode samurai horror series from MAPPA and Tezuka Productions, adapted from Osamu Tezuka's late-1960s manga. It is not the black-and-white 1969 Mushi Production version, which ran 26 episodes, though both start from the same cruel bargain. In Sengoku-era Japan, the lord Daigo Kagemitsu offers his newborn heir's body to twelve demons in return for his land's prosperity, and the boy is left with almost nothing of his own. Years later that child, Hyakkimaru, walks a war-scarred countryside on artificial limbs with blades hidden in his arms, and every demon he cuts down returns one stolen part.

The heart of the show is his travelling companion, Dororo, a loud, quick-fingered orphan who talks for both of them while Hyakkimaru, at first unable to see, hear or speak, learns the world one sense at a time. Watching a swordsman discover pain, sound and his own voice in the middle of a monster hunt gives these Dororo characters an emotional engine most demon-slaying stories lack. Director Kazuhiro Furuhashi, who made the 1996 Rurouni Kenshin TV series, keeps the swordplay grounded, and head writer Yasuko Kobayashi (Attack on Titan) lets famine, war and ordinary greed do as much damage as any demon. The music marks its two halves: Queen Bee's "Kaen" opens the first cour, Asian Kung-Fu Generation's "Dororo" the second.

Fans do divide over that second half. The early, mostly self-contained village tales give way to a tighter, faster conflict centred on the Daigo family, and some viewers miss the slower road-trip rhythm; the animation also thins out in places. We think the shift earns its payoff, because the remake builds a far fuller ending than the brief one Tezuka gave the manga after its Weekly Shonen Sunday run was cut short in 1968.

The 2019 series remains, as of October 2026, a single complete season of 24 episodes (aired 7 January to 24 June 2019), with no second season announced, so there is no watch order to untangle. It suits viewers who liked Demon Slayer's sibling bond but want something sadder and more adult. Our list of anime like Demon Slayer ranks it fifth for exactly that reason, and if you finish wanting more period-set monster slaying, Hell's Paradise is the natural next stop.