Dororo is a great anime that was a remake of the 1969 version that was quite popular during the earlier days of Japanese animation. Of course, the 2019 version now has a much larger audience, thanks to the wonders of technology. Nevertheless, one of the things that people wondered about both in 1969 and in 2019 is Dororo’s gender, considering that he looks feminine but acts masculine. So, is Dororo a girl or a boy in the Dororo anime?
Dororo is actually a girl. In the 1969 anime, he was always a girl but was raised to be a boy by his parents. Meanwhile, in the 2019 anime, he was always a girl but decided to act and dress like a boy so that he wouldn’t get taken advantage of by other people after the death of his parents.
Considering that Dororo takes place during Feudal Japan, it is easy to understand why an orphaned child like Dororo would want to dress and act like a boy as girls were not as respected during that time period. That said, let’s look at what we know about Dororo and the gender of the character in the anime.
Is Dororo A Boy Or A Girl?
Fans of anime would know for a fact that one of the earliest hits in Japanese animation history is Dororo, which was released in 1969. Due to the popularity of the anime, it was able to earn itself a 2019 remake that basically follows the same plot but with a few minor changes to the storyline and the art style. But almost everything stayed the same.
Dororo is an anime that follows the story of a young child named Dororo while adventuring with a mysterious warrior named Hyakkimaru. The story of Hyakkimaru is that he is a young man that lost some of his body parts due to a sacrifice made by his father, a feudal lord, upon his birth. His father sacrificed the boy’s body parts to demonic entities that allowed the land to flourish with abundance in exchange for Hyakkimaru’s body parts.
However, Hyakkimaru ended up surviving his infancy and was able to grow into a young man after he was raised by a traveling musician. He is now looking to kill the demon gods that took his body parts so that he could retake them and become whole again. And the issue here is that his father and brother are trying to prevent him from doing so because that would mean that the entire land of his family would once again fall into famine and hunger.
Nevertheless, throughout the anime, Hyakkimaru is intent on getting his body parts back because they were taken away from him against his will. Throughout his journey, he is accompanied by the younger child Dororo, who merely tags along because they have nowhere else to go. They met early in the story when Hyakkimaru saved Dororo, a young thief, from one of the demons that had one of his body parts.
As popular as the Dororo anime may be, the one thing that people have been wondering about is Dororo’s gender. In the anime, Dororo looks and acts like a boy but still has a feminine side and appearance. So, what is Dororo’s gender in the Dororo anime?
Dororo is actually a girl both in the 1969 and the 2019 versions of the anime. In fact, this was something that was revealed later in the 2019 anime when Hyakkimaru snuck up on him by mistake and realized that he had been traveling with a girl all along. However, Hyakkimaru never cared what Dororo’s gender was despite the fact that he was flustered by what happened.
In fact, in the ending portion of the 2019 anime, Dororo was shown to be all grown up as a beautiful young lady. This means that he has always been a girl all along but, for his own reasons, pretended to be a boy throughout a good part of his life.
Note: Even though we did say that Dororo is a girl, we are referring to him as “he/him” because of the fact that he chose to be a boy in the anime.
Why Does Dororo Act Like A Boy?
The reason why Dororo acts like a boy and once treated himself as a boy was due to his history. He was born to bandit parents that made a living out of stealing and robbing. In fact, his father was the leader of the bandit group.
Throughout a good period of Dororo’s life with his parents, his parents didn’t care whether or not they raised him as a girl or as a boy because they loved him either way. However, the rest of the bandit group betrayed his family and allowed them to die but not before his parents were able to draw a map to their buried treasure on his back.
In the 1969 anime, Dororo continued to live, talk, and dress like a boy after the death of his parents due to the fact that he was raised to be one. It is probably due to the fact that his bandit parents didn’t want him to end up getting sidelined like all of the other women in that time period and wanted him to grow up strong so that he could inherit the family occupation.
Meanwhile, in the 2019 anime, while he wasn’t necessarily raised as a girl, Dororo chose to be a boy after the death of his parents because he didn’t want to get taken advantage of by other people while he lived as an orphaned thief. The story of the anime takes place during Feudal Japan, and that means that women are merely second-class citizens compared to men.
As such, if people knew that Dororo was a girl, they would have sold him to slavery and might have even thrown him in geisha houses to be raised as a prostitute. Dororo didn’t want to get taken advantage of by the people around him, and that’s why he decided to dress and act like a boy. In fact, he always insisted that he was a boy, although the ending of the anime does show that he accepted the fact that he was a girl because he now looks more feminine than he used to be.
Nevertheless, we don’t know for certain whether or not Dororo still refers to himself as a boy during his teen years because he no longer dresses up like a boy. It is likely possible that his adventures with Hyakkimaru allowed him to accept himself as a girl because he no longer fears getting taken advantage of by other people