Review by Ian Keogh
Vol. 3 concludes Atsushi Kaneko’s reworking of Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo as Hyaku continues searching for her stolen body parts. It’s set in a future incorporating AI and cyborg technology, yet in a city state based on 20th century Soviet society.
The mixture of old architecture and iconography combined with inventively designed robots, all individually detailed, provides a richly appealing and dense visual environment. It’s constantly stimulating, and so well drawn, echoing other artists, yet via fusion transformed into something original.
Having known only life with mechanical parts replaced as she grew, Hyaku is finding the limitations of the human body frustrating, yet remains invested in recovering everything taken from her. The obvious fallacy of how the parts removed in infancy can be restored in adulthood was explained by Kaneko in Vol. 2. Meanwhile, Doro has been a consistent presence, without readers ever learning much about them beyond their confidence, and several assumptions will be challenged. It’s a clever twisting of Tezuka’s eventual revelations, and allows for the introduction of two deadly new characters brilliantly presented as an elderly couple.
Hyaku’s mission is just one element of Kaneko’s musings about artificial life, with this volume clarifying the supposition of artificial life only being able to equate with humans by adopting devious and manipulative traits to survive. Cast members that to date we’ve presumed to be entirely human are here revealed as otherwise. Other deceptions, just as in the real world, are brazenly pronounced as truth, such as the proclamation of city wealth as something to be proud of, when Kaneko’s art shows how restricted that wealth is. Residents of Hachikucha are more proactive on that account than we are in reality.
Vol. 3 is the complete thriller answering all questions about the past in an atmosphere of fury and strife. The pacing is skilled, the art so impressive, and the characters resonate, whether their intentions are good or bad. Everything is constantly evolving and Kaneko even absorbs the gender-blurring Doro from Tezuka, but with a twist eventually integral to events. One of the disclosures that comes tumbling out could be predicted, but the feeling is of that being deliberate on Kaneko’s part since his storytelling skills are more than capable in every other respect.
One imagines Tezuka would be very pleased with the results of reworking his basic plot of a character having to hunt down and retrieve their body parts. It’s a dystopian thriller to rank with Akira.
