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That was my first thought too, but I couldn’t find anything that matched in Sukeroku’s episode. Then I thought the girl’s silhouette looked a bit like Mio and found this. 

I found the screenshot from episode 5 that matches episode 24.

The motion is the same too, but I’m not a gif person. 

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I found the screenshot from episode 5 that matches episode 24.

The motion is the same too, but I’m not a gif person. 

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Hyakkimaru has a few flashbacks before he breaks his brother’s sword. They are:

Mio hugging one of the children.

Mio’s death.

Saying goodbye to Jukai.

His mother’s attempted suicide.

The hole in Saburota’s chest.

Greeting Dororo on the island.

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He has a hole in his heart. Poor little guy...

I’m going to miss this stylistic depiction of souls.

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had to rewatch the scene in slow mo to see this

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No one:

Hyakkimaru: “Give them back”

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So I mentioned in another post that this show is using Hyakkimaru’s arms to symbolize his humanity. Two seconds after getting his hands back, he’s literately destroying them. I can’t deal with this. 

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In terms of art and color direction, Dororo consistently matches the lighting, weather, and color pallet to the reinforce the story starting in episode 1. 

The show has a bleak, grayish pallet from the beginning of episode 1 as it is always overcast or raining during the demon deal. Dororo is introduced in sunlight with the most vibrant color we’ve seen about halfway into the episode, highlighting both how this is a most positive character we’ve met and how this part of the story is a bit less heavy.

When Dororo gets to the river, he’s still in vibrant color while getting beaten up, but the second Hyakkimaru comes onto the scene, storm clouds roll in and the vibrant color is gone.

The colors stay darkened while Hyakkimaru saves Dororo, fights the demon, and goes back to Dororo for his arms. There are still clouds as his skin grows back.

Once Hyakkimaru gets his skin back, Dororo starts asking what the hell is going on. The sun comes out behind Dororo, and, now that Dororo is with him, the lighting on Hyakkimaru gets brighter.

This show is really well done.

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To everyone cheering for Hyakkimaru to kill his brother, like, why? You want Hyakkimaru to have blood all over his new hands? You want the first thing he sees to be the aftermath of this bloodbath? Tahomaru is trying to save his people while Hyakkimaru is objectively terrifying right now, and, if Tahomaru was the main character, we’d be rooting for him to kill his rampaging brother.

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Hyakkimaru’s prosthetics are used to show one of the themes in the show: duality.

Sometimes he’s a fluffy child, smelling flowers and rubbing his forehead on strangers to greet them. Sometimes he’s soaked in blood, slamming his head against a rock, and stabbing things out of rage. He’s not two different people though. He’s not being possessed or controlled. He’s just one, normally kind person, but, as the story progresses, he becomes increasingly unable to handle negative emotions and frustration. 

Symbolically speaking, Hyakkimaru’s prosthetics are used to show this duality. The prosthetic arms, particularly when you can see the backs of the sword at his elbow draw attention to how he is different from others, but normally, when the blades are sheathed, he seems like the average person. It’s when the arms come off, revealing the swords, that he looks much more threatening to show his violent capabilities while he kills demons.

This also draws attention to scenes like this. 

Hugging Mio with his sword arms shows how he never stops being human, never stops being himself, even when the symbolism tries to tell us the swords make him less so. His arms are fake. Whether he’s hugging Mio with sword arms or prosthetic arms, it feels the same to him.

Still, it’s no mistake that, as he is having an emotional meltdown while trying to save Dororo, one of his prosthetic arms breaks, exposing the sword. The worse shape his prosthetics are in, the worse he tends to be doing emotionally.  

During his emotional breakdowns, he’s all swords. When something has gone wrong, something breaks.

Now in the final fight, both his arms are broken with only the sword parts left. Symbolically, he’s the worst off he can be. He can’t put his arms back on; his symbol of humanity is broken. I still see some hope though because because of the scene with Mio. He’s always felt, always been human, and he’s come out of rages before. 

Hopefully, Dororo will be able to pull him back one more time.

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Mappa knows exactly how destroy our hopes and dreams. Mappa wants us to suffer.

me: you know, wouldn’t it be nice at the end of the series if hyakki gave tohomaru one of the prosthetics eyes he got from jukai? that would be a perfect, circular conclusion

mappa: what if this?

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Me: I just wanna see Hyakkimaru’s pretty pretty eyes.

MAPPA:

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Hyakkimaru is still a bit of a child, and he wants his body back. That’s fine. The problem is that he will not even consider how it effects other people. He’s fine if thousands die to famine and plague. He cut off Mutsu’s arm, and was still going to finish off a one-armed archer. Dororo doesn’t want him to kill Tahomaru, but Hyakkimaru doesn’t care. He’s fine with killing his whole family.

This almost seems fine considering that Hyakkimaru probably resents these people for benefiting off his suffering, but it goes a bit deeper than this.

At what point in the series does Hyakkimaru have any interest in saving strangers from demons? You could argue for episode 1 when he saves Dororo and maybe episode 5 when he goes to get rid of the demon on the plot of land Mio could use. When else? When is Hyakkimaru ever concerned with helping people he doesn’t know? When is he ever remorseful about killing someone?

Dororo has been the one interacting with each episode’s supporting characters. Dororo has been offering to help people and offering to get Hyakkimaru to handle their demon problems. Hyakkimaru has been killing demons for almost exclusively for himself to get his body back. It’s true that we really don’t get a lot of insight into Hyakkimaru’s feelings, but he doesn’t seem to care about anyone besides Dororo.

It would be pretty backwards to call a person selfish for wanting arms and eyesight. I want Hyakkimaru to get his body back, but I also want him to feel a little bad about the people he’s hurting along the way.

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I know we were all thinking the same thing.

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Hyakkimaru’s soul throughout the series so far.

Episode 2: No red at all. Looking good. Very human. 

Episode 5: First hints of red. He’s not adjusting well.

Episode 6: Red specks when not listening to Mio. Clear while listening to her sing.

Episode 11: According to the old man, killing people has messed up his soul a bit, but it looks about just as red as the last image to me. 

Episode 20: His heart has fully turned red. He had a really bad day.

Please don’t let him get any worse. 

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“Please bro, stop.”

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The sweetest thing I’ve ever seen

The other sweetest thing I’ve ever seen

........what?

Oh no!

Target sighted...