Yoshio Harada
A businessman on a trip to Tokyo ends up in the middle of a centuries old feud between a criminal Ninja cult and a Samurai when he witnesses a assassination performed by the Ninja-cult leader.
Twelve years after their beloved eldest son, Junpei, drowned while saving a stranger’s life, Kyohei and Toshiko welcome their surviving children home for a family reunion. Younger son Ryota still feels that his parents resent that he isn’t the one who died; his new wife, Yukari, is awkwardly meeting the rest of the family for the first time. Daughter Chinami strains to fill the uncomfortable pauses with forced cheer.
In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn’t an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.
The hero, Hyakkimaru is a wandering “demon hunter” whose extra body parts — 48 to be exact — were grafted onto his head and trunk by a herb doctor who discovered him as an infant, in a process that echoes “Frankenstein” and “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” His warlord father gave the originals to 48 demons in exchange for power. When Hyakkimaru kills a demon, he wins back a body part. He is spotted in one of these battles, with a giant spider demon, by Dororo, a scrappy female thief who is fascinated by not only Hyakkimaru’s prowess with the sword blade poking out of his arm but the new leg he grows after dicing his opponent. Is he a man — or a monster? After hearing his story from an old minstrel, she decides to join him on his travels and find out for herself.
