Dororo Episode 7: The Story of the Jorogumo Silk Spider

Happiness? In my Dororo? It’s more likely than you think! But seriously, this episode was the fantastic palette cleanser that we desperately needed after such an emotionally-charged two parter. I was hoping that we would get something like this, where it’s not overly fluffy so it not natural, but it still has some wholesomeness and happiness that has me smiling and giggling a couple times. And a happy ending for once! Gosh, I sure would have loved a happy ending last episode. H-Haha…

I went into this episode expecting the worse because this show has conditioned me to feel that way. I felt the sadness immediately when we saw Hyakkimaru clutching Mio’s pouch. Of course he was still affected by what had just happened, and while sad, I’m glad that they showed that. Since Hyakkimaru still doesn’t show much emotion, just showing a couple seconds of Hyakki clutching Mio’s pouch shows that he really does and is pretty significant. But that sadness goes away as Dororo tries making Hyakkimaru laugh by tickling him but fails miserably. I couldn’t help but laugh myself.

The story this time is what the title tells us, about the Jorogumo silk spider. Hyakkimaru and Dororo come across her in the forest and Hyakkimaru attacks her as they save a man she was about to eat. Hyakkimaru manages to slash her a few times but she still escapes. The boys make it to the upcoming village’s gate where they learn that there’s been kidnappings in the village and there’s a reward for whoever can figure out what’s going on. With no money or food, Dororo happily takes this chance because they put two and two together that the spider monster is the kidnapper but they have to find her. So for a few days they do just that. But the spider turns into her human form and gets found by a man named Yajiro. Just out of the goodness of his heart he takes her to his house to feed her. She wakes up weakened and eats the food given to her, while also getting the name Ohagi. What transpires is an interesting story and relationship between the two. Yajiro views as every living thing important and equal: bugs, animals, humans. She finds him very strange but soon comes to actually like him. The show does a good job of still making us wary about her. One night she tries to suck out his life force but she backs off. It makes us wonder if she’s even good or not. Hyakkimaru and Dororo continue to look for her, they resort to eating herbs, and more villagers are disappearing. It’s looking really bad.

But in the end, it was Yajiro who was the “kidnapper”. The village being a quarry, they forced to do hard labor in this dangerous job. What’s evil is that the soldiers around them don’t really seem to care about them at all, forcing them to continue working even though one of their own had just been crushed under a rock. Knowing how terrible the work is, Yajiro would take people during the night and lead them out a secret passageway to escape the village (since a pass was needed to leave the gate). Ohagi wasn’t the kidnapper, and it also turned out that she never killed her prey. She would only take away some of their life force, leaving just a bit so their life force would slowly come back. She’s actually never killed anyone.

I find it kinda hilarious how accepting Yajiro was with all this, but hey, whatever floats your boat, right? The night Yajiro tries to have Ohagi escape, he gets caught by Dororo and Hyakkimaru and the soldiers. Of course the boys misunderstand at first, but they learn the truth of the kidnapper and also learn there was never even a reward. So, that really sucks because these two were starving and wasting their time. Odds seemed very against Ohagi and Yajiro but fending off against the soldiers after Yajiro was hurt, Ohagi protected him and Hyakkimaru was able to see that Ohagi wasn’t evil at all. We see with Hyakki’s vision that her red aura slowly changed colors to more of an orange, meaning there was no evil intent from her. My guess that her red aura from before was her hostility towards the soldier, but that went away afterwards. And also maybe because of his hearing, because I think Hyakkimaru understands language (or some of it?), he stepped down and the let the two future lovers escape. Happy end, where no one died! And wow, what a symbiotic relationship Yajiro and Ohagi have. Ohagi can take some of Yajiro’s life force without killing him, sustaining herself, and they still live a “normal” life. I really would have wanted this happiness for another couple, h-haha…but it’s fine. I’m glad at least one couple got a happy end in this shitty sengoku world.

It goes to show that there are many types of monsters, and I think that’s something Hyakkimaru learned. Even though they’re human, the soldiers from last episode showed how evil and monstrous they could be. As well as the soldiers from this episode as well. Hyakkimaru also showed last episode how terrifying and monstrous he could be, even though he’s a human. And not all monsters are monsters either, with Ohagi showing a lot of human emotion and compassion for Yajiro. It really changes the definition of what a monster can really be.

This was a very nice episode, a much-wanted breather after all the pain we got. The scenes between Yajiro and Ohagi were really nice, but Dororo and Hyakkimaru had some nice ones as well. Dororo is back to being his usual energetic self, trying to tickle Hyakkimaru and being loud and silly. The animation when Dororo warned Yajiro about the spider woman was perfect, his movements and expressions got a laugh out of me. And of course the ending was the cutest part, where Dororo freaked out about a spider but saved it to preserve its life, and Hyakkimaru gave him a little chuckle. And it was adorable! I wish we got to see his face more but he smiled before that, so thank you! I’m glad that one he had a happy first for once. Hyakkimaru was more in the background this episode, still unemotional with no words so that was a little disappointing. But we did see him learn restraint and understanding when it came to Ohagi, so that was very nice. Hopefully he uses this moment to view things differently in his travels. I also noticed that Hyakkimaru is getting better with his hearing. Before meeting up with Yajiro and Ohagi, he put a hand to his ear to hear them coming. That made me happy to see as he’s finally adapting to his new sense. <3

This was a slower episode, but still very great and very appreciated. I hope MAPPA gives us more episodes like these once in awhile. Still well written, but slower and happier. Hyakkimaru didn’t get anything back this episode, but at least he’s taking this time to learn to adapt to his new senses and to learn some much needed life lessons. They had some laughs, and a innocent couple had a good ending. All’s good! Now, I just hope these poor boys can find some food.

Body parts:

1. Right arm
2. Left arm
3. Right leg
4. Left leg
5. Eyes
6. Ears
7. Nerves
8. Skin
9. Voice
10. Nose
11. Taste?
12. ???

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