In medieval Japan, in order to protect his domain, feudal lord makes a pact with demons, sacrificing parts of his newborn child (arms, legs, skin from the face, eyes, nose and ears). What's left of an infant is discarded, but the child survives "thanks to his strong will to live", being adopted by Japan's only prosthetic enthusiast. Boy grows up to become a fierce sword fighter, being able to see only shapes of the souls of living beings. Being blind, deaf, mute, having no sense of smell and missing (all) arms and legs, he is a superior fighter, picking up fights with powerful demon gods (monsters), slowly reacquiring body parts (and senses) that was taken from him.
What would make such story work? Scriptwriters certainly made everything they could to make their job as difficult as possible and the story as implausible as it could be... Did they succeed in making impossible story work? Barely, by having humanising supporting character Dororo accompany 16 years old protagonist on his journey. Dororo is an orphan child who assists protagonist in everything and keeps him humane, inhibiting protagonist's tendency to lose his humanity and become ruthless murderer due to all the fights.
The long show is full of tragedies, abundant cruelty and monster fights but protagonist gains nothing from slaying some monsters. Ending is barely satisfying and the show ends as soon as protagonist recovers the last body part. So in the end, viewers are not rewarded for their patience. But being borderline boring is not the worst thing about the show. The story is soaked in utilitarian "ethics" -- the worst moral philosophy ever invented. Throughout the show, everybody condemn protagonist for trying to recover his body from demons. "Every piece of you belongs to this land!" his younger brother yells while trying to kill him. His own father tried to kill him because of breaking pact with demons as domain begins to suffer from drought, epidemic and other disasters. And his mother suffers from guilt yet agrees that his sacrifice was justified. Protagonist asks his foster-father to fix broken prosthetic leg but he refuses, to prevent damage to the land protected by monsters. What is the life of one person comparing to prosperity of many? -- that is the question that the show always answers with definitive "nothing".
Mediocre show with profoundly broken ethics that justifies human sacrifice. Conclusion, despite appearance of happy ending, did not redeem moral wrongs in any way.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/37520/Dororo
