天下制覇

…Why did we get a whole bit on the backstory for a horse?

Impressions:

The crowning moment of terribleness for this episode goes not to the kamikaze horse bomb (with backstory for extra horse vengeance!), nor to the emotional flashback about how Larry and Curly were orphans forced to be child slaves to the local lord which was their greatest pleasure and honor in the world. No, those were both awful, but they pale in comparison to Dororo standing there, a single tear rolling down her face as she watches… Hyakkimaru fight back against three dudes trying to kill him. Such tragedy. Such cruel fate. If only they would stop and talk it out, they could surely come to some kind of understanding between the two sides of "it's your fault it rained less this year and that the neighboring army invaded" and "our dad dismembered me and fed my body to demons." They're family! So what if one of them is a member of an insane cult whose sole tenet is "this dude is responsible for all suffering in the world?" They're family. Shakespeare, eat your heart out.

At least the action was animated this week… mostly. Tahomaru got off with a cutaway forehead slash. I don't know if that's better or worse than the two sidekicks getting unceremoniously dismembered. Them turning into similarly weapon-prosthetic-enabled versions of him, but deadlier could've been a nice direction to have taken things in about two months ago. Hell, even has a parallel with him sort of creating them as weapons of destruction the same way Daigo created him. But if we go down more interesting ways they could've done this show, then the litany is long and storied. For starters, we wouldn't have gotten tragic backstory for a goddamned horse.