Dororo

Dororo is a manga thriller with a classical feel from one of the biggest names in Japanese fiction. Featuring a boy who has been robbed of 48 body parts by demons, this Eisner Award Winning story depicts his travels to destroy the demons and win back his body parts to become whole. Daigo Kagemitsu, who works for a Samurai general in Japan's Warring States period, promises to offer 48 body parts of his unborn baby to 48 devils, in exchange for complete domination of the country. When the baby boy is born, Daigo has him thrown into a river, hoping the boy will die. A kind sage, however, finds him and adopts him. The sage fits out his poor son with prosthetics. Time goes by and the baby grows into a boy who calls himself Hyakkimaru. Everytime Hyakkimaru eliminates a devil, he retrieves one of his missing body parts. Hyakkimaru meets a boy thief named Dororo and together they travel the countryside in search of the devils who possess Hyakkimaru's parts. Throughout their travels, they face monsters and ghosts.

Osamu Tezuka was born on November 3rd, 1928, in Osaka. He grew up in a liberal family exposed to manga and Walt Disney. As a boy he also had a love for insects; as a grown-up he would incorporate the ideogram for "insect" into his pen name. Having developed an intense understanding of the preciousness of life from his wartime experience, Tezuka Osamu aimed to become a physician and later earned his license, but ultimately chose the profession he loved best: manga artist and animated film writer.