pandora hearts gilbert x oz dreaming freedom chapter 116
This is prime real estate for her to develop as a character (the main one at that) before Volume 4 completely has her going nowhere with this outside of two scenes of her feeling scared and horrible for what happened, causing her to completely abandon this idea outside of one scene in Volume 5 where she brings up the deaths of her friends. Hell, even that had more of an impact than what happened in this arc, which is still the most emotionally resonant arc in the series!
None of this would matter too much if the characters were dynamic and colorful, cuz that would make it so even if an episode is only there for variety, it’s still engaging. Unfortunately, Dororo’s characters barely go beyond their character archetypes, and the ones who aren’t stock characters often leave a lot to be desired. I already discussed how poorly they handled Hyakkimaru’s development, which is a real shame since there are moments where he comes off as fun, even adorable with how he has to learn to really socialize with others on a level beyond that of a toddler. Dororo, by contrast, is far more lighthearted, sometimes even naive regarding “right and wrong”, as she’s a child. She’s an orphan that has watched her parents die and seen villages burn, and that completely clashes with how naive she is and how horrifying such violence seems to her in the first leg of the show, but she’s still a child. Speaking of clashing, her character trait of being a street rat who regularly attempts to swindle people or make a quick buck makes some of her more gullible actions in later episodes (15) seem entirely out of place. She has two sides to her that are fundamentally at odds with one another at times, resulting in a character that feels weak, on top of feeling shallow. That shallowness is compounded by the lack of development, a trait which only Hyakkimaru and one of the antagonists have any kind of access to (as dodgy as their development is). I know that a lack of character development is one of the tackiest, most misused complaints thrown at an anime, but when the characters are this shallow, and none of the side stories leave any kind of impact on a pair of characters consisting of a child and a person slowly gaining back and developing his humanity, I'm left begging for something, anything to change before completely checking out by episode 18.
I’m barely gonna touch on the side characters, even Hyakkimaru’s family and the people that serve them, as they’re mostly just boring character archetypes like the suffering mom, the warlord who cares about his nation almost as much as he does his reign over them, and the edgy, jealous younger brother who constantly tries to prove himself in order to not feel overshadowed.