Devilman: Crybaby

Just popping in to say I really loved this show.
I rated it 5/5, no I don't think it deserves that rating objectively by any means, and I can understand how its writing's not the strongest, characters could've been developed further and their actions sometimes served the narrative more than they did themselves. If I were a less biased critic that doesn't only rate shows by my level of enjoyment, I'd probably rate it 3.5/5 or 7.5/10.
But I felt compelled to watch the whole thing at once, its whole presentation and style really resonated with me and I got hooked into the plot and characters regardless of any writing flaws.

I went back and read the Devilman manga, I can safely say Masaaki Yuasa's interpretation flourishes in comparison to the original material. It's a decent read, but I think Yuasa made it more special with Crybaby.
Don't read Shin Devilman, it's weird in a bad way. Or save it for a quick DTMB, if that's a thing. Neo Devilman is a series of anthology stories in the world of Devilman each written/drawn by different mangakas and that's worth checking out if you like this series. I think Neo Parasyte was the same concept, never read it. But it makes me wonder why that isn't a more common practice. I'd read the shit out of Neo One Piece, personally.

Anyways, this certainly isn't for everyone, but it holds a special place in my heart. It reignited my passion for the medium, it's been a while since I felt excited for an anime like this. It led me to give Nichijou a second chance for some needed uplifting laughs and now I'm almost done and heavily enjoying it. And I've taken this forum's and Eyepatch Wolf's advice and started watching Kaiji, looking forward to checking out some more classics in the backlog. Thanks Devilman.
 
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Episode 7
True to the manga, the us and them theme is still going strong, preaching against the dangers of acting before thinking and resorting to violence instead of trying to understand others. Stuff like this has obviously lost its impact since 1972, and we're collectively a much more cynical bunch now, and I posit it's partly for not heeding warnings such as these before. It's also because we've seen many of them, and the concept is a hoary old one.

666 over Ryo's elevator? I do wonder what it means. I get that Yuasa likes his symbolism, but even so...

This is when I would have liked a couple more episodes to ramp up the tension of the escalating conflicts and sort out the Miko stuff.

All that (relative) whining, and I still love this. It's never failed to entertain me, and it still feels very fresh.
 
Episode 8
Fuck yeah, this is how you do family tragedies. Take note, hacks at Key and KyoAni. Fucking pathos out the wazoo, and they did not need much build-up. Just one single instance of tragedy, surely repeated all over the world. They also manage to sell the despair and oppressive mood with not a lot of effort. It's heavy handed, but also handled without unnecessary (ha, like when is it ever necessary?) exposition, instead content of showing. It's akin to Gordon Freeman's arrival in City 17.

I fucking loved Ryo's body language in his final monologue. So cocksure, so grandiose. What a great turn, if not predictable. This is when they finally are at cross purposes.

One of the best episodes yet. This is a strong contender for AOTS, if not AOTY already. I feel like a pleb for thinking that, but shit taste is my forte.
 
Episode 8

No sir, it is you who has the shit taste, not I.
Proper oppressive and grim atmosphere now, the world really has turned to utter shit with paranoia rife in both the public and the armed forces. No one is safe from a bullet to the head.

Including Miki's family. Fuck, that scene with her dad not knowing what to do, he seems resolved that Taro isn't his son, then a second later has to lower the pistol because he can't do it, then when the decision is being taken out of his hands. his immediate instinct is to protect his family, at the cost of his own life. It was a brilliantly done scene.

Gore looked damn good this episode too, that blokes eye just sitting in a pool of brains and blood next to the rest of his body was a great touch.

I love the demon designs in this, they're so other worldly, I particularly like Miko's design, it's refreshing to see a female demon design that actually looks like something other than an excuse for fanservice.

Ryo's turn at the end was great, I loved how confident and arrogant he was with it, his body language was like that of a performer, and now we finally have out 2 main protags at logger heads.

Agreed with @HasseRovdjur on this, an early contender for AOTY already.
 
Episode 9
Adding another subtle queer romance to this really helps sell this and ground this in the modern age. Rather this than Citrus or twee crap like Sakura Kiss, I think. But then again, this is a subculture anime, and otaku anime do better overseas. Or something.

Several powerful scenes here, with Akira's arc about belief in humanity being shot to hell because Miki dared stand up for him. Miko's confession and the scene along the river. Fuuuuuuuuuuuu

Another fuckballs great episode, but the next one might be when it loses the plot. Devilman's ending is pretty definitive, but I don't remember it making a lot of sense.
 
Episode 9

The tension through this episode was fucking amazing. From start to brutal finish I was on tenterhooks throughout. By making the episode more contained, focusing mainly in the Makimura house and one other area, it really brought the atmosphere up too, so that when the mob shows up at the house, you're utterly terrified of what will happen.

And rightly so, because these guys are not fucking about, it's one thing to kill someone, it's another to mount their head on a pike and parade it around. I can not deal with what happened at the end there, I'm too accustomed to the day getting saved.

The scene in the stadium was powerful, it shows us that hate is a learned behaviour, and through Akira's tears and willingness to take the pain in place of the humans they had decided were demons, as well as Miki's social media post (she's so damn pure), they come to realise that what they're doing is wrong.

Miko's speech was a highlight, it showed maturity of character, and was brilliant script work, the confession as they were running away was sweet as hell, and it hurt me when she gets shot to a point she can no longer run.

Miki's death was hard to take, real fucking hard. Akira's reaction is not surprising in the slightest, I know some people have said it's too much of a heel turn from "I won't kill humans" to "burn in hell", but he just found the one person he truly loves dead and he body cut to pieces and displayed in triumph. I would do exactly the same thing.

If you stopped this episode without watching the whole credits, you fucked yourself over. It was too much.
 
Episode 10
I often don't care that much about endings anyway, because they have a hard time wrapping things up in a way that satisfies my bizarre and byzantine expectations. This was no exception. It's fine, I guess, but nothing for me to write home about.

The ending, with all its bombast and finality, do clash a lot with the rest of the character drama present in earlier episodes. I suspect that the makers were more interested in exploring that than the showdown between the three factions. It devolves into an epic slugfest, which while nice and epic, is a bit reminiscent of superhero movies and their trend to have everything solved by a flurry of blows. This is not really a bad thing, but I am petty enough to be bothered by this anyway.

Of course, this is Nagai in "fuck you" mode, so it ends in tragedy instead of Capmerica saving the day from the douchebag du jour. Humanity is eradicated, and Satan can watch all the stars now that Earth is free from humanity and our pesky penchant for light pollution. Shame about Akira, who had a human heart... Careful what you wish for, Satan.

The whole demons hate humans and want to eradicate them is incredibly dated, kind of like the ending to a very seminal limited comic book series that two Brits once wrote. The one a certain right wing asshole cartooned out had a better ending anyway, and the sixteen panel grid made for better pacing than the nine panel grid. Aaaaaanyway, it engendered some great scenes in earlier episodes, but I must admit that the motivations is not something I care about. I'm all for relatable antagonists, but it fell on its face here. And God is an asshole, yada yada yada. Also very non-interventionist for an Abrahamic deity. Funny, that.

So, I guess this is an imperfect adaptation of the Devilman manga, but it's clear that it should not be seen as one, marketing be damned. This is a modern take on it, and one that I think nails the spirit of early Nagai, before he started to farm out stuff in his Dynamic Pro factory. It's transgressive, ugly, unrepentant (repentless if you're Kerry King), but fresh as fuck, and it managed to pull off some hoary old tropes in the same way that Gunbuster did. I can see why people don't like this, but I find it hard to argue against this being one of those all too rare vitamin injections that anime is in chronic and desperate need of. I'm incredibly happy that this got made, and I have very little in the way of negativity to write about this. Yuasa and co knocked this out of the park.

I am especially pleased with how they managed to make this feel contemporary, far more so than other anime taking place in "present day, present time hahaha", and expanding on the themes on being an outsider by being more intersectional (maybe I should just fuck off to tumblr already?). It's as subtle as a knuckleduster to the gut, but it has some more quiet moments amidst all the sound and fury.
 
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Episode 10

And so the final curtain falls
This could have done with an extra episodes worth of run time. It's the first episode where it felt rushed, and you could tell they wanted to put more emphasis on character drama, but still had to get the plot in there. As a result, when the credits rolled it felt like I'd only had about 10 minutes of watching.

Having said that, I didn't hate the ending, the humans all die and the demons "win", Akira gets to have a pretty cool fight against SatanRyo, and I must admit that I liked the last scene where he realises Akira is dead and then bursts into tears.

Some strong visual work in this episode too, though very EoE at the end there, and the soundtrack was arguably at its absolute best this episode too.

I quite liked the cyclical nature of the whole thing, demons rise, humans rise with them, God intervenes. The same thing happens here. I like that there's no commentary on the nature of God here too, it could get really preachy and lost in its own bullshit, instead he just acts as an unknowable force.

I loved this show, even with an ending episode that couldn't live up to everything that came before it, I find myself feeling like I could watch it all again right now.

But then, this also feels like a homecoming for me. Devilman as a franchise has always had a soft spot in my heart because when I first started watching anime as a kid, the Sci-Fi channel used to show the old OVAs every friday and saturday night, so 12/13 year old me would sneak out of bed at midnight to go downstairs to watch them every week. However, this show would appeal to me rose tinted glasses or not, because it does a lot of things incredibly well.

Firstly, Akira. I spent most of the time thinking that this should just be some fun ultra violence and sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, without any real characterisation. But Akira shat all over that, he ends up being what most shows want their MC to be but rarely are, a genuinely good man. No he doesn't have much development, he doesn't need it because he gets everything he needs at the end of the first episode, and what you're left with is a pure heart surrounded by an iron fist. It works incredibly well here, it's believable when he's sad for others, I felt his anger, and I sought his success.

Secondly, it's themes. Namely a fear of the other. This isn't an anti war show like the original manga was, this is an anti hate show. Neither the humans or demons are portrayed as good here, they leave it to specific characters to show that rather than making us pick a side, but what we see is a fear of something that isn't like us. It's not a stretch to see the metaphors on display here that the humans persecuting themselves as well as the demons can be seen as punishment to anyone that isn't the same as you, it felt very telling that
a character dies
after confessing to a queer romance. There is infighting among both factions, showing that neither is better than the other. The show makes us call for acceptance of each other, while simultaneously showing us that we shouldn't stand for hatred.

Thirdly, the actual anime side of the thing. I loved the visual style on display here, it was a perfect blend of animation and audio, and the soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in years. The VAs were absolutely spot on, particularly Ryo's who had all that english to speak. The fight scenes had both visual and narrative weight, the gore was brilliantly visceral without being too grim, the demon designs were great, and the set design itself was well thought out, I feel I know the layout of the Makimura house because of how well it was planned.

So yeah, overall you can pretty much tell how much I enjoyed the show. Which is to say, I fucking loved it. And because I don;t give a fuck about trying to objectively rate anything, and I enjoyed this more than anything I've seen since Flip Flappers, I'm giving it a perfect 5/5
 
so finally got the motivation to continue watching this, i have no idea why i stopped after the first episode in the first place, and i'm very conflicted, a part of me is in love with it, the other part hates it.
throws some boobs on the screen

i really don't like Ryou's design here, the older one is just fabulous, other than that i'm satisfied with everything else, including the Yuasa style which grew on me and i got used to it, the pacing no longer feels awkward either.

throws some more boobs on the screen

though i really despise how the show tries to make me feels sad about things i didn't care about, i didn't know you had parents until five minutes ago, why are you trying to make me sad about them all of a sudden. though i must admit, that scene was kind of cool.

the show is not the kind to be binged either, i watched those four episodes at once, and kind of got sick of all the boobs and the violence, i'll also probably hate the show if i watch the whole thing at once, the show is also kind of repetitive as a whole, that's probably why i'm slowly losing interest in it.

the rappers are brilliant though, i can't stop listening to them everytime they appear. i still don't hate the show, just for Ryou and Yuasa merits, but from what i've seen the ending is not a nice one, so i'll prepare for the impact.
 
if i only take cool shit and schlock fun into consideration, i'd give this a perfect score, but the show tried to be very dramatic about characters with no character in them, since the show didn't bother to flesh them out so their actions didn't make any sense, ruined some of the dramatic scenes with boobs, and tried to throw an anti war or hate message in the last few episodes and didn't really do anything with them.
the plot twist of Ryo being Satan was just stupid i can only shake my head at it, i don't know about the original manga, it makes me feel like they didn't know how to wrap stuff up and just added it in the last second just for the heck of it without any consideration to anything that happened before. the whole thing's writing is garbage, it can't make up it's mind if it wants to be schlock or deep commentary on human cruelty and whatnots, i can't tell if it's trying to be dark and dramatic or stupid and fun.

there are some really stupid scenes as well, like when everyone was lined up to hug Akira, even though they were literally trying to kill him 3 seconds ago, what i want to know is why would they bring a bunch of kids to a place where they're executing people, and other similar things. i'm also supposed to believe that humanity never knew about the existence of demons even with those flashy battles and blood ponds every where, or thought it was weird that people seem to sudden disappear all the time for no reason. also, Ryo did everything that happened to be convenient for the devils without actually knowing that he's Satan (i might be mistaken about this though).

i must admit, the final battle between Ryo and Akira was cool, even with all the ridiculousness that surrounded it, very flashy and exciting, and the show's sound track is just brilliant, the art style grew on me after a while and i found it very charming, though i prefer the older designs, they were much cooler, and the colorful demons don't seem... evil or threatening.

rating, rating.... i might go with 6/10, even with all it's stupidity i can't deny the fun i had with it, though most of it is just the Yuasa merit, too bad even his directing couldn't salvage it or it's terrible writing, but at least he made it watchable.
 
Zed60K said:
the plot twist of Ryo being Satan was just stupid i can only shake my head at it, i don't know about the original manga, it makes me feel like they didn't know how to wrap stuff up and just added it in the last second just for the heck of it without any consideration to anything that happened before. the whole thing's writing is garbage, it can't make up it's mind if it wants to be schlock or deep commentary on human cruelty and whatnots, i can't tell if it's trying to be dark and dramatic or stupid and fun.
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Why is it stupid? You just kind of say it is but don't really have any really substance behind the claim
 
g3data said:
Why is it stupid? You just kind of say it is but don't really have any really substance behind the claim
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Zed60K said:
Ryo did everything that happened to be convenient for the devils without actually knowing that he's Satan (i might be mistaken about this though).
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i did say it in the next paragraph, his actions just doesn't add up, he wants to eradicate humanity but spends his time doing other stuff, just doesn't make much sense to me.
 
Zed60K said:
i did say it in the next paragraph, his actions just doesn't add up, he wants to eradicate humanity but spends his time doing other stuff, just doesn't make much sense to me.
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Timing was important, the dude needed influence, and for that too happen the seeds of fear needed to be sown. Not something that would just happen over night. Demons were outnumbered so creating more discord would make things easier.

The only rationale I recall for as to why Ryo acted the way he did was never actually given in this anime for some reason because too many plot details had been changed leading up to the ending I guess. Either way though, he still held his position as cold-hearted pragmatist up until he intentionally betrayed Akira on television through causing schisms of fear between people. By that he'd already been reminded who he was. So basically, for most of the series Ryo tiptoed the line of chaotic good before remembering to drop the whole "good" part.
 
g3data said:
Timing was important, the dude needed influence, and for that too happen the seeds of fear needed to be sown. Not something that would just happen over night. Demons were outnumbered so creating more discord would make things easier.

The only rationale I recall for as to why Ryo acted the way he did was never actually given in this anime for some reason because too many plot details had been changed leading up to the ending I guess. Either way though, he still held his position as cold-hearted pragmatist up until he intentionally betrayed Akira on television through causing schisms of fear between people. By that he'd already been reminded who he was. So basically, for most of the series Ryo tiptoed the line of chaotic good before remembering to drop the whole "good" part.
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i just find it too ridiculous that everything he did while he was fighting the demons happened to be conveniently working in favor of the demons.
 
Watched the first ep of this hoping it was going to be something epic based on the tags. I almost never care or am bothered by it, but this animation/art is really bad looking and ruins it for me entirely. The proportions are just all off (match stick legs, oddly shaped heads, body looks stretched), very sloppy, it reminds me of that look you get when turning field view in a game from 90 to 140. I loved the music though, that might be the sole reason I can manage the remaining eps.

And about ep 1
Was the choice of art intentional to make all the "adult content" look unappealing? I have never felt so turned off by a girl in a sports bikini lol. I usually am all for wierd, but I found the whole club bit on the line of disgusting, killer female chest that eats people? A monster mouth where stuff typically exits the human body & on the front too? And all the other scenes at the club. I am not sure what the purpose is here, but I really don't need to see anything like that again in the remaining 9 eps.
 
WolfAngelus said:
but I really don't need to see anything like that again in the remaining 9 eps.[/spoiler]
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You are in for a bad time.

As for the club scene. You're dead on that it's not supposed to be sexy or appealing. That's the point. It's taking the familiar and the erotic and twisting into something monstrous. For Akira to get possessed it took the ultimate perversion. It starts as just normal perversion, but the reckless hedonism soon turns into something much darker and what was supposed to be appealing is suddenly something deadly and terrifying. It's a common tactic in horror.
 
Funny the new character were one of the things I liked about the series. Rapper dude spit some real fire.

I sort of agree about Sirene. I feel like she could have been a lot more than what she ended up being. I like the angle they took with her, but I've actually have preferred if she'd been more a recurring temptation for Akira. Someone he could really let out his demonic desires with.

I don't even know what he's talking about with the complain that people went on with their lives after the demons were revealed. Things pretty much went to shit right after.

Uhh, the Zenon character sounds stupid and pointless. His only purpose sounds like shitty exposition. Also, the "plan" with Satan sounds dumb as fuck. I'd rather there be no explanation than something that stupid. I don't think we needed it explained to us that Satan was in love with Akira. Glad they cut that shit.
 
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