Review of Devilman: Crybaby

"Dear Enemy, all that makeup that you wear... will never hide, there's a devil under there." - Night Club, "Dear Enemy" Devilman Crybaby- it's a difficult piece of work to truly encompass when you look at its legacy, and the inextricable legacy of its creator, Go Nagai. I could probably spend 10 hours talking about what all anime, creators, writers, and directors have been directly influenced by Nagai, Nagai's works, and creations, but I'm going to try and do it in 9. A little background on Nagai before we get started: Go Nagai is to anime/manga what Ozzy Osbourne and King Diamond are to rock music.Go Nagai is to anime/manga what Gilgamesh is to literature. Go Nagai is to anime/manga what Metropolis is to film, and particularly scifi/special effects.
The guy has a career spanning five decades, many genres, and is credited for pioneering the Giant Robot genre with Mazinger Z, and also credited with creating the progenitor to modern hentai with Harenchi Gakuen, or "shameless school" in English. He would also later codify the magical girl genre with Cutie Honey, and singlehandedly launched the Shonen Jump magazine into popularity with the scandalous (at the time) Harenchi Gakuen. Literally millions of the fledgling Shonen Jump magazines jumped out of the nest of bookstores in Japan at the time to be flown through by readers of the day.

All of this before 1972, mind you. (Yes, i know Mazinger Z and Devilman were concurrent publications, hush.)

Cue June 11, 1972. Devilman Hits the shelf. Japan is wowed by the ultraviolence that Nagai becomes known for- but all is not senseless beatdowns and buckets of blood- for Devilman has a plot! And no, the plot wasn't just to sell a lot of comic books and make Nagai a rich man and household name, though those were unexpected positive externalities!

Skip to today, Devilman as an intellectual property has sold over 50 million copies, has nine novels, multiple anime and manga iterations, and a number of crossover appearances, not to mention its direct influence on the shonen genre as a whole, which we'll jump into now. Hideaki Anno has even cited Devilman as influence for Evangelion. That's how influential it is.

In 2018- Devilman is certainly a breath of fresh air. The landscape of anime is largely square, prefab, calculated risks created by corporations protecting their investments. Anime is an advertising machine, trying to get people to buy the producers' and publishers' newest manga acquisitions with "read the manga to find out what happens next!!!" endings. Anime is a niche market, we know this- but anime has seemingly stagnated in terms of creativity- lots of magical high schools, put upon protagonists with shaggy hair and no parents, etc. Rarely do you see studios or production companies take risks licensing old names like Devilman. This manga is from 1972, it's old enough to be any given manga artist today's dad!

Devilman was certainly a risk. Netflix fronted studio "Science Saru" the funds to create a 10 episode series based on the manga, and probably spent half the budget getting Masaaki Yuasa of Tatami Galaxy fame to direct the thing. Does it help that this anime was produced outside the normal avenues of production? Absolutely. I doubt this anime would have been made any other way.

For one- the best, and probably only way to adapt any of Go Nagai's works (remember that I said he's known for ultraviolence, as well has heavily sexual themes and content) is to do it AWAY from TV. Nagai himself has stated that when he wrote Devilman, he wrote it for adults, 18+, and so the controversy surrounding its depiction of violence, blood, guts, and sex didn't bother him, because it was always intended for adults to read, and not children. As anyone who's ever played an M rated video game online, we know that this is not necessarily the case, that only adults consume media made for adults, but in this case, Devilman got made because Netflix's producers aren't children.

So, we've got a lot of highly stylized sex, violence, and machspeed thanks to Yuasa's frenetic directing style, but where's the substance? Enter hero Akira Fudo, a put upon teen with shaggy hair. He does actually have parents, even if they're away, and amazingly, he doesn't attend a high school where everyone has magical powers. In fact, everyone seems refreshingly normal, except for his bsupremely intelligent, rich, scandinavian beaut of a best friend, Ryo. His powers are more like Batman, however.

Again with the shonen influences, you'd be hard-pressed to find more of (what are now) shonen tropes in a single show. Devilman was the progenitor to supernatural and religious horror in manga, introduced duality of man issues, inner struggles with literal demons, absorption of souls/powers, etc etc. I haven't seen every shonen series ever made, but I'd be willing to bet you could find some example of a shonen trope that was initiated by Devilman.

It's not a spoiler to say that Akira becomes possessed by a demon- otherwise how else would he become Debiruman? However, it would be criminal of me to disturb the plot for anyone else beyond this initial possession. Akira learns of other demons possessing people, and as a half man, half devil, he takes it upon himself to put and end to the malevolent presence.

The series really takes a turn just past halfway through, and though this adaptation certainly skips a lot of the manga in its pithy 10 episode run, I feel like the major points all hit home amid a sexy, violent, blood filled romp. Everything is highly stylized, but graphic and disturbing at points to where it doesn't become overplayed and complacent. As a viewer, I never felt like I expected XY outcomes, and at certain points, it subverts many expectations I had from watching countless other anime play out, turning them right on its head. Nietzsche himself would be impressed with this one, I think.

While the plot itself is breakneck in pace, and has some issues (such as Akira being given a phone early in the show, and his mother calls him, yet she would have had no way of knowing that he even had a phone, let alone the number to call), I think that many of these are caused by pure omission of manga details (cut for time), and by creating a modern day adaptation of a 45 year old manga, in a time when the internet and cell phones didn't exist. The importance of these creature comforts and connectivity we take for granted today are integral to the plot, and I assume were not present in the manga, because social media is an advent of the new age. The show also features some great dark, pulsating electronic music that fits the tone exceptionally well. Top marks for sound design.

Once you get to the end though, like an episode of Arrested Development or Seinfeld, those little plot points from the beginning that didn't make much sense, or that side character that seemed unimportant come into focus and suddenly gain a lot of meaning. Things people say, actions people take, they all have a character and a role to play, and I would go so far as to say that no one in this show has a sweeping 180 of character for no reason, something that can't be said for anime. It all stays tightly wound until the ending, and what a shock it is.