Review of Devilman: Crybaby

In Defense of the Artstyle: Altough I have only seen some very little of the original series/ other adaptations, it is obvious that this series' t art style is very different from the others'. For some poeple it might looks lazy and a result of a tight budget, I is misunderstood. The club scene - "Too much boobs/ecchi" : For starting, it is not an ecchi anime at all. The nuditiy is not supposed to entertain you or be sexy. Representing the human desire at its two sides : it is somehow a natural thing to enjoy the view of course, but the more minimalistic artstyleand the really in-your-face shots are shadowing a quite disgusting animal-alike side to it, and that is the point: To see sexual desire as a feral instinct, and that these people's disorderly desire is a deformity of the human soul.

"Looks cheap"- I am of course not aware of the animation crew's budget for this anime, and it is true that the simplicity of the art desings are more cost efficent, but art is not all about money.
I personally do not care if the art style was a result of a tight budget or not, because not thing is for sure : REGARDLESS IT WAS STILL AN ARTISCTIC CHOICE , and that is very obvious, because it creates a very unique and excellent atmosphere,and fits the whole story's aim : To give the already told story an actually new approach. And in this story the backgrouns are minimalistic because they its not important to be realistic or spesific. The anime is about human kind , and each character is representing something rather simple than a complex human personality.

For this to explain we need a bit of the storyline, which is also quite minsunderstood (spoilers) :

Akira is a pure child with sympathy for the people around him, who (I guess hits puberty) through becoming a demon gains sexual desires for Miki (who he had a childish love for) and violent intentions towards the things that he despises (for poeple who causes pain to others). These things are a sort of deformation of his already existing feelings and beliefs. He is not a demon becuase of the originally pure and innocent root of his personality that never changes, and the can preserve his humanity alongside with his new demonistic side, and becomes a symbiosis of the two : a devilman. As we see first he gains respect and admiration from his surroundings for 'looking good' and running faster, but later he will face hate an fear, because people see the world as good and bad, and nothing in between, but truth is that everyone is actually a 'in between'.

Akira does not need a unique character design and a spesific personality or development, because the story is rather a statement and an explanation of why the world is like this and what is the problem with humans. Yes, some animes or other series do similar and still have a characteristic protagonist who has a personal background story, but this anime has choosen not to, and it is just as much a valid of
a choice as the other one. I would even say that a 10 episode long anime the the story itself could not hold these things in itself due to its shortness.

And for bonus, let me tell you how I found some animation scenes beautiful. The scene where they are sitting in the car and the street lights are running across them, the rapping part with the long extended shots (and actually really good and quality lyrics!), the ending scene with Ryo, and many others... The characters were also beautifully drawn with a georgous style.

Over all I could see&feel that the writers really did a passionate job with care and hard work. Loved it!