Review of Devilman: Crybaby

I would recommend not reading this if you haven’t watched Devilman Crybaby since I will be talking about its themes and plot points. I will also bring up Steins;gate, Re:zero and Attack on Titan. I won’t spoil them but will talk about their tones. I haven’t seen a lot of horror/psychological anime. I think I have seen six thriller anime, where I would consider two of them to be of the horror genre. And while many of them are interesting, none of them were scary IMO. I know I shouldn’t expect anime to truly scare me if I haven’t explored the genre as much as Imaybe should. But if something is tagged as horror, then I don’t think I should be shamed for being disappointed if they aren’t horrifying.
I have seen shows like Steins;gate, attack on titan and Re:zero. And while I don’t classify them as horror anime, I was expecting them to scare me in some way. Be it physically or psychologically. And while I found them interesting, none of them really scared me. Maybe that’s an unpopular opinion, but that’s how I felt. None of them really made me think of any aspect of my life or made me stay awake all the way through the night.

But then I saw Devilman Crybaby. And while I wasn’t terrified while watching it, it was the first time I have had to pause a scene because of the uncomfort I was feeling while watching the show. I’ll explain:

I think I first heard of Devilman Crybaby when Pewdiepie made a video about the show. I could have heard of it before, but this was my introduction to it.
And since that was around the same time I got into anime, I often had it in the back of my mind, like many of the other shows he had talked about.
So when the year ended, I finally decided to watch it. And honestly, it is one of the best anime of 2018 IMO.

I thought the direction they went with the show was handled really well.
The more simple artstyle led to being able to have a lot more expressive animation. And that was one of the favorite parts of the show, the animation. it had all of these weird designs and colors that really stuck out of the anime industry.
And the music also worked to great effect. It has so many different soundtracks that stick in your mind after watching. Epic music (Can’t believe I’m using the word epic unironically) that fit really well with the battle sequences, emotional soundtracks that are played in the perfect moments and soundtracks that make an homage to the time that the manga came from.

But my favorite part was probably the story. I loved how it started as a very weird story with themes of sexuality and mental health, but becomes a metaphor of war, racism, and paranoia.
Cause it starts out, like I said, really weird. We see tits and butts almost every episode. But it doesn’t feel like fanservice. It definitely doesn’t feel like an ecchi anime. But it showcases a more realistic Japan. A more sexual Japan than many other studios are afraid of showing. There are other shows that do this (For example Paranoia agent), but not enough IMO.
Then we see more about how the demon in them could be a metaphor for mental health (A very common metaphor), as we see from Moyuru Koda and other devilmen.

But around episode 6, the tone changes.
As the public learns of the existence of demons, everyone goes crazy. As Ryo tells everyone that anyone could become a demon, the public takes this as a reason to make a new witch hunt.
And this is where the most interesting part of the show starts. When the show says something about the ego that we all have. That we are better than the animals we own and the demons underground. But as we see in episode 9, where the humans are waving body parts of the suspected devilmen in front of a fire (This is the part I was talking about before. Where I had to pause), that might not be the case. As Akira points out (Could have used without that), they are the demons.

The whole theme of thinking your higher than you really are was implemented really well. I would have liked to see more of what it means to be evil and human more, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

I have always said that I’m a fan of psychological anime. But before watching this anime, I hadn’t really watched many of them because I didn’t find them psychologically scary.
But now that I have seen this, I might give it another chance