Review of Devilman: Crybaby
A wild Masaaki Yuasa appears! Yuasa uses adaptation of a classic! It’s super effective! Where to begin. As many of you know Masaaki Yuasa is one of the current leading anime directors. Always pushing boundaries wherever he can. His previous works have all been pretty spectacular, so when I’ve heard about him adapting Devilman, a classic 70s manga that shaped the manga industry as a whole and inspired numerous artists, I was pretty excited. And now after watching the series I must say that the hype is well deserved. First of all Devilman itself is far from flawless. The series is pretty dated, the humour isawkward to say the least, the characters are mostly bland and the story itself is filled with ridiculous plot devices and asspulls up the…well ass. So I was hoping that Yuasa is gonna “fix” the flaws of Devilman and modernize it. And he did it. The story’s core message and plot stays mostly the same. We get some new characters and some new twists here and there. The story indeed is modernized but it’s done naturally. There are some iffy moments here and there, some plot holes and out of nowhere stuff but nothing major.
Biggest positive about this adaptation is added depth to its characters. The manga’s characters were shallow, at times almost caricatures. Crybaby gives everybody several layers. Even Miki who in the original was sort of a “thing” for Akira to protect/depend upon works on her own well here. No awkward “you’re making me horny” phrases and no creepy chuckling. This in return adds a lot of emotional resonance between you and the cast. The manga left me mostly cold, but the anime moved me in a ways I was not expecting.
The biggest negative is sadly it’s pacing. Yuasa works fast and story needs to keep moving, plus the manga itself was very fast paced (especially towards the end), but Crybaby has very strange pacing issues. It stays still at times when characters are having important moments but blitzes through important battles and some important plot points. This could very well be intentional so I am not gonna knock it until I’ll re watch it to determine if it was indeed intentional.
The production is obviously godlike, if this is what Yuasa with good budget is, I want more. Animation is more on model so this is probably Yuasa at his normiest. But that hardly takes away from the fact that the CGI is virtually undetectable and very well blended. The colours serve purpose as always and dictate the tone and mood of the scenes well without being too overpowering. Yuasa also somehow gets even better at directing. Camera work in the early episodes feels very real and the movements add to the overall message that the scene dictates. The music is great (Kensuke Ushio can have my babies) from hard synths to organs. I was expecting rock/metal style of soundtrack but I am not mad at all. Oh and there’s some rapping. And it’s great!
And now for my final point…the 18+ stuff. Yes there is extreme gore. Yes there is nudity and sex. And I love it. But some people might not, so beware! There are guts flying everywhere, people getting their heads blown off and there are nips, asses and even 1 uncensored female crotch shot. But this stuff doesn’t serve purpose of being there just as fan service. It works together with the story and builds characterization and themes. Plus there are some pretty drastic scenes. Definitely not for the faint-hearted. If you are one of those people, avoid Devilman Crybaby at all costs!
Ps. for Yuasa - Boy if you don't chill with all the meta jokes