Review of Devilman: Crybaby
First anime review that I've written in a long time, so bear with me as I'm reflecting upon this series. I'm loosely familiar with Go Nagai's Devilman/Devillady series as a whole, but a large part of what turned me away from partaking in this franchise in full was the amount of violence (namely sexual, etc.), particularly in the manga counterparts. I decided with the amount of feedback that was surrounding "Devilman Crybaby" in particular that I would give it a try for myself to see how I would feel about it. The mature rating given to this series is not given without due weight- there's graphic depictions of murder, sexual assault/rape/exploitation, torture among other brutal details. But even with that taken into consideration, parts of this series had aspects I absolutely loathed and others that I appreciated when taking the series as a whole in the sum of its parts.
It's ten episodes - a series I finished in about a day and a half of marathoning on Netflix. Good on the binge watch factor, but bad on development. There's not nearly enough time to connect to the seemingly colorful cast of characters here, some of whom I was actually beginning to like as I watched them in their bit roles. Some slice of life moments I did enjoy - particularly when Akira was with his residing family.
The overarching story has a crybaby, weak-willed teen suddenly taking on extraordinary powers as a "Devilman" - half-human and half-demon. His best friend has a hand in creating the demon that Akira becomes (in part for a sex-laden, drug-bending, violent streak at a nightclub that's over the top on many levels). As the series progresses, we learn about Akira's struggle as both man and demon. It also explores how demons become more recognized in the society which raises the question about how humanity grapples with the demons' existence, and even further ponders how humanity can be worse than the evil that the devils appear to represent/harm they bring. It's an exploration I would've appreciated if it had been given more time and weight to develop and dig into those themes. Instead, it opts to focus on the blunt end of shock factors more often than not. Some of those shock factors are aptly horrifying and emotional (the scene with the father and son hit me freaking hard, among other measures), but others - mostly - are excessive and crass. The ending of this series felt unsatisfying to me, and ultimately led me to think that it could've been much more impactful if it had given more time to both its characterization and story details rather than just the shocking violence and graphic sexual depictions. It's one thing if you have those elements in and of themselves (which people can debate to their fancy), but if such elements in excess take time away from the story and characters you're trying to build, there's a problem.
The artwork was hit and miss with me in this series, some cels and throwback animation styles (i.e. Miki's animated running scene) are beautiful and transition well in motion, while others are choppy and rushed. I kept thinking of how Gurren Lagan was animated and I didn't care for some of the animation in that series either because of lack of consistency. The music for the series was a nice complement to many of the scenes in "Devilman Crybaby" and I liked the ending vocal theme of episode 9. The opening sequence was decent for animation and transition, but I have mixed feelings about the actual opening song.
Overall, "Devilman Crybaby" was a series I felt like I watched and got what little enjoyment I could from it given its content, but in the end, I wouldn't watch this series again. It really didn't resonate with me as much as I thought it might, particularly some shocking turns and deaths (and trust me - there are a LOT of deaths here). There's a lot of purported style and shock factor, but not so much substance.
Overall score: 3.5/10.