Review of Devilman: Crybaby
So I was sitting around wasting my life as usual when this strange man wearing nothing but a tutu and Groucho glasses jumps through the window and starts pissing on my cat. However that story doesn't matter because today we are talking about Devilman Crybaby, the most recent Netflix anime and hype generator. Devilman Crybaby is an adaptation, or rather yet another one, of Go Nagai's Devilman manga. From what I gather a rather different take on it with some focuses shifted and some plot points shafted. Without further ado let's dive into it's gore and sex filled flesh. Devilman Crybaby takes a bit of a different approach fromprevious adaptations of the Devilman manga.
Let's clear out the differences right away, no spoilers included.
Characters such as Miki get more character development and screen time whilst others, namely Ryo, get less of it.
Speaking of characters there are some anime exclusive ones.
Akira is a crybaby which was sort of mentioned in the manga but here it gets a lot more focus, I'll elaborate on this aspect a bit later.
Some battles were cut out some changed.
Other changes will be a mystery to you dear reader partially because they dwell in the spoiler territory and because I cannot remember them at the moment.
Anyway back to the core story. The plot is set in a world in which demons are real.
Our main character,Akira, and his best totally-not-gay-for-Akira buddy get down on the dance floor on a party in order to summon and enslave a demon.
Akira gets possessed by demon Amon but retains his human soul becoming,as title indicates, a Devilman.
Shenanigans ensue what with Akira deciding to fight demons to protect humanity etc etc.
Doesn't sound quite enticing does it now? Well the show has the usual message of ,,humans are the real monsters,, but Devilman Crybaby actually pulls it off decently.
Firstly it is shown that demons only show themselves during cases of extreme violence,drinking,drugs and ass. Basically they are drawn to humanity's vices and human are shown to be a match to evils of demons. Show's later episodes showcase extreme paranoia, alienation, lynch mobs, selfishness, more violence, etc.
Anyway the climax of the show is something that'll leave you climaxing, despite having a few annoying out of place flashbacks mixed in.
Let's begin with some wonderful animation this anime has. It's fluid to the point you wet your pants and is a really good template for characters displaying emotions, which is thankfully utilized. Art style will probably make some people drop the anime, heck if YouTube comments are to be believed that's the main qualm with this anime, but believe me when I tell you the visuals just keep getting better and more enjoyable. I oughta say that some scenes look a bit off and you'll find cases where things in the background look like pencil sketches.
It is very unlikely those small tidbits will even pull your attention due to the incredibly fast pacing of the anime. This is both a good and horrible aspect.
On one hand all the more exposition oriented scenes fly by faster than a regular fart but this rings true for a few of the more emotional and key scenes in the anime.
Best example of this, don't worry I'll prevent spoilers by being vague, is a fight that happens merely moments after a really emotional and well done scene. It detracts from the impact of the previous scene and simultaneously removes all enjoyment currently present, sort of like my ex girlfriend.
Now let's do some rapid fire for the climax, heh.
Characters aren't too complex but have that feeling of being actual humans rather than a cardboard cutout, save for a few we get barely insight into but those aren't too important so let's move on.
Soundtrack starts of with some neat synth but goes over a few genres and quite a number of neat songs. You'll hear a few tunes being repeated but they are always used in conjunction with fitting scenes resulting in an enriched experience.
There is one extremely meaningless subplot with no pay off to it and one with a decent character arc finishing in a fitting conclusion.
I don't wanna spoil either of them but here are hints.
For the meaningless one hint is ,,bull,, and for the decent one it's ,,spider,, .
Now here's a minor spoiler, a reaally minor one.
SPOILER
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I've found the whole part where Akira's dad turns into a demon and murders his mum and some other folks,later capturing their faces so he'd make Akira unwilling to attack, completely devoid of emotions. Heck for most of the anime you assume they are dead because they are barely even brought up. So ye screw that whole shebang.
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SPOILER
Okay now time for a conclusion.
Devilman Crybaby is a good anime.
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.
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Fine I can't help but make a bigger summary.
Devilman Crybaby utilizes the original material without being a page by page redo of the manga. It's also quite different to the OVA that predates it and is a bit more faithful to the source. What makes Devilman Crybaby good isn't only the fact
it has a unique and fun to watch animation but also it constantly proving it's main motive right rather just repeating over and over that ,,humans are the real monsters,, or whatever bullshit you want, looking at you Parasyte The Maxim.
Characters are fun enough to watch on screen and soundtrack gives some nice spice to the whole dish.
To recap my negatives about the anime.
Some jarring pacing issues, along with some less jarring ones.
Existence of a useless subplot that took up time that could've been used for better pacing.
A few cases of wonky animation, to be honest these didn't really bother me.
Whole episode being rendered emotionless by virtue of us having no connection to characters who've been struck by the shown tragedy, this one is in the spoiler section up above.
All in all I'd give this anime somewhere between 7 and 8. Let's just call this a 7.8 and put an end to this stretched scrotum of a review.