Review of Devilman: Crybaby

*SPOILER-FREE REVIEW* There were so many people absolutely adoring this show online, so I decided to watch it wanting to know what all the commotion was about. After watching it and thinking it over for a week I honestly am not still sure why this show is so loved by the majority of people. In my opinion what the show gave in terms of substance does not warrant the reaction it has gotten. I wouldn't watch it again, nor would I recommend it to anyone. However, I will go over exactly what merits and what pitfalls to me this show has to offer in case you thinkthis would be something that you would get something out of.

WHAT THEY DID RIGHT:

Art Style - I think one of the big reasons why people sort of clinged to this show was due to the unique art style it was given. A lot of scenes are disturbing due to the nature of the content, but they are good at depicting these scenes and accurately express the emotions of the situation. The character design is interesting, and you can get a sense of who the character is from a glance. However sometimes the animation is very silly and unrealistic to the point of getting genuine bursts of laughter from me when I don't think they were supposed to. I also think that this show relies heavily on being explicit and vulgar for the sake of being shocking, I understand that this is to easily convey the feeling behind a scene although I believe they don't use it to convey the meaning behind the scene making it seem forced and unnecessary. If you are into art and animation you would enjoy watching this show a lot just for the visuals but unfortunately that's where I think the positives end.

WHAT THEY DID WRONG:

Story - To me the story is almost nonexistent. Things happen in episodes, there is a beginning, middle, and end. But very rarely are they connected to each other, and even when they are there is no meaningful conclusion to those storylines. I feel like you could watch the first episode, and then skip to episode six and not even miss a beat about what is happening. That is how meaningless everything seems. And I think the reason behind this is that they never show or talk about the significance of the previous actions or events that take place. You could argue that it is all subtle and that you are simply supposed to assume how things affected one another but as I said things just sort of happen one after another without proper reason. And I personally think if it was supposed to be implied it should be easily picked up on to the point I shouldn't have to have previous knowledge of the series or feel like I need more answers or direct acknowledgment.

Characters - The characters have seemingly absolutely no motivation and the reasons behind their actions are either very short lived or have no previous reason behind it. This causes a lot of intended emotional scenes to mean nothing to me because I am not invested in the characters. I truly wish that I could understand why these characters did what they did but I didn't get it and I still don't. This might be due to an outside influence of the demons, but it is never hinted at or explicitly stated if that is the case for anyone except the main character. And even then, it doesn't explain why he is so different from all the rest or why while one character might act this way he doesn't seem to. Or why he acts a certain way and then he doesn't anymore, and it's never brought up again. This ties into the story and how I feel it has no meaning. If there is no meaning behind events there is no motivation behind actions so both end up falling flat.

WHAT THEY DID OKAY:

Sound - The soundtrack was okay, I feel like there is one part of an episode where the background music does not fit the context of the scene but for the most part everything goes where it should, but I don't remember anything stand out too much for me. The original devilman theme is enjoyable but other than that I think the rest of the OST is just generic techno.

Enjoyment - I watched this with a friend and while we both enjoyed poking fun at it's flaws and craziness in the beginning, by the end we were both angry and exhausted over how little anything meant or was explained. I personally don't think I would of watched the entire thing by myself it I had not someone to share this, and the sole enjoyment I got out of watching this was from them not from the show. Regardless that does mean I did get some enjoyment out of it which is why it goes into the okay category.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

At the end of the day this is only my opinion on the matter and it's up to you whether to spend your time watching this show, but I think that there are other shows that do this story concept a lot better and your time would be better spent elsewhere. I also think if you have previous knowledge of Devilman you would enjoy this more because you'd understand the story and characters from previous works. But by itself I think it leaves much to be desired and shouldn't be as praised as it is.

3/10. Would do the harpy lady.