Review of Devilman: Crybaby

I went into this with a lot of expectations. That's not really good in most cases and this time... well let's say I was a bit underwhelmed. I didn't watch the original series nor read the manga (sorry purist anime fans) and what little I knew about this anime was from people talking about it on social media. Retrospectively I have no idea how so many people shipped Akira and Ryo but hey... I guess we all have different relationship standards. First of all - the story wasn't bad. But it tried to do a lot of things, say a lot of things that inthe end kind of... didn't get resolved. The story had some plot holes (well, maybe a lot more than just some), that bothered me a lot and the finale left me feeling very disappointed with how underwhelming it was. On the other hand I liked that there was no endgame romance like in most shounen animes and that there were important lesbian and gay plotlines woven in. Gave it a bit of a fresh feel.

The art was very original which I liked, on the other hand it ended up with a lot of weird looking frames and some clumsy running animations (some of the boob bouncing was just... terrifyingly strange). On the other hand a lot of the animation frames had very nice feel to it - especially in gestures and other small movement.

Sound wise, I didn't really notice anything special about the music but I liked it. It was good but nothing to call your mom about excitedly.

Characters - let's start with the positives. I loved the hip hop crew in the beginning because it reminded me of the shadow girls in Utena a little bit. Once they became less of a commentator/guide through the world and even more of a plotline, it was... decent. Most of the characters were pretty inconsistent, or unnatural, or stupid. I'm sorry but what kind of kid around Taro's age uses the internet to look up illegal sex demon drug parties? An eight year old will google image boobs and feel brave. And for example Miko's (the other Miki) character was very inconsistent and kind of butchered in the middle/first part of the anime. Also who the hell makes these noises when having some private time? What the hell? Ryo's character was so unlikable from the start to finish, not even the finale could salvage that.

It was nice to watch, but I seriously considered just turning it off in the first few episodes. So the enjoyment... depends on if you watch it long enough. In the end I was immersed in the story.

Overall I liked it. I know I point out a lot of things I disliked here, then again my expectations were high. It didn't live up to the hype but it was still an enjoyable experience and very much above average.