Review of Devilman: Crybaby

I've never seen nor heard of Devilman before seeing it pop up on the top of my netflix feed. The main character seemed very weird to me and I had no intention of watching it until one of my friends force fed me the first episode, almost certainly for its shock value. Once you get past the shock value of Devilman Crybaby, however, there are some bright spots that surprise you. The story is somewhat predictable. There are no huge twists that caught me off guard or any intriguing characters that I couldn't get enough of. The biggest thing that caught me off guard was justhow far this show was willing to go. I kept thinking while watching this, "How is Netflix allowing this on their platform?" It was a good surprise, however, as I think the show is made in a very serious manner and not meant to be clickbait hentai in any sense.

This brings me to the word that will come to mind for many when watching this show - hentai. Let me be clear - this show has gone further on the explicit show than any non-hentai anime I have ever seen. In gore, nudity, and sexual explicitness, this show tops the scales. This will be a turn-off for many people, understandably (and maybe a turn-on for others). The show surprised me, however, as it was not shocking just for the sake of garnering views.

The animation was surprisingly high value. Devilman's fight scenes were unexpectedly well-animated and sometimes I saw myself comparing it to the quality of fights in Cowboy Bebop. While many anime take the easy route and put up slashes on a screen to show a sword being thrust, or show characters jumping through the sky with rainbow colors in the background, Devilman had some really well-made, well-choreographed fight scenes that were detailed and fun to watch.

The sound and the characters were both just ok for me. Nothing from the sound stood out to me. The main character and the main girl were both neat in their own ways. The main girl was a really likable character, and I found myself really cheering for her throughout the series.

Overall, this anime both hits and misses. It may lure some in with the explicit scenes that may spread its name, but a viewer will notice that there is a careful attention to detail throughout the series and a fearless intent to not hold back on showing anything at all.