Review of Devilman: Crybaby

Summary: Devilman: Crybaby is a masterpiece, revealing the nature of our current human condition in the digital age affected by gross misjudgement and reactionary behavior. My review: Devilman: Crybaby decries the nasty habit of quick reactions in a quick world with no time to think about anything. Proving that makes it the easiest to take the most destructive advantage of ourselves. The age of the internet. Too much information; too little time to process. We've taken it to a point where with some slang and memes we don't even complete sentences.Examples:

“I can't even…” (can't even WHAT?)

“When you can't reach the last pringle… “
(when that happens, WHAT?)

The thought isn't even finished. We don't finish our thoughts anymore. That's dangerous. Devilman: Crybaby demonstrates this with Devilmen. These are people who have been initially possessed by a demon, but win control back in the end, keeping their human hearts. Devilmen are throughout the show viewed as monstrous for the changes they undergo, but are not given the time and energy to be understood. If this doesn't sound like people in our society today, I don't know what does.

[ MINOR SPOILERS]

Many Devilmen cannot initially control their new forms, which results in their mass killings in the show. It's monstrous. They're murderous. Other demons who are not Devilmen are also among mankind, seeking only destruction, and the common people start losing their shit. They turn against each other and risk killing one another, regardless of whether someone is human, Devilman, or demon. Demons are the antagonists, as you've surmised. They wish to take Earth back from humanity, more or less. I'd rather not spoil.

This is what becomes so telling for our digital society and which Devilman: Crybaby executes so perfectly. People in the show take to the internet and instantly begin falling to panic, expressing mass paranoia, resulting in killing without regret, remorse or consideration that they essentially become monsters themselves. They go insane. Stoning, shootings, stabbings. Innocents die. It gets to the point where humans do overwhelmingly more damage to themselves than the demons. This is their plan, to exploit the human weakness of paranoia, lack of trust, and groupthink.

The internet provides the grounds for mass groupthink to spiral to extreme, perilous levels of destruction. The way we experience communication on it conditions us to react and reply simultaneously and therefore explosively. This of course is nothing you are unfamiliar with. But we often think about such things outside the context of ourselves.

Take a second to think about yourself. You've probably done something like that, as have I. Realize how monstrous your reaction was in the moment, and the comment you left on that social media feed.

Throughout the show you see half-baked, mindless comments from people, which speaks to the majority of us in real life, who bash on what they/we don't know and don't understand.

You want your internet opinion to be respected? Respect others’.

At one point, the most beloved character in the show demonstrates love for humanity and for the main character who is a Devilman. She says something along the lines of, so long as you can love, I don't think it matters whether you're human or demon.

People who follow her take to the comments section and start a witch hunt. They find her IP address and show up at her house.

Back our world: No one can take one another seriously. When some expresses an opinion, it's delegitimize with “shit post.”

Redditors are scary. They'll track locations of places posted in pictures. We're not safe from ourselves.

Even though some people in the show relent their monstrous ways, not all do. Some of the monsters, the Devilmen, retain more humanity than their fellow human counterparts who kill indiscriminately and who have not changed into any demon form.

It stems from a severe unfamiliarity with acceptance. We don't know how to accept each other.

Devilmen end up fighting in the end for a fallen humanity, they being the only ones who have retained sanity. It's the main character who stands before a crowd of humans stoning humans as Devilman and asks why they would kill themselves. They don't listen. Is not until children drop their stones and realize how FUCKED it all is. The first child takes the initiative, others following suit with a hug.

Humanity with all its shortcomings can be chalked up to reactionary behavior in a society that gives us no time to think.

The show really had me believing putting down the cellphone, which I'm now typing on, wouldn't be such a bad thing from time to time. I'd rather not suffer from mass sensory overload and give myself time to think things through away from media and others' thoughts so I can better form my own. So, I think I'll do that now.