Review of Devilman: Crybaby
Disclaimer: This is my first review. Depending on how this turns out I may make more reviews depending on if I like making it and if other people liked reading it. I also want to warn everyone that my knowledge on Devilman's origins, the bible, and christianity are either slim to nothing or just common views of an atheist from the outside looking in. I also recommend reading the summary/synopsis of this anime above on the anime's Myanimelist page. First I want to tell you my opinion of this anime. I hated this anime. It was disgusting, gruesome, excessively gory, sexually unappealing and I fear thatit's twisted display of humanities evil tendencies will give me uncomfortable nightmares. No I am not going the route of saying that it is comparable to the horror genre of anime. I'm simply preaching that it is an anime that never failed to make me consistently uncomfortable. It doesn't help that I had to set aside my atheist views to fully submerge myself into it's underlying story. Yes this story seems to be a reference to text potentially written in the bible ( Please note that I have not read the bible. ).
My views and opinion aside I would like to point out that I do think this anime is worth watching. On its first few episodes I could immediately see why it rose in popularity. Popular enough to the level of trendy even. It's art style is incredibly unique, the character designs are also unique, the animation is outstanding, there is nudity, action, violence, politics, religion and to me these are all traits that anime can implement to carry a story. Now by no means does this anime lack a story. It's very hard to perceive at first and in fact it doesn't quite start coming together until somewhere near the end. That's right, for those who can't take a build up or have trouble hanging on to a slow starting anime, this might not be for you! Granted this is only 10 episodes and doesn't take much time to finish, it still doesn't start making any sense to you (or at least not for me) until probably halfway through the anime or further.
"Hey Hxllxws, Why did you say all those hateful things in the beginning toward the anime? was it that bad?" Yes it was honestly. I came into this anime with super low expectations. I thought it was going to be just another one of those ecchi anime that are a cut above the rest with satisfying action, big titties, a somewhat decent story, panty shots, and a very cute kuudere girl. During the first episode and seeing the very curvy art style I thought I was gonna be on one trip of a ride. I guess I wasn't wrong. It didn't take time for me to get absorbed into the anime and the more I got absorbed the more I realized this anime wasn't drawing curves for the sex appeal. It was instead preparing you for a very twisted and stretched appeal of violence and gore. If this was what was intended then they did a fantastic job. There was rapid amounts of sex and sexual reference but again it was never for you to get your pipi up but instead it was to make sex look like something that was obscene and repulsive.
In general the anime was about human desire and how the fear of revealing it or even being exposed to it can turn you into something equally as repulsive. Because you have turn into this demon and are now considered by society that you are repulsive, you have 2 options. Give up and submit to the instincts of a demon and kill, pillage and rape or fight these instincts of the demon and become what is considered a "devilman." A demon with a human heart and conscience. Someone with the body of a demon who can still act as a human would. This possibility of becoming demon and human at the same time starts having people question the idea of what "being human" really means. This question rips humanity apart and makes humans now being manipulated by demons seem like the real demons because they are blinded by fear and distrust. The actions performed during this time made my skin crawl and it made me wonder if finishing the anime was even healthy. Of course looked at the other way this can be considered a good thing because this anime was never meant to be appealing. It did a good job of making me feel horrible and still manage to maintain a story line worth understanding.
In conclusion, I give this anime an 8 out of 10. The story took too long to kick in for my tastes but I kept watching because the animation was good, the art was interesting and the the characters all caught my eye. I may have felt dread through out it's entirety but it's fair to say that it was for a good cause. I can't say I recommend this to everyone but frankly a lot of anime is like that so I'd still encourage this to people because it's a good watch.