Review of Devilman: Crybaby

You see, I recently started watching anime again and was hearing a lot of buzz about Netflix’s new show; Devilman Crybaby, I thought “what the hell, lets give this a go.” So, to clarify. I don’t regard myself an expert on anime by any stretch, I know what I like and that’s what I tend to stick to. I usually like my anime over the top, bombastic and silly. So I basically watch a lot of Shonen. I went into Devilman Crybaby pretty blind, not knowing much about the manga’s origins in the 1970s and how it went on to be incredibly influential and goon to inspire things like Evangelion, a show I also didn’t really like. I’ve looked into it more after the fact, but It didn’t change my opinion a whole lot.

Watching this, it becomes pretty apparent pretty quickly that Devilman isn’t going to be a show for everyone. It’s extremely excessive in its violence, in its depiction of sex and its nihilistic themes. When the show starts off, it has a monster of the week kind of theme going for it, but by the end it peels off and becomes a look at human nature, relationships and our tendencies to hurt one another. All through the lens of Akira Fudo, a goodhearted young man who gains the body of a demon and uses it to defend humanity against other demons.

I don’t know though, it all felt too heavy handed to me. I suppose that’s part and parcel of the experience when watching anime. It does have good subtext at times, but then it beats you over the head with obvious symbolism at others, showing you the same flashback over and over, often times just explaining it afterwards anyway. I don’t mind bleak media, but the oppressiveness of it can really turn me off at a certain point, which was exactly how I reacted to this show by the final episode.

That wasn’t the only thing that put me off though, the other thing is the animation style. I’ve read enough reaction to this show to know people will be calling for my blood after a comment like that. A lot of the fans of the genre seem to revere Masaaki Yuasa for his animation style, which is often times rough and scruffy looking. Again, it’s not for me. At times it can be really effective, lingering on really well animated shots that give real gravity to a scene.

Then we get an extended action sequence that loots like I might have animated it. A sequence comes to mind; depicting a father discovering his son has become a demon, then killed his mother. As grim as the scene was, the visuals of the man trying to shoot the monster in front of him but being unable to kill his son, the anguish was palpable. Then you’ll get rubber people flopping about all over.

Some have said it’s a creative choice, that it’s supposed to signify the lucid and otherworldly aspects of the conflicts going on. Sure, that’s fine. I still don’t think it looks good, all it is is laughable cringey violence with no substance

If there is one thing about the show I did like it was its soundtrack. It’s something pretty unique, synthwave and gothic themes. It worked really well and was one of the other things that kept me watching. The show has a lot of style. Out of context there were a lot of sequences I really enjoyed based on visuals and musical choices, although this becomes less apparent as the series goes on.

Devilman Crybaby is a pretty pathetic show. Despite the fact that there are a lot of things to appreciate in it, and after spending this time writing about it, I have come to respect aspects of it even more. It tells a solid story and gets its ideas across very effectively, but it feels heavy handed a lot of the time and while I got the message, I couldn’t get behind it. So I wouldn’t recommend Devilman Crybaby at all