Nonspoiler review and a Spoiler-Heavy review:
NONSPOILER: Devilman: Crybaby is the latest in the Devilman anime series. There are numerous animated versions of this brand that date back to decades ago with a (now rather hokey old Speed Racer anime type show) Japanese television series. The series was revisited numerous times, most notably in the 90's when the MANGA brand brought back the show for a mini-series that updated the animation style, violence, and it was one of the bigger anime shows of the Western anime boom in the mid to late 90's. Devilman: Crybaby succeeds in bringing the brand to 2018 with a wonderfully well executed animation style, fast-paced plot, great characters, and doesn't have any of the hokey Japanese anime humor that often falls flat for Western Audiences.
I would recommend this show to anyone interested in a fast-paced, violent, action packed animated series that is written well and doesn't fall into many of the traps that other anime series fall into. This is an anime series that is catered towards western audiences, which may or may not be a good thing. I see a previous review that was upset with the nihilistic nature of the show and I agree that this is a very hard, NC-17, watch at times though, so be prepared.
SPOILER HEAVY: . . . Damn this show caught me off guard. I had seen it advertised a few weeks ago and was intrigued. I have seen a number of the Devilman branded animated shows; the original one I watched about a dozen episodes of 15 years ago when I picked up a cheap DVD set of it and thought it was ok, but I really enjoyed the 90's MANGA mini-series version of Devilman while I was a teenager in the 1990's.
Devilman: Crybaby's first half doesn't have much new if you have already seen the 90's mini-series. It has the same main characters with the same methods to turn Akira into Devilman, and also has some of the same enemy fights (the bird-woman, the turtle thing that ate Akira's parents with the faces shell) that are fought in the same style. What the first half does help with is building Ryo as the antagonist and also establishes about a dozen other characters who really help in expanding the scope of the series.
It is also a breath of fresh air that this series knows when to hold back and when to let loose. There are too many anime series where the stakes seem to never be high enough to really care about the characters. KuroMukuro is a prime example of this; the fact that there are cyborg aliens attacking the Earth seems to be almost a non-issue at times. Knights of Sidonia also fell victim to this in the second season as it felt like there is no sense of urgency in these shows. Other shows like Attack on Titan fall in the other group; always at a 10 with no real character development.
Devilman: Crybaby's first half helps to build the world and extra characters of the series. An example of this is the beat-box rappers seem to be one dimensional at first, but we actually care about them. Watching "Beta" Miki obsessing over her inability to beat her rival in running and go to the extreme of becoming a demon is another great part of the series before the second half when everything goes to hell, and damn does it go to hell in the second half.
After President Trump's brief first Anime Appearance of the year where the world finds out about the demons, the entire world goes to hell. The show goes from being about Akira fighting demons to the people of the world going crazy, not knowing who could be infected as a demon. It reminded me of Steven Carpenter's remake of The Thing on a grander scale and shows the dark side of humanity where panic can cause people to turn on one another and revert back to primal instincts. Ryo's trick news conference was analogous with some of the ultra-conservative movements currently happening around the world that vilify anyone who does not seem to be a "normal" citizen. Seeing the brutality of the mob-rules vigilante justice is hard to watch but also not hard to imagine.
Seeing the relationship with Mika and Miko end with them trying to save one another, even with all the animosity between them, was something else that was well done.
Ryo turning out to be Satan himself was a rather unique twist as was the series ending with Akira's death and God destroying the world and rebuilding it again back to its original form. The viewer is left to wonder if this is a cycle that has repeated before and/or is it a cycle that will continue to repeat endlessly.
Also of note, Akira does run close to Mary Sue/Gary Stu territory at times as a character who cannot do anything bad, but he eventually does break bad towards the end by killing the humans that killed his friends.
The gratuitous nudity, sex, violence, and just straight up weird shit (Akira having a wet-dream as a demon and waking up to his ceiling covered in cum was nasty as hell) is probably a turn-off for many and I can see why some people would write-off the series because of it.
That being said, this is a solid 9/10 for me and a great addition to the growing Netflix catalogue.
NONSPOILER: Devilman: Crybaby is the latest in the Devilman anime series. There are numerous animated versions of this brand that date back to decades ago with a (now rather hokey old Speed Racer anime type show) Japanese television series. The series was revisited numerous times, most notably in the 90's when the MANGA brand brought back the show for a mini-series that updated the animation style, violence, and it was one of the bigger anime shows of the Western anime boom in the mid to late 90's. Devilman: Crybaby succeeds in bringing the brand to 2018 with a wonderfully well executed animation style, fast-paced plot, great characters, and doesn't have any of the hokey Japanese anime humor that often falls flat for Western Audiences.
I would recommend this show to anyone interested in a fast-paced, violent, action packed animated series that is written well and doesn't fall into many of the traps that other anime series fall into. This is an anime series that is catered towards western audiences, which may or may not be a good thing. I see a previous review that was upset with the nihilistic nature of the show and I agree that this is a very hard, NC-17, watch at times though, so be prepared.
SPOILER HEAVY: . . . Damn this show caught me off guard. I had seen it advertised a few weeks ago and was intrigued. I have seen a number of the Devilman branded animated shows; the original one I watched about a dozen episodes of 15 years ago when I picked up a cheap DVD set of it and thought it was ok, but I really enjoyed the 90's MANGA mini-series version of Devilman while I was a teenager in the 1990's.
Devilman: Crybaby's first half doesn't have much new if you have already seen the 90's mini-series. It has the same main characters with the same methods to turn Akira into Devilman, and also has some of the same enemy fights (the bird-woman, the turtle thing that ate Akira's parents with the faces shell) that are fought in the same style. What the first half does help with is building Ryo as the antagonist and also establishes about a dozen other characters who really help in expanding the scope of the series.
It is also a breath of fresh air that this series knows when to hold back and when to let loose. There are too many anime series where the stakes seem to never be high enough to really care about the characters. KuroMukuro is a prime example of this; the fact that there are cyborg aliens attacking the Earth seems to be almost a non-issue at times. Knights of Sidonia also fell victim to this in the second season as it felt like there is no sense of urgency in these shows. Other shows like Attack on Titan fall in the other group; always at a 10 with no real character development.
Devilman: Crybaby's first half helps to build the world and extra characters of the series. An example of this is the beat-box rappers seem to be one dimensional at first, but we actually care about them. Watching "Beta" Miki obsessing over her inability to beat her rival in running and go to the extreme of becoming a demon is another great part of the series before the second half when everything goes to hell, and damn does it go to hell in the second half.
After President Trump's brief first Anime Appearance of the year where the world finds out about the demons, the entire world goes to hell. The show goes from being about Akira fighting demons to the people of the world going crazy, not knowing who could be infected as a demon. It reminded me of Steven Carpenter's remake of The Thing on a grander scale and shows the dark side of humanity where panic can cause people to turn on one another and revert back to primal instincts. Ryo's trick news conference was analogous with some of the ultra-conservative movements currently happening around the world that vilify anyone who does not seem to be a "normal" citizen. Seeing the brutality of the mob-rules vigilante justice is hard to watch but also not hard to imagine.
Seeing the relationship with Mika and Miko end with them trying to save one another, even with all the animosity between them, was something else that was well done.
Ryo turning out to be Satan himself was a rather unique twist as was the series ending with Akira's death and God destroying the world and rebuilding it again back to its original form. The viewer is left to wonder if this is a cycle that has repeated before and/or is it a cycle that will continue to repeat endlessly.
Also of note, Akira does run close to Mary Sue/Gary Stu territory at times as a character who cannot do anything bad, but he eventually does break bad towards the end by killing the humans that killed his friends.
The gratuitous nudity, sex, violence, and just straight up weird shit (Akira having a wet-dream as a demon and waking up to his ceiling covered in cum was nasty as hell) is probably a turn-off for many and I can see why some people would write-off the series because of it.
That being said, this is a solid 9/10 for me and a great addition to the growing Netflix catalogue.