'Devilman Crybaby' Is Unflinchingly Excessive

As an anime fan, I’ve been aware of the Devilman franchise.  Since the original 70’s manga, there have been several spin-offs, anime adaptations, novel series, and a live-action film.  However, I’ve never got to personally check out any Devilman media – until Netflix’s Devilman Crybaby.

This ten-episode anime web series is closer to a direct adaptation of the original manga than previous anime adaptations.  Certain elements are just changed in order to update the story into a 21^st century setting.

It centers on Akira Fudo, a sensitive and timid teenage boy, who is recruited by his super-genius and super-rich best friend Ryo Asuka to help him expose demons – incredibly ancient and fearsome creatures that can possess humans, and who are keen of taking back the world that they used to dominate.  For Ryo, the key to beating them is using their weapons against them.  So he manipulates Akira to be possessed by the powerful demon Amon, as he believes that having a pure heart will allow Akira to harness Amon rather than be taken over.  And that exactly what happens.  Akira fusing with Amon yields “Devilman” – the power and personality of Amon, but the mind and heart of Akira.  From then on, Akira and Ryo work together to exterminate the demons secretly living among and preying over humans.

First and foremost, this is a wild, bizarre, and nasty anime.  It’s unflinchingly graphic with its portrayal of sex and violence.  It can be a squeamish experience for some, but I think the psychedelic, over-the-top quality of the animation makes the excessive scenes less repulsive and more cartoonish.  In fact, there’s honestly this twisted sense of aesthetics that can be found from its gory brutality and warped body horror.  Moreover, it’s not being gratuitous at all, as the lurid, shocking visuals are truly necessary to realize the story and characterizations as well as to drive its thought-provoking themes home.

The plot is strong and well-told.  It’s essentially a hero story, but at the same time, it brilliantly subverts many of the tropes of a hero story.  And though it’s heavy with freaky spectacles, it doesn’t neglect to have an emotional core amid them – especially regarding the friendship of Akira and Ryo.

Every single piece of the plot – every subplot, every detail shown, every scene, every character arc – adds something to it, whether narratively or emotionally or both.  And I really enjoyed how the developments and surprises work to make everything eventually click in place, and how the story seamlessly escalates and changes as it progresses, that the kind of ending it has is something I was never close of imagining at the start.

Nevertheless, Devilman Crybaby isn’t for everyone.  Some may find its cockeyed animation style and occasional blasts of surreal visuals unappealing.  While some may be turned off by the extreme, explicit content.  But for those who get to go past these things – or rather, appreciate their necessity and suitability to the story being told – they will enjoy a genuinely smart, unique, and dynamic anime.

Miscellaneous musings (w/ minor spoilers):

• Forget Naruto.  Devilman Crybaby depicts the most notably ridiculous running in anime.
• The original 70’s Devilman anime exists within the Crybaby universe.  It’s a weird meta-reference.  But compared to all the weird stuff in this anime, it’s pretty insignificant.
• With all the horrifyingly messed up things in it, the most unsettling for me is Ryo’s secretary’s face.
• Why are the sex and violence appropriately graphic?  Because the anime is all about keenly stressing how humans can be so disgustingly overindulgent and lascivious.
• At some point in the series, it sees the humans, even without demons possessing them, to be very much capable of wickedness that are comparable or even worse than what demons do.  This actually reflects a biblical truth.  Humans are depraved creatures (Romans 3:10-12, Ephesians 2:1-3, Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:21-23, etc.), for after the Fall, evil is ingrained on their nature (Romans 5:12, 19a).  And thus, humans can’t really blame demons for the evil they do.
• What made me first like its animation style is that it reminded me of Samurai Champloo.  When I looked into it later, I learned that it’s because the director, Masaaki Yuasa, was an animator for Samurai Champloo.  Cool.
• While watching, I seriously wasn’t able to predict at any point where the story would go.  It’s either the narrative is indeed effectively subversive, or it simply bombarded my brain with too much of its insanity that it was compromised to think.  Lol.