Devilman Crybaby hurt my brain

Devilman Crybaby caught my attention so when it came out (yesterday) I quickly found it and was happy to see that it was a group release and not a week by week release so I watched all ten episodes in one go. Now here I am writing this and my brain has kind of drawn a blank for this. It was both good and bad and I can’t yet decide which one wins out.

• Genre: Action, Horror, Demons, Supernatural, Ecchi, Mature
• Type: Series
• Season: 1
• Seasons in total: 1
• Number of episodes: 10
• Duration to watch: +/- 3  and a half hours
• Age restriction: 16+ (Nudity a Violence)
• Release date: January 2018
• Animation Studio: Science SARU
• Does it have a manga: Yes
• Kanji: デビルマンクライベイビ

ABOUT:

Akira Fudo is a normal high school boy, living with friends of his parents. One day his best friend Ryou Asuka tells him that demons are real and have learnt the ability to take over humans and that they will revive and reclaim the world from the humans. Wanting to gain evidence of the demons existence, Ryou and Akira head to a Sabith party where it is said that if you take a drug your physical body will improve.  Only, things go horribly wrong and Akira becomes a demon himself but has somehow managed to keep his human heart making him a Devilman. Using his newfound abilities and Ryou’s extensive knowledge and resources the pair set out to eliminate demons while recording their actions so that they may prove the existence of demons.

Will everything go according to plan or will it all go wrong?

My Thoughts:

Firstly the most obvious, the art style in this is not the typical or standard anime styled art. There are times where it becomes really trippy and others where it is really detailed overall it is a really interesting art style. 

There is also a lot of music in this and I really like it. The intro song is slightly weird and tells you basically nothing about the anime itself. Almost every episode has a part where someone raps. Overall while the styles are different the music kind of reminded me of Samurai Champloo.

There is no doubt that this anime is for a mature audience and not necessarily for the violence. It is mainly the sexual content that this contains and there is a heavy emphasis on it. There are scenes like where Akira watches porn loudly at school in the auditorium. There are also scenes where in his devil form he rapes a demon and there are a lot of boob shots with absolutely no censoring. I would post an example screenshot but then will have to put up tons of age-rated warnings.

So how was the actual story? Well, I questioned Ryou Asuka and his motives right from the very beginning. There were things that he did that made me really question his sanity. In episode one he takes his best friend to a party and to get the demons to reveal themselves he ran around stabbing people with a broken glass bottle. Uhm…right…oh yea, while recording it and smiling. I love his white jacket though and I really wanna know what detergent he uses because you see him wear this same coat completely blood stain free, although he probably has a couple of those coats lying around.

Akira goes through one heck of a transformation to the point where you question whether he really the same person even though he still cries for other people. He had been quite plain and unremarkable, a real ordinary person. One party with the wrong friend led to one thing and then another as he got possessed by a demon named Amon and then next ripped demons to pieces grew a couple inches, got wicked dark circles around his eyes, new hairstyle oh and basically a whole new personality. Dang, that’s what you call one hell of a night.

 

Then a large part of the story focuses on running a relay race since most of the main characters are part of the track team. This only really becomes actually relevant in the later episodes as part of Ryou’s plans and in one scene where they kept showing the passing of the baton ~ which has a big connotation and message throughout the show with a lot of messages from the actual passing of the baton to meanings with friendship, chances and responsibility.

The anime goes full circle. As in you have scenes that feature in episode one and then crop back up again later with a whole lot more meaning to it. In the first episode, Ryou is doing the monologue even though he is not the ‘main character’ and it becomes really clear why it is done this way in the final episode.

The storyline was a lot heavier than I had originally anticipated. I honestly did not expect it to be about Armageddon and the end was a twist but also left me wondering ‘what was the point?’  The characters fight so very hard and form new bonds and the ugliness of humanity is clearly put on display as well as the kindness and love.

So, will you be watching Devilman Crybaby at all? Or have you, like me, already seen it?