Devilman: Crybaby

CountZakula Jan 12, 2018

9

First review! Woo!  I am fresh, I mean finished 10 minutes ago fresh, from binging all ten episodes in one sitting. So I may come back and update this review because I'm still processing the entire experience.  I don't even know where to start with Devilman: Crybaby, but I guess I should start by saying this is not easy to watch. This is not a series for everyone. It's not the faint of heart, I had a bit of a hard time at certain parts myself. From here I'll break it down into sections because that seems to be the thing to do. Animation: I absolutely love the animation. It knows when to be mind bendingly surreal, and when to tone it down to show the reality of the situation. I like the general art style as well. It's like the style of old 80s/90s OVAs, made with today's budgets and tools. That being said, I could easily see how someone could see this and think it looks terrible. The visual style is going to be an immediate turn off for some people. The only reason I don't put the animation at a 10/10 is there's some spots where it's obvious corners were cut and time was saved. To me though it's visually stunning, and there's certain frames an sequences seared into my brain forever.  Sound: I don't think I can say anything about the soundtrack that the soundtrack doesn't say for itself. It's amazing, I love everything about it. The voice acting is great, very emotive without being annoying. Special shout-out to whoever did the writing and voice acting for the rappers, I'll be googling you as soon as I'm done writing this review.  Characters: I don't actually have a whole lot to say here, just that the characters felt like poeple. Real actual people who could exist independently of their screen time. I simply have nothing bad to say here. It's impressive given they only had 10 episodes to work with. Story: Well now that I've made it seem like I was going to endlessly praise Devilman: Crybaby, this is where it gets muddy and why I saved it for last. It starts off as a very entertaining, if somewhat dark, monster of the week series. Then about half way through it very quickly turns into a whole different beast which I won't get into because soilers. It was very abrubt, very jarring, which I do think worked. It felt like everything changed drastically in an instant because that's what happened. That's not going to work for some though. My mixed feelings regard the series message, or messages as I feel it has multiple messages some of which conflict with each other. It's anti-war, but revels in violence. It's overly sexual but shows sex as dirty and off-putting. One second it's showing you people are nasty, brutal, paranoid, qucik to turn on and devour each other. The next second it's showing you that people are good and understanding.  Without spoiling, the ending is going to really work for some and not work at all for others. I'm going to be completely honest, I have no idea what this ending is trying to say. The ending confused me. Not in the sense I don't know what happened, I know exactly what happened. I just don't know what it wants to say with that ending. The story is ?/10 for me, because I honestly don't know how I feel about it. I'm going to give it a 9/10, because it's not often I question my feelings on a series so much and that's something in and of itself.  Conclusion: Devilman: Crybaby is stylish, trippy, silly, grotesque, sexual, violent, very dark, almost off-putting, and it accomplishes all this without being "edgy". It left me wanting to question it and own thoughts and reactions to the series. It's a series with something to say, but I think different viewers will hear a different message. It came off as very nihilistic and bleak to me, which conflicts with my personal beliefs but I still enjoyed it immensely. Maybe I love it because it conflicts with my beliefs. This is not going to be for everyone, and will probably be a love it or hate it nowhere in-between kind of thing. It can be very hard to watch. It's the kind of series I want to watch again to really dig into it, but something I'm not sure I'm willing to sit though again. I'm very glad I did so at least once though.  Well that was a lot more words than I planned on typing, but I guess I had a lot to say. I hope this review is helpful to someone, I might start writing more reviews or this might be my only one ever. I dunno. 

SandySushi Jan 13, 2018

9

Caution: Minor swearing in this review So, I just binged all 10 of these episodes and well... ... Holy shit. - Now, before I truly get started with this review I will mention that this series is certainly not for the faint of heart, it contains sex, nudity, violence, gore, pretty much anything you can name. It also heavily references Christain religion.  BUT even though the anime may seem vulgar and crude, I believe what makes this anime good was it's plot twist and the message that the story wanted to convey between the lines. - Now, Devilman: Crybaby is about a teenager named Akira Fudo and his seemingly apathetic friend, Ryo Akura. Akira Fudo is also joined by his human friends and adoptive family. The story takes place in a world where demons exist and possesses human bodies, so in order to get rid of them, Ryo, who is a teenage genius and is already out of the education system, takes Akira to a Sabbeth, which are basically huge party orgies, in order to find demons. During the visit, Akira becomes possessed with a demon called Amos, but Akira manages to overpower the demon and becomes a "Devilman", a devil with a human's heart, making him retain his large amount of emotion and sympathy, which demons cannot retain in the first place. That's the base of the series, the first episode is like scratching a piece of dirt off the Earth because this anime is so much more than it seems. I am honestly surprised how Netflix managed to crank out an anime as great and awful (In a good way) as this one! The story does fall short once or twice in the series and makes you think "Why... did we need this part in?" but overall, it has very intriguing scenes and hardly makes you bored while watching it. The anime also contains almost a rap per episode (And good ones too!). Now, the animation style is a bit strange at first, but this style manages to give the right amount of emotion when it needs to if that makes sense. - Overall this anime will blow you the fuck away, it did for me anyhow. You will be kept on your toes almost the entire time and wonder what will happen next. I tried to guess how it would've ended but I was proven wrong until the very end, and boy do I have a hate-love relationship with the ending as well. This anime is a beautiful work of art that conveyed a message that I think everyone needs to hear: - ... Be a devilman.

vinnievulgar Jan 2, 2019

9

REALLY SUMMARIZED VERSION: This anime toys with your trust in people and makes you care about the characters in a deeper sense which is all wrapped up with world shattering cicumstances. Please give it your time and you (probably) won't regret it.  THIS SERIES IS GOD AWFUL-ly hard hitting. It punches you directly in the cry spot. Ok, maybe I should explain what I mean by this. There is often very ridiculous animtion but it clearly tries to go for a style of it's own which is why I don't consider it a flaw in any way, shape, or form. The story of the series stays interesting all the way through with very little downpoints. It's actually quite suprising, as I am used to watching a series that at least has a veiw boring bits but this one caught my eye the entire time.  The plot is very religously inspired and focused on philisophical conniptions and issues. Ryo Asuka as a character at the beginning is stupid. I don't care what people say about the design and personality of him - he stands out like a mole on an old lady in contrast with the rest of the very real-world characters. The whole thing for him could have been done more accurately to the tone and mood. The relationship isn't built enough between Ryo and Akira at the beginning either although it does sorta do this afterward but it does it very jankily and haphazardly. This can be attributed to the fact of how difficult of a friendship it becomes for them though.  The way that Akira and Ryo begin to change the world around them subtley and slowly as it builds up is done masterfully. The pacing of this couldn't have been better.  The impact of everything becomes so earth shattering that it actually makes you rethink things. This is where the "cry spot" get's hit over...and over...and over and over and so on. This series toys with your trust in things and people, your own personal demons and problems, and fears in such a way that is not reveled to any other anime.  this anime is admittedly very hard to describe and reveiw but I would say go watch it! please, it's worth your time at the very least. Even if it doesn't hit you as much emotionally as it does with me and many other people.  REMEBER THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, leave your's in the comments :)