Devilman: Crybaby

I was wondering if anyone else picked this up on Netflix? I was dimly familiar with the existence of the original manga, but aside from some fragmentary OVAs I never dug into the franchise. Apparently it was a significant influence on both Berserk and Evangelion, and I can definitely see why- Akira/Ryo have a very distinct Guts/Griffith vibe going on (with a dash of Zod), and you can see clear precedent for the antedeluvian monster-mythos and judeo-christian symbology plastered all over Eva.

I thought the series itself was pretty good, in a semi-maudlin grimdark melodrama kind of way (I mean, crybaby is right in the name.) The animation seems a little erratic, but some helpful folks on the interweb suggested this is a deliberate affectation in-keeping with the underlying pro-diversity/anti-authority themes. The soundtrack is quite catchy too.

Your thoughts?

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I haven't heard of it except in the context of squeamish people getting offended that it exists and is on netflix, and that it's a decent and mostly faithful adaptation to the original story. There's not much you can really say about it you can't say about the original manga.

Which is the problem because both the audience and the creator moved past that. Akira Fudo has been re-imagined by Go Nagai a half a dozen times as everything from an apocalyptic wasteland wanderer to a cute anime girl to a scientist to the actual demon just pretending and possessing the man in question.

Talking about specific influences on later works is kind of a redundant thing though. Go Nagai more or less built the Manga industry. He built up the entire mecha genre, magical girls, supernatural battle series, you name it(yes, you can argue those genres existed before but in very different forms from what they became after his material). If we actually tried breaking down even just Devilman related stuff you could probably pull out a list 30 pages long with all the entries in really small type.

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Originally Posted by Jayngfet

I haven't heard of it except in the context of squeamish people getting offended that it exists and is on netflix, and that it's a decent and mostly faithful adaptation to the original story. There's not much you can really say about it you can't say about the original manga.

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I did gather there were one or two scenes added to capitalise/comment on social media trends and the like, including a fairly effective scene where Akira passively shields some crucified scapegoats from an angry mob and Miki sparks a counter-conversation on facebook(?). I wasn't especially familiar with the original manga, so I thought that was a moderately clever introduction for a millennial audience.

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Which is the problem because both the audience and the creator moved past that. Akira Fudo has been re-imagined by Go Nagai a half a dozen times as everything from an apocalyptic wasteland wanderer to a cute anime girl to a scientist to the actual demon just pretending and possessing the man in question... ...If we actually tried breaking down even just Devilman related stuff you could probably pull out a list 30 pages long with all the entries in really small type.

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Well, are there other anime adaptations, either of Nagai's work specifically or influenced thereby, that you'd say are worth checking out?

It was fantastic, though some of the scenes where a little too dark for me. I mean literally, the entire fight scene with Sireen and her buddy was nearly just a black piece of paper for me.

But yeah no I liked it. Something I liked is how the ending, while the same as the manga, is changed a bit to focus on specific aspects of said ending that the manga did not. It's quite interesting.