Devilman

Original Title: デビルマン
Romanized: Devilman
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Global warming is beginning to thaw the ice caps, and rising sea levels aren't the only nasty side-effect--there are some immortal demons that have been trapped in the polar ice for the past few millennia, and they're none too happy about the situation. And, of course, their prey of choice are human beings. Enter Akira, one of those average, everyday anime high school students (well, except for the fact that his parents died under mysterious circumstances while spelunking at the south pole). When Akira's friend Ryo shows up and tells Akira about the unsuspecting world's impending demon problem, Akira decides to take a crack at joining with a demon himself. In theory, a pure young man should be able to control the demon's consciousness and harness its power to fight the rest of its kin, but will it really be that easy? If it is, then Devilman will be the one force standing between the people of earth and demon anarchy.

Quick Review

Rating: 3 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2005-02-01

Devilman is more demonic carnage from the master of gore and sleaze, Nagai Go. True to form, it's loaded with bloody demon fighting action, naked demons, and enough spilled guts to fill a dump truck. The opening episode is slow and totally ignores the main character's personality in favor of setting up a bloodbath, but the rest of the series perks up considerably with surprisingly sympathetic characters and loads of fine looking action--one thing Devilman does not do is show its age. The stiff, strangely written dub does make the lack of a sub a liability, though, since there's just enough character that you might even care.

Devilman does not rise above its demon-happy splatterfest roots, but within that genre it's surprisingly well done, loaded with the requisite gore and action, and even has enough creativity to keep somewhat more discerning viewers interested.

US DVD Review

The DVD isn't bad, but there are a couple of major omissions. The video transfer is decent and the English audio is actually full Dolby 5.1 (though not terribly well separated). Unfortunately, there is no subtitle/caption track, and there is no Japanese audio (I have no idea why that would be missing). The menus (which seemed a bit glitchy) provide access to a chapter index, some previews, and a bio on Nagai Go.

Content Guide

Very, very gory (though most of the gore is demon-derived), and has lots of nudity (also largely demon-derived), plus generally foul language. Would easily be 16-up, if not worse on account of the sheer volume.

Violence: 4 - Massive amounts of blood and guts.

Nudity: 4 - Voluminous, though most of it is in the form of demons, and none of it is particularly detailed.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Surprisingly little.

Language: 4 - Nothing creative, but a lot of coarse language.

Notes and Trivia

One of the earlier works of Nagai Go, creator of such dubious classics as Cutey Honey, Violence Jack, and Kekko Kamen. It's also the second anime I've seen this month that makes reference to Dante's Inferno (Sol Bianca: The Legacy was the other).

There was also a CG-heavy live action Devilman movie produced in 2004, and a third OAV episode produced much later, in 2000.

Availability

Available on dubbed (only) DVD from Manga Video. Was also available on dubbed VHS.

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