Devil May Cry is something I desperately hoped would turn out great. Most things based off a video game- whether it be a movie, a book, or even an anime- are damned to fail. So for Devil May Cry, based on the video games of the same title, my hopes were that this work might succeed in its attempt to become a great anime. They might have been foolish, selfish wishes, but I wished that it at least would at least try.
Was this anime as good as it could have been? The general consensus is no, as it seems. Why? To illustrate how an anime
...
becomes boring, a list, featuring Devil May Cry:
1. Dante doesn’t have flaws.
If he does, they barely exist. He’s a freaking blank slate. He always defeats every demon in his way, EVERY TIME. Conflict? What conflict. If there isn’t anyone he can’t kill, then why even bother watching. Even Dante is aware of his extreme powers, and is constantly bored by his opponents. If he’s bored, we’re bored. You won’t be at the edge of your seat, because you know he can defeat whoever comes his way. It’s healthy to have the character lose once in a while, because it keeps the audience on edge. It’s permissible to never have the characters lose, but at least let them break a sweat. If Dante ever breaks a sweat, which he won’t, it’ll be the cool kind, like a strawberry sundae oozing down his face or a pizza slice breaking out of his pores and sliding with a greasy trail down to his- scratch that, that’s disturbing. I actually wanted Dante to lose or die in the end, because it would be a major twist from the usual formula of ‘I can’t defeat this guy… just kidding’ that Dante relies on all too often. It’s a level of boring that can only be matched by watching plastic grass grow.
2. Being something all the time = boring.
Dante should not be cool 24/7. It gets boring and grating to watch. He’s cool when he sleeps. He’s cool when he eats his cool food. He’s cool when he walks all alone in the dark, in his cool outfit with his cool sword and cool shiny guns strapped to him and his cool poker face. He walks out of a fight without even a single speck of soil landing on his clothes and his hair immaculate. The coolness is great at first, but after the same thing all the goddamn time, you might even find yourself switching to “Mars of Destruction” instead of this crap. At least you can laugh at MoD.
3. The plot comes at the last minute.
Look at the picture for Devil May Cry. Go ahead, look at it. The white haired guy in front, as you probably know, is Dante. The other two guys are central to the plot, but show up at the next to last episode. That means the rest of the time was spent on NOTHING. The rest of the time is spent on Patty, who is basically Ciel’s fiancé Elizabeth from Kuroshitsuji mixed with Renge from Ouran High School Host Club. If you don’t know who those people are, the mishmash would be a grotesque mass of blonde hair, clingy personality, no point, and a really annoying tendency to appear at the worst times. That’s Patty for you, a girl who should’ve left after the first episode, but stuck around just to add another element of suck to the DMC headquarters.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, more about the plot. The plot is so rushed into the ending that they shouldn’t have even bothered. Most of the anime is just one episode dramas which have zero conflict because as I said before, Dante doesn’t lose. Ever. Devil May Cry is about Dante and friends having wonderful romps through their zany adventures of killing bloodthirsty demons. And Patty’s there too, I guess. It wasn’t very good, it’s very obvious it was based off a video game. There’s really no explanation of anything- I would have loved to hear the limitations of the demons, the limitations of Dante, or how Devil May Cry got started. Nobody gets that much of a backstory, no rules of the universe are explained, and no real emotional ties between characters are developed. It’s cripplingly average. The majority of the anime is Dante strutting around eating his strawberry sundaes and pizza and beer while shooting demons. It’s not very fun once you get passed the first episode.
On the technical side, it’s obvious that they did do a bit of demonology research, evidenced by names such as Baal, Modeus, and Dante. That, however, is to be expected and it‘s not very impressive.
Moving right along to the art, there are a few things that need to be said about the dreaded art. It’s blasphemous to see an otherwise gorgeous characters massacred by unsavory art. Dante’s really hot, but you wouldn’t be able to tell because the damn animation could turn caviar into feces with a garnish of roadkill. Trish the sexbomb was reduced to Trish the kill-it-with-fire bomb. Lady went from looking like Meagan Fox to looking like something a fox just killed. The animation’s boxy and has a freaking ugly style. However, it gets a four because it’s not bad enough to deter you from watching the series. Most of the other things might.
Right about here’s where characters are discussed, and it’s a real shame that they’re basically cardboard cut outs with traits slapped on to them. In fact, each character can be described in one sentence without fear of missing a personality aspect. They are all so flat that pieces of soggy paper say to their children, “Honey, some day you’ll be like Dante.”
Dante isn’t the only character at fault here. Lady is a chick who basically fills the screen when the animators take a break from Dante’s face, Patty is a chick who is there for comic relief, but it’s more like comic agony, and Trish is the girl who’s supposed to be really hot, but as I said before, the fault lies in the sub par animation. It’s notable that Patty is one of the few original (to this anime) characters here. The actual demons are transparent and you can see their explanations for their actions coming from a mile away (I wanted to battle the infamous Dante, I need to prove myself to master, I knew your father, etc).
The sound of the whole thing was okay. It was just alright. The choices were very obvious, like “DANT’S BAD@ZZ SO OBVSLY HE LURVES ROCKNROLL OMG LOL!!!1” It’s sickeningly mediocre rock, by the way. Nothing particularly hardcore.
As for the enjoyment, if you watch DMC, watch it for the ride. If you get tired of the same cool shtick over and over then watch a few episodes and don’t finish it, the ending does not carry a great payoff. Otherwise, I recommend this anime to those who are intrigued by badassery and badassery alone.
All (3)FriendsRSS Feeds |
Feb 20, 2013
Devil May Cry
(Anime)
add
Devil May Cry is something I desperately hoped would turn out great. Most things based off a video game- whether it be a movie, a book, or even an anime- are damned to fail. So for Devil May Cry, based on the video games of the same title, my hopes were that this work might succeed in its attempt to become a great anime. They might have been foolish, selfish wishes, but I wished that it at least would at least try.
Was this anime as good as it could have been? The general consensus is no, as it seems. Why? To illustrate how an anime ... 
Feb 17, 2013
Funny Pets
(Anime)
add
Have you ever watched a massive dump for a few hours gather flies? I have. It’s called Funny Pets!
Funny Pets is the tale of a sun thing and a moon thing and a poor excuse for a woman doing nothing IN CGI! This anime will change your life, mainly because it with make your eyes bleed so hard that they might just fall out of their sockets. On with the review! Episode 1 is pretty slow. Nothing happens. Episodes 2-5 things begin to pick up, with nothing happening even faster. Episode 6 is pretty special, with nothing happening. Episodes 7-10 is where it gets fun, with special attention paid ... 
Feb 17, 2013
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
(Anime)
add
I raise my glass for The Overated Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, otherwise known as the show with wasted potential. Dive into this review at your own discretion, as it may contain minor spoilers, but then again, there isn't anything you can say about this anime that would remain completely spoiler free. I've only seen the anime, so this review is solely based on this work. It's also based on the chronological viewing.
Scene: The conception of the Melancholy anime, as I imagined it in all it's inaccuracy. Two executives sit at a round, wooden table. There is a man standing before them, nervously wringing his hands. One ... 
Feb 15, 2013
Going into Claymore, my anime loving friends had all warned me that it would be a tearjerker. "The ending!" They cried with a fiery passion, "O, the ending! It hath plucked at mine heartstrings, it hath sliced at my heart with an oversized sword."
Taking their advice into consideration, I sat down, got my box of tissues ready, and plunged into the final episode. And as the ending music played, I found myself staring at the screen, stunned at how non-emotional it was. As I recall, I even scoffed a few times and smiled a little. Story: One of the things that pisses me off about the ... |
