Video game to anime are mainly meant for one particular fan base, and that is fans of the games. However, as a fan of the game myself. I can tell you that this series doesn't do the game any justice at all, and as an anime, Devil May Cry is pretty much unwatchable. Devil May Cry has almost nothing to offer.
There's a dumpster load of reasons to hate this series. Right from the very beginning, I knew this series was going to be bad because Dante was given a chibi character named Patty to baby sit. This character along with many others serves absolutely no purpose, except to provide small repeated comedy relief which was never funny to begin with, and this is among the cliches that are present in this series.
The characters are incredibly bland, and the secondary characters make appearances for no reason other than to squeeze in popular faces from the video game. Outside of the way they fight, the viewer can forget about learning anything about them. The secondary characters who make their appearances are Trish and Lady: two female fighters that aren't even slightly developed, with only very small hints about them thrown out there.
Dante is a decent character sort of yet he's very lame as well. He deals out death packing his usual two pistols with a large sword, but his full abilities are never fully displayed. Even fans of the game should come away disappointed here. Try to imagine Ryu from Street Fighter never using his ultimate attack, which would be the "Hadoken", and you will get the picture. In addition, I find nothing cool about a character whom fights demons, but loses to children and everybody in grown up games. Plus, has a love for cherry sundaes? It just comes off weird to me. Instead, he should be drinking beer, some fuckin' robust, full bodied, imperial stouts or some shit.
The direction is atrocious. The series utilizes an episodic format which happens to become quite repetitive and very predictable. Clients would appear to Dante requesting his services, and each episode ends with some type of battle with a demon. Hints at a greater plot are mentioned very early. Only to be completely dropped and never mentioned again.
Giving a tad bit of credit where it's due. Some of the villains are somewhat interesting with decent abilities, but every last one of them are poorly used in delivering good battles. The action sequences are very boring and lack a lot of imagination. Many of the fight scenes either consist of off screen and unseen action, or are decided in one move victories. This also includes demons that are heavily hyped in to being real threats. The battles are colossal disappointments, and they are cut too short for an action oriented fan whom has binged on a lot of action anime to really be pleased. There are too many action titles out there that very far surpasses this, and I'm talking titles that pre-date this at least a decade. The ending is every bit as unsatisfying, bland, and nonsensical, as every thing that came before it. This series is almost a bigger waste of time than Hell Girl, and that's saying a lot.
Devil May Cry at least stands out with its production values. It definitely looks pretty, and it smoothly blends in 3-D with CG. The artwork brings the Madhouse flavor with scantily clad chicks almost baring it all, and the character designs are very faithful to their video game counterparts. I didn't find any of the designs for the demons to be impressive. Only passable at the very best.
The soundtrack contains a real good opening theme, which is titled "d.m.c.", and quite honestly displays the best animation in the series. Plus, the ending theme is a nice song performed by Rin Oikawa called "I'll Be Your Home", but it's not worth sitting through 20+ minutes of bad anime to hear it. The voice work from the English cast was fine to me. Dante at times delivered some profanity filled lines, which were kind of funny. I can't comment on the Japanese cast, because I would never sit through this more than once.
Devil May Cry is a nightmare for the anime vet and non fans of the game; but as a fan of the game, all this series does is make me want to play through the games for two reasons. Number one: to remind me that Devil May Cry really is a cool and entertaining franchise. Number two: to cleanse my mind of the vacuous tripe I've wasted my time on. I would say avoid this shit, but since it has a high rating I'm probably wasting my time.
