Devil May Cry

Patty Lowell—the lost heir of a prestigious family—is found at an orphanage, and J.D. Morrison brings her to his acquaintance Dante, the owner of a business called "Devil May Cry." Dante takes on so-called "odd jobs," and at Morrison's request, he agrees to become a bodyguard for Patty. Begrudgingly, he sets out to deliver Patty to her family, though he is a bit annoyed with a job that essentially amounts to babysitting.

While Dante seems like a lazy good-for-nothing, he is actually a prolific demon hunter, which comes in handy when demons begin pursuing Patty. Soon enough, Dante realizes that there is more to this case than meets the eye, and he makes use of his particular skill set in order to keep Patty safe.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Characters & Voice Actors

Dante

Main

Morikawa, Toshiyuki
Japanese

Lowell, Patty

Main

Fukuen, Misato
Japanese

Lady

Supporting

Orikasa, Fumiko
Japanese

Trish

Supporting

Tanaka, Atsuko
Japanese

Sparda

Supporting

Moduce

Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro
Japanese

Morrison, J.D.

Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio
Japanese

Brad

Supporting

Nojima, Hirofumi
Japanese

Sid

Supporting

Nozawa, Nachi
Japanese

Marcus, Kelly

Supporting

Ueda, Yuuji
Japanese

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Staff

Satomi, Tetsurou

Producer

Katagiri, Daisuke

Producer

Itagaki, Shin

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Mima, Masafumi

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"D.M.C." by Rungran

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Ending Theme

"I'll be your home" by Rin Oikawa

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Reviews

Sep 13, 2007

moozooh

Mixed Feelings

Devil May Cry is a very strange series. It does its thing nicely for a bit but then goes and ruins it with some silly nonsense. I have no idea why or how that happened. I mean, the games are pretty consistently decent—so why isn't this show the same?

Let's begin with this totally alien concept called the story. Of which you won't be getting any for about 9 episodes in a row (yes, out of 12 total). No joke—this is essentially a slice-of-life series about Dante showing off. And before you ask the obvious question—yes, it has less of a story than the action games ... the setting is taken from. Furthermore—just to tease you—at several points you get an impression that some general plot is about to emerge (it eventually does, but already after you have lost all hope for it), but the very next moment you have your expectations casually ruined once again. You could probably even watch episodes 2–9 in any order without disturbing the narrative. For that exact reason you shouldn't worry about spoilers when discussing this series, as it's virtually impossible to spoil anything of substance. Rating the story with 3 is me being generous here, owing it mostly to the universe created by the DMC game series.

Oh yeah, Dante. As I mentioned earlier, everything in this series is about showing Dante in the process of, uh... being cool? He tries so hard he transcends the meaning of the word "cool", being the living embodiment of coolness never seen since the cool came to cool town. He always has that swag going, and his sense of fashion oozes style—as imagined by a 14-year-old. Obviously, he only eats the most badass food in existence... you guessed it, as imagined by a 14-year-old: pizza, strawberry sundae, beer—none of your chump gourmet garbage. He has the craziest, totally overpowered weapons—because dramatic stakes are for pussies. Even his name has that aristocratic feel to it. Unsurprisingly, every time he's up for a job, he always does it single-handedly—be it a bike race, gambling, or butchering a several-stories-tall demon in mere seconds—always with that detached facial expression that serves to underline his towering superiority. Yet somehow he always fails to complete his primary objective because he's just too damn righteous or whatever. Ermagherd, what an impossibly cool dude! And even during all that action, he appears to be bored out of his mind, almost depressed by doing something so utterly mundane. One-Punch Man too popular for you? Take a look at this gem then: DMC did the "overpowered MC bored by flaccid antagonists" shtick some 8 years before everyone's favorite egghead came into being. Hellsing Ultimate has too much of that annoying character development? DMC should be right up your alley—it doesn't have any of that. Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially reached peak shallow. If you aren't sure what "peak shallow" looks like, imagine a zit on the ground; that should work.

On the topic of characters, the entire cast is mainly there to support Dante by... yes, being glorified foils, looking deliberately uncool in comparison. First, we have Morrison, who is old-fashioned, intelligent, and an exemplary gentleman, almost a polar opposite of Dante. Then there's Patty, the token loli moe-blob comic relief character whose presence is never justified despite screenwriter's best efforts (which fail spectacularly, of course). A notable character is the creatively-named Lady, who is also quite a cool, uh, lady—but... still not quite there, you know? This, however, doesn't prevent her from being far more capable at her job. But hey, if Dante doesn't bother doing the thing, it must not be very cool after all, right? There's also Trish, who is somewhere between Lady and Dante on the scale on coolness and never gets any screen time. The distribution of screen time in general seems to be decided by a coin toss, befitting the interchangeable, meandering nature of the support cast. (That said, I gotta give some credit to designs and the fact that they're occasionally entertaining (if only because they try so hard) and evoke memories of better-written characters from the action anime of the days past; really makes you wish they were put in capable hands.) Lastly, there is that typical cartoony small fry antagonist who, despite being an obnoxious eyesore, behaves like a plot-significant character and—in a great plot twist (gasp!)—actually ends up being one. At that point you'll just have to be a man and brace yourself for the trainwreck. Even if you're a woman, become a man and then brace yourself; there is no sweeter imagery than a man bracing himself for a trainwreck.

There isn't much to say about the show's sound and visuals. They're generally competently made and adequate for the subject matter, though some scenes could have definitely been animated better (as in *actually animated* rather than panned across the screen), and the music somewhat lacks variety—almost all of it is mere variations on the three dominant themes.

All in all, DMC is the kind of show you'd want for some simple braindead entertainment when you've run out of the more entertaining content to watch. Don't expect anything beyond that, as you'll be met with nothing but disappointment. Just get your beverage of choice, a pack of favorite snacks, press play, and tune out. Alternatively, go play the original games and forget the anime adaptation ever existed.

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Apr 10, 2009

Illuminis

Mixed Feelings

If you’ve never heard of Devil May Cry before and are looking for a good action anime, this is not it. If you’re a fan of the video games and want to see more stylish ass-kickery, prepare to be disappointed.

Story: Dante is running his business, performing mundane tasks for clients like demon-slaying, saving the world, the usual. Almost every episode starts and concludes one of Dante’s assigned cases, involving nasty monsters that inevitably end up dead. There is some cheap drama that focuses on a young girl whom Dante saved and a loser demon who wants to become a god, but you’re not seriously ... here for the plot are you?

Art: The art style is able to create a dark, gothic atmosphere where Dante spills plenty of demon blood. However, it is not enough to keep you tense at all since fight scenes are way too short. Battles involve more talking than fighting and tend to be settled with one stroke (by guess who). There is a significant lack of spectacularly choreographed fight sequences as seen in the games, which will no doubt be a major letdown. Animation quality is only mediocre for when there is actually action. If you're hoping Dante will pull devil trigger, unleash some insane combos, or wield his other devil arms, guess what? He won't!
Oh and yes, Trish and Lady are in this, but they’re drawn rather unattractively. No eye candy here.

Sound: Some heavy rock, some gothic choir tracks, all very forgettable. Seems even the lowliest of demons can speak Japanese. Voice acting and sound effects are acceptable, but nothing noteworthy.

Characters: Here it is, the reason you may be considering this anime: to see Dante kick plenty of ass. And here is also the show’s main failure: Dante is simply overpowered. Yes we know he’s super cool and skilled, but he faces absolutely no challenging adversaries at all. This entire anime is a series of totally one sided fights like I've never seen. Dante spends some time cracking jokes, his opponent says something stupid like “I stand a chance!”, and then Dante proceeds with delivering the pain. Except not in a spectacular, SSSmoking SSSick fashion. More like finishing it with one bullet from Ebony/Ivory or a couple swings of Rebellion. For fans of the games, this is a major kick to the balls and won’t leave you satisfied at all.
Oh, and apparently Dante loves eating strawberry sundaes on sunny afternoons, while getting bossed around by a precocious little girl. Who would've thought.

Enjoyment: I loved the video games for their dramatic fight sequences, challenging bosses, cheesy humor and impossible physics. What the anime tries to duplicate, it does so without success. Dante is not so much kicking ass in this show as he is absentmindedly swatting flies. Your time would be better spent trying/ replaying the DMC video games. Except DMC2, let’s just forget that ever existed.

5/10

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Feb 29, 2008

Phill-z

Not Recommended

Can you name a single video game that was turned into a movie that wasn't an extremely terrible film that failed in all regards? Now can you name a good videogame that was turned into an anime that wasn't terrible? Alright...you can probably name a whole bunch, alot from the choose-your-own-adventure genres. However Devil May Cry is more like a terrible video game movie. If you've ever played, or seen someone play, Devil May Cry then you know the style of the game quite well. The quality and feel of the anime is nothing like that of the original videogame.

Story: ... Lame. That single, bland word perfectly describes the storyline of this anime. I wonder sometimes what the storywriters were thinking when they sat down to write this anime. They clearly didn't put any heart or soul into this, and I hope that they had other projects that they deemed more important than this. The real storyline begins in about episode 4-5. When you have 12 episodes to tell a story in, and you spend the first third of the anime doing self contained episodes you know that you're off to a terrible start. Even the story that they decide to throw in is terrible and quickly forgettable.

Art: Some people praise the art, I however find it terrible to anything it tries to do. The art is very clunky, the people seem to be squares and triangles and circles thrown together, the fluidity of the people is nonexistant. Anyone who's seen the game knows what Dante looks like, and in the anime version he loses everything that makes him so cool in the game. I got a very generic feeling from the art, it didn't seem that they were taking any risks, they were just doing the same old things over and over and the art seemed really stale.

Sound: The sound is good, the effects are good, the music is good. I believe with almost absolute certainty that they took a lot of the music from the game itself and I found it was the single thing that I was connecting with as I watched with.

Character: On the outside Dante is a badass. A pizza-eating, Strawberry Sundae drinking badass. And on the inside? Well...he's a badass. And he's lazy. He will beat up anyone, especially demons, because they piss him off. And while he's exorcising the demons and doing whatever it is he does he doesn't seem to care at all. Cause nothing is more badass than killing bad guys while not seeming to care about it at all. Now....as the writers sat down they must have thought "hmm...how exactly do we make a better anime when the main character is a rude, pizza-eating badass?" and some guy went "OH! MY! GOD! We add....a CUTE LITTLE GIRL! Who talks a lot and is a central part of the storyline so basically Dante is forced to stick beside her...people will LOVE IT!" However...it doesn't work because it's been done a thousand times before, and it was original 10 years ago....and it was fresh then too. But now it's not. They also throw in characters from the games, but it feels forced and is quite annoying for anyone who's played the games.

Enjoyment: Honestly, after episode 4 I stopped paying attention at all. I really, really didn't care after episode 6. After episode 8 I could barely sit through each episode. So I can honestly say that I didn't enjoy this anime at all. At all.

I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone who enjoys the game series. It's such a huge disappointment if you're expecting it to be the game. However some people might really enjoy this anime, however I've never met anyone who enjoyed it. The only good point is that it's only 12 episodes, so even if you hate it it's only 4 hours of your life....that you'll never get back.

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Lowell, Patty

Lady

Trish

Sparda

Moduce

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