Furthermore, I could not avoid comparing this to the game. Still, I reviewed this on its own merits. I have played Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker for the 3DS for 100+ hours, so I have a good grasp on the game’s strengths and weaknesses.
I’ve sometimes wondered why Shin Megami Tensei games don’t get adaptations, but then a bit of thinking always leads me to the answer: many of them would be the same. See, since the core SMT series typically boasts multiple endings, the studio would have to adapt one, and the one it chooses to adapt would be the Neutral route, as that would probably have the most story. This is why we see more linear games (plotwise) like Persona 4 get adaptations. Devil Survivor 2, the second in the Devil Survivor branch of SMT games, has a tone right in between SMT and Persona. The game is considerably more lighthearted than its parent series and its predecessor, and even though it has multiple routes, they’re very similar to each other. So, how does the anime adaptation work out? Not well, I’m afraid.
Devil Survivor 2 the Animation is based on a manga that is based on the game. It follows the main character, renamed Hibiki Kuze, a bunny-eared hoodie wearing high schooler. After signing up for a macabre site, Nicaea, that promises to show death videos, or clips of people dying, the world seems to turn upside down; a subway train crashes, monsters only describable as demons pop out of peoples phones, and mysterious invaders called the Septentriones threaten the balance of the world itself. Hibiki, who has a greater potential than others, can summon stronger demons like Byakko; as a result, he and his friends are forcibly enlisted into the government agency JP’s (pronounced Jips) to fight against these monsters. Hibiki often comes into conflict with the cold and ruthless leader of JP’s, Yamato Hotsuin. He also comes into contact with a number of different people, most noticeably the Anguished One, an enigmatic being who knows more than he’s letting on and is decidedly not human.
The plot of the original game was never its strong suit (with plenty of dumb anime tropes and stuff like "The Dragon Stream"), and for the most part, the anime doesn’t strengthen it. Urgency and despair are rarely felt, despite it being a Shin Megami Tensei title; honestly, this doesn’t play out as anything other than a disaster-based anime, much like films such as Twister and San Andreas. Where the game did excel, however, was with its characters. A total of 14 main characters rounded out a robust cast in the game, and each character had enough time to be fleshed out. Even Hibiki bucked the trend by being a rather witty hero, calling people tsundere, nicknaming them, and flirting with everyone to no end. The cast was creative.
The anime doesn’t do that. Almost every character is reduced to a singular trait or trope, or even less so.
Daichi? Good friend of Hibiki, and dumb comic relief (A recurring gag has him yelling "My Demons are weak!" which gets old fast).
Io? Dandere who seems to like Hibiki.
Makoto? Serious.
Fumi? Uncaring.
Ronaldo? Justice.
Characters like Joe, Otome, Airi, Jungo, Hinako, and Keita don’t even get an iota of development to make you give half a shit about them. Joe's a guy, Otome's a doctor, Hinako dances, whatever. Not a shred of their personality or motivations are retained from the game. The most we get is maybe one or two stills (quite literally stills, not even a scene) worth of flashback for Airi and a short scene for Makoto. Hibiki might be one of the worst off; after having such a creative personality in the game, and then having the voice actor to be able to match (Hiroshi Kamiya, who also did the manic Araragi from the Monogatari series). Hibiki is reduced to nothing more than a serious shounen hero who wants to save everyone. Hooray for a generic hero.
And, well, it also doesn’t really help that pretty much everyone dies in an extremely haphazard manner. In the game, Death Videos were supposed to be avoided by arriving in a timely fashion. And while the game had time to let you feel the weight of your incompetence, no such element exists in the anime other than Hibiki beating himself about it, as you can't connect to many, if any, of the characters. In one of the early episodes, the character Keita is introduced, only to die in that same episode. The end of the series gets particularly dumb, when pretty much everyone dies in rapid succession.
(Incidentally, during a fight with the Anguished One, Yamato avoids getting killed. Somehow. Despite being exploded upon. Never explained.)
As far as characterization goes, it’s not an entire wash. The Anguished One is roughly the same as his game counterpart, but the clear “winner” is definitely Yamato, who’s roughly the same as he is in the game. However, he’s significantly more ruthless in this anime than he is in the game, and that produces mixed results. On the one hand, Yamato is permitted extra development even over the game, especially through his childhood and his interactions with politicians that led him to his meritocracy beliefs. On the other hand, Yamato is hard to sympathize with on almost any level; the game, which allowed you to join him in his quest for a meritocracy, included a few light moments, made him a much less “evil” character than he is in the anime.
It’s because of this overall weak characterization that prevents the extremely talented voice cast from reaching their full potential. There’s a dynamite Japanese voice cast featuring a very strong list of A-list seiyuus, but bland characters can’t really be saved by good voice acting. No one performance is bad (far from it!), but the only one who stands out is Junichi Suwabe as Yamato, even if his great performance only serves to make Yamato more unlikable.
Ultimately, all of this can be attributed to rushing, only highlighting the plot points. A playthrough of a route, even quickly, can take around 15 hours, and while not all of that is plot all the time, everything feels stuffed into this 6 and a half hour adaptation which focuses only on the major plot points. If I had to appreciate the plot in any way (besides them somehow paying a lot of attention to the fusion recipes: they were all correct!) it would be the fight with Lugh, which was much plainer in the game.
Thankfully, we have some strong animation here. Maybe after seeing a bunch of semi-static sprites all of the time in the game lowered my standards, but the animation is always clean and consistent. A-1 manages to make the demons look terrifying, and the character models by Durarara!! and Danmachi artist Suzuhito Yasuda are brought to life here, with a focus on details. While other aspects of the anime may be suspect, Seiji Kishi does a great job of directing this series, and the cinematography is quite well done.
The fight scenes are a mixed bag, much like the Persona 4 animation; like that, it feels like glorified Pokemon, which is definitely not what Shin Megami Tensei is. To its credit, the fight scenes look pretty enough, but their length, choreography, and character interactions (which is mostly reduced to yelling stuff like “Go Byakko!”) leaves plenty to be desired.
You shouldn’t have much of a reason, if any at all, to watch this anime unless you’ve played the game (or fall into a group where you don’t own a 3DS but like the SMT and Persona series). Maybe for morbid curiosity, but not much else. My main reason to watch this was to experience the Japanese cast, which is unavailable to me unless I buy a Japanese 3DS and a Japanese version of Record Breaker, but thanks to the uninspired characters, even that isn’t a good enough reason. I’d recommend you skip this series. It has its strengths, but its weaknesses far outstrip them. But buy Record Breaker if you have a 3DS.
Score:
Story - 4
Art/Animation - 7
Sound - 7
Character - 3
Enjoyment - 5
Overall: 5.1 (Rounded to 5)
EDIT 6/29/2015: Made a dumbass mistake that Otome was a nurse. Sexism is alive, folks. Corrected to doctor.
