Here is an anime that is so boldly, exuberantly and gloriously itself that it holds nothing back and takes no prisoners. We become happy, eager victims of what becomes one of the most simultaneously celebratory and gut-wrenching experiences ever animated.
Full of blood, sex and violence, this isn't a series for the easily perturbed. From its first sincere and sadistic minutes, you'll know if you can stomach the rest of it. The entire breadth of this series will leave you feeling utterly wretched. Its deceptively simple story is painted with masterful strokes by Yuasa, who directs with such vibrancy and life, it's downright inspiring. If you're familiar with Mind Game, Kemonozume and Kaiba, DEVILMAN crybaby will feel especially familiar.
So vagueness and adulation aside, what's this series?
The short of it is that timid, optimistic, crybaby high-schooler Akira becomes a Devilman -- a half-human, half-demon hybrid that has a voracious appetite for food, women and fighting. Akira undergoes the typical power fantasy transformation of the mild-mannered loser who becomes attractive, bold and strong. But he's still a crybaby, after all is said and done. What lives inside him is a strong sense of wanting to do good, despite battling not only demons, but also his own newfound impulses and urges. There's of course that clear irony of a devil teaching others about love, sacrifice and humanity. But that's the type of show DEVILMAN crybaby is -- it takes all our assumptions and pounds them into dust.
The rest of the characters consist of Akira's best friend and resident sociopath, Ryo, and the sweet-tempered girl-next-door (well, they live in the same house), Miki. The remainder of cast is peppered with excellent and memorable supporting characters, including the pitiable Miko, and my favourite, Wamu, the leader of a group of Japanese rappers who act and serve as a Greek chorus, narrating the events of the series through their freestyling.
This hardly registers as a complaint, but if there was one notable shortcoming of this series is its breakneck pace. We hardly have time to breathe as it lunges forward through its story and character development. This works most of the time and it doesn't hurt the anime in any meaningful way. The creators trust us to figure things out and not have the obvious spelled out for us. For instance, Akira embraces his newfound power instantaneously -- his musings about his existence as a hybrid come later. And perhaps this was the intention. There's no time wasting here. Every second has a point. However, I can't help but imagine some of the emotional sucker punches that could have been had they spent a few more minutes expanding a story thread or a character arc.
As for the technical aspects, this anime is a wondrous assault on the senses. The animation and art style are superb, but of course, if you're familiar with Yuasa's work, you can freeze frame on certain moments and find some woefully and hilariously bad work. I consider it charming at this point and a marker that yeah, this is surely something he's had a hand in. The music utilises synth and it pulses, beating like a electric heart in time with the action on screen.
This is the type of anime that comes rarely -- one made with vision, purpose and meaning, and not churned out as a seasonal filler meant to sate the black hole of empty consumption that is the industry at present.
DEVILMAN crybaby is that desperate gulp of air a drowning soul craves.
