Devilman: Crybaby has definitely kicked off 2018 well for anime. It was also surprising to hear that this was a reboot of an anime from the 1970's, however this adaption would be better connected to the manga than the original series.
Story (9/10)
The story concentrates on Akira fudou and Ryou Asuka, who are trying to stop the threat of the Demons from taking over the world. However Akira fuses with a demon and becomes Devilman to protect humanity from the demon threat.
What I really like about Devilman's story is how unexpecting it was, it starts out like a normal superhero type story where the MC gains a power and starts protecting the people from an evil threat, along with his sidekick friend to help him out.
The pacing was a little slow to begin with, but I liked this decision as it gets us used to the characters and the setting of the story, plus seeing Akira developing his powers and his character was also interesting to see.
When the story reaches the halfway point though, oh boy things start to really heat up and it doesn't stop until the very end, Ryou ends up showing the world that demons exist which throws the whole world into chaos and even made Akira as Devilman look like the enemy to everyone. I was amazed how quickly the situation kept deteriorating across the whole world each episode and eventually got to a point of no return to normality when the final episodes came around, because a lot of dark stuff happens and a lot of characters die.
In fact the way the series ended was really surprising and was something I have hardly seen done in a lot of anime's, mainly because most anime's don't have the balls to do what this anime did.
Characters (9/10)
Despite only having a few noticeable characters, the show really makes them stand out and portray their personalities and ideals very well.
Akira and Ryou are the two MC's, they both work together to try and take down the demon threat. They reminded me of Rin and Yukio Okumura from Blue Exorcist, yes they weren't really brothers, but they had that brother mentality and connection, which shifted more and more as the series progessed.
Akira begins as a soft spoken, but open kind of person and even though he cries a lot, he's willing to help his friends when they are in trouble despite his weak nature. When he becomes Devilman however, he becomes more closed off from certain people, but he continues to be incredibly protective of Miki, her family and the general public. Despite having these powers he never loses sight of his compassion and love towards those closed to him and the more bad things happened throughout the show, the more it broke him as a person until he went all out in the end.
Ryou is very much the opposite of Akira, he never cared for anyone who isn't Akira and doesn't even flinch when he kills someone. He has an egotistical nature as he tries to prove to the world that demons do exist which does make do some really questionable things. He seemed like an untrustworthy guy, but he would always make sure Akira was alright and would grant him favours whenever he asked, showing how deep their relationship was.
Miki is Akira's childhood friend and she still continues to be his friend as he lives with her family. Miki was a very strong female character, she wouldn't take sh*t from anyone and would stick up for anyone who was being wronged. She believed Akira would always protect her no matter what, which always gave her hope to push on and even when she found out he was Devilman, she still accepted him because she knew Akira was still the same person.
Art (10/10)
I'm going to a lot of credit to the artstyle of this anime, because it was amazing. It looked quite similar to another anime called Kemonozume or The Beast Claw, which does make sense since they were both directed by the same person. However Devilman: Crybaby had a lot of good details with the whole environment and the demons looked really awesome too.
Some scenes would get really trippy though, like the big parties Akira and Ryou would go to, to lure out demons and they really had a lot of colours mixed in, plus I think if someone had epilepsy they should steer very clear from this.
It didn't feel like there was any limitations either, for once the artstyle looked like it gave the animators complete and total freedom with certain things, especially with how explicit the gore and nudity was.
Sound (8/10)
The sound is where the anime slips a little, first off it had a very well done soundtrack, especially during the action scenes and the emotional traumatic moments which made the scenes feel really powerful and epic.
The only problem is that the op and ed were pretty bland, the op had some great visuals, but the music just didn't feel right to me.
Extras:
Lets talk about the horror aspect, now this goes for the gorey route and by God was this anime damn explicit. I hadn't seen something this explicit since Gantz and Devilman definitely doesn't hold back. The deaths were really gruesome and they made me flinch quite a lot, because of how nasty they were.
It also didn't hold back from the nudity either, which is something a lot of anime's do mainly because they don't want to get death threats from the public. However Devilman doesn't give a sh*t about that and really goes all out with the jiggle physics and showing nude bodies, hell it even shows pubic hair at some points and that is a definite rarity outside of Hentai.
The action was bloody good too, sure they were pretty quick most of the time, but they would stick with you and the destruction caused by these fights would get more and more devastating each time.
Enjoyment/Overall (9/10)
Overall this was a very interesting, surprising, amazing anime to watch and has started 2018 well for anime. Despite the nudity and gore this definitely something people can enjoy if they give it a chance.
