In this anime, we have this protagonist, Akira Fudo, who’s a huge crybaby, and I mean it, he gets extremely sentimental especially for those who he cares about, and has been like this for his entire life. He has this friend, Ryo Asuka, who one day decides to take him to some sort of demon party orgy with the goals of transforming his friend into a devil, and succeeded. Although Akira has obtained new powers along with a new body, he still retains a part of his personality and begins to refer himself as a “Devilman” and uses this power in order to protect the people he cares about the most. Although I’m aware of how influential this story is to the anime and manga industry in general, in terms of the actual story itself, it’s not that good. While it does have its fair share of intense and terrifying moments, a lot of the actual dark moments just ends up being unintentionally funny due to how overly edgy it is. Look, I love media that’s not afraid of portraying violent themes but unfortunately for this series, it was poorly portrayed. Often times it relies on too much gore to the point of being extremely repetitive and annoying, and as an unfortunate result, the brutal and violent scenes feel mindless. Also regarding the themes such as who exactly qualifies as a devil in the moral sense, I felt like some of the arcs in the story were kind of pointless as it didn’t really serve any purpose with portraying the themes that’s shown in the series.
The characters in this series is a mixed bag for me. Obviously our main stars, Akira Fudo and Ryo Asuka are the most well developed characters in this series and although Akira’s character was interesting to watch, I don’t feel the same for the other characters. I won’t go too in depth with Ryo for spoilers reason but I have mixed feelings about him as I find his motives and goals to be rather, weird. And by weird I mean in the sense that his motives aren’t very clear. Although I’m aware that some motives don’t always have a clear purpose in it, the way Ryo’s motives were presented was just out of place. And as for the side characters, asides from Miki Makimura, I honestly didn’t care for any of them. They felt like they were just, there for the sake of the story and don’t really feel like actual characters but rather tools used to progress the story itself. I’m aware the story is suppose to focus on the main characters but it wouldn’t hurt to develop the other characters more, y’know? Characterize them more than just their surface level personalities.
The art was, interesting. Masaaki Yuasa’s directing style was definitely unique for a series like this and although I do like his directing style, I wasn’t a fan of the directing style in this particular series. Although the action sequences looked very cool with its trippy and psychedelic feel to it, I feel like the whole dark and brooding atmosphere wasn’t there due to the wacky directing style Yuasa’s known for, and there are certain times where I felt like certain scenes didn’t need the wacky directing style because it ruined the mood and atmosphere for that scene’s intentions. In general, I felt like this anime didn’t need a wacky directing style like this as it didn’t really add anything meaningful to the series asides from it looking cool and that had it been directed like a standard anime series, some of the scenes would at least feel more frightening.
The music is likely my favorite aspect of this series. Kensuke Ushio’s style of music has always been a personal favorite of mine due to how he incorporates electronic instruments into the OSTs he creates, and for a series like this one, the music really enhanced an otherwise mediocre story from thrilling fight scenes to sentimental moments the characters have from time to time. The sound effects were top notch, too as it was very satisfying to hear since it also helps enhance certain scenes.
Overall, this entire anime was a mixed bag for me. There were a lot of aspects to like about this anime, but other aspects such as a poorly executed story and a weak character cast really dragged it down. If you’re looking for an action series with a trippy feel in it, this is definitely right up your alley but for those who wants an engaging story with thought provoking themes, this series isn’t exactly my go to recommendation.
