Devilman: Crybaby

Devilman embodied everything anime was about when I was younger. Fantastic animation, brutal, shocking blood gore, and simple disdain for taboo.

If you are familiar with Devilman, you will appreciate the throwbacks and wall breaking references, and reworked scenes from the past, however, if you have not read the original manga, the themes that follow in Devilman Crybaby are actually a mix of the original anime with the manga (which varied a bit), consolidating the story in glorious fashion.

Devilman Crybaby is packed with symbolism, scenes that are funny and real, the relationships are believable, the animation style works fantastically, while the OST is outright jaw dropping. Even if you aren't a fan of anime, you should should give Devilman Crybaby a chance, especially as Netflix has done a fantastic job creating a high quality English dub so it doesn't sound like a corny kids TV show. A perfect example of what anime is really about. (Hint. its a scarily realistic reflection of mankind and our strained relationships.)

So basically, this is an adaptation of the darkest manga of Go Nagai: DevilMan. Go Nagai was also creating TV Shows for kids (like Gurendaizer - Goldorak -, BomberX and Mazinger Z), so a manga as dark, crude and violent as DevilMan from the same author can be quite unsettling. However, the anti-war theme that we find in most works of Nagai is present here nonetheless, yet the exposition of this discourse involves a lot of disturbing violence. Graphically, this adaptation may look quite different from the original work of Nagai, it is narratively very faithful to the source material. The storyline follows the manga, but modernizes a lot of things in the storytelling. Smartphones, internet, social networks, among other things are included seamlessly in the plot without denaturing it, on the contrary, it adds a lot to the message of the original work. The unique animation and direction style of Yuasa adds a lot to the freshness of the overall experience.

However, this is still DevilMan, it is raw, harsh, there is abuse, sex, drugs, nudity and violence. The overall experience is a cruel, nihilistic, emotional rollercoaster. The story is quite grandiloquent, and we can still feel a certain narration style from the 70s. But it is definitely a good anime that reminds of pre-2000s mangas, when nothing was ever half-baked if it serves the discourse.

If you are prone to get offended, do not watch DevilMan, but if what I said above still appeals to you, go watch it ! It's damn good. (no pun intended)

I am happy that Netflix supports this kind of uncensored productions. I've recently watched "The end of the F***ing World" and "Black Mirror Season 4," it definitely feels good to have more things with substance on Netflix recently, and DevilMan Crybaby is definitely on the Anime side of this good wave that makes me like Netflix again.

While not entirely faithful to the source material, I think Masaaki Yuasa captured perfectly well its themes and essence, particularly its blatant anti-war themes, as well its overall disturbing bleakness.

A very effective horror tragedy anime series.

I'm not even anime guy, but this is truly a masterpiece. From the scoring, story and animation it just beautifully perfect. Really worth to watch.

This anime is actually true to the manga, not like the 1972 TV version. It is cruel, bloody and in the end, it really touched me.

It may look very strange at first glance, but it got really interesting from episode 3 onwards, so give is a little bit of time if you are hesitant on the first two episodes.

Devilman has a good length (although I wouldn't have complained about 1-2 more to explain the archaeology part/demon background a bit more - the manga did a bit of a better job here I believe), since it's very common with Anime's nowadays to stretch it out over many episodes and seasons.

It's visually stunning, the narrative style very different, and the soundtrack great. An amazing anime, I loved watching it. It touched some sensitive topics, how humans treat each other and what's the real evil in this world.

I'm actually happy that Netflix supported this kind of production - I kind of would've expected them to censor it more, but it's perfect the way it is.