Devilman Crybaby is unpleasantly good | Anime Reviews

Episodes: 10

Duration: 25 min per episode

Genre: Action, Drama, Horror, Supernatural, Avant-Garde

Theme: Mythology, Psychological, Gore

Rating: ★★★★★★★★★☆

It’s easy to give people the cold shoulder. It’s harder to try and understand them. Even family members you’ve been with your whole life, will sometimes show you a new side to them. I wanna understand. I’ll try not to judge people because I wanna feel secure.

– Miki Makimura

First, let's appreciate the minimalist poster. I'm a huge fan! The elements of the devil, the man, and him crying are beautifully intertwined. Nice.

Devilman Crybaby is a fresh version of the original series, Devilman. This is a standalone anime, you can proceed in watching this without completing the earlier adaptations, this includes several TV series, a movie, and a massive collection of ONAs and OVAs. Yep, the Devilman Crybaby is part of an OVA, you can watch this on Netflix. 

I started the series not knowing that this is about Devils. I initially thought that this is a slice of life or drama anime due to the crybaby part of the title. Don't blame me, anime titles these days are crazy enough to let me assume that. 

Apparently, this is about a man (Who is a crybaby; literally cries all the time. Exagg.) with the devil inside his body. And according to several sources, this has been an inspiration to recent animes, think about animes that talk about a boy with a demon, devil, or fox inside them.

It is unpleasant. We talk about gore, we talk about nudity, we talk about a literal slice of life as we will notice how people were being sliced off their lives. Plot armor does not exist in this one. 

It is good. We talk about storylines, we talk about characters, and we talk about animations. It may seem odd at first but it's perfect for the narrative and story as a whole. A really lovely touch to the overall production. 

I appreciate how they use gore as an element to heighten the emotional component of the story. It gave me chills and it brings deep sadness. It does not shy away from deaths, it showcases how insane humans can be, driven by fear and fiasco.

Upon going to the climax, they gave us hints and bits of the biblical elements until it blew full. This is a creative and interesting way of "somehow" re-telling the story of Satan. 

My takeaway:

Evil exists. It may not be in form of a demon but there's evil in humanity. You witnessed and will witness this throughout your life, and we are talking within our reach. Us.  

We do evil things, sometimes we are aware, sometimes not. Our minds are definitely corrupted. We just do well in hiding it. But we also do good things, we are people. This is humanity. A mixture of good and evil. It may be a little bit of both. 

The anime brought us to an understanding of how immoral humans can be. Or how radical we can also be, we misjudge and understood. We are a perfect definition of complexity. And until we humble our hearts and realize that. We will be in a cage of ignorance that will eat us all up, corrupting us bit by bit. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we can choose what type of person we can be. The choice will always be in our hands but the consequence is definitely out of our hands. 

How do we deal with what's happening? How do we accept defeat and uncertainty? 

I just hope that we will all find Jesus someday. 

//DevilmanCrybaby

//sebajisoka