== *Devilman Crybaby*

So, yeah, I watched [[*Devilman Crybaby*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devilman_Crybaby]]. It was an experience.

Before I started watching, what I knew was that this a [[Yuasa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaaki_Yuasa]] adaptation of a famous early
70s [[Go Nagai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Nagai]] manga, funded by
Netflix and so without broadcast content restrictions. The first episode
pretty much delivered what I expected in that regard; [[as I said on
Twitter https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/950230553831276546]], it was
very over the top in Go Nagai's usual way, and gleefully and faithfully
rendered by Yuasa ([[eg https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/43243]]). I
also said something that I didn't intend as foreshadowing, [[but
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/950232589411012610]]:

> I didn't get emotionally pulled into Devilman Crybaby because many
> parts were absurd, but that's probably the best way to consume Go
> Nagai. To be actually in the show would be terrifyingly intense even
> in this episode; distance helped a lot.

Yuasa's *Devilman Crybaby* turned out to be [[very good at kicking you
in the feels https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/950950560710254595]],
to put it in the modern idiom. It became [[nothing like it had started
out as https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/952449355419660288]],
mutating from an over the top operatic exercise in excess to [[something
very powerful https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/952451568309362688]]
by the end. I went into *Devilman Crybaby* expect to get interestingly
executed pulp. I wound up getting far more, with real emotional impacts.

(In retrospect, the mood of [[the striking and compelling OP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwpFpF9-MVk]] was also foreshadowing.
That's not a pulp show's OP, in either animation or music.)

To talk of whether or not I liked *Devilman Crybaby* seems almost
beside the point. *Devilman Crybaby* is not here to be liked;
it's here to put you through the wringer, and what you make of that
experience is up to you. My own ride through *Devilman Crybaby* was
quite the rollercoaster, even though [[it didn't entirely pull me in
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/952743911029604355]] ([[also
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/952705322463977473]]).

After I'd finished the show, I read [[Wikipedia's article
on the manga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devilman]], which
covers the metaphor Go Nagai intended for the whole story. I
see where and why Go Nagai was going, but only intellectually
and I have to view it as very much a product of the early 1970s
and the Vietnam war. [[It's not something that resonates with me
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/952745382408278016]], for all that
it feels like Go Nagai had to have been very passionate about it when
he created *Devilman*.

(Although I don't know if it's the case, it certainly feels like
*Devilman* has to be an angry work, with Go Nagai railing against one
aspect of the world and people. But this is all me reading things into
Go Nagai's central metaphor.)

*Devilman Crybaby* is in some ways a messy
show, one that feels [[abbreviated in spots
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/965396854765735937]]; I suspect that
people who've read the *Devilman* manga will have a deeper appreciation of
the show than I do. I'll probably never rewatch it, and I certainly don't
love it; not only was it wrenching, but Yuasa's version stays faithful
to the manga's downer ending (which is apparently famous and iconic).
But I'm not going to forget it any time soon, and I have no regrets
about watching it. It is, very definitely, a powerful work. And a very
Yuasa one.

(This is part of [[@appropriant
https://twitter.com/appropriant]]'s [[12 Days of Anime 2018
https://perpetualmorning.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/12-days-of-anime-2018/]].)