Roving Thoughts archives

Devilman Crybaby

So, yeah, I watched Devilman Crybaby. It was an experience.

Before I started watching, what I knew was that this a Yuasa adaptation of a famous early 70s 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, it was very over the top in Go Nagai's usual way, and gleefully and faithfully rendered by Yuasa (eg). I also said something that I didn't intend as foreshadowing, but:

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, to put it in the modern idiom. It became nothing like it had started out as, mutating from an over the top operatic exercise in excess to something very powerful 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 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 (also).

After I'd finished the show, I read Wikipedia's article on the manga, 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, 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; 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's 12 Days of Anime 2018.)

Briefly checking in on the Fall 2018 anime season 'midway' through

I know, in my fall brief impressions I said that I probably wouldn't do a 'midway' post. I changed my mind because there are a couple of things I want to note before the shows end and my views change again.

Excellent:

• SSSS.Gridman: This show is amazing, and it's also reached the point where the giant robots and kaiju fights are essential drivers for the compelling character drama. It also continues to sneak in straight faced jokes and absurd situations that are both funny and illustrative of the strange setting.

Good:

• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I caught up on this and I'm enjoying it as straight entertainment, which is pretty much what I was hoping for. This is not deep drama, but among other things it's a fundamentally pleasant show. It could easily have been about war and fighting, but instead it is ultimately about building up a community.

• Thunderbolt Fantasy S2: I'll now say the thing that I didn't really say in my brief impressions, which this is not as good as the first season. It's picked up lately, but it still lacks a vital, compelling spark that the first season had. Still, I was very pleasantly surprised by one character in the latest episode.

  (Part of my dissatisfaction with this season is that the Mistress of Cruelty was a punching bag from the start. There were shades of Gen Urobuchi's treatment of her in the first season as well, but it had other characters to make up for it.)

SSSS Gridman is amazing and the other two are perfectly enjoyable, so I'm currently considering this a perfectly good season. That I got back on the wagon of watching and enjoying Slime is nice, even if Thunderbolt Fantasy S2 is a little bit of a letdown. Still, I can hope for a strong finish to the show; it definitely still has potential and room for twists.