Miki in particular is taken out of the role of Akira's horny love interest and becomes the moral and “human” center of the show by way of her fame as a runner, and the feelings this provokes in her running partner Kuroda Miki, who unwillingly relinquished the name Miki to the track star and takes a back role as Miko. Add to this the front half of the episode, where Ryou picks up his childhood friend Akira with them both sharing a goofy smile, even as he points a machine gun at a Greek chorus of beat boxers and Akira's crush and adoptive family Makimura Miki to dissuade them from chasing the pair as they jump into Ryou's Western sports car, and we can start to see how DEVILMAN crybaby has chosen a far more wondrous and dizzying take on Nagai's story even while staying true to core events.īesides this way of following key events with vastly different details, the other major change is the addition or emphasis on dozens of side characters meant to draw characterization out of each other and out of the trio of Akira, Ryou, and Miki. Of course in retrospect both the party and Akira's transformation seem tame, when Yuasa and Choi found a way to show near full-on psychedelic sex in the very first episode, trading an earlier scene of exposition in exchange for stretching both the party and the gory aftermath out by a factor of two. The transformation of Fudo Akira from a pure and innocent high school boy to a brooding sex symbol at the hands of merging with the demon Amon to become the half-human Devilman is the sort of character story we see all over the place nowadays, but it must've been shocking when Nagai first gave him this metamorphisis, catalyzed by his best friend Asuka Ryou going on a stabbing rampage at an underground sex party in order to spark the demons waiting at that ancient site of hedonism and carnal desire. Having taken all core events directly from Nagai Go's original Devilman manga, many of the events and twists aren't so surprising nor are they where the freshness or power of DEVILMAN crybaby come from.
It's electrifying but controlled, far-reaching but unpretentious, and a blend of sexuality and violence that exists for more than titillation and shock. But no, DEVILMAN crybaby is the highest realization of both the Devilman franchise and Yuasa's X-rated monster stories that we saw right from the start with the brilliant but flawed Kemonozume. Even with two of my favorite creators in the industry, Yuasa Masaaki and Eunyoung Choi, bringing their artistic sensibilities to one of the unrestrained and unhinged works of the 70's without a restriction on sexual or violent content, I thought the good and bad would compromise and give us something easily summed up as “solid”.
2018 validated me right out of the gate, and what's more it did so with a remake of a 40 year old series, and with only ten episodes produced by and released on a Western site known for treating their anime releases like crap. Despite all odds I firmly believe that there's always something new to see, some new experience I couldn't have dreamed of. I'll never stop watching new anime, and I feel for people who imagine that there's no further point it can reach.