I remember hearing about this anime and how everyone was talking about it and praising it. It seemed interesting but I just never got around to watching it. But after I watched “Violence Jack” and reading about it being connected to the Devilman world made me want to revisit it.

Akira Fudo is a young boy who is known for crying especially when he sees someone in pain who lives with the Makimura family since his parents are out of the country. One day his old childhood friend Ryo comes to see him who tells him about the existence of demons and their plan to destroy humanity and asks for his help. In order to show this to Akira and prove it to the world he takes Akira to a club. There Ryo plans to raw out the demons with blood and starts killing people. This of course enrages Akira and while he tries to stop Ryo he begins to notice the people changing into horrifying creatures. This triggers something deep inside Akira and the demon Amon is awaken. However Amon fails to completely control Akira and Akira keeps his human heart while gaining the demon body calling himself “Devilman”. With this new power they go out in the world and kill demons.

From what I read the other animated adaptations did not follow the manga as much as this anime did even though a lot of changes were made like adding new characters and changing the setting into a modern one. An interesting change because we get to explore the power of social media and the effect that a title (Ryo’s professor status for example) can have a huge effect on the public and their opinion. The show also explores the concepts of good and evil. What exactly makes someone good and what makes someone evil. The show manages to blur the line between these concepts with Akira especially exploring this. In a part of the show he begins to question the concept of demons asking if they are capable of love and starts changing his views because of this. Trough him and other characters the show makes us question everything we know about good and evil and what we perceive as a danger to us.

The plot does sound simple but there is so much more into it that just blew me away. I was glued to the screen the entire time and I managed to binge watch the entire series in one night. The animation is a bit weird and I am not a fan of people who try to be different just to be different but this type of animation really worked for this show. Initially it could put you off much like it did me. Seeing the way some of them run was quite odd:

(makes the Naruto running look amazing compared to it)

This and the fact that it was made by Netflix (their track record of anime making is quite bad) initially threw me off but I am so glad that I decided to watch this show. It definitely became not just one of my favorite animated shows but one of my favorite shows overall. I will say though this is not a show for everyone. Yes anime shows are mainly for kids but some shows like this and Berserk (which fun fact was inspired by the original Devilman manga) are far from that. There is so much violence, blood, gore, nudity, rape (even gay rape) in this show and the plot and subplots are far too much for a casual viewer that does not know what he is getting into.

The music of this series was also pretty much perfect. It had some amazing mixes of different genres which made watching the series much more enjoyable. My favorite part were the freestyling teenagers that rapped about their lives. Especially this part (sort of a spoiler)

Honestly I could go on for much longer talking about this show. I absolutely loved it and it’s still stuck in my head even after I finished it because it really sticks with you but I don’t want to continue since I would spoil a lot of things. Some people have a problem with the last episode and I can see why they would dislike it but for me it was a perfect fit that matches the pacing of the show.

Final verdict: 9.5/10