Devil May Cry: The Animated Series (Review)
Someone Must Have Sold Their Soul to Make Devil May Cry Into an Anime.
I have to admit up front I’m a little biased when it comes to Devil May Cry. You see, it’s based on Capcom’s video game series by the same name, and I really liked the games. This anime though is nowhere near as good as the games, though. However, if you try to distance the two from each other, then this is a decent series. Decent, though. Not great.
From the get-go, I should have known not to expect much from Devil May Cry since it’s based on a video game. In my experience anime that aren’t based on manga tend to limp along trying to capture the spirit of a medium that can’t translate well onto the big screen. The same can be said for pretty much every movie that’s been based off a video game series as well. Of course, there’s a lot that can be done in anime that can’t be done in a live-action feature film, but Devil May Cry is a hack and slash series that offers very little story to fill the gaps in the original installments. Unfortunately, that also means that the anime has to fill in a lot of gaps when it comes to the mythos behind the great devil hunter Dante.
Devil May Cry follows half-breed demon slayer Dante (voiced by Justin Cause). You see, Dante is the son of the legendary demon Sparda, who stood against the forces of darkness to prevent them from taking over the world 2000 years ago. Now Dante follows in his father’s footsteps, toting a huge sword and two supernatural handguns. The 12-episode series follows him on different missions he’s hired to undertake. However, Dante isn’t alone in this, as he is joined by a human demon slayer named Lady (voiced by Melissa Davis) and a demon called Trish (voiced by Luci Christian) who has turned her back on her evil nature. Of course, what anime series would be complete without the token irritating character? In Devil May Cry, this character comes in the form of Patty Lowell (voiced by Hilary Haag), a little girl who loves giving Dante a hard time. The thing is that I think she gives the audience a harder time by the end of this short-lived anime.
While at first, I was really impressed with the animation in this series from Madhouse, it slowly started to dawn on me that this series was only invested in making the main characters look good. Any other character that showed up felt like they simply took stock characters and colored them in. As if this wasn’t bad enough, all of the backgrounds are incredibly bland as well. Nothing really pops out at you through the entire series. This is really a shame since the video game series had some incredible characters and some great settings. It’s too bad this anime couldn’t capture the ambiance that Devil May Cry is so famous for. I can’t say that I’m thrilled with the writing, either. They managed to create some of the lamest dialogue I’ve heard in a long time. I know that Dante is a cocky guy, but this takes it to a ridiculous level. Plus, for some reason showrunners, Toshiki Inoue and Shin Itagaki decided it would be a great little quirk to make him only eat pizza (to be fair, some of the pizzas he orders sound amazing) and strawberry sundaes. As if this wasn’t bad enough, they thought it would be great to introduce the character of Patty. I don’t even know where to start with her. Let’s just leave it at she’s awful.
The demons in the series aren’t that bad, but they kind of lack a menacing feel to them. They’re just too clean and crisp. However, they did make an interesting decision to soak all of them in blood once they get a look at Dante, and that aspect is pretty cool. I’ve seen a lot of blood in a lot of anime, but this one has a ton of it. This even helps with the whole one-sidedness behind it. I mean, it’s pretty ridiculous that Dante can kill any demon he comes across without even breaking a sweat. We get it, he’s incredibly tough, but there’s still no sense of urgency. It’s like reading a Superman comic book (or watching Ultimate Helsing). We all know exactly how it’s going to end.
I know that I’ve kind of ripped this anime apart, and to a point, it does deserve it. However, this series does start to get a little better toward the end. It’s a shame that there were only 12 episodes in it though because at the rate it was going, it could have been pretty cool. I’m not sure if this series would have been any better if I hadn’t played the video games. I’m not going to recommend this strongly to anyone, but it’s not bad enough for me to try to drive people away from it.
