I should explain that this is the second Devil May Cry anime, so I feel it’s important with the title to show that so there isn’t confusion.
My history with the Devil May Cry franchise isn’t one of a huge fan. I first played the 4th game, then the 3rd on Switch and 5th on my friend’s PS5. I’ve seen the original anime but never played the 1st, 2nd (never playing that one by reputation) or the terrible, terrible remake (yeah, clearly not playing that one either). It is a franchise I enjoy what with its action and characters however, but I’m naturally cautious when it comes to video game adaptations, even though we are in an age with the animated Mario movie and the successful Sonic live action movies. We have seen it can still go very very wrong as with the Halo TV series.
The anime series is its own continuity rather than being in continuity with the games which was the case with the original series. Roughly this is akin to the time of the 3rd game and its prequel manga, taking some characters from that prequel but doing its own thing with them. This fortunately means Dante is the lovable over the top guy that we saw in 3, rather than making him closer to the boring brooding version that was in the 2nd game. Kudos to Johnny Yong Bosh for his voice work on the character, though he’s not new to the series as he voices Nero in the games.
The other main character of the series is Mary Arkham aka Lady who has been reimagined as, rather than a solo Demon Hunter, a member of a government task force that fights demons. This is going to now hit an issue that has alienated some of the fans, since there are plot elements that try to say some residents of the demon world are just trying to escape it while the government of the USA is being heavily influenced by a crazy zealot who wants to go on a holy war in a war on terror and middle eastern asylum metaphor. Since the first series ends on a cliff-hanger and plot threads unresolved I can’t fully say if that’s a good angle in the end or not. I will need to see how things play out in the second half. Could be helped it there was more focus on Dante though, given it’s his story and taking elements from a game all about his past, hopefully there’s an improvement in the second half that doesn’t go the DMC 2 route of his attitude.
With one exception, the best bits of the show are when Dante is being Dante and not crazy ass Christians are doing horrible things for their deluded idea of appeasing a god. We got that scene done perfectly in the Castlevania animes first season I don’t think you’re going to beat a wolf demon bursting into a church and calling out a bishop’s (profanity) before killing him.
The one exception to that is episode 6 which is a flashback primarily focusing on the backstory of the villain and Lady which is done on Lady’s part in black and white, and in the villains a different art style, plus in both until the end is entirely wordless. It was a great episode and showing a benefit of the medium of animation.
I’m hoping the second season is an improvement but I do remember how with the Masters of the Universe Netflix animation (not the CGI one, loved that one) I had liked and defended the first half, only to be horrified at the decisions of the second (the 3rd was better though). While I liked the series, I can see why some people hated it and will wait cautiously to see if it sticks a landing.
Rating: 👍👍👍
