I normally don't review shows that I know I won't be able to own on home video. "Devilman - Crybaby" is one such show, getting a simultaneous worldwide release through Netflix in 2018, and based on history I assume Netflix's involvement will prevent it from ever being seen through any other method. But aside from being one of the most intriguing action anime of 2018, and aside from its legacy of the edgy original manga and franchise spawned from it, this anime would be directed by Masaaki Yuasa at his new studio Science Saru, less than a year from the new studio releasing two award-winning feature films which I love dearly. The studio was perhaps wearing themselves thin so soon after their birth, but I was eager to watch the show regardless.I'll get this out of the way: the studio clearly cut som corners here. There are elements that work well with Yuasa's unique style, with occasional moments of humor and subtle drama through warped perspective, cheeky grins, and (really good) rap battles. When the devils appear, the monsters are designed with a wide breadth of creativity, and the violence and sex feels like something only Yuasa could pull off to this degree without making the audience feel sick. On the other hand, the studio is clearly using Adobe Flash, and while they had before avoided any of cheap-looking visuals in past productions by using frame-by-frame as much as possible, here it rears its head. Animation itself doesn't happen often, relying too much on static shots for too long, sometimes for ten seconds at a time. The studio did what most would in painting detailed backgrounds in external software, copying it into Flash, and using Flash to only draw and animate flat characters, with perhaps some warping applied to those detailed backgrounds for a psuedo-3D effect. Here, they do that about half the time, and the other half they realized there were shots they hadn't painted, so they drew it directly in Flash... and it looks like a cheap Adult Swim cartoon. Like "Inferno Cop" or "South Park," shows that are infamous for looking like a ten-year-old drew it. It disappointing, and I don't know if I should blame lack of money or lack of time, or perhaps because Netflix gave full freedom and there was a lack of internal quality checking by the studio. Regardless, the show would benefit greatly by going back and reanimating about half of the show. I keep hearing that "all of Yuasa's work looks bad on purpose," which I find offensive: his work is typically highly stylized, not ugly. "Devilman - Crybaby" is one of the worst-looking shows he's directed, not because of his style, but because less effort and creativity is at play here compared to his past projects.That being said, the show is still fun to watch for its objectionable content. The story follows Akira, a all-around nice guy student, who when seeing his mysterious childhood friend Ryo for the first time in years, gets swept up into a master plan involving revealing the existance of demons to the world. Akira himself gets possessed by a powerful demon, but the strength of his human heart allows him to control the power, making him a "Devilman," part demon but also part human. In each episode, Akira gets set up to fight another powerful demon hiding among mankind, and fight more violent and bloody than the last. There is a lot of violence and sex. Especially sex. From underground orgies to wet dreams to street sex to gay sex and more, the show leaves little to the imagination there, with only pubic hair preventing the show from being classified as porn. The violence involves dismemberments of every body part, with many humans getting sliced in half or eaten one bite at a time. Again, its hard to watch, but Yuasa's direction makes it more palatable and clever than it ought to be.The story is ultimately a tragic one though. Just about every character dies by the end, and early on, the show kills off humans close to Akira one by one, each more tragic than the last, giving us hope until the final episodes that someone might make it out alive. The perception on human nature isn't new, but it portrayed with more disgusting detail: when humans learn that demons are real, they start a witch hunt against every other human that might be a demon in disguise, in some cases parading the heads of their neighbors around their house set aflame. There is a sliver of hope in that a small percentage, specifically young people not affected by the world of single-minded adults, would understand compassion well-enough to facilitate world peace, but they too die without a second thought. Moreso than the violence and sex alone, this view on the human race is difficult to watch, no matter how true you might believe it to be. This ruined the initial excitment I had for the first half of the show... had I been warned from the start that "everyone would be dead by the end," I might have appreciated it more as entertainment, like watching a fun slasher-horror movie. I do have to give credit to the writing and the pathos given to the characters before their deaths, though: the characters are multi-dimensional, and their endings are powerful. I still vividly remember several scenes even now.
Despite the catchy thumping soundtrack, despite Netflix's valiant attempt to release the show worldwide on the same day with multiple dubbed-languages, and despite Yuasa's style shinning through, "Devilman - Crybaby" comes across as a disappointment, despite also being one of the more creative and memorable anime of recent years. But this comes from someone who binge-watched the entire show in two days, and someone who is tempted to go back and watch it again... so they're doing something right. If you come in knowing it will end badly for everyone, and perhaps enjoyed anime with similar outlooks on human nature ("Gantz" comes to mind the most), and if you look past the production values (I haven't heard a single viewer make the same complaints that I have, so you probably will), then I think you will be blown away with what it offers.