miscellanium (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
miscellanium) wrote2018-01-08 12:35 pm
miscellanium) wrote2018-01-08 12:35 pm
Entry tags:
devilman crybaby: the cryening
thoughts on the complete series, so obviously again there will be spoilers.
do not read past this point if you care about spoilers and have not finished either crybaby or the manga.
first: if this post seems like i'm bashing on crybaby, i'm not. i enjoyed it tremendously despite its flaws; it's well-paced for the most part, interesting visually, and answers some things the original manga doesn't either by incorporating elements from things like the amon manga or other associated stories. but i would not recommend this as someone's first devilman experience, for a variety of reasons but mostly because of how it glosses over some important moments and characters in the manga and how crybaby almost feels like a prequel to the manga in some of the characterization choices.
second: a mea culpa because i mixed up two characters in my previous post rip. i thought one of the soundcloud rappers and the shsl runner were the same guy because 1. their designs are really similar and 2. i didn't remember seeing koda (the runner) before that so i thought the rapper guy went to the party and became a devilman so his skin got darker and he got a goatee like. with all the wild shit happening in this show i feel like that's a pretty reasonable assumption. and since i'm not sure we were ever given the rapper's name and cast lists online are no help, i'm going to refer to him as butterfly rapper from this point.
another thing that didn't help with the mix-up is we don't see him for a while after the end of episode 5. and since episode 6 opens with koda, it seemed logical that they were the same person. i didn't figure it out until one of two scenes (whichever came first lol): miko shows up on that rooftop and koda only recognizes her from the track meet, or we see butterfly rapper's corpse in miko's place.
i'm a big proponent of the idea that not everything needs to be shown, not everything needs to be made 100% clear to the reader, but i do feel like crybaby and miko's character would have benefited from us being shown whether butterfly rapper died at the party and she brought his body back or if he went to her place and was killed by her. this would have been especially helpful with her apparent salvation arc at the end, because if one assumes she killed him without remorse then that really lessens the impact. it already lessens the impact of his death because he's set up as a sympathetic character with depth but then we're not even really given a chance to grieve him, while other less-developed characters get that chance.
speaking of lessened impacts, i felt as though miki's death could have been handled better. a lot of this is probably personal preference, like i prefer the idea of a home invasion being the end than an aborted home invasion that becomes a car chase scene because the home invasion really drives home one of the major points of devilman which is that when it comes to the worst of humanity you are not safe anywhere, even in your own home. and then we have them dragging her corpse back to her house, after it seemed like they were chased a great distance away, because...why? why would a mob do that? i would think they'd just dismember her where she was killed and do the murder rave there.
i will say though that as far as the death of her family is concerned, i did actually appreciate the changes. while the mom felt very bland the whole time she was present in the series, it was interesting to see her given agency by escaping with taro. that's more than she had in the manga, frankly. and i feel like it really amped up the emotion by having taro kill her on pure instinct and then show regret/grief when he's discovered. the scene where the father is struggling with this discovery and the choice of killing his own son was one of the rawest scenes in crybaby. i almost want to say it was the best scene, just because it does such a good job of capturing the mixture of fear, confusion, grief, and love that is so prevalent in devilman.
which is a shame, in a way, because i feel like the last scene with akira and ryo should have been the best scene. but it was immensely undermined by two things: that baton relay sequence that repeated itself too much, and having akira's death be shown on screen. i feel strongly that the delay in the reader's discovery that satan is talking to a dead akira adds a whole new dimension to the end, especially since in the manga his actual moment of death is more ambiguous, but in crybaby it seems clear that he's dead the next time we see him after being cut in half. ryo's voice actor did an incredible job with his dialogue in that scene, though, so even though i found myself thinking "well, this doesn't feel as horrible" i still found myself tearing up by his last couple lines.
some other things of note:
- at first i wasn't a fan of the mock-communion scene with akira/devilman and the people who were stoning other humans, but upon reflection i think it helps clarify why akira is so set on saving humanity. this wasn't as clear in the manga, imo, so giving us a moment where in the darkest moment of the soul there is still light, etc, makes it easier to understand why akira wants to oppose satan even after forsaking mankind due to miki's death. however, i felt like the scene was undermined by koda's interruption because if that was meant to imply that no matter what humanity is rotten at the core it doesn't really work when you have someone who is part demon. like, yes, he's picking sides in the way that humans tend to do, but that's not unique to humans as an animal species.
- i still don't like how they handled miko. i was interested by the idea of her feeling overshadowed and wanting to resist that, but it stopped feeling like there was subtlety to her character after she became a devilman. this made her seemingly sudden "i'm sorry, i actually love you" to miko feel forced as part of the narrative. seeing the little cameo of her original design just made me miss that version of her even more. ultimately i didn't feel as though there was anything of real value being said with her role in crybaby.
- ditto miki, making her into a 100% martyr makes her feel shallow as a character. the ambiguity of her role in the relationship with the photographer was intriguing, but that didn't go anywhere and then after that she has no real personality outside of being good and pure and trusting akira. that's another reason her death affected me less in crybaby than in the manga.
- after seeing all the episodes i feel even more strongly that akira's rape of silene/sirene was wholly unnecessary. it didn't seem to serve a purpose other than to make us cheer for sirene's violation and that, even for devilman, is Fucked Up. it helped explain kaim's presence in the fight, sure, but that could absolutely been handled in a way that was actually consistent with akira's character.
anything else i can think of at the moment is mostly just nitpicking (like dissatisfaction with how the pillar of salt thing was handled because that felt more powerful in the manga, or how the fight scenes felt progressively more boring after the first one where akira transforms at the party) or things you probably have already heard elsewhere and overall, complaints aside, crybaby is a pretty solid stand-alone. it would just be nice to see an adaptation that's more faithful to the manga while updating aspects of it.
if you read this whole thing and are curious about my opinions on specific elements of crybaby, ask away! if i think of anything i want to add to the post then i'll edit accordingly. thanks for reading all of this 🙇
do not read past this point if you care about spoilers and have not finished either crybaby or the manga.
first: if this post seems like i'm bashing on crybaby, i'm not. i enjoyed it tremendously despite its flaws; it's well-paced for the most part, interesting visually, and answers some things the original manga doesn't either by incorporating elements from things like the amon manga or other associated stories. but i would not recommend this as someone's first devilman experience, for a variety of reasons but mostly because of how it glosses over some important moments and characters in the manga and how crybaby almost feels like a prequel to the manga in some of the characterization choices.
second: a mea culpa because i mixed up two characters in my previous post rip. i thought one of the soundcloud rappers and the shsl runner were the same guy because 1. their designs are really similar and 2. i didn't remember seeing koda (the runner) before that so i thought the rapper guy went to the party and became a devilman so his skin got darker and he got a goatee like. with all the wild shit happening in this show i feel like that's a pretty reasonable assumption. and since i'm not sure we were ever given the rapper's name and cast lists online are no help, i'm going to refer to him as butterfly rapper from this point.
another thing that didn't help with the mix-up is we don't see him for a while after the end of episode 5. and since episode 6 opens with koda, it seemed logical that they were the same person. i didn't figure it out until one of two scenes (whichever came first lol): miko shows up on that rooftop and koda only recognizes her from the track meet, or we see butterfly rapper's corpse in miko's place.
i'm a big proponent of the idea that not everything needs to be shown, not everything needs to be made 100% clear to the reader, but i do feel like crybaby and miko's character would have benefited from us being shown whether butterfly rapper died at the party and she brought his body back or if he went to her place and was killed by her. this would have been especially helpful with her apparent salvation arc at the end, because if one assumes she killed him without remorse then that really lessens the impact. it already lessens the impact of his death because he's set up as a sympathetic character with depth but then we're not even really given a chance to grieve him, while other less-developed characters get that chance.
speaking of lessened impacts, i felt as though miki's death could have been handled better. a lot of this is probably personal preference, like i prefer the idea of a home invasion being the end than an aborted home invasion that becomes a car chase scene because the home invasion really drives home one of the major points of devilman which is that when it comes to the worst of humanity you are not safe anywhere, even in your own home. and then we have them dragging her corpse back to her house, after it seemed like they were chased a great distance away, because...why? why would a mob do that? i would think they'd just dismember her where she was killed and do the murder rave there.
i will say though that as far as the death of her family is concerned, i did actually appreciate the changes. while the mom felt very bland the whole time she was present in the series, it was interesting to see her given agency by escaping with taro. that's more than she had in the manga, frankly. and i feel like it really amped up the emotion by having taro kill her on pure instinct and then show regret/grief when he's discovered. the scene where the father is struggling with this discovery and the choice of killing his own son was one of the rawest scenes in crybaby. i almost want to say it was the best scene, just because it does such a good job of capturing the mixture of fear, confusion, grief, and love that is so prevalent in devilman.
which is a shame, in a way, because i feel like the last scene with akira and ryo should have been the best scene. but it was immensely undermined by two things: that baton relay sequence that repeated itself too much, and having akira's death be shown on screen. i feel strongly that the delay in the reader's discovery that satan is talking to a dead akira adds a whole new dimension to the end, especially since in the manga his actual moment of death is more ambiguous, but in crybaby it seems clear that he's dead the next time we see him after being cut in half. ryo's voice actor did an incredible job with his dialogue in that scene, though, so even though i found myself thinking "well, this doesn't feel as horrible" i still found myself tearing up by his last couple lines.
some other things of note:
- at first i wasn't a fan of the mock-communion scene with akira/devilman and the people who were stoning other humans, but upon reflection i think it helps clarify why akira is so set on saving humanity. this wasn't as clear in the manga, imo, so giving us a moment where in the darkest moment of the soul there is still light, etc, makes it easier to understand why akira wants to oppose satan even after forsaking mankind due to miki's death. however, i felt like the scene was undermined by koda's interruption because if that was meant to imply that no matter what humanity is rotten at the core it doesn't really work when you have someone who is part demon. like, yes, he's picking sides in the way that humans tend to do, but that's not unique to humans as an animal species.
- i still don't like how they handled miko. i was interested by the idea of her feeling overshadowed and wanting to resist that, but it stopped feeling like there was subtlety to her character after she became a devilman. this made her seemingly sudden "i'm sorry, i actually love you" to miko feel forced as part of the narrative. seeing the little cameo of her original design just made me miss that version of her even more. ultimately i didn't feel as though there was anything of real value being said with her role in crybaby.
- ditto miki, making her into a 100% martyr makes her feel shallow as a character. the ambiguity of her role in the relationship with the photographer was intriguing, but that didn't go anywhere and then after that she has no real personality outside of being good and pure and trusting akira. that's another reason her death affected me less in crybaby than in the manga.
- after seeing all the episodes i feel even more strongly that akira's rape of silene/sirene was wholly unnecessary. it didn't seem to serve a purpose other than to make us cheer for sirene's violation and that, even for devilman, is Fucked Up. it helped explain kaim's presence in the fight, sure, but that could absolutely been handled in a way that was actually consistent with akira's character.
anything else i can think of at the moment is mostly just nitpicking (like dissatisfaction with how the pillar of salt thing was handled because that felt more powerful in the manga, or how the fight scenes felt progressively more boring after the first one where akira transforms at the party) or things you probably have already heard elsewhere and overall, complaints aside, crybaby is a pretty solid stand-alone. it would just be nice to see an adaptation that's more faithful to the manga while updating aspects of it.
if you read this whole thing and are curious about my opinions on specific elements of crybaby, ask away! if i think of anything i want to add to the post then i'll edit accordingly. thanks for reading all of this 🙇