Devilman manga review series#

Everything about this series is extreme, and that’s mostly a good thing. Watching Ryo calmly pull a rifle out from under his trench coat and then open fire is hilarious. The flow of movement across panels is also a fantastic source of comedy. Both Akira and Ryo frequently have delightfully over-the-top facial expressions, which make the series humorous without undermining its serious subject matter. Akira and Ryo are instantly lovable characters, thanks largely to Nagai’s charming art style and incredible pacing. As Devilman, Akira has all of Amon’s physical strength while retaining mental control over their combined body. In order to gain the power to stop said demons, Akira merges with the demon Amon to become Devilman. Nagai introduces the protagonists, Fudo Akira and Asuka Ryo, as well as the concept of ancient demons infiltrating human society.

This volume’s first couple chapters quickly establish the series’s core characters and themes. This hardcover edition includes the first nine chapters of Go Nagai’s horror classic. Thankfully, Seven Seas Entertainment recently came out with their first volume recollecting the series: Devilman: The Classic Collection 1. Ever since then, I’ve been eager to read the series’s original manga incarnation. The series immediately grabbed my attention with its over-the-top violence and sexuality, as well as its both its canonical and coded queerness. The art has some upsides and certain aspects of the premise show promise, but otherwise this is a forgettable volume.Like a lot of other people, my first exposure to the Devilman franchise was the Netflix original anime Devilman Crybaby from earlier this year. That’s not to say that Grimoire bores because it is different from other iterations of the franchise so much as it just doesn’t deliver anything poignant in its own right. All the stylistic hallmarks of Devilman are present, but the usual character depth and thematic concerns are absent. Takato’s artwork at least livens things up a bit with over-the-top facial expressions, but even the visuals suffer from a lack of clarity and frequent overcrowded page compositions. The villains don’t prove any more interesting, as their past knowledge of Amon is glossed over and a lot of the fight scenes don’t have well-defined reasons for taking place. Akira, meanwhile, barely feels like a protagonist–he’s more or less just a vessel for Amon so far, and nothing interesting is done with that internal conflict. Miki gets some solid focus up-front, but she blends into the background more as the story progresses. Part of my lack of enthusiasm for this volume stems from how little development its characters get. What’s missing here is a reason to care the volume may technically have a narrative arc but I felt little emotional response to any of the action, be it rising or falling. It wouldn’t be fair to critique Grimoire solely for lacking other Devilman media’s thematic concerns, but when those themes lack adequate replacements, there’s a problem. It feels like the creative team took most of the franchise’s identifying style marks and sapped out all of the actually interesting philosophical questions and subtext. To put it bluntly, this volume just isn’t good. With that said, Devilman Grimoire doesn’t just differ from other franchise installments in its plot, but in its quality level as well. In this version, Miki is a witch, which puts a unique spin on her character, and it’s nice to see her get so much narrative focus. With that said, Grimoire also takes some liberties with the series’ lore rather than Ryo Asuka, it’s Miki Makimura who sets into place the events leading up to protagonist Akira Fudo’s possession by the demon Amon. Constant over-the-top nudity, violence, and gore fill the volume’s pages, and body horror is so frequent that it feels unusual to go five pages without seeing intestines peeking out of a mutilated corpse, or some other such disgusting image. How does this version of the classic horror saga stand up next to the rest? Is it good?Īt a first glance, Devilman Grimoire has many of the core elements the franchise is known for.

Grimoire features writing by original Devilman creator Go Nagai and artwork by Rui Takato, and is published by Seven Seas Entertainment. Having watched and enjoyed Netflix’s new addition to the franchise, Devilman Crybaby, not long beforehand, I decided it was a good time to check out an alternate take on the mythos.

I was browsing the manga section of a local bookstore recently when I stumbled upon Devilman Grimoire Vol.