Netflix Devil May Cry Review
Here’s my Devil May Cry review which is now streaming on Netflix featuring the voice of Johny Yong Bosch as Dante and produced by Adi Shankar together with Studio Mir!
Netflix and Adi Shankar are trying to recapture the magic of Castlevania once more with this new adaptation of the Capcom action game Devil May Cry. One thing that I have to stress about this anime is that it’s non-canon which for me saves it from being branded trash like what “fans” whine online about.
The Plot
In this version of the demon hunter’s adventure we are locked in to a mysterious group who aim to destroy the barrier between Hell and the human world and it’s up to the organization known as DARKCOM to stop these demons from invading our world. Caught in the middle is the cocky demon hunter Dante who also happens to be the son of Sparda, the demon who created the barrier in the first place. This is wholly non-canon so nothing that happens here hurts anything that’s been established in the multiple parts of this action franchise. That should be a good thing too because it’s rather mid for me.
The bad news about this series is that it had a good start but floundered towards the end. The plot had some unnecessary stuff and also some unnecessary drama has been tacked in to make the story longer and justify the eight episodes in this season. If you ask me though, this could have been done in 6 episodes at most.
I actually understand why fans hated the ending for the season but at the same time, I think that it was a good season finale which did not bode well for our her Dante and the denizens in “Hell”. It did open the opportunity to introduce another integral character for Dante’s story and one that only appeared for a brief second in the first episode. It did take some bit of mental gymnastics to understand why Dante ended up the way he did considering he pretty much.
Character Designs
Character designs for the demons and Dante and even Vergil himself were true to the source material well most of them anyway. I’m actually surprised how much they nailed the look for some of the notable baddies from Dante’s rogues gallery from the various DMC games including Agni and Rudra, the two demons who become Dante’s twin blades in Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening.
In this show however we get these two twins having heads which was something thats not in the game but again this is non-canon. Was nice to see their weapons too which Dante uses in the DMC 3 and Devil May Cry 5.
Music
Evanescence and Limp Bizkit takes the cake when it comes to music. Bizkit’s “Rollin” gets the top bill as the anime’s opening theme which I felt was a really solid job.
Some of the not-so-good stuff for me about the series:
- Lady has been so skewered from the source material. Now called “Mary Arkham” and rather than giving us a bounty hunting badass we get this weird elite forces captain with clear trauma who later in the season gets more trauma. It’s also a big slap in the face that she’s not using her signature weapon, Kalina Ann, for most of the season. Instead she goes about nailing demons with anti-devil bullets and twin pistols. How lame is that. Have they actually seen Lady in action?
- I have mixed reactions with the character Enzo one part he was annoying and another part he was a fun character. Depends on you but for me, he was veering more towards annoying.
- The whole US invading Hell angle works but is a little irritating to me, but I guess that was the reaction they were after.
- That ending really sucked if you take it at face value.
- We really need to get a consistent look for Dante’s devil form. It’s a little vexing that every game we’re getting a new look at the MC’s devil form and the Netflix one is another version entirely. I get that it’s an alternate take and a non-canon story but could they have just picked out an already existing form? Not to mention, his devil form’s a little weak here.
