Devilman (1972) vs. Devilman Crybaby: Which Is Better?
Greetings, fabulous peoples! Welcome to part three of my Devilman-themed Flashback February! For this week’s post, I’m doing something
that I hadn’t done in a pretty long time: a Vs.
post! As many of you may know, with
these posts, I take two series, characters, and even manga series and see which
one was better. In this latest Vs. post, I’m taking the two Devilman shows I reviewed for Flashback
February and seeing which one was a devil of a show. And for those who’ve seen Crybaby, I know what you’re thinking, but
keep quiet for now. With that said,
let’s duel it out with the original Devilman
series and Devilman Crybaby!
First Up: Devilman (1972)
First up on the chopping block is
the original 1972 series. If you read my
review on it earlier in the month, the premises of the show is pretty much a
kaiju series. The series ran from 1972
to 1973 for about forty episodes. And I
will admit, I did not watch the entire series due to time restraints, but I did
spoil the ending for myself…and am about to spoil it to you, my readers. In the final episode, Akira reveals his identity
as Devilman to his love interest Miki Makamura, and the two pretty much live
happily ever after. The show in general
was pretty simple but entertaining nonetheless.
What the Original Has
Much like what I said in my review,
at the very core of the original series, it’s a monster of the week show, with
maybe a little superhero show in the mix.
This, I thought, was actually pretty good and seemed to carry some of
the spirit of the story in that Akira would be fighting demons (or devils for
this series). I also liked that the
series does end on a happy note; Miki accepts Akira for who he is and they
seemingly have a relationship afterwards.
While I’ll admit I’m a sucker for happy endings, I think that the idea
of the Devilman story ending on a happy
note for me isn’t a bad one.
Like I said, the show, at its core,
is very simple. And for what it’s worth,
it’s not that bad.
What the Original Doesn’t Have
I could tell right away that a lot
of the original story from the manga was left out. And that’s where the original series
unfortunately suffers. I will give the
show some credit that it was made back in the ‘70s. And while I’m no expert on Japanese
broadcasting at that time, it’s understandable that some things couldn’t be
shown on T.V. But even with that in
mind, it’s still pretty lacking. There’s
also one big area that suffers in the series, and that’s Akira himself. Based on what research I did on the
franchise, Akira was supposed to be a very weak person (physically speaking)
prior to him being possessed by Amon. But
in the original series, we never get the opportunity to really meet Akira; we
don’t know anything about him before he’s possessed. So in the original, we get the impression
that he was always a jerk who seemed to always be looking for a fight. Another big story element that was really off
in the original series was Akira’s love for Miki. In the series, it’s Amon (or rather Devilman)
who falls in love with Miki. Wasn’t it
supposed to be Akira who’s always had the crush on Miki? Yeah, even for the Japanese dub, this really
seemed to be mistranslated. It’s hard to
deny that the original was lacking in a lot of areas, and the fact that Crybaby picked up a lot of slack from what was left behind. Speaking of which…
Next Up: Devilman Crybaby
Now let’s dive into Devilman Crybaby. If you read my review on it last week, you
can tell that the stories of both series were vastly different. In fact, it actually follows the manga to a
tee. I think because of this as well as
some darker elements, a lot of people have regarded it as one of the best shows
of the winter 2018 season. Many have
even called it the anime of 2018. I
think it’s too soon to make that call, but it was fantastic nonetheless.
What Crybaby Has
Comparing the original and Crybaby is like comparing night and
day. Crybaby
was far darker, far grittier, and far more sexually explicit than its
predecessor. The biggest difference
between the two, like I said, is that it follows the manga almost exactly. And this is coming from someone who has never
read the manga and only knows about it through simple research. And that’s saying a lot. You get all of the characters from the manga in
there. I think it was also clever to add
a modern twist with the show by adding the use of social media by the
characters. It was a pretty important
element to the show, particularly towards the end. I also thought the biblical references later
on in the series were a nice addition as well.
And again, it becomes extremely important towards the end. Overall, everything was just done
better.
What Crybaby Doesn’t Have
I’ll admit it’s hard to say what Devilman Crybaby didn’t have compared to the original
series. What this section should really
be called is “What did Crybaby Do
Wrong.” The show may have been
spectacular, but it wasn’t perfect. I
talked about some of these in my review last week, but one thing that I did
want to elaborate on more in particular was the sex scenes. Like I said before, I didn’t have any problems
with them, but have you ever noticed that after a sex scene something really
goofy or violent happens? The violent
portions are not the problem, it’s the goofy ones that are. I’ve already talked about the masterbating
girl who brays like a donkey in the second episode, but then there’s Akira
cumming Scary Movie style after a wet dream with him and Miki and then we get
treated to Sex de Soliel after Akira has sex with the demon Sirene. I felt the creators were blatantly trying to
hide the fact that there were sex scenes in the show. Now some could argue that there was a purpose
to this, but for me, it’s a major distraction.
Also like I mentioned last week, Akira’s crying after he’s possessed
seemed ridiculous and it at times made little sense to have them. There were some instances when Akira fought
as Devilman where the crying scenes worked, but more often than not, they came
off as really weird and hilarious.
Seriously, I laughed at these scenes more than I sympathized.
Another big problem with Crybaby was the pacing at the end. In spite of my earlier comment, one thing
that Crybaby didn’t have was enough
time to wrap the series up. What do I
mean by this? Well, for those who watched
the series all the way through, did you notice that the last fifteen minutes of
the last episode seem rushed? I sure
did. We get to meet an entire army of
Devilmen and get to see a demon who had a presence in the show but had very
little development. I think it would
have been reasonable to have at least one or two episodes to wrap things up. But in the end, it seemed very rushed
through, cause Lord knows we had to see those final moments of the series!
And the winner is…Devilman Crybaby!
Yeah, I think this
would come as a surprise to no one that Crybaby
was the better series. When you get
down to it, Crybaby just had the
better story. Granted, I won’t say the
original was terrible. Far from it. There were elements from the original that I
liked including the kaiju style and happy ending. But at the end of the day, Crybaby had the better story. And typically, that’s always going to put it
ahead.
So what do you
think? Did you think Devilman Crybaby was better (why
wouldn’t you)? Were there things you
liked from the original? And am I the
only one bothered with how Crybaby tries
to laugh off its sex scenes (looking at you Sex de Soile)? Let me hear your thoughts on it! Now as for Character of the Month. After giving it some thought, I decided to
post that as a Talkative Thursday post.
And given that this Thursday will be the first day of March, it seems
rather fitting. So until then, stay
tuned!
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