He’s the Original Devilman!: Devilman

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!  Sunday is here, and that means the start of this year’s Flashback February!  I feel there’s not much to really talk about at this point.  If you read my announcement Thursday, you know what I’ll be talking about today.  So without any further adieu, let’s talk about the first show for this year’s Flashback February, the original Devilman.
At the pilot’s first moments, a collection of devils are tasked with going out and destroying humanity.  One of them is Devilman (yes, ladies and gentlemen, his name really is Devilman).  While hiking in the mountains, Akira Fudo and his father are caught up in an accident, leaving them exposed to the devils.  Devilman wins in a brutal fight with the others and takes over Akira’s body.  The Devilman possessed Akira later returns to live with the Makimura family, where he becomes smitten with the oldest daughter Miki.  He becomes distracted by this attraction, which grabs the attention of his superiors.  Feeling that Devilman has betrayed his kind, various devils come after him to bring him back or kill him.  Much of the series from there involves Devilman battling various devils with the intent of protecting Miki.
Like I said in the announcement post, I kind of dropped the ball in getting things ready for Flashback February.  So looking back, I think I could have watched more of this show than I did.  Still, with what I did see, I got a pretty good gist of the show.  And so I give Devilman a 6.5 out of ten rating.  I was actually expecting a lot from this show, so I’ll admit I was a little disappointed with what I saw.  But more on that later.  Let’s focus on what was good.  For one, the show seemed to have a monster of the week vibe to it with each episode having its own devil that Akira had to face.  This by itself was pretty entertaining and and served the series’ main source of action.  What I also wasn’t expecting was this superhero theme to it.  I never got the impression that Devilman was supposed to be a superhero, but that’s how the series seems to treat him.  And while I’ll admit these are pretty dated, I think that these elements are good.  So overall, there were a lot of plot elements that were pretty entertaining and are sure to keep anyone’s interest up.
On the whole though, while there were some great elements that kept things entertaining and wholesome, I could tell that the creators of the show were holding back.  Prior to this show, I had never seen any of the shows or OVAs or even read the manga that all of the previous adaptations were based on.  Based on what I had research prior to that however, I expected a lot more gore and violence.  So on the one hand, I can understand that a lot of that had to be left out.  But on the other hand, it does leave a very, very, very watered-down version of the show that seems to miss its mark.  Another thing that really seemed to baffle me about the show was Akira’s-or rather Devilman himself’- motivation, that being his love for Miki.  His love for her really seems random.  It happens so quickly and so sporadically that it almost makes no sense.  Even though they give a backstory to this, it still just seems kind of random.  But like I said, while parts of the story flop in some places, there are parts that are pretty well done.  And for what was done with this show was one hell of a devil!
So yeah, for all that I can say wasn’t in this show that should’ve been, the original Devilman was, like I said, one hell of a show.  And so, that ends part one of Flashback February.  Part two will be here two weeks from now; like I said, next week, I will be out of town on business and won’t be doing a post then.  So until then, stay tuned for more!


-Hanime on Anime

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