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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Devilman: The Classic Collection

Japanese: デビルマン

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 5

Chapters: 53

Status: Finished

Published: Jun 11, 1972 to Jun 24, 1973

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Supernatural

Themes: Mythology, Psychological, Super Power

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Magazine (Weekly)

Authors: Nagai, Go (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.03¹ (scored by 25,413 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #720²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #302

Members: 59,494

Favorites: 3,517

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Reviews

Filtered Results: 21 / 32

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Apr 11, 2015

Dokubachi

Recommended

Considered to be the author's most iconic work, Devilman has created certain standards for works to come after it and could be considered a pioneer in that respect. However, it is questionable how well can it cope with the tastes of today and not be cast aside as a mere superheroic work with horror elements.

One of the weakest and probably most prominent aspects is its artwork; which could repel readers immediately. However, there is more than meets the eye in this clunky and out-of-place cartoon-ish style. Emotional overtones simply ooze out of panels, while anatomical accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of distorted depictions ...

Oct 15, 2009

RogerZaraki

Recommended

Preliminary (20/53 chp)

What can I say? I love DEVILMAN!!!!

The story is epic! Demons lived on Earth many years ago, before being chased out by cavemen, God and the Angels, before Satan betrays them and saves several demons! Akira and Ryu two best friends decide to prevent the apocalypse to be caused by the demons! In that moment...both their lives change forever as Akira turns into DEVILMAN!!!

The series is filled with violence, gore, nudity, destruction and some disturbing images. The series is filled with great characters, awesome story lines, and some pretty incredible stuff!

What are ya waiting for? Go read DEVILMAN!!!!

Then check out its sequel...Jack...VIOLENCE JACK!!!

Nov 5, 2017

therubdown

Recommended

Set at an ever increasing, feverish pace, Devilman is a flawed masterpiece. I find this incredibly hard to rate, because it's simply all over the place. It's easily finished within three or four hours, it feels like a two films, one set in a reasonable setting, and the second in a dream.

The framework for universe is great. There are rules, they make enough sense to be believable, and there's an attempt to adhere to these rules. Simple enough. It mixes in a few genres, and what it attempts in the early chapters works. There's the familiar shounen ... school setting, a timid boy given powers who becomes more confident (though in Devilman's case, simply becomes rad over night), and he's given a clear goal to work with. Mystery is woven in, along with horror and the very occasional bit of humor, and I was hooked.

The art is great and only improves throughout, coupled with some fantastic panel flow that gives a pretty visceral sense of the action. There's some no holds barred frames scattered throughout the entire series that stick with me, along with one of the creepiest images I've ever seen in a horror manga. There's nothing to complain about here. It works, and it works well.

What I find the most interesting about Devilman is there's not a single part that doesn't have issues, yet it somehow works despite its parts. For instance, the characters almost don't matter. They're pretty stereotypical, and with only five volumes you never truly get a sense of who they are. Go Nagai didn't take time with this story, never really giving it a pace that makes sense. The first couple of chapters happen sequentially, but after that, time can be skipped in huge chunks with only a small bit of exposition later to explain how long it has been, if any exposition is given at all. Many times, details are dropped and seemingly forgotten, without any explanation that I'm aware of. Still, I don't care, because the cohesion is great.

The ending, which takes up pretty much the last two novels, is a whirlwind. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll be vague, but the tone and scope shift so much, it basically becomes another genre. Before I read Devilman or anything related to it, I'd already heard about the ending, which it's quite famous for, and understandably so.

Devilman simply knows what it is. Go Nagai had some concepts in mind, enough to string a narrative along to reach an end goal, and he did just that. The story has very few frills. It doesn't slow down to explore anything beyond the main point, and that is a bit sad to me. I would have liked to have seen more from the world he was building, for him to take some time to attach us to the characters and give it another edge to the punches he knows how to throw. Still, despite it's questionable pacing and character issues, it's easy to see the genius at work here, and ultimately, Devilman is a ballsy, weird, and fun ride.

Jul 22, 2021

inDit

Recommended

Fear.

Fear is a natural defensive mechanism that has been bastardized by our incredible intellect to become our greatest enemy, turning us against ourselves and others.

What was a device to protect our physical self has expanded to protect our psychological self as well with the protection of our ego now playing the greatest role. This causes us to lie, to cheat, to bully, to placate, to hide ourselves, to accept lies, to ignore truths, to dish out shit and take shit, to do so many bizarre and negative things in life. The fear of humiliation, the fear of not fitting in, the fear of being true ...

Aug 23, 2012

tatabox

Recommended

Preliminary (20/53 chp)

Well, i just finished reading Devilman and I'm quite intrigued with Nagai. I had never read anything by him, but as soon as I learned that he's one of those authors that (re)defined several manga genres, I decided to read him, starting with Devilman.

This manga is about a war between humans and demons. In Devilman these demons were the dominanting species living on earth before humans. They are suddently trapped in ice during an ice age, without demons to prey on humans, humanity is able to develop into current society. Devilman's plot starts when demons are discovered to be alive in the ice, and start ...

Apr 14, 2023

flufferpupper

Recommended

Devilman is one of the most important and compelling manga of all time and it is absolutely imperative that everyone reads it at some point. It has undeniable flaws, to the point that the story feels laughably silly at times, but this is part of Devilman's charm. Beyond its goofy exterior lies a beautiful and thoughtful story about the nature of humanity and the apocalypse.

Devilman is much more plot driven than character driven, illustrated by its small cast of characters. First is our protagonist, Devilman, a.k.a. Akira Fudou, a powerful half-demon with a human heart who wishes to protect humanity from the oncoming demon invasion. ...

Nov 8, 2018

felipefelix

Recommended

I'm going to start this review by writing the story behind my motivations on getting to read Devilman's in the first place. I knew Devilman already. It is a very famous character and the image I had about him in my mind was that goofy demon in underwear. That image of him was something that distanced me from the series for years! However, Netflix started promoting this new series called Devilman Crybaby and it seemed to have interesting visuals. Combining these with some great opinions from my Japanese friends I decided to give it a try BUT I knew that Crybaby had to have some ...

Jan 12, 2018

Gundroog

Recommended

Devilman at its most basic is an action horror manga, and not a particularly tasteful one cause Nagai seems to have been more interested in how far he can take things rather than how well can he do it. There is a lot of over the top violence in this, characters get their limbs torn off, they get cut in half, heads get decapitated and at the same time Nagai with in some sex jokes and random nudity. Despite the attempts at being shocking, in the year of 2000 and 18 it's anything but. Since the 70s there have been so many movies, comics and ... video games that are filled with over the top violence and gore that when you see the stuff that goes on in Devilman it's hardly impressive. The simplistic art style doesn't help it cause it's too cartoony to take anything seriously. It reminds me of Leiji Matsumoto and his characters straight out of a gag manga trying to look all sad and depressed. It just looks dumb and silly most of the time. I find it harder to empathize with the characters in what would otherwise be a very grim and depressing situation when they look like caricatures more than anything. On occasion the manga has some quite cool, dynamic and emotional panels and spreads that look quite memorable but otherwise it's pretty sloppy with a lot of nearly pitch black panels and scarce drawings.

The art style though is not the only reason that keeps the manga from being all that emotionally impactful as majority of it lies in the writing. For the time it came out the idea of Devilman was fresh and unique, in a way such a story is still rare cause we don't often get an anti-war message that condemns both sides and instead of doing the part where everything is spelled out it takes things to the absolute extreme and makes you watch what it leads to instead of looking away. That's a large chunk of the reason I gave it a 7, that and the pacing and some humor occasionally. That's about it for the good things I had to say about the story, the rest of it is rather garbage. To start off the characters are awful, even Ryo and Akira are barely defined so watching them do anything is boring, at least Ryo's craziness from time to time can be entertaining. With main characters being wet sponges you can probably imagine how good the side characters are. For a manga that tries to be shocking you need characters the audience would care about, you can't just shove a little girl we know nothing about into the story and have her do nothing for two pages and then she's dead and it's a very dramatic and sad moment that this girl is dead at such a young age. Why even bother trying to set it up at that point. This applies to any character, even Miki is a nobody, go ahead and try to describe who she is as a person, I tried and all I can come up with is that she's a tomboy who's into confident, domineering men yet she's bizarrely important for the plot and probably single most "impactful" moment of the manga relies on you caring about her and her relationship with Akira than never even really happened.

Overall, if you don't look at it too closely, it's just a short, fun schlock manga that to this day has some bold plot points that's probably worth a read but it's no masterpiece and it's not as impactful or dramatic as it tries to be

Dec 28, 2013

Imperade

Recommended

Preliminary (20/53 chp)

It's very easy to be turned off to Go Nagai's 1972 work titled Devilman, as it is likely that most people who will ever end up hearing about Devilman will be watching it any form but it's original manga presentation. If I were reviewing any of the different translations of Devilman to anime or OVA, it would be undoubtedly a harsh review - even if I still relatively enjoy those works for their quirkiness and inadequacies. However, the charm of Devilman becomes nearly completely lost in it's other forms, as it's positives only truly become apparent and shine in it's manga form.

One has to ... keep in mind that Devilman is in no sense a perfect manga, especially by today's standards. Don't expect a manga made in 1972 to be able to somehow compete alongside the manga of today, because it just won't. However, from a historical perspective, Devilman (and really all of Go Nagai's works from this period) are intensely influential and groundbreaking in their creation of niche manga genres. Devilman's appeal really comes primarily in two forms: The influential, and the thematic. Reading Devilman after reading so many clearly influenced works, generates an odd feeling of nostalgia for something I've never read before - a truly interesting experience that keeps occurring as I now attempt to rummage through Go Nagai's classics.

It isn't simple enough to say a manga like Berserk was influenced by Devilman, as it's far more complicated then that. Devilman itself is a product of several factors: mythology/religion, modern human war, and man itself. The whole narrative of Devilman is swallowed by the mythology and interpretations of Satan, God, Angels, and Demons. There is a charm to a piece like this that attempts to practically insert itself into the canon of such a well-known and already constructed mythology - Devilman is basically a potential ending branch of these tales it bases itself from. This isn't unique to Devilman, surely, but the manner in which it does this is quite in-depth for such an early manga, and still keeps my interest. While one can still get a mild sense of this in the OVAs, the depth by which Go Nagai plunges into these biblical references just doesn't become felt at all. The story may feel rushed or cheap to some by the end, by I find it actually incredibly entertaining and consistent with the theme of the work. The experience isn't hindered by it's age either, if not further defined and interesting, as it's thematic discussion on the nature of humankind remains forever relevant.

The art by today's standard is rather hit or miss, as many of the character designs either come off as annoying or missing detail. It's not as bad as some chapters of Hunter x Hunter, luckily, but it rarely comes gloss to touching the detail of panels found in Berserk. I understand that's a pretty vague and huge range, but I would personally put Devilman a bit closer to Berserk for it's attempts at drawing just morbid demon designs (One of my favorite part of any mangas, to be honest) The art gets better as it goes along, at least in my opinion, especially in the last two volumes. Some characters just don't work for, and bother me every-time I have to look at them. Ryo's head and hair just NEVER seem to look decent in ANY of the panels Nagai makes, which is practically the only thing that is remedied in the OVAs.

Discussion and pondering about Go Nagai's works and their potential influences is endlessly entertaining to me, and it empowers Devilman with greater character even now. Still, even for it's time, I find Devilman to be a great first attempt at a future age of violent, controversial, and unorthodox manga. It may have ended abruptly, but the echos of it's efforts likely still ring true through many manga to this day.

Oct 11, 2024

Mara2463

Recommended

Devilman – Spoiler Free – Recommended

TLDR
Story – 6/10 – 6 x 0.275 = 1,65
Art – 3/10 – 3 x 0.2 = 0,6
Characters – 5/10 – 5 x 0.225 = 1,125
Enjoyment – 7/10 – 7 x 0.3 = 2,1
Total: 5,474 -> 5

Story – 6/10
Devilman’s story is one-of-a-kind. It can be closely separated into two parts: the first half and the second half, being both very different from each other. The first part begins with the monster of the weak trope and also serves to present the story's main characters – but where things don't quite happen, and the story is at a standstill. In the ... second half, however, we see a clear development in this story both in terms of scale and speed. Devilman is a short story with only five volumes, but they were able to encompass both a quite boring story – the first half – and an engaging and interesting narrative in the second half. Without a doubt, the former only serves to support and give context to the latter, where things truly happen.
The story also has some romance – although it is given no relevance other than creating a character that idolises the main character – Fudou Akira.
One great aspect of Devil Man is the excellent ending. Nothing in the manga points towards a happy ending, and it does not force itself to do so. The ending feels natural, logical, and meaningful.
This, however, doesn't mean that the manga is bulletproof when it comes to believability: there are several leaps of faith and a true lack of vraisemblance throughout the manga – mostly in the second half, unfortunately. This is a major reason why the story has the rating it has. In general, this story is only worth it from the middle point onwards. If only the first half were better, and some leaps of faith resolved, this would have been a great manga.

Art – 3/10
Art is not Devilman's strongest point. In fact, and although functional and good enough for a decent character design, there are panels that are simply dull and ugly, with very few truly good panels.

Characters – 5/10
Devilman’s Characters are memorable: although they are mostly archetypal, they have their own charm. In this case, I'm only referring to the three main characters: Akira, Ryo and Miki. The rest are completely forgettable: even the demons aren't memorable, for they are overshadowed by fight scenes and their human counterparts. Devilman is also short, and thus character development is not the manga's strong point.

Enjoyment – 7/10
It’s hard to talk about Devilman without talking about the enjoyment that the manga gives. In the end, I must recommend it for the simple reasons that it is a classic – and, in some sense, understandably so –, it's short – which minimizes some of its flaws –, and it gets increasingly better over time. If there is any other reason to recommend it, I believe that the ending should be enough: and it doesn't take that much effort to get there. Plus: after all, it is a pleasant and entertaining read. I was also quite hesitant to recommend this over a mixed feelings stamp because although it's a good manga to read, there are some fundamental problems with the narrative, as well as specific episodes that undermine the fundamental foundations of the story – and those cannot be ignored. Never did the expression Deus Ex Machina make more sense than in some instances of Devilman. It is for these reasons that I believe that it is better for you – the reader – to decide if it is worthy enough of being remembered. And memory, in the end, should be the main goal of every good story.

May 18, 2024

Biisoo

Recommended

This manga was way ahead of it's time, Like I'm honestly in awe at how Nagai Go sensei managed to make a story as unique and captivating as he did back in 1972, which stands the test of time and is still such a brilliant piece of media to this day.

I'll highlight some things about this manga. First and foremost, It is some of the most brutal and grotesque stuff you'll ever read/see so be warned if you can't stomach that stuff. It has ALOT of gore and nudity.

The art is really unique and quirky and has a certain feel to it. It's extremely edgy ...

Jan 29, 2021

JuneNephthys

Recommended

Despite using "devil" in the prefix of the name and the "-man" suffix, this manga is not about Satanism, nor is it about superheroes! The generic moniker is used on the cover of a story that is a classic tale of good versus evil, right versus wrong, it also personifies the outlook of Japanese citizens, after their loss in World War II. Think about the battle with Silene as an example of wartime commentary, and boy, is it a hard-hitter! Devilman (1972) is a story that you'll be thinking about for years!

※Bonus: The hulking omnibus of Devilman's hardcover edition, distributed by Seven Seas, is gorgeous ...

Jan 1, 2021

Bookworm86

Recommended

Overall, I enjoyed reading the series Devilman.

I liked the manga, mainly due to the compelling storyline and the characters. The story could be a bit predictable in parts, but overall, I was generally surprised. I also had to remember that this was written in the 70's, not recently (this is the first manga that I have read that hasn't been written before the 1990's and beyond).

My dislikes for the manga, was that it seemed that while it had a good story to it, at times it did seem to be fast paced (especially towards the end). But, I guess that's what you ...

Mar 6, 2022

giffica

Recommended

The strength of Go Nagai's creativity shines all throughout Devilman. From the interesting Devil designs, to the well executed portrayal of action Devilman is a riveting experience from start to finish, with well written characters, and an exciting trip leading into an increasingly crescendo-ing storyline. Far more consistent than Demonlord Dante, which, I should note, is my least favorite manga of all time, Devilman puts together the threads that Go Nagai attempted to spin in Dante, but failed to execute with any clarity. With this work, Nagai stays far more constrained in a Judeo-Christian framework, helping to reinforce the narrative strength that is lost in ...

Aug 17, 2022

Protocultured

Recommended

With a franchise as big and as long lasting (50 years!) as Go Nagai's Devilman, the usual questions of why and how the series got so popular are omnipresent, especially to a western audience who doesn't see it's impact in the same way that they do franchises like Dragon Ball or Evangelion. Devilman is, in fact, a series that doesn't need it's future legacy as a crutch.

What still stands out after 50 years of Devilman is how angry it is. Not it's edginess or it's violence (though there's plenty of both), but how it's brisk pace and selective narrative at points feel like more ... like a screed - unfocused rage at first, and later on a damnnation of mankind as a whole. It's a deeply unhappy story where, as the stakes rise, so does abject suffering and inhumanity. Both main characters Akira and Ryo's involvement in fighting demons very quickly morphs their well-mannered selves into irritable husks who are constantly trying to quash the next demon-fueled existential threat. Humanity is shown as paranoid, easily influenced, quick to anger, and generally bigoted. 50 years later, it's as palpable as ever.

Something that may throw people off is very minimal context to the world around Devilman - the world shifts multiple times with a single line of exposition, concepts and characters are introduced and concluded with very little context surrounding them and characters will make seemingly huge plans that are often executed in between chapters. One major character development is so quickly brushed over that it almost makes me question it's inclusion at all, especially how little it is utilized afterwards. In the grand scheme I'd argue it mostly works to Devilman's benefit as a bitter, unrelenting story - but undoubtedly this is the result of a story that was clearly serialized with broader ideas in mind at the start.

You can't mention Devilman without mentioning the extreme amounts of gore. The demons that Akira fights are grotesque, screaming abominations with the ability to combine into one another to unsettling results. The female form is often used in particular to create some fairly disturbing walking body horror (read: boobies with gaping maws). Perhaps more defining to Devilman is the gore - any devil actually killed is given an often fiery, always gruesome death - be it torn in half, limbs ripped off, or squashed, every demon Akira kills feels like an immensely visceral victory. This of course, pales in comparison to the human butchering throughout the series, which, without going into too much detail, is more graphic and at points genuine body horror. It isn't all about the grotesque of course - the grander, biblical-scale creation and destruction present throughout the series (especially the opening chapters) are in equal measure devastating and beautiful.

This review being as short as it is is a testament to the burst of rage that Devilman is as a whole - at a lean five volumes composed of about five chapters each, there's very little breathing room. While it may have benefited from a longer story with more worldbuilding and character development, as it stands it feels oddly personal, as if Go Nagai was reflecting on what he perceived as the inherent folly of human nature. It's a hard story not to recommend given how succinct it all is - if you're okay with going to some very dark places.

Mar 31, 2022

TheStupidWolf

Recommended

Devilman, I'll say it right away, is not a manga for everyone, the writing and the scripts are flawed, unripe, outdated and can easily throw you off if you are used to modern works. Personally, once I got used to the type of writing and to read between the lines, the story became more fluid.

In 1972 during a period of enormous political tensions, between the black struggle for civil rights in the United States and the Vietnam War which was now at its peak, in a Japan that knows the consequences of war all too well, Devilman comes to life.

What Go Nagai does, that had ...

Feb 4, 2025

Kotinos

Recommended

T L D R :

Go Nagai is a fucking visionary genius. This shit is mindblowing. The movies are good too, if for some reason you can't binge all 1300 pages of this insane divinely inspired goodness OR just want more of it in motion. Devilman: Crybaby, the netflix show, is some of the hottest steamiest dogshit I have EVER had the displeasure of watching and an affront to good taste and the senses and probably so is everything else except the tv series which I will NEVER watch. READ THIS SHIT. GO NAGAI GO!!!

FIN.

Devilman is probably the most foundational manga of ...

Jun 14, 2022

Dotanuki

Recommended

Go Nagai wrote and drew it in 1972 and thank God there was no comic code in Japan at the time unlike America.

Today's many comics and manga can't hold a candle on Devilman, it's amazing. Akira Fudo let his best friend Ryo put a devil in him with a black sabbath rituel so he could fight against devils who recently started to awake from their ice age slumber, and they were humanities arch enemies, what preyed on humans. Only Akira had what it takes to control the devil inside him so he merged with a devil and with the devils powers, he fought against other ...

Jan 14, 2023

Gnomo0942

Recommended

82/100

Devilman is a really good manga that suffers from a weird childish character design which I did not like at all, but the story and the themes it deals with are great and they definitely make up for it. The characters of Ryo and Akira are amazingly-written and the plot twist is so good and has so much symbolism put into it (I already knew it, unfortunately, because I already watched the Devilman Crybaby Netflix anime, but it was still great to read). I recommend it, but the best Devilman-related work is the Devilman Crybaby anime. It is my favorite anime of all time, and ...

May 7, 2025

Final_Verdict

Recommended

While there’s no shortage of manga that influenced many of the great creators we love today, none are quite as foundational as Devilman, by Go Nagai. Its legacy is solidified in dozens—if not probably hundreds—of modern titles that have all taken creative inspiration from the story. If Dragon Ball and Fist of the North Star are the fathers of modern shonen, then Devilman is its grandfather—the progenitor of subversive, superhero action manga with literary ambition, even if it doesn’t always have the most rounded way of depicting said ambition.

So what is Devilman about? Admittedly it’s a very simple story; Akira Fudo, crybaby high ... schooler, is convinced by his bad-boy best friend Ryo Asuka to merge with a demon and become a Devilman to defeat all of demonkind, which poses a threat to humanity. From there (for the first half), the story is one action setpiece after the next, with Akira meeting and defeating various demons and suffering various losses.

This is crucial: Devilman blends many genres, but is mainly a tragedy, and that alone sets it apart from the generations of shonen it helped inspire. There’s no triumphant climax, no neat resolution—just a profound sense of loss that lingers in ways modern stories rarely attempt, let alone achieve. Unlike the first half, the second half narrows focus on something more cohesive; it’s a look at humanity’s tendency toward violence, and there are two major things at play, here, in constructing that. Firstly, Devilman makes direct use of Christian theology (as you’d maybe expect with the title, right?) with borrowing parts of its plot with the book of Genesis and the book of Revelations, evoking the Biblical ‘end times,’ as Satan’s armies clash with Heaven’s in a bid for dominion over Earth. This was a groundbreaking element of the story at the time—I can only speculate, but in 1972, Christian ideas in a Japanese work must’ve been REALLY unique. The second major thing at play here, and what’s much more Japanese, is the obvious nuclear anxiety present in the narrative. Devilman deals with the idea of mass hysteria begetting mass destruction, which was a pervasive fear in the 20th century (and remains relevant today, which I’m sure you know unless you live under a rock), and more specifically is the imagery of nuclear explosions, ICBMs, fighter jets, tanks, and armed soldiers encroaching on civilian life—people killing each other and enacting witch hunts under the guise of destroying the “demons,” or the ideological “other.” When you pick the manga up for the first time, you can get sort of lost in how silly and gory it is, but then halfway through you’re confronted with an intricate and detailed artistic expression of fear at humanity’s tendency toward war. This imagery is so, so effective, so haunting to see in a work you’d first think is just goofy looking demons and bloody fights. You can feel really Nagai’s intentions in his penstrokes.

These elements working together; the Christian doctrine, the war anxiety, mixes wonderfully with the unique mix of genres (horror, action, dark fantasy, and political thriller) to frame Devilman as a story about very universal things; conflict, the fall from grace, betrayal, destruction. It’s all very common today, but credit where it’s due in the works that pioneered such things, right? I was often impressed and engrossed while reading.

But look, it’s not perfect. The first half of the story is marred with the conventions of its time, and while Nagai’s art style is unique and expressive, it’s very dated. Like, he had a hell of a time keeping his perspective and proportions consistent, and when you’re so used to modern works looking, on the whole, mathematically precise, it can be jarring. From panel to panel, any one character can be seen with their eyes either too close together or too far apart, too small or too big. Arms and legs suffer from Laffy Taffy syndrome, sometimes being too long, crooked, cocked at odd angles, and other times too short or poorly shaped. Nagai has quite an aptitude for full-page spreads, though, effortlessly contrasting black with white, and bringing loads of detail into blood/gore especially. It all just comes with the territory. An era of simpler imagery, and before digital touch ups.

What of the characters? Akira and Ryo are the codifying archetypes of cool, edgy anime boys, and often it’s corny as hell—but if you allow Devilman to take hold as you read it, you grow to love them, and you feel their loss. Miki, Akira’s love interest, is hard to take seriously and I wouldn’t fault anyone for feeling like she’s the most dated element of the story. But again, if you allow Devilman in as you read (which I would consider different than simply suspending your disbelief), you may grow to like her and all her quirks too, making the pain and catharsis (or lack thereof) of the ending that much harder, and consequently, more effective.

Before we part, I wanted to contextualize Devilman’s legacy, here, because the list of mainstream, recognizable works that have been molded by Nagai’s influence just feels endless to me:

• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (stone mask, blond antagonist),
• Fist of the North Star (apocalyptic stakes),
• Evangelion (Christian imagery, also apocalyptic stakes),
• Berserk (betrayal of a dark, gruff protagonist by a beautiful antagonist),
• Tokyo Ghoul, Attack on Titan, Chainsaw Man (themes of monstrous identity, political undertones, oh, and also Christian imagery and apocalyptic stakes)

…and I’m not even counting how many new works THESE titles have inspired as well, creating a sort of family tree of anime and manga that can all be traced back to Go Nagai.

Seeing how many titles of acclaim are directly downwind of Devilman’s influence puts many things about the medium and industry into perspective in a way you wouldn’t grasp unless you liked manga enough to study its origins. These things are worth knowing, and Devilman is worth appreciating for giving us many of the incredible stories we have today.

So to finally finish out, do I recommend Devilman? Absolutely. It’s very much a product of its time, but what isn’t? That makes it even more relevant today, in an ironic way. We’re living in the true golden age of entertainment, where there’s no shortage of things to watch and read. But because of that, more and more things are obviously derivative. Devilman is the kind of work that you’ll read and go, “oh, I saw this element in —insert other story here—, but in seeing how transformative all these more modern creators have been with Nagai’s ideas, it only makes the history of the medium that much richer.

	
		OSZAR »