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Netflix Devil May Cry review

I've taken a break from the overall discourse and replayed Devil May Cry 3 to get the bad taste out of my mouth and I've come to a realization, there are aspects of this show that could have been used to make a great Devil May Cry story...for Nero.

(Breathes in)

The Terrible Shit.

God there is so much stuff in this show that was flatly terrible to include from the outset and I'm gonna need to clear that out from discussion to move forward so...here goes.

The deliberate and blatant allegories for the Iraq War and immigration were terrible ideas and it's pretty clear that they were written by someone who was trying to be "neutral" on immigration and superficially against the Iraq War...let me explain

Immigration

The show presents the idea that many of the demons in the demon world are weak humanoids who can barely breathe the air there due to "pollution" of some kind. It also posits that all demons are descended from humans who were trapped in the demon world thousands of years ago so they are practically just cute monster people being oppressed by Mundus and the ugly and monstrous demons who are also seemingly also descended from humans too...I guess. Anyway, to get into the allegory issues, this presents an explicit scenario where some pitiable "demons" try to escape into earth for a better life and some monstrous "demons" try to sneak into earth, seemingly just to kill and maim people...I can't be the only one here who sees how fucked this is as an allegory right. To top it all off there is a scene where the barrier between the human world and the demon world is taken down and it results in a near apocalyptic massacre, which would be fine in a story that just about fighting demons but this is also a story where demons are mutants trying to escape to a better life so the allegory also becomes "open borders will result in white genocide". It's a bad allegory done badly and I couldn't stop thinking about how bad it is. ONTO THE NEXT TERRIBLE ALLEGORY

Operation Iraqi Demonic Makaian Freedom

So beyond the terrible immigration allegory they also threw in some War on Terror comparisons too....yippee. It is never subtle about this, the first episode has the president of the United States get briefed on Terrorist Demons while he complains that the last guy only had to complain about Saddam, There is a scene where the US military engages in mass murder of innocent demonic men, women, and children with machine guns and portable crematoriums, and it ends with the US military invading the demon world, killing everyone indiscriminately, and establishing private resource mining operations to the tune of American Idiot by Green Day.... and I have to be honest, it feels like all of that was justify having a scene where the US military does atrocities to the tune of American Idiot rather than to make any kind of coherent statement about anything. U.S. Military Bad may be a correct statement but what does any of this have to do with Devil May Cry?

The Bad Shit.

Dante feels like a MacGuffin in this story. He does get some of the better fight scenes but he is also constantly getting knocked out and tied up somewhere 4 times in this 8 episode season. This leaves him separated from the rest of the plot and he mostly just has cool action scenes, but little character development or connections to the themes that the story is (poorly) exploring. I also hate to sound like one of the usual suspects but he shows Quicksilver level speed early on in the story but Lady keeps being able to get the drop on him over and over and over to the point that it's just stupid.

The White Rabbit is a fun and well acted villain who is genuinely unique as far as Devil May Cry antagonists go...until he is revealed to be a human with the most bog standard "I am an ally/member of [DISCRIMINATED GROUP] but I was victimized and driven insane by the actions of [DISCRIMINATING GROUP] so now I will kill them all no matter how many [DISCRIMINATED GROUP] I have to kill along the way" type villains. He even gets a massive power boost and becomes a generic hulk monster. There was so much potential with him but he just ends up boring and standard.

They turned Lady into an IDF Soldier...I don't want her to get a redemption arc, I want Dante to knock her out and leave her in a crematorium truck for the rest of the next season.

Changing all the magic into "quantum physics" is boring as all hell. And it isn't even humans trying to use science to explain demonic magic, the demons explicitly say it's quantum physics as well. The games always had some magitek around but it was never explained and mostly just added to the mystique of the locations, making it explicit science ruins that. It's also just boring on its own, makes everything feel less special.

The CGI demons were distracting, they contrasted way too much from the admittedly excellent 2D animation for me to stop noticing it.

I personally found the decision to make all the "innocent" demons into humans with weird bits and all the "evil" demons into monstrous creatures offensive and cowardly for what should be obvious reasons. The only "monstrous" demon that has redeeming qualities is the one that can shape shift into a human.

They overstuff the ending of the season in such a way that I can't see a good and coherent season 2 that can juggle ALL of the plot threads that they create at the last minute. We have:

The US military invading Hell and doing war crimes

Arius and the Oroborous company strip mining hell, likely connecting to Lucia's (whitewashed) cameo in episode one

Vergil either working for Mundus willingly or being brainwashed and creating demonic ISIS

Dante needing to escape DARKCOM's custody and acquire Ebony and Ivory

Lady's redemption arc

Dante and Vergil's rivalry

It's just gonna be a mess.

Nitpicks and fan rage

The demons get offended when their homeworld is called hell or the demon world. Instead they call it Makai....which is Japanese for Demon World. That's just lazy.

Agni & Rudra are objectively worse than they are in the games, being just generic dumb monsters wielding swords rather than being cordial sentient swords wielding bodies.

I don't mind cursing but holy shit does Lady curse too much in this show, to a very distracting degree.

If Dante ever gets serious in this show then I only hear Nero. Sorry, Johnny Yong Bosch is just too iconic for me not to hear it.

Vergil says that he is the storm and then he approaches all over them.....we get that Bury the Light is a fucking magnificent theme but that was fucking ridiculous.

The licensed soundtrack was honestly distracting at times but that's gonna be hot or miss for people.

The Good Shit

The IDEA of there being a larger number of good or benign demons in the demon world is actually an interesting one, and the idea that many would want to go to earth so that they could escape the oppression that they experience in the demon world is something worthy of exploring in Devil May Cry. I can even see an argument that Sparda sealing off the realms did effectively prevent many demons from "waking up to justice" the same way he did. There is even plenty of support for benign and friendly demons in the games and 2007 anime. Cerberus, Agni & Rudri, and arguably Nevan from Devil May Cry 3 are fairly cordial and honorable, they just oppose Dante because it's their duty and willingly join up with him after they are defeated. Brad from the 2007 Anime was summoned to bring his monstrous master into the world but changed his ways after experiencing both love for another as well as the joy and freedom of life on earth. Modeus was a student of Sparda who chose to become a pacifist, seemingly having been on earth long enough to gain preferences about strawberry sundaes. And then there are Trish and Lucia, one only needing a single act of kindness from Dante to completely turn on Mundus and the other being a full demon raised by humans. My main issue with the way the show handled is that it reeks of cowardice and "shitty magneto writing"

The 2D animation is genuinely great giving us fun visuals and great action scenes.

The first few episodes had a lot of fun and energy to them but the severe vibe changes in Episode 5 are gonna make or break the series for a lot of people.

Episode 6 was honestly pretty good even though it felt somewhat out of place in the story, serving primarily to compare and contrast Lady and the White Rabbit's back stories until they finally collide in tragedy. Its biggest drawbacks are that it doesn't feel like a proper part of the show while also being the primary source that confirms that Lady is indeed party to war crimes. They started gunning down civilians before the portal even opened.

Theoretical alternative show that would have fucking rocked

If you already have Johnny Yong Bosch you should at least look into having him play the character he already plays and Nero would have actually been a really good character for some of this plot...as long as they got rid of the overt Americanization of the story.

Nero is a part demon orphan who was raised by a loving, human, foster family who lost his foster parents to a demon attack. This and other demon related tragedies eventually result in him embracing his demonic side so that he can use that power to protect his family and others. During the events of Devil May Cry 4 he learns that the local Sparda worshiping cult has been transforming humans into demonic hybrids and that he is related to Sparda by blood somehow. After taking down the corrupt church and accepting his demonic power he settles down as a demon hunter and eventually becomes a foster father to a group of children who were orphaned during the events of Devil May Cry 4.

The White Rabbit is a human orphan who was rejected by his human foster family before finding his way into the demon world before being adopted a kind family of weaker demons. The loss of his adopted sister to the cruelty and harshness of the demon realm inspires him to find a way to bring his foster family and other weaker demons to the human realm where they can be safe. However, an organized group of human demon hunters slaughter everyone he was trying to save, leading him to inject himself with demon blood and make an alliance with demon lords for revenge against them, regardless of how many of those he once tried to save will die in the process.

The parallels are RIGHT FUCKING THERE Come On.

By primarily replacing Lady and Dante with Nero you could focus the story on a single person's journey and reactions to everything going on, especially if you are going to stick to an 8 episode format. Instead of retreading DMC 3 they could create a more original story and show how Nero resolves problems without Dante or Vergil around. (you can also have him stop the mass murder in episode 5 cause that was gratuitous and just...not something I wanted to see in a Devil May cry show)

Anyway, way too long rant over. Have fun.