Holiday Review: DEVILMAN

No, if you want something that is both edgy and substantial, you'll have to look to the past and to one of the manga world's most noted creators.  This year saw a lot of older titles get their first proper releases in English, but thanks to Masaki Yuasa's incredible adaptation few were as anticipated as this.

DEVILMAN (Debiruman), by Go Nagai.  First published in 1972, and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

Akira Fudo is a gentle boy who abhors violence.  Yet when his best friend Ryo returns with stories of demons taking over the earth, Akira is ready and willing to help him fight.  To do so, Akira must fuse with the demon Amon without losing his pure human heart.  So long as he can keep control, he can use his devil powers to fight the demons that not only threaten his family and friends, but history and humanity itself.

STORY:

If I had to sum up Devilman in a word, it would be "raw."  The passion and energy that fuels this work is raw and fresh even decades later, but it also has the unevenness of a fairly new creator and a genre only just starting to stretch its boundaries.  It can be silly and sublime in equal measure, and the moments when it finds the perfect balance between the two are positively electric.

That being said, it takes a while for it to find its footing.  Early on there are long stretches where Ryo explains not only his backstory, but also the hows and whys of the demon world.  It's necessary to a degree, but it does slow the pace to a crawl.  I wonder if that wasn't purposeful, though, to make it all the more impactful when Ryo opens the door to a drug-fueled hippie sabbath.  From that moment, the story moves forward at full gear, reaching its emotional peak with Akira's showdown with Jinrei.

Sadly, that momentum is halted after that, although not on purpose.  Seven Seas' release of this not only includes the original series, but also stories from the 1979 spin-off Shin Devilman.  It is meant to take place around the mid-point of the series, but going from catharsis to Akira & Ryo's Excellent Adventure is a hard left turnl  That's not even getting into the actual content of these side stories.  For every one that's good (such as the one where demons put Joan of Arc on trial), there's one in more...questionable taste (such as the one where Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews spawns from a demon killing his one true love).  I could have lived with a smaller omnibus and a separate release for Shin Devilman if it meant keeping the story's emotional arc intact.

ART:

Much like the story, Nagai's art is kind of all over the place.  His faces are goony and broad in the vein of 1960s shonen, but their bodies are long and lithe (and naked on more than one occasion.  Nagai was a pioneer in the field of fanservice).  Yet when Akira transforms into Devilman and starts  fighting demons, things get positively DYNAMIC.

There are some incredible sequences here, be it the clever use of speedlines and sequence to amplify the blows between Devilman and Silene or Akira's anger visualized by drawing the scene in rough charcoal.  You can see him growing and experimenting as an artist with each chapter, and it's kind of thrilling to watch.  This goes double for the the Shin Devilman chapters, where everything is more refined (although still pretty suggestive at times).  It's interesting stuff, and it's proof that Nagai deserves credit for more than just really big eyebrows and sideburns.

RATING:


Devilman is rough at times, but it's also proof of what a talented mangaka Go Nagai was, even early on in his career.  The art is incredible and Nagai manages to delve into some sincere emotions at times.  Just try to skip over the time-travel stuff.  It's better that way.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is complete in Japan with 5 volumes available.  All 5 have been published in omnibus form and are currently in print.

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