Devilman


Devilman is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai, which originally started as an anime adaptation of the concept of Nagai's previous manga series, Demon Lord Dante. Devilman's 39-episode anime series was developed by Toei Animation in 1972, while Nagai began the Devilman as a manga in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine, barely a month before the anime series started. The series has since spawned numerous OVAs, manga, novels, films, and a sequel.
Devilman and other characters from the series have shown up in cameo appearances numerous times in Go Nagai's other works. The most notable is Tomoharu Katsumata's 1973 feature film Mazinger Z vs. Devilman, which features Devilman teaming up with Nagai's titular robot to fight Dr. Hell.

Plot

Akira Fudo is a timid teenage boy who lives with Miki Makimura and her family after his parents died on a trip to the Arctic. One day, Akira's best friend, Ryo Asuka, asks for help when his archaeologist father died after uncovering a mask during an excavation of ancient Mayan ruins, confirming the existence of ancient apex predators that assimilate other lifeforms to evolve: demons. The mask is revealed to be a fossilized demon skull that shows the wearer the world as it was many millennia ago when demons roam the Earth. Ryo's plan is to prevent the revival of demons: "To fight a demon, one must become a demon."
Ryo believes that people like Akira with a pure heart may be able to harness a demon's powers without being consumed and Akira agrees to help after they encounter demons in Ryo's house. Ryo takes his friend to a nightclub in his father's basement then picks a fight and draws blood to attract demonic attention. Demons begin to possess the clubbers and threaten Ryo and Akira, until a powerful demon known as Amon – the Lord of War, also called the Beast of Hell – consumes Akira. But Akira manages to retain his sense of self while possessing some of Amon's personality traits and power as he becomes known as Devilman. Throughout the series, Devilman has many battles with the demon hordes, encountering foes such as Amon's harpy-like lover Sirène and her unrequited paramour Kaim, the water demon Geruma, and the large turtle-demon Jinmen who incorporates the souls of his victims into his shell.
Eventually, the demons start a world war with humanity which causes mass panic and paranoia across the planet with mankind turning on itself. Akira starts to gather other Devilmen like him to fight the demons, only to be betrayed by Ryo after he exposes him to the public. Ryo's betrayal results in Miki's parents being arrested by the government while she and her brother are violently murdered by a paranoid mob which Akira slaughters in retribution. It was then that Ryo reveals himself as the fallen angel Satan, having unconsciously orchestrated his true plan while exploiting humanity's flaws. With no one left to protect, Akira ends his friendship with Satan as they eventually settle things in an epic battle lasting twenty years after the vast majority of humanity is left extinct.
On the day of the final battle, Satan's second-in-command, the arch-demon Zennon, criticises Satan for allowing Akira to be alive, and questions Satan as to whether he has fallen in love with Akira, to which Satan asserts to be true. Zennon criticises Satan for this, and implies that Akira's transformation into Devilman was orchestrated by Satan simply as a way of trying to ensure he would remain alive following the war. During the final battle, Satan reveals to Akira that the demons were unintentionally created by God and that he defied the order to kill them, as he believed they had a right to exist. Satan convinced the demons to enter a state of hibernation in the ice to conserve their strength for the final battle with God, awakening to find Earth ravaged by humanity which he resolved to exterminate first. With the Devilman army defeated by the demons, Satan finds Akira lying seemingly unconscious on an isolated island in the sea. As Satan explains his reasons for attacking humanity and waging war against the Devilmen, he begins to realise that his actions made him and the demons no better than God, then learns too late that he already killed Akira during the final battle. As God's angels descend upon the planet, Satan mourns the bisected body of Akira next to him as the world is remade anew.

Production

Devilman evolved from Go Nagai's previous manga, Demon Lord Dante, after Toei Animation approached Nagai about turning Dante into a television series. The producers wanted certain elements toned down, and a more human-like anti-hero created. Devilman was born as a result of this. Devilman's outfit seems be inspired by a villain from his 1972 anime Gekko Kamen. Go Nagai worked on the anime's scenario along with renowned screenwriter and science-fiction novelist Masaki Tsuji, who wrote the scripts for 35 of the TV series' 39 episodes. Along with the television series, Devilman was also produced as a serialized manga in Shōnen Magazine beginning in 1972. Go Nagai designed the manga to be more horror-like and mature than the anime version.
Nagai designed Devilman as an anti-war work; the fusion of humans and demons is an analogy for the draft, and Miki's violent death symbolizes the death of peace. "There is no justice in war, any war," wrote Nagai, "nor is there any justification for human beings killing one another. Devilman carries a message of warning, as we step toward a bright future."

Media

Manga

The manga was originally published by Kodansha from, to, in Shōnen Magazine. The series has been published in tankōbon format several times, most of them by Kodansha. Starting with the 1987 publishing, most Kodansha editions include Shin Devilman, which originally was not meant to be included in the canon of the original series, as a part of the volumes. The manga has been translated into English in a series of five bilingual manga volumes published by Kodansha.
The manga has also been published along with Cutie Honey in the magazine Gekkan Kanzenban Devilman x Cutie Honey published by JIVE during 2004 in order to take advantage of the release of the live-action films of both series.
Shin Devilman was originally published in Kodansha's Shōnen Magazine Special in,,,, and. All chapters were drawn by Go Nagai, but the first chapter was written in collaboration with Masaki Tsuji, while chapters two and three were written by Hiroshi Koenji. The rest of the chapters were done by Nagai. The manga is sometimes known as Devilman 2 and Neo Devilman.
A one-shot, which is not originally part of Shin Devilman, but that has always been compiled along with the series in tankōbon, was published in the magazine Variety by Kadokawa Shoten. This 16-page story does not have any text and it presents the moments of Akira after the death of Miki in the original series, but before the battle with Satan, as he buries the remains of Miki and encounters Ryo.
Go Nagai published the manga Devilman Saga in Shogakukan's Big Comic from December 25, 2014 to March 10, 2020. The story takes place in the year 2025, a roboticist named Fudou Yuuki joins a project involving a large mural depicting humanity's true past as well as the ancient but advanced technology found in Antarctica. Shogakukan compiled its chapters into thirteen tankōbon volumes, released from June 30, 2015 to May 29, 2020.
Seven Seas Entertainment published the English translation of the original manga in two volumes in 2018, and of Devilman G and Devilman VS. Hades in 2017 and 2018.

Animated adaptations

The anime television series was 39 episodes long and ran from, to, on NET. Outside Japan, the TV series was broadcast in Italy in 1983 and enjoyed great popularity there. A DVD box set of the series was released in Japan on September 21, 2002. The TV series has been licensed for the first time in North America by Discotek Media who released the series on DVD in 2014.
Devilman: The Birth was released in, by King Records. It was followed by Devilman: Demon Bird Sirène, released in, by Bandai Visual. Kazuo Komatsubara, an animation director on the original TV series, was the character designer for the OVAs, which were animated by his Oh Production.
Both were directed by Umanosuke Iida and were closely developed in conjunction with Nagai himself. The OVAs' plot revolves around Akira's transformation into Devilman up until his battle with Sirène. Besides a few minor alterations, the OVAs are faithful to the original manga. Both OVAs were released on Laserdisc and on a single DVD by Bandai Visual in. The two OVAs were also the only Devilman anime to have been commercially released in the United States prior to 2014. The DVD release included only the English-dubbed version.
In 2000, was released as a pay-per-view event in Japan and was later released on video and DVD. It covers the period between the humans becoming aware of demons and the semi-final battle between Devilman and Amon, who was unleashed after Akira became demoralised by witnessing the death of Miki. In the final battle, Amon is subdued and remerges with Akira, but instead of Akira then proceeding to battle Satan, he rejects the latter's challenge, and walks away into the wreckage of Tokyo.
In 2015, Cyborg 009 VS Devilman was released. The 3-episode OVA features Devilman battling the cast of Shotaro Ishinomori's Cyborg 009.
A 10-episode original net animation adaptation produced by Science Saru and directed by Masaaki Yuasa, titled Devilman Crybaby, was released worldwide on January 5, 2018 exclusively on Netflix.

Films

Mazinger Z Vs. Devilman is a crossover animated film between Devilman and Mazinger Z produced by Toei and released in. While the film stars the majority of the characters from each series, it features alternative versions of the events from both, and is therefore not canonical to either one.
In, a live-action tokusatsu film directed by Hiroyuki Nasu was theatrically released in Japan. The film starred Hisato Izaki as Devilman, Yūsuke Izaki as Ryo Asuka and Ayana Sakai as Miki Makimura. The cast also included AV Idol Maria Yumeno. The film was criticized for its poor special effects and the casting of various popular celebrities with no prior acting experience.

Music

A large number of soundtrack albums have been released since the beginning of the original series.
TitleFormatCompanyStandard numberRelease date
DevilmanFlexi discAsahi SonoramaAPM-4016
DevilmanEP recordColumbiaSCS-502
TV Original BGM Collection: DevilmanLP albumColumbiaCX-7088
TV Original BGM Collection: DevilmanCDColumbia28CC-2295
TV Animation Drama Series: DevilmanCDColumbiaCOCC-12398
Animex 1200 Series 71: DevilmanCDColumbiaCOCC-72071
Original Soundtrack Devilman Tanjo Hen OngakushuLP albumKing RecordsK20G-7359
Original Soundtrack Devilman Tanjo Hen OngakushuCDKing RecordsK30X-7094
Visual Sound Series Devilman Shin MokushirokuCDKing RecordsK32X-7055
Devilman Tanjo Hen / Yocho Sirène HenCDKing RecordsKICA-10
Devilman Densetsu ~ The Legends of DEVILMANCDPony CanyonFSCA-10054
Nagai Go Hero Densetsu Onkyo Geki Devilman Armageddon HenCDFirst Smile EntertainmentFSCA-10209
Devilman Densetsu + 3 ~ The Legends of DEVILMANCDBeeSmileBSCH-30011
Eternal Edition Dynamic Pro Films Files No.11 & 12: DevilmanCDColumbiaCOCX-32285/6
Devilman no Uta CD singleTEAM EntertainmentKDSD-95
Hikari no Naka deCD singleSonic GrooveAVCD-16051
Devilman Original SoundtrackCDavex traxAVCD-17543

In other media

Three novels have been released. The first one Shin Devilman was written by Go Nagai's brother Yasutaka Nagai with illustrations by Go. It was originally published in 1981 by Asahi Sonorama in four books. It is not related to the manga Shin Devilman, from which some chapters were also written by Yasutaka. With the release of the first OVA, in 1987 a single volume novel based on it was released by Kodansha titled Shin Video Shosetsu – Devilman: Tanjo Hen. It was also written by Yasutaka Nagai, but it had illustrations by the OVA's main designer, Kazuo Komatsubara. In 1999 a second novelization of 4 volumes titled Devilman: The Novel was published by MediaWorks and once again written by Yasutaka and illustrated by Go. All three series of novels are unrelated to each other even though all were written by Yasutaka Nagai.
A video game based on Devilman was released for the Famicom by Namco on. Bandai also released a game based on Devilman for the Sony PlayStation and Windows 98 on. Along with several of Nagai's other creations, Devilman appeared in the Japanese Super Famicom game CB Chara Wars: Ushinawareta Gag.
Devilman and other characters from the series have shown up in cameo appearances numerous times in Go Nagai's other works. Miki is the first female protagonist of the 1974 manga Oira Sukeban, and Akira has appeared in various incarnations of Cutie Honey, most notably the 1994 OVA New Cutie Honey. Miki and Ryo Asuka also appear as dogs in the Violence Jack manga. In 1997, Nagai created Devil Lady, based on his idea of if the main character was a woman. The Devil Lady series contains its own original story that stands out from the Devilman series. Fudo's silhouette briefly appears in the opening credits of Devil Lady. The cast of Devilman also crossed over with characters from Mazinger Z and Violence Jack in the 1991 OVA CB Chara Nagai Go World. This release featured the familiar characters in comical and lighthearted antics in super deformed forms. In this series, it is revealed that Violence Jack is a future version of Akira Fudo. It is also revealed that Miki is an otaku and that she knew of Akira's identity as Devilman due to reading the manga offscreen.

Reception

The manga has sold over 50 million copies as of March 2017.
The storyline in Devilman made it stand apart from other manga of the time. However, its controversial violence made it a major target of protest for the PTA and other groups.
Go Nagai is said to have been highly shocked that his giant-robot work Mazinger Z, which was on Japanese TV at the same time as Devilman and which he originally did not take very seriously, surpassed Devilman in popularity. The reason was that he had worked especially hard on Devilman and only made Mazinger as a way to blow off steam.
Devilman was ranked fifth in Mania Entertainment's 10 Most Iconic Anime Heroes written by Thomas Zoth who commented that "Shonen manga developed a dark tone with Devilman's graphic violence, casual blasphemy, and theme of using evil itself to fight evil." A character designer from SNK admitted that Devilman was an influence in designing Kyo Kusanagi.
Jason Huff of The Anime Review Notes "a couple of enjoyable bits" in the OVA adaptation, yet ultimately recommends Vampire Hunter D instead "if you want to see a splatterfest of grotesque monsters getting all gooey and split in two",. Helen McCarthy and Jonathan Clements of The Anime Encyclopedia said that the series was brought down by "the messy confluence of Japanese and European mythology".