The early part of the manga has some promise, but the tone is completely inconsistent. The first arc largely focuses on Devilman keeping his secret identity and saving his would-be love interest from the demons, making use of one time powers such as eyebrow razors that are never seen again in any media. At the beginning, Devilman even has a minor conflict against some school bullies, in the same volume where demons murder a room of people for no reason. Human characters as if they're in a newspaper comic strip like Peanuts or Archie Comics. This is in stark contrast to the art style, depicting the There's plenty of violence, gore and rape from the beginning.
Amidst all the chaos, you may find elements you enjoy, but they are likely to be scarce as the manga has no focus whatsoever.ĭevilman starts as an origin story for the eponymous character, only far more disturbing than your typical western comic book.
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Go Nagai experiments with genres, style and tone ultimately creating a story that is incoherent, full of nonsensical plot twists that culminate in a truly bizarre anti-climax ending. It ventures so far to question God himself and makes us wonder what truly is evil. The colors of Devilman are not black and white there is no strict dualism that helps us create moral separations. The opposites must be conciliated and balance each other so as to achieve a dynamic equilibrium, which is - in Devilman - manifested in the acceptance of one's inner demons. I would say that it focuses mostly on duality, or rather the absurdity of belief that there are two separate extremes. It tackles philosophies from Buddhism, Zen, and even Christianity. The story itself is ostensibly simplistic, but in actuality is so complex that with each re-read you discover more about it. Naturally, since it wasn't pre-planned, it's ridden with plot holes and erratic pace, however, it does in return offer a certain refreshment worth and perhaps a peculiar charm. The world of Devilman is multi-layered and it is very difficult to analyze its elements individually and in a typical way, because they are all juxtaposed into a sort of an incoherent unity. Where he has to accept his inner evil in order to defeat evil, which is where the aforementioned fails. That can be seen in the way the main character is written, as a paradoxical counterpart to humanity. Justified move, in a sense, since traditional hero portrayal is cast aside in order to act on a wider scale. When it comes to characters, this work refrains from any in-depth characterization, but rather shamelessly uses them as convenient tools in order to proceed with Akira's development.
Go's expressionistic style flirts with reality, thus never makes violence seem to be there for the sake of fetishization, but instead experiments with the abstraction of it. Which pertain to violence and chaos as one of the themes. Emotional overtones simply ooze out of panels, while anatomical accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of distorted depictions However, there is more than meets the eye in this clunky and out-of-place cartoon-ish style.
One of the weakest and probably most prominent aspects is its artwork which could repel readers immediately. 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. 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.
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