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papas-con-aceite-y-mucha-sal · 6 years

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do u think yuasa will do devilman lady now ?

In my opinion, you say… Short answer is no because if Yuasa ever does a Crybaby sequel, which I bet it won’t happen for several reasons, it wouldn’t even be able to get called Devilman Lady anymore.

And it has a lot to do with the changes the characters when through in Crybaby.

Let’s begin with this friend.

In the manga, Akira was about to renounce to fight for humankind after having his hopes and dreams eventually crushed in battles and other events. The last straw was finding a group of humans torturing people (including the Makimura’s parents) with the excuse of those being demons when they already knew they were torturing innocent humans. They even try to calm Akira down once he arrives in his Devilman form saying he had nothing to worry because they hadn’t touched anyone from his race (demons).

Akira then ponders about everything that has happened until then and about his last conversation with Satan.Thinking about Miki, he decides to keep fighting so he can at least give her a world where she still can live… just to find out she’s been killed meanwhile. And not by a demon’s hand: by their own neighbours, those they probably had know for entire years. Humans. Crying while holding her severed head Akira promises to fight Satan to death until only one of them is left standing. Not anymore to save humans but of pure fury and resentment.

He’s moved by pride, even. The same pride he thought it was so stupid to save before. That “spirit” which felt so much like some of Ryo’s weird ideas (who’s also torn apart between his unconscious true mission, his fake mission he’s slowly giving up in and sees futile, and trying not get Akira dead). Akira slapped/kicked Ryo repeteadly after hearing him saying such things… and one single volume later he’s effectively with his Devilman army not moving a single finger to save any human in Earth and just focusing on preparing for the last battle against Satan, guided by what’s now his pride as a Devilman.

In Crybaby there’s no 20-year timeskip. Because Akira never renounced to his humanity and to fight for them (even with Miki’s death! who had the plus of being his childhood friend this time!) their extinction seems to be also a consequence of the battle instead of just humans killing themselves like in the manga in both murders and suicides. Akira had every intention of saving them no matter what he had to do.

Crybaby’s Akira is some ideal and noble figure instead of the simple and common boy who gets dragged into a difficult situation as the manga one was (and thus reacts like a common human would in such a situation). Crybaby’s portrayal is not only borderline surreal, it also makes Lady to follow it up highly unlikely. Crybaby is just ‘Main Character tries to defeat Bad Guy who actually had feelings !! what a tweest!!! also he fails’.

Akira has very few reasons to forgive Ryo (if he has at all). In the manga they were both to blame in the end, it was kind of Nagai’s point for the antiwar theme, and he saw Ryo regretting and crying over him.

Crybaby? Not so much. He doesn’t even get to see him regretting before, you know, he dies. Yuasa adapted Neo Devilman for Crybaby to use it in the last episode, putting flashbacks of Ryo and Akira in their good days while the battle kept happening. Can you guess which one scene from that episode Nagai drew he didn’t put?

… Duh.

You can’t even make the point of that scene coming later (just like it did for the manga: it was added in Neo and Lady, and I don’t know if the deluxe version of the original Devilman manga) because as I pointed out earlier he purposely added an adapted version of the rest of the episode already. So if he wanted to put Akira there reacting he would have, in a quick blackscreen whispering before the credits or something, or right before showing the world remaking itself/being remade.

I put into question if Akira was still holding any positive feeling for Ryo in the last episode of Crybaby instead of plain hate. He claims his tears have all dried up so he can’t even cry for Ryo anymore. Despite he listens to Ryo (sorta) and even began a conversation in the manga (that ended up being Ryo’s monologue but oh well) before he dies, as he doesn’t instantanely does it for the same reason he could survive Sirene after losing a lot of blood and a limb, this Akira… didn’t utter a word, didn’t give a single thought. I mean, he IS a really emphatic person, and there’s the baton symbolism, but it’s… hard to see. Ryo’s betrayal came with his memories of Satan so it was a clean cut in the manga, and thus it had that impact and mixed feelings. Afterrecovering his memories Ryo’s almost like a different person. Even in Lady atfirst Akira seems conflicted by this, as he tries to separate both switchingbetween both names. It’s understandable. In a way he probably felt Satan had killed his bestfriend. But Crybaby’s Ryo betrayed Akira’s trust so repeatedly I don’t think it was as much of a surprise for him. He doesn’t look that conflicted.

Of course Akira could forgive Satan/Ryo in the end but that would feel terribly forced.

And now let’s go to our other important character in the manga sequel, Satan. Jun and Lan, particularly Jun, would be so… different. Jun is a really good girl who tries her best for humankind which I… can’t really see a guy who already was killing humans and calling them scum in the first episode doing. You’ll say ‘it was the Black Sabbath, there was no other way around!’. Alright, I can concede you that (even if this Ryo wasn’t under such high pressure and wasn’t literally stoned and being pointed out by Akira on how he was acting too different from his usual self). But then explain the rest of Ryo’s murderings in the next episodes honestly, because those happen BEFORE he recovers his memories of being Satan. Lan would be easier to adapt (she’s still ‘nicer’ than Crybaby Ryo) but Jun… I really don’t know how they would. What’s more, Satan’s reasons to oppose God are completely different. In the manga he did it to prevent demons from dying; in contrast, in Crybaby he did it because God was “cold” or something? There’s not really a reason, his dialogue was very vague and he found the demons later. So how would it translate in a Crybaby sequel following Lady? The last battle against God, if Satan makes Akira join him, would be for… what? The lulz? I’ve got no idea. The whole deal with God is different and I have no idea how they’d adapt his role or even the Lady’s ending as it is (his doing is really prominent in that manga, you just don’t know until what extent until later volumes). It really, REALLY, depended on his characterization in the original. And then there’s the whole arc inherited from Mao Dante that’s pretty important for certain events to happen, and also needs for God to be the plain villain.

Another point is that Crybaby Ryo doesn’t actually understand Akira. From the time Ryo throws Akira money to pay a hooker to the time he opens his arms trying to receive Akira joining him when Akira’s still holding Miki’s head, even after hearing from his mouth Akira loved her so much and that he had lost everything because of him… He can’t understand his emotions or even acknowledge their existence, therefore by no means he can understand the emotions of others. And this includes Akira. Instead of comforting Akira after, you know, his parents were killed, Ryo just takes Akira’s mom (?) mobile phone to save Akira’s pictures she had while he still has the real thing in the same room crying his eyes out during this exchange. Not to mention how he pressured Akira (‘if you don’t kill it [Jinmen], I’ll do it!’) shortly before that. Or how he spied on Akira’s conversations with other people. Or how he tried to kill Miki few days after they were reunited again. And in general just trying to make Akira dance at his tune. Stuff like that seriously made me cringe. And it’s just so important for those two to be in the same page for Lady to work. If it doesn’t…

Ryo’s a polar opposite for Akira this time, who’s over empathic in this adaptation. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Akira already knew Ryo loved him way before Ryo himself acknowledged such feeling considering he already knew Ryo was crying internally in the scene with the dead kitten (though I believe Ryo felt bad at seeing how sad Akira was instead of feeling bad for the kitten itself: he’s not that fond of animals this time… or anything that isn’t Akira for that matter) and that’s why he still stayed by his side despite being… like that. Of course they still have good times sometimes, like the scene in the pool, or when Ryo tried to protect Akira from bullies when they were kids so they would gave Akira his shoes back, but they just… fall short for me.

And I’m not even getting into all the new characters that were introduced and should appear at least… somewhere? So we can see they’re getting reincarnated like Miki did meanwhile the Devilmen are in Hell, and conclude them. Which role would Miki get here? She had gotten a bigger role in Crybaby so it would be odd if they were to show her just for like two minutes (it already felt odd in the manga though I appreciated she was actually living a normal and happy life). It could be nice to make her become a Devilman and work near Jun I guess, like the other Devilmen that worked for H.A. Now that would be a nice touch. Probably one of the few good things I could see getting out of this.

And, in conclusion, now we’ve come this far, after alterating all of what I’ve mentioned (and more I’ll be forgetting, I’m writing this quickly)… then what’s the point?

No, I’m not seeing it. Sorry. Devilman Crybaby deviated too much from the original manga for a sequel following the events of Devilman Lady faithfully. The concept of Violence Jack seems more feasible but you’d have to rework it a lot too, as it’s a crossover manga more than it’s an actual sequel. I mean the idea of Satan creating a world that ends up being his self-inflicted punishment. I don’t know, maybe it was the last scene increasing the drama and making him not realize/regret his mistake in something that wasn’t related to Akira what makes me think VJ would work better (even if it vastly changed too).

It sucks because when I saw Crybaby announced I had hopes for a Lady adaptation, one that followed the manga while fixing its prominent issues.

I’ve also heard Crybaby hasn’t exactly been as well received in Japan. And I guess I should look that up more thoroughly. I just got this, and only because it was such a fuss it reached Yuasa’s personal Twitter account. So I can’t say much else.

#devilman #devilman lady #devilman crybaby #sal salada #ask #not exactly a crybaby criticism #it's just how things are #meta #Anonymous

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