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It's Kamikazetime for Devil May Cry by Netflix! Review #11
4 weeks ago
I have game franchises that I like a lot, and while the Devil May Cry series isn't one of my favorites, I certainly enjoy it. However, when I heard that it was going to get an anime on Netflix with Adi Shankar as the creator, I knew I should expect something of similar quality to the Castlevania series, since he was deeply involved with it as well. Now, that guy is quite infamous for not only Castlevania but also his work at DMC. And...I can see why.
Usually, when you have an adaptation like this, you need to be fair and judge it as both an adaptation of whatever it was based on and also on its own. Sometimes, the anime/cartoon or whatever sucks as an adaptation, but it's good on its own. Can't say it's the case here though, which maybe it's why this cartoon got so infamous, heh.
The games don't have a complex plot or anything. They're about Dante, the son of a demon and a human, and his adventures as he kicks the asses of demons in his games. That's pretty much it. And it's where they already began to fuck up as Lady (or Mary as she is called in this series), a character introduced only in the third game of the series, not only was terrible in this cartoon, but she also pretty much takes the spotlight and even the role as the main character that should belong to him! Plus, she's just a bad character. There's a big reason why people call this cartoon "Mary May Swear" or something like that.
To sideline the character that is supposed to be your MC for a terrible Mary Sue that is angry all the time was probably the worst thing the cartoon did, enough to already ruin it as a proper adaptation. It's so baffling because there is some good in this! Like the voice actors are good, the animation is among the best I've seen on Netflix. And the action scenes? If we ignore the context and judge them alone, most of them are quite good! Heck, if most of the cartoon was only about the action, then while this would still fail as an adaptation, given how Mary takes over the spotlight from Dante, but maybe this could be considered good on its own...if it wasn't for the plot and characters. And I know, it's a situation similar to Castlevania xP!
The official premisse of the series, as wiki says is "While being hunted by the government organization Dark Realm Command (DARKCOM) under Vice President William Baines, Dante, a demon hunter for-hire, comes into conflict with a demon-obsessed terrorist called the White Rabbit who seeks revenge on the human race" which has almost nothing to do with the games or even the manga which White Rabbit is loosely based on. You don't even need to have played any of the games to "enjoy" this series but if you didn't then there's no reason to even bother checking this out. The plot is a mess, the characters are badly written, and the good action scenes don't justify it.
It's not possible to talk about why this cartoon sucks without giving spoilers about it, especially about White Rabbit, and since this cartoon is quite infamous, with everyone talking about it, I don't need to go into detail about the characters or the plot. I will only talk about the stuff that bothers me the most.
So now I will talk about some spoiler stuff like the ending of the cartoon. If you want to avoid spoilers and want to see what the cartoon offers for furries, which is the main point of my review, then please scroll down to the “KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT” section!
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE CARTOON
- You can say that the cartoon is about three characters...Lady, Dante, and White Rabbit. As mentioned before, Lady is the real protagonist, even if technically people counted the frames and she didn't show up in the cartoon itself as much as Dante, BUT it got very damn close. And either she was in a cool action scene, or she was being the typical angry Mary Sue swearing about anything or at anyone, or even worse, she was busy castrating Dante. It's just ridiculous how many times she easily has her way over Dante, like he was a wuss. You can't even argue that this was because he understated her or something, because this is a guy that, even if nerfed to hell in this cartoon, still took out a whole squad of those professional killing demon guys without killing a single one all by himself...and yet, she easily subdues him when the plot needs it to happen. This happens multiple times, from the beginning until the end. It's crazy how the character that has a similar background in both game and anime can be so different...but then again, the anime goes out of its way to show that Mary was "different" like special or something ever since she was a kid xP.
It's the typical bullshit you see in some woke stuff like many Marvel Movies today, a female character humiliating or overpowering a male character to make herself look stronger or better. Just imagine Dante from the games letting this bitch take him out that easily or steal his amulet. That would never happen.
There's just no way to defend this character since even her demon hate boner that she always has makes no sense, as we see in the cartoon itself. She killed White Rabbit's friends when they clearly weren't a threat, just for being demons, even if she and her team shot them because they were surprised by that big demon back then...and that was it. She never stopped to think about that ever again. She didn't give a shit, and we have to assume stuff like that already happened multiple times...in other words, she already killed the "innocent demons" before. But only now, when she lost her entire team (and yet she survived somehow without even having any injuries), she met this "innocent" family and learns about the refugees from Makai, and only NOW she was like...maybe there are good demons? Maybe we should even just accept all of those refugees without questioning them, just like that!
What BS. Her massive hate boner wouldn't go down so easily, from what the cartoon shows us. Otherwise, she would have started to feel conflicted about it at least since her first meeting with White Rabbit and his friends. The way it was done is so absurd that it makes Baines be in the right for ordering his guys to shoot them all, since, for his character, it makes no sense for him to even consider that demons could be just those good guys wanting to live in peace with their families, so he doesn't buy it. Even more so since we have to assume that, unlike Mary and her team, he never met personally any of those guys before. All he heard was how those guys are monsters that only want to kill humans when they come to our world.
- Dante is the best character of the cartoon because there are moments he does look cool and badass as he was supposed to be, just like Dante from the games. However, probably because otherwise Mary would never be able to even touch him, he was nerfed in this version and a lot. The Dante from the games would be able to kick White Devil and his entire team's ass easily from the first time he meets them. And, yet in this version...how in the heck he wasn't even aware that he was half demon?! What did he think all of his superhuman skills came from?? Including his amazing regeneration, which he already knew he had, since he wasn't surprised when his body regenerated after being shot in the cartoon! That makes no sense! Besides, are we supposed to believe he NEVER faced a demon strong enough that he wouldn't be able to beat without the devil trigger? When is he this nerfed? Yeah, right. And given how demons are a thing in this world, it's so weird that somehow the freaking USA government didn't even know about Dante until the events of the cartoon began. It's not like Dante was hiding his powers or something.
- Speaking of the Government, I can't believe they used the DMC universe as this...weird and fucked up social analogy about how the current USA Government is treating immigrants. Why? DMC is supposed to be, you know, about DMC! Not something like that! And it doesn't even work anyway. In the end, you have a cartoon that is literally calling immigrants demons lol. This is so wrong and messed up that it is the main thing that everyone talked about, and with good reason. If you ignore the DMC universe, it makes no sense from what we see in the cartoon, and it's even worse if you add the context of what demons are in the DMC canon. There's a reason why Sparda is such a big deal; it's not just any demon, especially the strong ones, that have good hearts.
- There are some details here and there that just add to this mess. Like the Raccoon City reference. There's no way that in the games, the universe of RE is the same as DMC. I wonder if this was just a random reference or if they are secretly planning to make a "Capcom MCU" or something. I hope not, since even if nerfed, a guy like this Dante can easily take care of any monster from RE.
- I'm going crazy, or Dante should have tried to interrogate Plasma about his shapeshifter power? As far as he knew, his brother had died years ago, and this random demon just showed up looking like him? What Dante thinks he did was that he somehow found an old picture of Vergil just to mess with him? And yes, Dante never found out that Plasma can only do it with someone still alive (wtf is he a vampire or something), but as far as Dante knew, the only way he could mimic his brother was if he had seen him!
- During the entire journey to stop White Rabbit and his desire to open the portal between both realms, we see how this cartoon feels like it wants to have Mary as the protagonist. Heck, by the end of it, it was only because of her that White Rabbit was even defeated when she shot his fake heart, which is such BS. If Dante can't defeat a guy like White Rabbit on his own, he has no chance against stronger demons like Mundus. Especially when we find out the truth about White Rabbit. And speaking of him...
- Oh maaaaaan, White Rabbit started as such a good villain! Easily the best thing about this mess! So, of course, they had to fuck him up, and they sure did.
Now...even without that TERRIBLE plot twist with him, he was ruined in later episodes since we see his backstory, which just doesn't match with the character we see. It just doesn't make sense that, among other things, he hates Sparda and what he did so much instead of hating someone like Mundus. Since, obviously, it's because of demons like Mundus that are the main reason why life in Makai sucks so much to begin with. And it also doesn't make sense how he was this nice guy that wanted to live in peace with the "good" demons, but now he is even experimenting on them for his own sake because of what SOME humans did. And when you add the twist...urgh.
I can't believe they really thought making him actually be human this whole time was a good idea. It's just terrible and dumb for many reasons. I think the first reason why this just doesn't work is...how? Just...how? How did he even get this power to begin with?
Remember, he was fucked when he and his pals met the mean humans squad led by Mary. Not only was he shot in the shoulder, but he was at point-blank range of the explosion. There was NOTHING between him and the explosion, and the damage was so big that it destroyed the entire place. It makes no sense how he survived that.
Heck, he did way more than survive that. SOMEHOW, he found out that if a human uses demon blood, they get stronger, MUCH stronger than most demons from what we've seen, since he's around the same level as those powerful demons that joined him. How did he find that out? How was he even able to make that fake heart? How did he even get back home with all his injuries? Or you want me to believe that this guy, who wasn't even around machines most of his life or had someone to teach him about them, was able to make that heart and a device on a whim? A device that can open portals whenever he wants, which is something no Government, like the USA's, was ever able to do? What demon did he use for that blood? How on Earth was Mary and her squad so fucking irresponsible that they didn't bother coming back to check if all demons were dead, which would end with him getting captured if not killed? So many damn questions. Even his damn mask doesn't make sense! It's too perfect since he can move the mouth, lips, eyes, and even drink tea with it, no problem! What the fuck kind of mask is that? It's the dream fursuit mask! There was no reason for anybody to even imagine it was just a mask. He even added that white fur on his neck!
Unfortunately, because of so many issues with him, White Rabbit went from the best character of the cartoon to...well, not sure if we can say the worst. Tough competition there with Mary. And, some could argue, with nerfed Dante too.
KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT
Now that we put that out of the way...it's KAMIKAZETIME!!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9fUsr9v41-w
Even though this anime fails as an adaptation of the games, if we're talking about the kemono, then...well...let's just say that Devil May Cry was never famous for having good kemono in it to begin with! xP
That being said, they did kiiiiind of have their own version of some of the game's enemies or bosses as enemies or minions of the White Rabbit. For example, Plasma, which is just one "common" enemy in the first game, is here as one of his minions.
However, while they do talk and act, and all, they are barely there in the long run, except for a couple of them. Besides, none of them really have good designs, which doesn't help. Maybe one or two of them will interest you for sure, depending on your taste, but overall...yeaaah. There's a reason why you only see one of the bad guys really being talked about and still getting fan art even to this day.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves...there's only one demon that is a good kemono in this cartoon, and it's the most famous character in the entire series aside from Dante and Lady. And it's White Rabbit, the main villain!
He, alone, started so damn good that it would be worth giving this a rating of two in our scale! Yes, all by himself! He was that good! However...I can't do that. And if you watched the cartoon until the end and see how he got ruined, for the reasons I talked about in the spoiler section, you understand why.
Besides, the cartoon overall just sucks, which really brings the whole thing down, and even if they didn't ruin White Rabbit the way they did, this would never get more than a three on the scale, and only because we at least have more than two kemono characters in this cartoon. Just a shame that in the end it's White Rabbit that was carrying the entire cartoon on his shoulders until...he couldn't.
So, for those reasons, I believe that Devil May Cry (Netflix) deserves a...*turns around and points dramatically at the anime*AN ONE OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!!
This one hurt! I liked White Rabbit so much! This is a good example of never meet your heroes...or watch the cartoon, the character you like is from xP!
The best furry character this time is...White Rabbit! I mean..technically...xP!
The "kemono in the refrigerator" this time is... again, technically, White Rabbit for spoiler reasons xP!
Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about Devil May Cry if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!
Usually, when you have an adaptation like this, you need to be fair and judge it as both an adaptation of whatever it was based on and also on its own. Sometimes, the anime/cartoon or whatever sucks as an adaptation, but it's good on its own. Can't say it's the case here though, which maybe it's why this cartoon got so infamous, heh.
The games don't have a complex plot or anything. They're about Dante, the son of a demon and a human, and his adventures as he kicks the asses of demons in his games. That's pretty much it. And it's where they already began to fuck up as Lady (or Mary as she is called in this series), a character introduced only in the third game of the series, not only was terrible in this cartoon, but she also pretty much takes the spotlight and even the role as the main character that should belong to him! Plus, she's just a bad character. There's a big reason why people call this cartoon "Mary May Swear" or something like that.
To sideline the character that is supposed to be your MC for a terrible Mary Sue that is angry all the time was probably the worst thing the cartoon did, enough to already ruin it as a proper adaptation. It's so baffling because there is some good in this! Like the voice actors are good, the animation is among the best I've seen on Netflix. And the action scenes? If we ignore the context and judge them alone, most of them are quite good! Heck, if most of the cartoon was only about the action, then while this would still fail as an adaptation, given how Mary takes over the spotlight from Dante, but maybe this could be considered good on its own...if it wasn't for the plot and characters. And I know, it's a situation similar to Castlevania xP!
The official premisse of the series, as wiki says is "While being hunted by the government organization Dark Realm Command (DARKCOM) under Vice President William Baines, Dante, a demon hunter for-hire, comes into conflict with a demon-obsessed terrorist called the White Rabbit who seeks revenge on the human race" which has almost nothing to do with the games or even the manga which White Rabbit is loosely based on. You don't even need to have played any of the games to "enjoy" this series but if you didn't then there's no reason to even bother checking this out. The plot is a mess, the characters are badly written, and the good action scenes don't justify it.
It's not possible to talk about why this cartoon sucks without giving spoilers about it, especially about White Rabbit, and since this cartoon is quite infamous, with everyone talking about it, I don't need to go into detail about the characters or the plot. I will only talk about the stuff that bothers me the most.
So now I will talk about some spoiler stuff like the ending of the cartoon. If you want to avoid spoilers and want to see what the cartoon offers for furries, which is the main point of my review, then please scroll down to the “KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT” section!
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE CARTOON
- You can say that the cartoon is about three characters...Lady, Dante, and White Rabbit. As mentioned before, Lady is the real protagonist, even if technically people counted the frames and she didn't show up in the cartoon itself as much as Dante, BUT it got very damn close. And either she was in a cool action scene, or she was being the typical angry Mary Sue swearing about anything or at anyone, or even worse, she was busy castrating Dante. It's just ridiculous how many times she easily has her way over Dante, like he was a wuss. You can't even argue that this was because he understated her or something, because this is a guy that, even if nerfed to hell in this cartoon, still took out a whole squad of those professional killing demon guys without killing a single one all by himself...and yet, she easily subdues him when the plot needs it to happen. This happens multiple times, from the beginning until the end. It's crazy how the character that has a similar background in both game and anime can be so different...but then again, the anime goes out of its way to show that Mary was "different" like special or something ever since she was a kid xP.
It's the typical bullshit you see in some woke stuff like many Marvel Movies today, a female character humiliating or overpowering a male character to make herself look stronger or better. Just imagine Dante from the games letting this bitch take him out that easily or steal his amulet. That would never happen.
There's just no way to defend this character since even her demon hate boner that she always has makes no sense, as we see in the cartoon itself. She killed White Rabbit's friends when they clearly weren't a threat, just for being demons, even if she and her team shot them because they were surprised by that big demon back then...and that was it. She never stopped to think about that ever again. She didn't give a shit, and we have to assume stuff like that already happened multiple times...in other words, she already killed the "innocent demons" before. But only now, when she lost her entire team (and yet she survived somehow without even having any injuries), she met this "innocent" family and learns about the refugees from Makai, and only NOW she was like...maybe there are good demons? Maybe we should even just accept all of those refugees without questioning them, just like that!
What BS. Her massive hate boner wouldn't go down so easily, from what the cartoon shows us. Otherwise, she would have started to feel conflicted about it at least since her first meeting with White Rabbit and his friends. The way it was done is so absurd that it makes Baines be in the right for ordering his guys to shoot them all, since, for his character, it makes no sense for him to even consider that demons could be just those good guys wanting to live in peace with their families, so he doesn't buy it. Even more so since we have to assume that, unlike Mary and her team, he never met personally any of those guys before. All he heard was how those guys are monsters that only want to kill humans when they come to our world.
- Dante is the best character of the cartoon because there are moments he does look cool and badass as he was supposed to be, just like Dante from the games. However, probably because otherwise Mary would never be able to even touch him, he was nerfed in this version and a lot. The Dante from the games would be able to kick White Devil and his entire team's ass easily from the first time he meets them. And, yet in this version...how in the heck he wasn't even aware that he was half demon?! What did he think all of his superhuman skills came from?? Including his amazing regeneration, which he already knew he had, since he wasn't surprised when his body regenerated after being shot in the cartoon! That makes no sense! Besides, are we supposed to believe he NEVER faced a demon strong enough that he wouldn't be able to beat without the devil trigger? When is he this nerfed? Yeah, right. And given how demons are a thing in this world, it's so weird that somehow the freaking USA government didn't even know about Dante until the events of the cartoon began. It's not like Dante was hiding his powers or something.
- Speaking of the Government, I can't believe they used the DMC universe as this...weird and fucked up social analogy about how the current USA Government is treating immigrants. Why? DMC is supposed to be, you know, about DMC! Not something like that! And it doesn't even work anyway. In the end, you have a cartoon that is literally calling immigrants demons lol. This is so wrong and messed up that it is the main thing that everyone talked about, and with good reason. If you ignore the DMC universe, it makes no sense from what we see in the cartoon, and it's even worse if you add the context of what demons are in the DMC canon. There's a reason why Sparda is such a big deal; it's not just any demon, especially the strong ones, that have good hearts.
- There are some details here and there that just add to this mess. Like the Raccoon City reference. There's no way that in the games, the universe of RE is the same as DMC. I wonder if this was just a random reference or if they are secretly planning to make a "Capcom MCU" or something. I hope not, since even if nerfed, a guy like this Dante can easily take care of any monster from RE.
- I'm going crazy, or Dante should have tried to interrogate Plasma about his shapeshifter power? As far as he knew, his brother had died years ago, and this random demon just showed up looking like him? What Dante thinks he did was that he somehow found an old picture of Vergil just to mess with him? And yes, Dante never found out that Plasma can only do it with someone still alive (wtf is he a vampire or something), but as far as Dante knew, the only way he could mimic his brother was if he had seen him!
- During the entire journey to stop White Rabbit and his desire to open the portal between both realms, we see how this cartoon feels like it wants to have Mary as the protagonist. Heck, by the end of it, it was only because of her that White Rabbit was even defeated when she shot his fake heart, which is such BS. If Dante can't defeat a guy like White Rabbit on his own, he has no chance against stronger demons like Mundus. Especially when we find out the truth about White Rabbit. And speaking of him...
- Oh maaaaaan, White Rabbit started as such a good villain! Easily the best thing about this mess! So, of course, they had to fuck him up, and they sure did.
Now...even without that TERRIBLE plot twist with him, he was ruined in later episodes since we see his backstory, which just doesn't match with the character we see. It just doesn't make sense that, among other things, he hates Sparda and what he did so much instead of hating someone like Mundus. Since, obviously, it's because of demons like Mundus that are the main reason why life in Makai sucks so much to begin with. And it also doesn't make sense how he was this nice guy that wanted to live in peace with the "good" demons, but now he is even experimenting on them for his own sake because of what SOME humans did. And when you add the twist...urgh.
I can't believe they really thought making him actually be human this whole time was a good idea. It's just terrible and dumb for many reasons. I think the first reason why this just doesn't work is...how? Just...how? How did he even get this power to begin with?
Remember, he was fucked when he and his pals met the mean humans squad led by Mary. Not only was he shot in the shoulder, but he was at point-blank range of the explosion. There was NOTHING between him and the explosion, and the damage was so big that it destroyed the entire place. It makes no sense how he survived that.
Heck, he did way more than survive that. SOMEHOW, he found out that if a human uses demon blood, they get stronger, MUCH stronger than most demons from what we've seen, since he's around the same level as those powerful demons that joined him. How did he find that out? How was he even able to make that fake heart? How did he even get back home with all his injuries? Or you want me to believe that this guy, who wasn't even around machines most of his life or had someone to teach him about them, was able to make that heart and a device on a whim? A device that can open portals whenever he wants, which is something no Government, like the USA's, was ever able to do? What demon did he use for that blood? How on Earth was Mary and her squad so fucking irresponsible that they didn't bother coming back to check if all demons were dead, which would end with him getting captured if not killed? So many damn questions. Even his damn mask doesn't make sense! It's too perfect since he can move the mouth, lips, eyes, and even drink tea with it, no problem! What the fuck kind of mask is that? It's the dream fursuit mask! There was no reason for anybody to even imagine it was just a mask. He even added that white fur on his neck!
Unfortunately, because of so many issues with him, White Rabbit went from the best character of the cartoon to...well, not sure if we can say the worst. Tough competition there with Mary. And, some could argue, with nerfed Dante too.
KEMONO SCALE JUDGEMENT
Now that we put that out of the way...it's KAMIKAZETIME!!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9fUsr9v41-w
Even though this anime fails as an adaptation of the games, if we're talking about the kemono, then...well...let's just say that Devil May Cry was never famous for having good kemono in it to begin with! xP
That being said, they did kiiiiind of have their own version of some of the game's enemies or bosses as enemies or minions of the White Rabbit. For example, Plasma, which is just one "common" enemy in the first game, is here as one of his minions.
However, while they do talk and act, and all, they are barely there in the long run, except for a couple of them. Besides, none of them really have good designs, which doesn't help. Maybe one or two of them will interest you for sure, depending on your taste, but overall...yeaaah. There's a reason why you only see one of the bad guys really being talked about and still getting fan art even to this day.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves...there's only one demon that is a good kemono in this cartoon, and it's the most famous character in the entire series aside from Dante and Lady. And it's White Rabbit, the main villain!
He, alone, started so damn good that it would be worth giving this a rating of two in our scale! Yes, all by himself! He was that good! However...I can't do that. And if you watched the cartoon until the end and see how he got ruined, for the reasons I talked about in the spoiler section, you understand why.
Besides, the cartoon overall just sucks, which really brings the whole thing down, and even if they didn't ruin White Rabbit the way they did, this would never get more than a three on the scale, and only because we at least have more than two kemono characters in this cartoon. Just a shame that in the end it's White Rabbit that was carrying the entire cartoon on his shoulders until...he couldn't.
So, for those reasons, I believe that Devil May Cry (Netflix) deserves a...*turns around and points dramatically at the anime*AN ONE OUT OF FIVE OF LOF IN THE KAMIKAZE SCALE!!!
This one hurt! I liked White Rabbit so much! This is a good example of never meet your heroes...or watch the cartoon, the character you like is from xP!
The best furry character this time is...White Rabbit! I mean..technically...xP!
The "kemono in the refrigerator" this time is... again, technically, White Rabbit for spoiler reasons xP!
Aaaand that’s it for this one! Hope you guys enjoyed reading this review. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments and opinions about it, and also about Devil May Cry if you happen to have watched it or maybe wanna check it out thanks to this review xD. I want to leave those journals as a place where people can discuss the respective things being reviewed here!
