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-Spoilers-
Why do people love Devilman? I think there are four reasons: 1) we all root for the underdog, 2) we admire those who keep going even when faced with the worst adversity, 3) we want to be like those who conquer their fate, and 4) we like to see a villain realize that their conquests were in vain.
Devilman by Go Nagai is an interesting bit of manga and anime culture that I discovered while I was living in Japan for six months during college. My friends and I went to a lot of resale shops looking for cheaper anime figures and manga volumes. I spent far too much money while I was there, but everything about that is a story for another day. Arguably the most important figure I picked up while I was in Japan was a bright green devil with wings, a tail, hairy legs, clawed hands and feet, and an interesting face. The only reason I bought it was because it cost only five dollars. And, besides that, I love devilish creatures and characters, so I thought it would be fun to have around. As we returned to our dormitory, my friend and I agreed that we should look up whatever this figure was from online. We had seen other figures from the Devilman series at the resale shops, so why not learn about them?
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What followed was one of the most hilarious nights of my entire life. Back at the dormitory, my friend and I found the Devilman Wikipedia page and read the entire plot synopsis. From the first sentence, we could not stop laughing. I have copied it here. Please note that I have changed a few words to keep the original ridiculous feel of the synopsis that my friend and I read. For example, "intersex" was originally "hermaphrodite." While I do not want to offend anyone who is intersex, I do want to capture just how absurd this plot synopsis was to read. In another case, I remember a few weird phrases like "a business trip to the Arctic," so I added those back in. If you would like to skip all the spoilers, please go all the way past the italicized text. I will talk about everything more generally there, but there will still be references to big spoilers about the main characters.
Akira Fudō is a timid teenage boy who lives with Miki Makimura and her family after his parents died on a business trip to the Arctic. One day, Akira's best friend, Ryō Asuka, asks him to help him when his archaeologist father died after uncovering a mask during an excavation of the ruins of an ancient temple from the Maya civilization, confirming the existence of demons; prehistoric apex predators which have the ability to possess other lifeforms (including other demons) in order to evolve. This mask turns out to be a fossilized demon skull, which upon putting it on, shows the wearer what the world was like thousands of years ago when demons ruled the Earth. Ryō's plan is to prevent the revival of demons: "To fight a demon, one must become a demon."
Ryō believes that people like Akira with a pure heart may be able to harness a demon's powers when possessed and Akira agrees to help after they encounter demons in Ryō's house. Ryō 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 Ryō and Akira, until a demon known as Amon – the Lord of War, also called the Beast of Hell – attempts to possess Akira. However, Akira manages to gain the upper hand of the possession and transforms into Devilman. Devilman retains the raw power and instincts of the demon Amon, as well as the mind and conscience of Akira, giving Akira virtually complete control.
Akira also inherits some of Amon's bravery, pride, and rage. He becomes very aggressive as well as more confident and courageous, and no longer lets anyone push him around. Throughout the series, Devilman has many battles with the demon hordes, encountering foes such as Sirène the demon bird, a water demon named Geruma, and a large turtle-like demon called Jinmen.
In the manga, the story ends with Ryō betraying Akira and revealing him to be the Devilman through a live TV broadcast despite that the Makimuras still accept Akira. Enraged at his friend’s betrayal, Akira confronts Ryō and discovers that he is actually the fallen angel Satan all along. Satan then reveals to Akira that he convinced Akira to be Devilman in order to survive in the world he was planning to create.
Miki's parents are soon arrested by the government and tortured due to their association with Akira while Miki and her brother are brutally murdered by a paranoid mob. Akira slaughters their killers in retribution after seeing Miki’s severed head on a pike. Akira states that he has no one left to protect and to have his final fight with Satan. Satan reveals that he has fallen in love with Akira during his years as a human and is a hermaphrodite. 20 years later, humanity is extinct, the demons and Devilman being the only beings left on a barren Earth. The final battle between Devilman and Satan and his armies ensues.
At the war's end, Satan reveals to Akira the truth behind his reason for defying God: even though God unintentionally created demons, He wished to destroy them. Satan was appalled at this, believing demons still had a right to live. He convinced them to enter a state of hibernation in the ice, to conserve their strength for the final battle with God. Upon awakening, Satan discovered the beautiful planet they fought for had been ruined by the human race. Enraged at this damage, Satan led the demons in a war to exterminate humanity. While Satan explains this to Akira, he also realizes that in the end, he and the demons were no better than God. He begs Akira to forgive him. At this point, it is revealed that Satan was actually addressing Akira's corpse; Satan had won the final battle against Devilman and killed him. The series ends with Satan and the demons triumphant, however Satan is shown looking sad and forlorn. Finally, the Sun rises and an army of angels appears to destroy the remains of Satan's army as Satan weeps for the death of his friend and the love of his life.
My friend and I read this synopsis aloud and laughed so much that we cried through the second half. We never expected to enjoy the story of my random, green devil figure so much. After that, I knew I had to read the graphic novel series, but I was surprised to find out that it was only 5 volumes long. For such a crazy story, that seemed very short to me. Even more surprisingly, the bulk of volumes 2 and 3 are dedicated to fights with demons and short story blasts to the past. (Akira and Ryō experienced past lives together?) In volume 4 we really start to see how the presence of an army of demons on earth is affecting humanity, and in volume 5 the battles are all underway. It did not take me long to read through all of it, although I definitely hesitated at the beginning. The art is very odd, even for something written in the seventies, and it took me a while to get over the fact that sometimes the characters look more like Gumby villains than human beings.
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For all the story's ridiculousness in plot, dialogue, and art style, it expresses some very raw feelings that have caused it to stick around in Japanese culture for so long. (I have listed some examples below of where else I have seen Devilman crop up besides resale shops.) There seems to a be a beauty in the darkness of the story that people like. To start with, the story fits into several genres. The blood and gore alone would make the series disturbing for some, but there are some actually terrible psychological moments of horror as well. For example, the turtle demon Jinmen kills people, then absorbs them to keep their conscious head on his shell, forcing them to forever live a half life. (It is very similar to the Abzorbaloff in the Doctor Who universe.) The main character Akira is aghast to see the face of a young girl he knows embedded in the shell, and it pains him greatly to kill the demon and therefore the girl. Other fights last many, many chapters with characters losing their arms, eyes, and wings while bleeding out from other injuries. Towards the end, the blood and gore stop being just the basic wounds of battle, crossing into the realm of torture, especially as humanity begins turning on itself in a fit of paranoia. Alongside all the black blood (since it is a black and white comic), we see Akira's struggle to come to terms with his new blended personality with the demon, his love for his childhood friend Miki and her family, and his desire to protect humanity from extinction despite their many faults, even if it means becoming more like the creatures slaughtering them. The reader enjoys the action, the romance, the bloodshed, the horror, and the constant struggle against adversity.
Devilman kills the turtle demon Jinmen, punching straight through his shell covered with the faces of his victims. At the end of this fight, Devilman looks at the face of the young girl he knew, now with a bloody hole in it from where he killed Jinmen. He closes her dead eyes before leaving.
(PIcture found on Google Images)
So, I ask the question again: Why do people love Devilman?
1. We all root for the underdog. Akira as we know him through most of the story is neither the demon Amon or the original teenaged Akira; he is a hybrid. The enormous power of both Amon's cruelty and Akira's fear of conflict come together to create the ideal protagonist, for he is ruthless towards his enemies and fiercely loyal to his friends. We want to see him succeed because he desires to more than anyone, which is how he convinces other demon-human hybrids to join him in the fight. Even when humanity seems to be turning into a race of demons themselves, we want Devilman to win the war. Interestingly, Devilman's human name is Akira Fudō (明 不動). His first name Akira means "light," while his last name could translate to "clumsy movement." At the beginning of the series when he is weak and hates sports, his last name seems very fitting. However, his first name soon becomes an indicator of how important he will be to those most hurt by the uprising of demons. It also reminds us that even though Satan is fallen angel with sparkly golden wings, our beloved Devilman is the one with a pure heart shining through.
2. We admire those who keep going even when faced with the worst adversity. No only does Akira have to battle with countless murderous demons; he must also fight Satan, who was for many years one of his closest friends. Each fight is absolutely ruthless. The demons attack cars, sneak into Akira's home to go after the family he lives with, lure him out with traps, and try to intimidate him using the dead faces of people he knows. Satan even goes on the news, pretending to be just a human who has discovered the presence of demons and who knows that Akira is one of them, bringing the wrath of humanity down on him as well. His battle with Sirene the demon bird lasts an especially long time, and only ends when both characters have drained themselves completely of blood and energy. Still, Devilman fights until he can fight no more, collapsing before ever surrendering to death.
After losing his arm and stabbing the beautiful Sirene with her own talon, Devilman rips her wing off of her head. Soon after he collapses from his injuries, Sirene is approached by another demon who has always loved and admired her, whom she merges with only to die from too much blood loss before she can go after our main character to kill him.
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3. We want to be like those who conquer their fate. Akira is introduced as a timid teenager incapable of wowing or saving the outspoken Miki, only to somehow have it in him to triumph over the powerful mind of the demon warrior Amon. From there, everything he does is a struggle and a surprise. His battle with Sirène His ending is tragic in every way (his family dies, his love dies, humanity dies, he dies), yet we know that he won in the most important places. He had people who cared about him even after they learned he was a demon-human hybrid. He had other hybrids who were willing to follow him into battle. While it is sad that he lost absolutely everything, we feel a bittersweet joy in knowing that he once had those things. Even after losing the entire war for the world, Devilman is still the character we love the most.
Akira cuddles the severed head of his childhood friend Miki after he is too late to save her and their friends from being killed by a paranoid mob. I have heard that this is an especially famous idea and image from the story.
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4. We like to see a villain realize that their conquests were in vain. Satan believed in his quest to create a beautiful, natural world no longer harmed by human waste up until the end. He betrayed his best friend Akira when he discovered he was the dormant fallen angel, exposing him to the humans he knew would attack him, in the hopes of calling him over to his side. Even his initial efforts that caused Akira to decide to merge with a demon were all to make sure Akira survived the coming apocalypse to be with him once Miki and the rest of humanity were dead. Sadly for him, Akira never loved him in that way, never once considered siding with the demons, and died fight Satan. In the end, Satan can do nothing more than sit and wait for the rest of the angels to wipe out him and his demon hordes, as he realizes that by killing all the humans in favor of another species he is no better than the God he scorned for doing the same to the demons. His ideals have been proven pointless, his love is dead by his hands, and his brethren have no sympathy or love for him. Even his demons do not love him, for only the truly evil and calculating joined his cause. While Satan had victory on the battlefield, his defeat is all encompassing.
Satan waits for the angels to descend on him and the demons, spending his last few minutes with the mutilated corpse of Akira. This may be just a coincidence, but I discovered something interesting. Satan's human name is Ryō Asuka (了 飛鳥); the first name is fairly common and means "complete," and the last name is, while somewhat common as well, means "flying bird." However, there are characters that resemble Ryō in both the anime and book series Devilman Grimoire who both have the name Himura (緋村), which means "scarlet town." While not an unheard of name, it does make you think of "painting the town red," which Satan basically does to the whole planet. At the same time, I think the name Himura sounds a bit like Himeros, the Greek deitic figure of desire and unrequited love. I do not think the two names are close enough to be an intentional reference, but given the fact that Satan longs for someone who will never love him in return it seems appropriate. Himeros was one of several deities representing the many aspects of love, one of whome is Hermaphroditus, the god of intersex people and effeminate men. Some stories say that this deity was the beautiful child of Aphrodite and Hermes. This also seems appropriate since Satan is lovely in appearance while also being intersex, and sometimes being depicted with wings on his ankles reminiscent of Hermes' winged sandals. Other stories of Hermaphroditus say that he was a beautiful male youth who merged with a female water nymph, resulting in the mixed sex form. Since demons merge with others to become stronger, this is another interesting coincidence.
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Devilman is a beautiful story because the main character, the combination of a pure-hearted pushover and a ruthless killer, rides the fine line between the worlds of good and evil. And he is not the only one. There are other characters who show this struggle, which is what keeps the story interesting. He is not the only devilman (or woman). Humanity itself is not the epitome of good; people start killing and torturing each other pretty quickly when they realize that they have an infestation of demons possessing the world. Terrible things happen to the main character's adopted family. Satan leads the demons because he does not want to let God destroy them unfairly, but how long can he justify killing humans just to make room for the demons? By the end of the series, everything has spiraled into madness and tragedy. Akira, the original Devilman, and Satan fight each other for the sake of those they have decided to protect, and by the end it is hard to say if either group was worth saving. We see glimpses of good in the demon race, although they are usually snuffed out quickly by their fellows, and we see unbelievable evils committed by humanity. Do we love this sort of tragedy because it is truthful? Do we love the intense flurry of emotions it brings us?
The same year that I bought my first Devilman figure, I visited an expensive doll store in Tokyo that was featuring Devilman and Satan as their dolls of the year. My friend who was with me, the same one who was there for the initial discovery, said that it was extremely appropriate. Since then, I have found out many things about Devilman. It was adapted into a superhero anime that created a second iconic look for the character. So, not only are there many different figures of the characters to buy, based on both the original art and the art of the anime; there are also re-imagined versions of the monsters and characters available with bigger claws, punk hair styles, and bright colors like my green figure's. There have been re-imaginings of the manga too, including continuation stories and tales of the demon Amon from before he possessed our main character. Netflix currently features both an anime movie Devilman was in as well as its own anime about him. Most recently, the story has been rewritten by Go Nagain himself with aid of manga artist Rui Takato, which has quickly been released in the United States. It goes by the name Devilman Grimoire or Devilman G. So far, I actually really enjoy the retelling. It is new while also maintaining major plot points, including original demon designs, keeping a similar visual style, and exploring new sides to the characters. It even makes reference of Devilman Lady, a different re-imagining of the story.
My final thought is that I absolutely love Devilman.
Devilman and Satan as dolls
Devilman from the superhero anime
The first cover for Devilman G
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