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ANNCast - Devilman Crybaby's Day Out

I have no idea what Yuasa was thinking when he wrote the characters of Koda and Miko. Their narrative purposes are confusing at best, and a pretty bad time-waster at worst. It's quite unfortunate that Yuasa's revisions to the source material are very hit and miss.

Also, why in God's name did she honk like a donkey when she masturbated? What the hell does that even mean?

But Koda and Miko aside, I'm simply flabbergasted at Yuasa's interpretation of Ryo. I simply cannot understand how a big fan of the manga can turn his character into a hollow caricature of his manga self. He is just a bland antagonist with an ambiguous motive. I'm sure the newcomers will most likely love this adaptation but I can't help but think most fans of the manga will be left scratching their heads in disillusionment.

I'm sure Yuasa had input on the story too but the scriptwriter was the Code Geass dude

I'm sure Yuasa had input on the story too but the scriptwriter was the Code Geass dude

Phew, what a relief. Yuasa is still pure, he did nothing wrong. It was all that hack's fault.

When the show was announced, I remember you said, “I want to make it Ryo Asuka’s story.” If you had to say though, the protagonist is still Akira, isn’t it?

The protagonist, Akira, is steadfast in his resolve from beginning to end. On the other hand, you could say Ryo develops throughout the story, or faces internal changes and struggles at least.

On closer reading, the work begins and ends with Ryo. Akira is there to teach him something. That’s how I approached the work for this adaptation.

(...)

Besides Akira and Ryo’s story, the character I felt I had to get right was Miki. Why is Akira so attached to Miki, and where does her hope come from? And building on that, why does Ryo come to love Akira? What is it that Ryo takes away from meeting Akira and Miki? I set out to show just how the emotions of these three intertwine.

What Ryo takes away from it… You’ve said before, “In the end, it’s about love.” Is that what you meant?

That’s right. It’s about what Ryo learns in the end. I set out to make the show with that in mind.

Ryo meets Akira at a young age, and Akira is the only one who supports him. Deep in Ryo’s heart, he feels that Akira is the one thing in the world worth keeping, but he doesn’t realize it. We as humans can value others by more than if they’re “strong” or “weak”, as would be logical. There’s something more important than the rules of natural order. I want the viewer to see just how Ryo comes to this realization.

What do you think about that?

You'd have to ask Yuasa himself to get the real answer, but I got the distinct impression it was half done in jest to illustrate the scene wasn't really meant to be titillating and half to either suggest or hint at something definitely surreal and potentially demonic about her behavior.

1. Yuasa didn't want Ryo to be a more or less normal person (albeit still with moments of weirdness or craziness) who suddenly wakes up one day and then figures out they are Satan after researching their past. He wanted to add a more emotionally disturbing layer on top of that framework and connect it to Satan's lack of concern for humanity. This isn't Yuasa making Ryo a caricature, even if it changes the character from the manga version, but actually using him for a specific set of purposes.

2. I don't dislike the way Go Nagai wrote the original Ryo, who does come across as comparatively more logical and almost sympathetic on a purely rational scale once you get to the explanations provided at the end of the manga, but for me Crybaby's version of Ryo is more thematically and emotionally interesting. In retrospect, you can tell he was being influenced by his Satan identity since the very beginning of his life and that's where his arguably sociopathic tendencies came from. In that sense, it's more foreshadowed and less of a plot twist than what happens in the manga.

Admittedly, it is true that they serve a larger purpose of being other "devilmen" characters in order to explore other possibilities of how Akira or others like him could have ended up. But I would argue that they were very poorly and confusingly written to the point that the narrative would improve if you removed them. Both of them start out as interesting, but Koda fades into the background and irrelevancy while Miko's arc feels confusing and unnecessary.

I dunno, part of me thinks it was done as pure shock value. It's just too bizarre and out there for me to take it seriously.

Okay, so I must concede that Yuasa was more involved in the writing than I thought. But I completely disagree with Ryo being more interesting in any way. Stripping away all of Ryo's humanity and making him a cold and ruthless obvious villain from the start is PRECISELY why I think he's a very bland character.

But that's not even the most egregious fault in his portrayal, it's that in Crybaby he doesn't even have that powerful and cathartic moment when he recognizes he's been a huge hypocrite. That's the culmination of his character arc! He admits he's wrong for wanting to eliminate humanity, when his whole rebellion started as a way to protest God's decision to kill all demons. So he was doing to humanity what God did to demonkind and he realizes it was a mistake. I simply cannot wrap my head around as to why Yuasa would omit such a key part of his characterization. It's ludicrous, it makes no sense at all.

Okay, so I must concede that Yuasa was more involved in the writing than I thought. But I completely disagree with Ryo being more interesting in any way. Stripping away all of Ryo's humanity and making him a cold and ruthless obvious villain from the start is PRECISELY why I think he's a very bland character.

But that's not even the most egregious fault in his portrayal, it's that in Crybaby he doesn't even have that powerful and cathartic moment when he recognizes he's been a huge hypocrite. That's the culmination of his character arc! He admits he's wrong for wanting to eliminate humanity, when his whole rebellion started as a way to protest God's decision to kill all demons. He saw God's pronouncement to be incredibly unfair and what's more he saw actual beauty in the demons. He actually even came to love them. So, he was doing to humanity what God did to demonkind and he realizes it was a mistake.

I simply cannot wrap my head around as to why Yuasa would omit such a key part of his characterization. It's ludicrous, it makes no sense at all. It completely deflates his brilliant character into a hollow, one-dimensional cardboard cutout.

First, let's recognize that for the first three volumes of the original manga, Ryo is a walking deus ex machina with no personality whatsoever and minimal motivation or backstory. The entire premise of the story gets completely revamped for volume 4, which is when Nagai came up with a through-plot and overarching themes, and Ryo's "OMG I'm actually Satan" moment is such a blatant retcon that I actually laughed reading it for the first time.

For crybaby, Yuasa knew where the character was going, and set up a much slower (and IMO much more effective) slide into his demonic side, and gives him significantly more backstory. crybaby Ryo isn't a "cold and ruthless obvious villain", he's a trainwreck who grew up as an isolated, "despised" orphan and refuses to admit he has or needs any human connections or emotions.

Other people on the forums have already discussed Miko before and how they see her, but I'd argue Koda at least serves to show us that just because he is a devilman with a human heart that doesn't mean the man will make the right choice about which side to work for. That ability to embrace his demon side, so to speak, was also an option. I imagine we would have seen both of them get more scenes, mind you, if the show had 12 or 13 episodes.

Also, why in God's name did she honk like a donkey when she masturbated? What the hell does that even mean?

Those characters simply have no payoff after all the build-up they have. Koda is introduced in a super memorable gay sex rapemurder scene... Then Akira decides to save him and nothing happens. He just joins the demons and Akira later kills him unceremoniously in one second. Like, really? That's it?

Miko on the other hand has a more complete arc, but every time something pivotal happens with her it later has no consequence whatsoever. For example, when she finally hits it off with Butterfly tattoo guy, after two episodes or so of courtship and a 5-minute long hip hop confession, literally in the next scene he dies and both she and the story forget about him. Then after she confesses her love to Miki, they both die 2 minutes later. It really feels like the audience's time was wasted.