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ANNCast - Devilman Crybaby's Day Out

Shin came out five years too early.

Now if only someone would pitch Netflix a Getter Robo series.

"Ok so this girl is shown being attracted to both genders, having a crush on a girl but also fantasizing about men, so SOME PEOPLE would say she's bisexual, but I have a very fine tuned gaydar and I CAN TELL that she is gay"

Jacob, you were openly against gay marriage not too long ago. And as someone who actually is bisexual I know how lame it is to have your identity invalidated by both mainstream culture people and LGBT culture. Why can't bisexuality be a 'misfit' trait? Why does she have to be 100% gay for it to work? Not to mention, if a bisexual person chooses to pursue a relationship with someone of their gender, that doesn't magically make them 100% gay and erase their bisexual attraction.

"Miko never turns into her demon form except at the end because that was her homosexuality being unleashed!"

Except you do see her demon form. As early as episode 7.

Edit: and all this is assuming homophobia even was a major theme in the show. The thing is, though, they dedicated multiple scenes to racism and xenophobia. As a half-asian, half-white person in this adaptation, Miki received abuse from both western racists and Japanese racists. The military were shooting down black villagers like it was nothing. America decided to attack Russia because they blamed them for the demon invasion. Yet there was not a single scene of anyone being homophobic towards any of the gay or bi characters.

The race stuff is an important part of the story as well, and I wish we'd been able to cover it on the podcast, but there's a lot to discuss in the show, and that angle was a little more subtle compared to the sexual/religious stuff, so we didn't touch on it .It is very important though. However, I would say that the sexuality-based discrimination stuff is just as relevant if not moreso to the show's focus. Homophobia in Japan usually takes the form of exclusion by invisibility, so "not seeing anyone overtly bully a character for being gay" isn't really a fair criticism of the ostracization those characters clearly feel. The moment where Akira says "I'm like you" to Koda and he takes it the wrong way and the way that characters make Miko feel "invisible" compared to Miki are common enough metaphors for the stigmatization of other sexualities to make the comparison incredibly relevant.

"There's a beast inside of you; it's on the verge of exploding everyday"
"You want to scream, destroy, violate"

...as being about his homosexuality and not about his demonic side? I don't really think that adds up at all. Besides, who actually stereotypes gay men as being hyper-violent?
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I still think she’s bisexual. But it’s obvious she replaced admiration and love with jealousy and hatred as a means to process those emotions, which only became clearer when she became a Devilman.

It makes sense if she was in denial or didn't know how to deal with the emotions, which by her own admission in the story, she didn't know how to deal with. So she interpreted it as hatred.

Gonna try to assume you aren't acting in entirely bad faith despite your previous posts and respond to this.

Subtext is not a magical thing that replaces any other meaning, nor is it something that exists just by happenstance

If you've never known those kind of pressures or feelings (either personally or from a close friend) maybe it does somehow seem unrealistic to you,

Miko's fear of losing her sense of self and disappearing is tied so strongly to that rather than the outright bullying that a lot of us are used to as the main form of anti-LGBT sentiment in Western media.

We see her self-destruction in the ways she tries to force herself atop the societal rules that would discard her true self

Through those we even see the different paths that those inner struggles can lead to. Koda gives into the pressure and throws himself in with the way society sees him. That he believes his feelings make him a monster leads to an unhappy end. On the other hand Miko is freed by rejecting the society that shames her and ends up being happy and open with the one person that accepts her as she is.

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.