Kokkoku 1
This is based on a manga with a nomination for a Taisho award, so at least it should be decent enough. 8 volumes, let’s see if they adapt everything, or they do a condensed version, or they are going to finish in a cliffhanger.
For now the first episode has intrigued me, though it’s more about supernatural powers than I thought it was. The 3d to show off the stopped time was good, and I like the more realistic non-moe character design where people are allowed to look like adults, and even look like average or ugly ones.
Devilman Crybaby
So in the end, it was good.
As I was around the middle of the series, episode 5 or so, I was wondering why the hype, as imo it wasn’t being that good. But the series redeems itself in the final arc, from episode 7 onwards. That’s where the payoff really starts, imo.
Even then, I think my attitude to Devilman Crybaby is a bit less positive than many other people. I still have the impression that it could have been better. If the series would have given two more episodes, increasing the total amount to 12, and use that extra time fleshing out the friendships between the protagonists, that way the feels in the final arc would have been even more effective. The final also had a feeling of rushedness, they seem to go from a state of paranoia and local conflict to global warfare and from there to apocalypsis in a few minutes.
Overall, I liked it, but I consider it as a minor Yuasa work, I still like Ping Pong, Kaiba, Mind Game or Tatami Galaxy better.
Maybe the fact I was half spoiled had an influence. I haven’t watched the old series/read the old manga, but by pure cultural osmosis I knew stuff like EoE end being inspired on Devilman, I think I’ve seen the final page of the manga before, in other words, I kind of knew it was going to end in global tragedy.
On the specifics, some stuff I liked
-I was debating myself if Ryo was a demon, or a celestial being… funnily enough, it was both!. Satan/Lucifer the angel that turned Devil.
-I liked small details like the small brother showing some worrying pro-Demon tendencies in the earlier chapters as setup.
-I also liked the little twist in the two secondary Devilmans, the two other runners. It seems the girl was going to turn evil and fast, and the guy on the other hand was good, but he turned coats to survive easily, and on the other hand the girl has her redemption, even if clearly she had eaten the poor rapper before.
-The end was good, with Ryo learning he too could feel, just too late. It’s like greek tragedy, in how ironic it is: precisely he needed to loss someone very important to him to learn it, but once he has lost him, well, the lesson is worthless, as he didn’t care for anyone else.
-‘I am Devilman too!’, in the comments of last blog post from Miki, was a funny moment. I thought they were other normal people who were saying it as signal of empathy with their situation. But later we see they were, literally, other Devilmans, the ones that Akira were searching for.
