Devilman

Devilman at its most basic is an action horror manga, and not a particularly tasteful one cause Nagai seems to have been more interested in how far he can take things rather than how well can he do it. There is a lot of over the top violence in this, characters get their limbs torn off, they get cut in half, heads get decapitated and at the same time Nagai with in some sex jokes and random nudity. Despite the attempts at being shocking, in the year of 2000 and 18 it's anything but. Since the 70s there have been so many movies, comics and video games that are filled with over the top violence and gore that when you see the stuff that goes on in Devilman it's hardly impressive. The simplistic art style doesn't help it cause it's too cartoony to take anything seriously. It reminds me of Leiji Matsumoto and his characters straight out of a gag manga trying to look all sad and depressed. It just looks dumb and silly most of the time. I find it harder to empathize with the characters in what would otherwise be a very grim and depressing situation when they look like caricatures more than anything. On occasion the manga has some quite cool, dynamic and emotional panels and spreads that look quite memorable but otherwise it's pretty sloppy with a lot of nearly pitch black panels and scarce drawings.

The art style though is not the only reason that keeps the manga from being all that emotionally impactful as majority of it lies in the writing. For the time it came out the idea of Devilman was fresh and unique, in a way such a story is still rare cause we don't often get an anti-war message that condemns both sides and instead of doing the part where everything is spelled out it takes things to the absolute extreme and makes you watch what it leads to instead of looking away. That's a large chunk of the reason I gave it a 7, that and the pacing and some humor occasionally. That's about it for the good things I had to say about the story, the rest of it is rather garbage. To start off the characters are awful, even Ryo and Akira are barely defined so watching them do anything is boring, at least Ryo's craziness from time to time can be entertaining. With main characters being wet sponges you can probably imagine how good the side characters are. For a manga that tries to be shocking you need characters the audience would care about, you can't just shove a little girl we know nothing about into the story and have her do nothing for two pages and then she's dead and it's a very dramatic and sad moment that this girl is dead at such a young age. Why even bother trying to set it up at that point. This applies to any character, even Miki is a nobody, go ahead and try to describe who she is as a person, I tried and all I can come up with is that she's a tomboy who's into confident, domineering men yet she's bizarrely important for the plot and probably single most "impactful" moment of the manga relies on you caring about her and her relationship with Akira than never even really happened.

Overall, if you don't look at it too closely, it's just a short, fun schlock manga that to this day has some bold plot points that's probably worth a read but it's no masterpiece and it's not as impactful or dramatic as it tries to be

When I first started to read this manga, I didn’t expect much other than lots and lots of imagery of tits and naked women. Oh yeah, and apocalyptic imagery and boy, I was not disappointed.

I’ll admit that this manga was way out of my usual comfort zone – especially with how American politics being the way they are but it did give me some insight to what the general mood was like during the 1980s. You see, the Cold War didn’t just affect the United States and the Soviet Union when it was still around – everyone in the world was scared about nuclear fallout and potential for World War 3. I would imagine that countries affected by World War 2 outside of the United States felt extremely nervous about that.

There’s more of a focus on the destruction of the world than it is between the relationships between the characters. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to learn that Ryo had fallen in love with Akira or that Miki and Akira had an actual relationship beyond “oh, he’s staying with me until my parents come back”.
If you were looking for any meaningful relationship between any of the characters in the original iteration of the Devilman manga, you’re not going to find it here. Instead, what you’re going to find is someone’s fears of another war happening – only with nukes and demons. Basically, war is bad and that we’re all going to die.

Go Nagai wanted to try something different from his usual gag manga and ended up inspiring more people than he probably thought otherwise. The storyline is a bit messy to follow since, again, he doesn’t put the focus on the relationships between the characters but rather on the destruction of the world and the decline of humans’ humanity.

The biggest problem I have is how rushed the fights were. To be fair, this is only five volumes and with his focus primarily being about the apocalypse and the fight between good versus evil, there were going to be some things that are left on the cutting room floor. There was one fight that sort of came out of nowhere with how detailed the relationships between the demons were – all we knew was that they were after Akira to kill him and to allow the demons take over the world in peace, so to speak.

Would I recommend this to other fujoshi?

Probably not. The relationship between Ryo and Akira isn’t that deep other than the meme pictures that were floating around on social media. I was surprised to find out that Ryo had fallen in love with him, as I’ve mentioned, along with the fact that Ryo’s actually supposed to be dead and then the betrayal Ryo did for… some reason I wasn’t clear on.

If you’re a fujoshi looking for something spicy in between the death and apocalypse, you probably won’t find it in this iteration. However, if the hopeless apocalypse is something that interests you, with how America politics are going these days again, then this is certainly for you – I just hope you’re able to deal with the titties and vagina demons easier than I could. I get that Go Nagai is a ‘legend’ among enthusiasts, especially ecchi enthusiasts, but certainly, this manga isn’t for me.

What I would say though is that this manga managed to inspire works such as Berserk, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and many, many more. This manga certainly is more inspirational for other reasons but Boy’s Love is not one of them. This is a pass for other fujoshis but, otherwise, it’s a good read. It just isn’t for me.

"Beware that, when cutting onions, you yourself do not get cut... for when you gaze long into the onion. The onion will make you cry like a bitch."
-Friedrich Nietzsche while cutting onions.

Through the years of reading manga you accumulate experience that will probably lead you in despising generic, plot holed and genuinely boring stories that were once to your preference. You move on to something you think is more appropriate for the mileage you got from reading such stories. You want stories that are perfectly coherent to the narrative, you want flawed human beings, you want stories that you can look back at and think that they were not completely shit. But once in a while there are stories that work the complete opposite. Such mangas are the ones that Go Nagai writes.
Go Nagai is a legend in the business as much as Rumiko Takahashi, Moto Hagio and many more of those who shaped the industry as we know it today. He is mostly known for inventing two genres, that being the ecchi and super robot genre respectively. And while those are big innovations at the time, I think that the stamp of Nagai is the high brutality that is involved in a lot of his works. Among them the best and most known one is Devilman. Shocking the readers at the time of its publication and somehow pulling it off to this day, it is to many regarded as a classic and it has inspired many popular works such as Parasyte, Berserk and many more. But there is more to it than just being a work of inspiration as it represents Go Nagai himself quite well.
What do I mean? While pioneering the manga world, you quickly notice that contrary to his famous colleagues, he isn’t regarded as an iconic writer. In fact he is known for doing a lot of shitty series and even those that are regarded as his masterpieces are genuinely shit. His stories are so heavily plot holed, they are not subtle at all, and his characters are bat shit insane. But there needs to be a reason to why people regard his works as classics. Not because of historical value but rather, and I was pretty shocked myself, they are a ton of fun to read. Especially Devilman which is as much a train wreck as Nagais carrier itself. Now that we cleared the context in regards to Devilman, let us tackle the actual characters and story.

The story is of epic proportions but not initially. We start of by meeting the main character Fudou Akira who lends a helping hand to his friend Ryou Asuka. But quickly complications occur. As we have seen from the first chapter, demons exist in this world, and our main character quickly becomes aware of that. Anyway, demons have reemerged from their slumber and are out to conquer the world, and now it is to our protagonist to face evil by becoming one of them as well, as he becomes Devilman. From than on we have a monster of the week story that while not per se bad, it is not as entertaining as the later parts. And now if you lasted this long you are going to get a payoff. The pay off is a crude, brutal, and probably one of the better anti-war stories I have read on shear impact alone. As it is a story about who the real monsters are. It is about humanity and the loss of humanity. The characters are quite hard to pin-point as they are not human at all and then again they are. Why? Because they really are not so well characterized nor developed to call them human. They are rather shallowly written and that certainly isn’t a good thing. But they can be looked more as symbols, as hollow containers where we can project our humanity into them, or have we lost it as well through reading this story? The demons on the other hand are not developed in a particular way either, besides a certain character who one could say is the star of this work. The manga in itself is as mentioned before really badly written. Nagai introduced elements into the story that later on don’t make any sense as either they are regarded as non existent or they are just disregarded as not important. Which creates a lot of problems as we move on and screech our heads and think what happened with that part of the story? Additionally it has pacing problems as there are a lot of times you ask yourself why particular scenes are dragged out and why some are skipped through. We have plot conveniences as characters either win or loss not through their ability but rather because Nagai pulled something out of his arss. I have to mention the ending as well, since quite a bunch don’t like it at all. I think it is perfect for what the author tried to convey with this manga. People disregard it as not well done because of the way it was paced; I think it worked very well because of that very aspect, as the ending would not be as impact full as it was if it was shown in a conventional way. Moving on to the art.

As far as I have read, and that is not really much in regards to his other works, they usually start with passable art to attract attention. But as you move on you get what the art of Nagai is about. Honestly, it is pretty bad, especially if you are not familiar to the cartoon-ish side of manga in that time. Anyway, as you move on it improves in various ways but it never does so in a big way. Although you get used to it, and I personally got attached to the style as I checked other Devilman related work that aesthetically are more pleasing than the original, but I just couldn’t get attached to the artwork as I did in this installment.

And finally we arrived to the end of this review. In all honesty, Devilman is a work I expected nothing of, and at the end I got so much. It is a manga about the loss of humanity but it actually did something different for me, as it restored faith in my own humanity, for I have been an elitist prick who couldn’t enjoy anything as Devilman without tearing it a new one. This manga is one who a lot of people will not enjoy for many reasons, but if you stick with it for a while and find yourself get into it, you will certainly have a fun time.

Well, i just finished reading Devilman and I'm quite intrigued with Nagai. I had never read anything by him, but as soon as I learned that he's one of those authors that (re)defined several manga genres, I decided to read him, starting with Devilman.

This manga is about a war between humans and demons. In Devilman these demons were the dominanting species living on earth before humans. They are suddently trapped in ice during an ice age, without demons to prey on humans, humanity is able to develop into current society. Devilman's plot starts when demons are discovered to be alive in the ice, and start a war against humanity, since they ruined earth's balance with nature and, well, because they're demons.

The main character is a schoolboy named Akira who is induced by his friend to willingly get posessed by a demon. Due to his pure heart, Akira is able to maintain is human heart and control and promises to protect humans from demons.

The art is amazing, the panel layouts are stunning and there are several moments when suspense is maintained simply by this, rather than the plot.

The story is interesting altough having some confusing aspects, the rythm in particular was somewhat chaotic, particulary towards the end. One of the most interesting aspects of the storytelling, wich I believe to be typical of this period, is a build up of tension not with the major plot, but with small action sequences. It also has a surprising progression, since it goes from a typical "special schoolboy with secret powers fighting goons to protect loved ones/humans" to a apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic/dystopic situation, cold-war/noir style story, where the central concept focuses on what being human is.

Nagai is also well known for his use of gore, and he really uses it well in Devilman. Since those moments are scarce they really cause an impact.

The conclusion itself is very interesting and original, even tough the final twist is the weirdest and most pointless one I have ever seen.

I wondered, for a while, why Devilman had never had a fully accurate adaptation. There was the original show, that essentially had nothing to do with the manga because it was produced early in the manga's run and had to make up its own material. The OVA was fairly accurate, but it stopped at the fight with Sirene. Crybaby hit many of the manga's beats, but ultimately updated many aspects and changed many others. And then I read Devilman, and I understood. Such a seminal work, one that inspired so many other, whose influence can still be felt to this day, is quite flawed. Devilman has, frankly, terrible art. And I usually enjoy old manga art, but this is terrible. The story is decent, I enjoyed it, but Crybaby did the story much better. Devilman can't be adapted because Devilman was already outdated just a few years after its release. A straight adaptation would feel anachronistic, played out and janky, the story moves in strange directions that don't work without some tailoring. Adapting Devilman accurately would be redundant, because shows that took cues from Devilman have already been made, and they were better. Devilman is worth a read for how important it was to manga history, it invented many tropes that we still see to this day, but the story is no longer anything special, and the art looks like a bad fan comic on DeviantArt.

It's very easy to be turned off to Go Nagai's 1972 work titled Devilman, as it is likely that most people who will ever end up hearing about Devilman will be watching it any form but it's original manga presentation. If I were reviewing any of the different translations of Devilman to anime or OVA, it would be undoubtedly a harsh review - even if I still relatively enjoy those works for their quirkiness and inadequacies. However, the charm of Devilman becomes nearly completely lost in it's other forms, as it's positives only truly become apparent and shine in it's manga form.

One has to keep in mind that Devilman is in no sense a perfect manga, especially by today's standards. Don't expect a manga made in 1972 to be able to somehow compete alongside the manga of today, because it just won't. However, from a historical perspective, Devilman (and really all of Go Nagai's works from this period) are intensely influential and groundbreaking in their creation of niche manga genres. Devilman's appeal really comes primarily in two forms: The influential, and the thematic. Reading Devilman after reading so many clearly influenced works, generates an odd feeling of nostalgia for something I've never read before - a truly interesting experience that keeps occurring as I now attempt to rummage through Go Nagai's classics.

It isn't simple enough to say a manga like Berserk was influenced by Devilman, as it's far more complicated then that. Devilman itself is a product of several factors: mythology/religion, modern human war, and man itself. The whole narrative of Devilman is swallowed by the mythology and interpretations of Satan, God, Angels, and Demons. There is a charm to a piece like this that attempts to practically insert itself into the canon of such a well-known and already constructed mythology - Devilman is basically a potential ending branch of these tales it bases itself from. This isn't unique to Devilman, surely, but the manner in which it does this is quite in-depth for such an early manga, and still keeps my interest. While one can still get a mild sense of this in the OVAs, the depth by which Go Nagai plunges into these biblical references just doesn't become felt at all. The story may feel rushed or cheap to some by the end, by I find it actually incredibly entertaining and consistent with the theme of the work. The experience isn't hindered by it's age either, if not further defined and interesting, as it's thematic discussion on the nature of humankind remains forever relevant.

The art by today's standard is rather hit or miss, as many of the character designs either come off as annoying or missing detail. It's not as bad as some chapters of Hunter x Hunter, luckily, but it rarely comes gloss to touching the detail of panels found in Berserk. I understand that's a pretty vague and huge range, but I would personally put Devilman a bit closer to Berserk for it's attempts at drawing just morbid demon designs (One of my favorite part of any mangas, to be honest) The art gets better as it goes along, at least in my opinion, especially in the last two volumes. Some characters just don't work for, and bother me every-time I have to look at them. Ryo's head and hair just NEVER seem to look decent in ANY of the panels Nagai makes, which is practically the only thing that is remedied in the OVAs.

Discussion and pondering about Go Nagai's works and their potential influences is endlessly entertaining to me, and it empowers Devilman with greater character even now. Still, even for it's time, I find Devilman to be a great first attempt at a future age of violent, controversial, and unorthodox manga. It may have ended abruptly, but the echos of it's efforts likely still ring true through many manga to this day.

What can I say? I love DEVILMAN!!!!

The story is epic! Demons lived on Earth many years ago, before being chased out by cavemen, God and the Angels, before Satan betrays them and saves several demons! Akira and Ryu two best friends decide to prevent the apocalypse to be caused by the demons! In that moment...both their lives change forever as Akira turns into DEVILMAN!!!

The series is filled with violence, gore, nudity, destruction and some disturbing images. The series is filled with great characters, awesome story lines, and some pretty incredible stuff!

What are ya waiting for? Go read DEVILMAN!!!!

Then check out its sequel...Jack...VIOLENCE JACK!!!

I'm going to start this review by writing the story behind my motivations on getting to read Devilman's in the first place. I knew Devilman already. It is a very famous character and the image I had about him in my mind was that goofy demon in underwear. That image of him was something that distanced me from the series for years! However, Netflix started promoting this new series called Devilman Crybaby and it seemed to have interesting visuals. Combining these with some great opinions from my Japanese friends I decided to give it a try BUT I knew that Crybaby had to have some connections with the original series SO I decided to take the original manga and read it as a reference for the story. For my surprise, this manga BLEW-MY-MIND! How can a 50 years old manga feels so fresh?? You might think its old fashioned and all, but its story is impressively actual and has some unexpected (and shocking) plot twists too!! One of the most intriguing (and interesting really) things I noticed in this manga is that Devilman in his demon-form doesn't appear a lot. Maybe less than 10 times I would guess?? That's not what you'd expect from a "hero" - which he, is not? or is.. anyways.. reading the original manga made me appreciate even more the other content based on the original story from Nagai Go. The OVAs, Crybaby and I even started reading the other Devilman mangas - Nagai-san just can't forget the character, right?! This is an incredible history and as my friends told me before starting reading Devilman for the first time, I say to you: You really should read it and you will be surprised on many times during the story! That's all folks!

Set at an ever increasing, feverish pace, Devilman is a flawed masterpiece. I find this incredibly hard to rate, because it's simply all over the place. It's easily finished within three or four hours, it feels like a two films, one set in a reasonable setting, and the second in a dream.

The framework for universe is great. There are rules, they make enough sense to be believable, and there's an attempt to adhere to these rules. Simple enough. It mixes in a few genres, and what it attempts in the early chapters works. There's the familiar shounen school setting, a timid boy given powers who becomes more confident (though in Devilman's case, simply becomes rad over night), and he's given a clear goal to work with. Mystery is woven in, along with horror and the very occasional bit of humor, and I was hooked.

The art is great and only improves throughout, coupled with some fantastic panel flow that gives a pretty visceral sense of the action. There's some no holds barred frames scattered throughout the entire series that stick with me, along with one of the creepiest images I've ever seen in a horror manga. There's nothing to complain about here. It works, and it works well.

What I find the most interesting about Devilman is there's not a single part that doesn't have issues, yet it somehow works despite its parts. For instance, the characters almost don't matter. They're pretty stereotypical, and with only five volumes you never truly get a sense of who they are. Go Nagai didn't take time with this story, never really giving it a pace that makes sense. The first couple of chapters happen sequentially, but after that, time can be skipped in huge chunks with only a small bit of exposition later to explain how long it has been, if any exposition is given at all. Many times, details are dropped and seemingly forgotten, without any explanation that I'm aware of. Still, I don't care, because the cohesion is great.

The ending, which takes up pretty much the last two novels, is a whirlwind. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll be vague, but the tone and scope shift so much, it basically becomes another genre. Before I read Devilman or anything related to it, I'd already heard about the ending, which it's quite famous for, and understandably so.

Devilman simply knows what it is. Go Nagai had some concepts in mind, enough to string a narrative along to reach an end goal, and he did just that. The story has very few frills. It doesn't slow down to explore anything beyond the main point, and that is a bit sad to me. I would have liked to have seen more from the world he was building, for him to take some time to attach us to the characters and give it another edge to the punches he knows how to throw. Still, despite it's questionable pacing and character issues, it's easy to see the genius at work here, and ultimately, Devilman is a ballsy, weird, and fun ride.

Despite using "devil" in the prefix of the name and the "-man" suffix, this manga is not about Satanism, nor is it about superheroes! The generic moniker is used on the cover of a story that is a classic tale of good versus evil, right versus wrong, it also personifies the outlook of Japanese citizens, after their loss in World War II. Think about the battle with Silene as an example of wartime commentary, and boy, is it a hard-hitter! Devilman (1972) is a story that you'll be thinking about for years!

※Bonus: The hulking omnibus of Devilman's hardcover edition, distributed by Seven Seas, is gorgeous and I would suggest checking it out for old and new Devilman fans alike!

⚠️ This review of Devilman: The Classic Collection will contain spoilers ⚠️

—Story/Characters

Akira Fudō is a hapless lad, a pure-hearted young man, who gets led into the underworld by his old pal, Ryō Asuka, who is not good — though, when his identity as Satan is revealed, it's apparent that he still has the heart of a human. Through the slivers of dark panels, we see Akira's face become wrought with fear, as he makes his transformation and inherits the spirit of the most powerful demon to ever exist, Amon. The club scene is a living example of the old adage, "if you stare too long into the abyss, it stares back" — since Akira encounters such treachery and evil, like a mirror, his inner demons stare back at him. Thus, he is able to become Devilman and becomes somewhat possessed by the spirit of Amon.

It's interesting foreshadowing, when you think that the naïve Akira transformed into Devilman because of shock and fear. Juxtapose that with the apocalypse, where hoards of humans are acting like demons, because they feel fear from the existence of demons. In the manga version, demons like Agwell and Gelmar are not given the same levity as the other demons are, they are painted as farcical villains — while Akira is coming into his own as Devilman. It's more of a stereotypical hero scene, where Miki begins to fawn all over Akira, because he's become strong and isn't the wimpy guy that she knew from before.

There's also a group of school delinquents that Akira has beef with, but they turn out to be pretty decent characters, defying their yakuza-like archetypes! The plot first gets really dark when Jinmen is introduced. In most anime adaptations, Jinmen's captures the disembodied head of Akira's mother (and sometimes his father, too) and carries it on his shell, but in the original manga (and "Devilman VS Cyborg 009"), it is a young neighborhood girl, named Sachiko. I actually prefer the latter as a plot device, because Sachiko is a very sweet little girl, and I think that's more emblematic of the cruelty of demons, rather than the whole "Batman" shtick, where the demon killed his parents! Being able to ruthlessly kill a child is a very evil thing to do, and it doesn't seem as contrived, when used as a plot device.

After Jinmen, Akira defeats Sirene, who hopelessly lusts after Amon's power. Check out my "Devilman: Yochō Sirene-hen" review for a more detailed analysis of her character. And then the apocalypse begins, in a fourth-wall breaking moment, Akira appears out of the shadows and warns the readers that the story is about to get very dark. Ryō Asuka remembers his identity as Satan, it is implied that Psychogenie (or "Psycho Jenny") is a demon that had the ability to alter Ryō's memories and so, Ryō realizes that his entire life as a human has been a lie, and he's actually Satan. With that, he pulls a ※Fūma Monō ("X/1999") and reveals footage of Devilman to the public, thus beginning the apocalypse, by casting the world into a pit of pure pandemonium.

※Fūma ("X/1999) may have been based off of Ryō in some capacity, because CLAMP actually used to distribute Akira ✕ Ryō dōjinshi, before they made it big. Fūma and Kamui's childhood bromance is suspiciously similar to Akira and Ryō's story!

The world becomes a stage for a massive witch hunt, and people with torches start killing innocent people in cold blood, suspecting everyone of secretly being a demon. The first scene to really tug at my heartstrings, is when Akira (as Devilman) searches for Miki's missing parents and they have been tortured to death in an experimentation facility, he then says, "And you call yourselves human?" That really struck a chord with me, and then to lay on the melancholy mood further, Devilman returns to Miki and finds that people have murdered her and are barbarically hoisting her dismember head up on a stake! Miki Makimura: the typical, girl-next-door character — was even killed and accused of being a demon. The most honest and forthright character in the whole series!

Feeling devastated, Devilman finds the resolve to gather a tribe of Devilmen (after the apocalypse, demon forcefully fuse with human vessels and give them a similar affliction to Akira) to wage a war against Satan, and his followers! The Devilmen that followed Akira were hybrids that were still able to remain human, due to a pure heart, this is kind of a surprise with characters like Mikiko Kawamoto — who is shown to be a rebellious hoodlum. But, like the good-hearted gangsters from before, Gō Nagai seems to like the trope of hood rats becoming reformed characters. In the end, after several years of a catastrophic battle, that has destroyed the entire world; Satan and his clan are victorious and Satan weeps over the ruinous planet, next to Akira's corpse, because ※they had fallen in love with him. It then reveals that God has forced Satan to relive the same reality over and over again, to punish them for their disobedience.

※Referring to them as a "they" because Satan is a hermaphrodite in Devilman.

If you think of things spiritually, Satan didn't really triumph in the end, though he won the war. They killed the only person that they had ever loved and they are left with an empty world, that may as well be Hell. In the end, God wins and Satan is left in a never-ending cycle of despair. I think that the ending was also supposed to be a commentary on the second World War, the Allies won, but they didn't really win, because the world was left in ruin and innocent people were murdered in the process. Devilman is truly a deep story.
—Technical

Luna's Favorite Works by Each Respective Creator = ✅

Gō Nagai (creator), ※notable works:
* Abashiri Ikka
* Akuma Kishi ✅
* Bakuratsu Kyōshitsu
* Barabanba
* Barabanba 2
* Cinderella Knight
* Cutie Honey
* Cutie Honey Tai Devilman Lady
* Cutie Honey: Tennyo Densetsu
* Dante Shinkyoku ("The Divine Comedy")
* Devilman Lady
* Devilman Saga ✅
* Dokuro no Yakata ("Gō Nagai's Horror Story Collection — Skull Manor")
* Dororo to Enma-kun
* Dororon Enbi-chan
* Dororon Enma-kun ✅
* Fullmetal Lady
* Gakuen Taikutsu Otoko
* Gekiman!
* Gekiman!: Mazinger Z-hen
* Getter Robo
* Getter Robo Anthology: Shinka no Ishi
* God Mazinger
* Great Mazinger
* Grendizer Giga
* Hanappe Bazooka
* Harenchi Gakuen
* Harenchi Golfer Jūbee
* Iyahaya Nantomo
* Jūshin Liger
* Kamasutra
* Kekkō Kamen
* Kikōshi Enma
* Kuro no Shishi ("Black Lion")
* Lovely Angel
* Maboroshi Panty
* Maeda Toshiie
* Magokko Kinta
* Maō Dante ✅
* Maō Dante (2002)
* Maō Dante Tai Getter Robo G
* Maro
* Mayonaka no Senshi
* Mazin Saga
* Mazinger Z
* Memory Glass
* Mist Story
* Mugen Utamaro
* Nagai Gō Ecchi Manga Selection
* Neo Devilman
* Oira Sukeban
* Omorai-kun
* Oni: 2889-nen no Hanran
* Rambo Sensei
* Salacia: Waga Hakugin no Mermaid
* Shin Devilman ✅
* Shin Mazinger: Shōgeki! H-hen
* Shin Violence Jack
* Shuten Dōji
* Silene-chan
* Supeope Chūgaku ("Space Opera Chūgaku")
* Super Saiyūki
* Susano Ō
* Tantei Jimusho H.G
* Teito Onna Kisha Den — Sharaku
* Tenkū no Inu
* Tetsu no Shōjo Jun ("Iron Virgin Jun")
* This is Daisuke
* UFO Robo Grendizer
* Violence Jack
* Violence Jack: Demons in a War-Torn Land
* Violence Jack: Jigoku Machihen
* Wakabaka-sama
* Z Mazinger
※These are just the works which he did BOTH the art and story, there are a plethora of other stories in which he only wrote the story or just did the art.

Commentary: Mr. Nagai's art LOOKS like what a '70s manga would typically look like, there are some aspects that have aged well and others that haven't, some of the faces during the beginning of the collection are drawn comedically, despite the situation being serious. I would say that Nagai is proficient at drawing Akira as Devilman and the creature designs, than the actual humans! Although, Akira's iconic winged bottom lashes are still a staple to his design... to this day! I really loved when Devilman would get angry or anguished, and Mr. Nagai would distort the line work, and almost give the character an avant-garde kind of feel to him! You can tell from Mr. Nagai's nuance in artistic expression and style, that he was an apprentice to the late Osamu Tezuka! Incredible work, even the panel layouts are very eye-catching!

Conclusively, "Devilman: The Classic Collection" is a must-buy classic series. Even if you aren't usually interested in an antiquated manga collection, the philosophical message of the story and the prolific characters are still important in our contemporary culture! The original Devilman, some of the other off-shoot series are mostly about shock value, sex, and gore — is about holding on to a sense of righteousness and dignity, even if you are forced into the role of a devil. I rate "Devilman: The Classic Collection" a solid 8/10!

Rating: ★★★★☆

This manga is an experience. Go Nagai experiments with genres, style and tone ultimately creating a story that is incoherent, full of nonsensical plot twists that culminate in a truly bizarre anti-climax ending. Amidst all the chaos, you may find elements you enjoy, but they are likely to be scarce as the manga has no focus whatsoever.

Devilman starts as an origin story for the eponymous character, only far more disturbing than your typical western comic book. This is typical of Go Nagai's work. There's plenty of violence, gore and rape from the beginning. This is in stark contrast to the art style, depicting the human characters as if they're in a newspaper comic strip like Peanuts or Archie Comics. At the beginning, Devilman even has a minor conflict against some school bullies, in the same volume where demons murder a room of people for no reason.

The first arc largely focuses on Devilman keeping his secret identity and saving his would-be love interest from the demons, making use of one time powers such as eyebrow razors that are never seen again in any media. The early part of the manga has some promise, but the tone is completely inconsistent. Most of the time it's fairly lighthearted and Devilman is a normal high school student, but there's always a sense that the plot will go off the rails.

Eventually it does, rather spectacularly. This is what brings us to the next arc of Devilman and the best one in my opinion, the one shot villains, comprising only a few chapters of the entire manga. This is where possibly the best Devilman character, Jinmen, appears and has an amazingly dark, disgusting segment and is definitely worth a look. He would go on to become one of the most featured characters in the franchise and his entire section is excellent, barring maybe the finale of the fight which inserts a moral choice in place of a logical conclusion.

The fights in this manga tend to not be satisfying as Go Nagai will pull a new power for Devilman out of nowhere for him to win. The villains, besides Jinmen and Sirene, tend to be as undeveloped. The same goes for the main characters who largely exist as plot devices or symbols to be subverted, in place of good writing. It's a shame that Jinmen did not become the basis for a slew of one shots, as this whole arc comes to an abrupt stop to make way for build up into the ultimate anti-climax. The story veers off in so many directions it leaves no room for characterization.

Up until this point, Devilman has largely not faced any conflict he can't overcome by brute force and sheer dumb luck. It is now that the writer decides that he wants to make a political story like X-Men where the demons are a symbol for downtrodden people, or something. This is the point of no return where nothing begins to make sense. The story is effectively crumpled up and thrown in the garbage to make way for a massive plot twist. Everything that happened is completely meaningless and the final chapter in particular comes out of nowhere. It gets so abstract I had to read online to understand what the last pages are showing, as it's never explained.

Overall, this manga might be worth a read to form your own opinion. I read it in a day, and I can't say it wasn't captivating, but left me feeling very disappointed. Go Nagai would go on to make other mangas that while not as experimental and acclaimed, were far more coherent and focused properly on either the violence (Violence Jack) or experimental plot (Devilman Lady). To properly enjoy them it's a requirement to at least know the Devilman story. However if you're coming in to the original Devilman expecting a deep plot, good characters and art that isn't stuck in the 70s, I doubt you'll feel satisfied.

Devilman is a relatively short horror manga written in the 70s by Go Nagai. It was the subject of heavy controversy due to the violence and dark themes within it for its time.

The manga is an important landmark in manga history. Many creators of popular franchises cited Devilman as one of their main sources of inspiration. Series like Berserk, Parasyte, Bastard!!, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and potentially more would not exist without Devilman.

I was curious about watching the anime adaption, Devilman Crybaby, but I first wanted to read through the original manga. Despite the age I tried to not let it discourage me, it would be unfair to dismiss anything and calling it dated just because it happens to be an old work.

However, Devilman is a truly dated piece of art, with its quality having greatly diminished throughout the years.

Devilman tells the story of the main character Akira Fudo fusing with a demon, while keeping his human heart and becoming "devilman", so that he can help humanity defeat the demons.
While the story is boring at the start it does have a good twist and an unexpecting ending.

The art quality is not very good, and the style is TOO cartoony, it feels out of place considering the story and the themes that are tackled within it. The action scenes are passable, and the quality of the environments seem to be Nagai's strength. However, the characters look incredibly lifeless, plain, and end up just looking like Ken dolls.

The manga has several dated writing techniques.

Volume 1: more than 70% is a boring exposition, consisting of the main character Akira listening to Ryo’s explanation about demons. This leads to some unnatural and fictional like dialog between the two characters. Ryo speaking as if he was reading a Wiki, then introducing a “genius” plan consisting of fusing Akira with a demon, while Akira’s wimpy personality evolving into a “let’s do it” attitude almost immediately.

While most authors would cleverly add these bits of information throughout the story, Devilman just throws it all out, most of this information is literally useless. Instead of wasting pages for this boring and overly long exposition, the author should have drawn the final battle in Volume 5.

Volume 2 is a generic and boring fight, between Akira and a female demon.
Later, in Volume 3, they introduce a loli child character out of the blue, she is written as an “important person” to the main character randomly. Despite her not existing until the page you turn to, then gets murdered less than 15 pages later.

Volumes 4 & 5, takes a twist, turning from a generic superhero story about fighting demons to Armageddon of humanity. I did enjoy reading through Volumes 4 & 5, but still suffer from meh art, bad dialog, and a skipped final battle.

Overall Devilman when it was released was ambitious and important for the time, inspiring manga creators to make more mature and darker stories, however now it is a dated piece of history.

Execution, is the thing the manga is lacking at, but you know what is executed well? The great anime adaption Devilman Crybaby.
The anime adaption greatly animated, every change they made was for the better. If you wish to try Devilman, just watch the anime Devilman Crybaby.

So, this is my first ever review and I felt I had to write this after just finishing it all. I liked it, but I wish there was more time to develop the story. It seemed to go through the tension so quickly building Building BUILDING with no break which puts you on edge with all the violence.

Having never read any work like this, I still enjoyed the surprise ending. There is a creative spin on demon and some Bible stuff. I thought the story would be tame but it is adult. I recommend this to read a bit at a time to take it all in. If you like bloody action and don't mind the art style, take a read. Personally, it was the art style that made me think it was for kids because it reminds me of Astroboy.

Adults only.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the series Devilman.

I liked the manga, mainly due to the compelling storyline and the characters. The story could be a bit predictable in parts, but overall, I was generally surprised. I also had to remember that this was written in the 70's, not recently (this is the first manga that I have read that hasn't been written before the 1990's and beyond).

My dislikes for the manga, was that it seemed that while it had a good story to it, at times it did seem to be fast paced (especially towards the end). But, I guess that's what you get for having a manga with only 5 volumes.

I'll be willing to read more of the author's work again.

Devilman, well-known for its gory death scenes, actually has a pretty interesting concept behind it. Unfortunately, its execution doesn't live up to it. Considering the few amount of reviews about this, and none very detailed, I'm leaving this one here.

STORY (score: 6/10)
Divided into 5 volumes, with 4 chapters each, its plot can actually be seen in four different stages for better reviewing this trainwreck. Yes, in a series where the parts actually build up and pay off this is a wrong method, but that's not the case of a bipolar series like this. So the stages are: chapters 1-3, then 4-11, 12-19 and 20 alone.

Chapters 1-3 (score: 6/10)
It starts with a scene from ages past about demons roaming the land and a mystical being appearing and condensing them into a... something. Then it cuts off from that and goes to Akira.
Right at the start, you can see how characterization is dreadful, it shows just a stupid scene apparently trying to tell how Akira and Miki are extremelly cliché, then goes right into the story with Ryo. It presents what the story is gonna be all about, which is actually a fantastic idea. Demons are coming back after thousands of year buried in ice, even referencing Dante's Divine Comedy. Its all well explained in these first chapters what happened to them, how they are, what they're capable of, and what they intend.
Then Ryo tells Akira to merge with a demon to be able to fight them. Decent start, what could go wrong?

Chapters 4-11 (score: 1/10)
Trainwreck. After Akira becomes Devilman, it becomes episodic demon fighting, with lots of asspulled ridiculous powers that were never presented before (I mean, fighting with eyebrows? firing lightinings with them? are you kidding me?). Devilman will be fighting random demons that appear out of nowhere, with failed attempts at drama by introducing a new character and killing her off in the next pages, showing the flat love interest going through peril, and all that serves no purpose AT ALL to the story that's coming in the next stage, it's all pointless, absolutely. Why waste so much time with this? It does not provide any characterization, nor any plot development in the slightest.

Chapters 12-19 (score: 7/10)
THIS is where something finally happens. Remember how the synopsis is about saving humanity from demons? So, this is where they actually do something besides a few of them appearing out of nowhere to fight Devilman. I have to say, without spoiling, that this part has great strategizing and twists, it's really the best part of the story, but it still suffers from a few things:
1 - Pacing. It's all rushed, has timeskips and a few plot devices to try making things faster. Maybe if it hadn't wasted 8 chapters on nothing, the pacing could've been much better on this stage.
2 - Pointlessness. It introduces big demons and a sphere of light (it's possible to deduce what it is, could've been used greatly) that are forgotten later on.
3 - It fails to pass the message. It tries telling about the malice of humanity, but it lacks the drama necessary for it to be meaningful. Akira will be shedding a tear, but the reader won't feel a thing, because the characters are flat and don't feel human at all.

When you reach chapter 19, you'll probably be wondering "how the hell is this gonna end in 1 chapter?" There you go.

Chapter 20 (score: 2/10)
Were you expecting an epic final fight? A mindblowing conclusion? Well, think again. Not only it's extremelly rushed, it fails to explain some stuff that is going on. A sphere of light appears doing something that doesn't make sense, is it the same one that was presented earlier? And what is that in the background of the last page? Is it that same light? What is going on there? No answers.

And the last dialogue, that actually presents some relevant information (which is why I gave it a 2 instead of 1), also adds a new one that makes you wonder if the demons are retarded, because something they did thousands of years ago doesn't follow any logic.

Remember the beginning of the first chapter that showed that scene from ages past? What happened there is never explained too.


ART (score: 5/10)
The artwork is very inconsistent. You see, in the first chapter you'll be seeing the scene from ages past about the demons, and that's very well drawn.

But when it gets to Akira story, you see how shitty it gets. Character designs are all cartoonish, not fitting at all for a story about demons and gore, there's a lot of lazyness such as drawing floating heads to avoid drawing backgrounds and bodies.

Then why did I give it a score 5? Because sometimes it's awesome. In the 3rd stage of the story there are cities, explosions and stuff, and it's all detailed. So by balancing the shit parts with the good ones, it comes out a 5.

CHARACTER (score: 2/10)
Ryou turned out to be well written by the end, truly a good character, with past, goals, morals and development. Not a single one of the other characters is like that.

Akira is one-dimensional and inconsistent right at the start. Ryou says he's a good person with a kind heart - never given a second dimension to back that up - but then Akira will be going all "fuck yeah, I'll become Devilman and go on a rampage on those demons". Then he becomes violent because of the demon inside him, but later on he becomes reasonable again for no reason. Poorly developed, with no second dimension and inconsistent first dimension.

Miki is a cliché zero-dimensional character that doesn't do anything besides trying to be a love interest and make drama.

And the side characters? There's Miki's parents and brother, which are as flat as possible, and... Well, anybody else? The demons? Most get no characterization at all, and the ones who get are only hazy pasts and exist only as devices to fight Akira in the second stage of the story.

ENJOYMENT (score: 5/10)
I really, really wanted to like this manga. It had a fantastic concept, but as soon as I reached the second volume, it started to be a pain to continue reading. Thankfully chapters 12-19 saved this, or the enjoyment value would be around 2.

Considered to be author's most iconic work, Devilman has created certain standards for works to come after it and could be considered a pioneer in that respect. However, it is questionable how well can it cope with tastes of today and not be cast aside as a mere superheroic work with horror elements.

One of the weakest and probably most prominent aspects is its artwork; which could repel readers immediately. However, there is more than it meets the eye in this clunky and out-of-place cartoon-ish style. Emotional overtones simply ooze out of panels, while anatomical accuracy is sacrificed for the sake of distorted depictions which pertain to violence and chaos as one of the themes. Go's expressionistic style flirts with reality, thus never makes violence seem to be there for the sake of fetishization, but instead experiments with abstraction of it.

When it comes to characters, this work refrains from any in-depth characterization, but rather shamelessly uses them as convenient tools in order to proceed with Akira's development. Justified move, in a sense, since traditional hero portrayal is cast aside in order to act on a wider scale. That can be seen in the way main character is written, as a paradoxical counterpart to humanity. Where he has to accept his inner evil in order to defeat evil, which is where the aforementioned fails.

The world of Devilman is multi-layered and it is very difficult to analyze its elements individually and in a typical way, because they are all juxtaposed into sort of an incoherent unity. Naturally, since it wasn't pre-planned, it's ridden with plot holes and erratic pace, however, it does in return offer a certain refreshment worth and perhaps a peculiar charm.

Story itself is ostensibly simplistic, but in actuality is so complex that with each re-read you discover more about it. It tackles philosophies from Buddhism, Zen and even Christianity. I would say that it focuses mostly on duality, or rather the absurdity of belief that there are two separate extremes. The opposites must be conciliated and balance each other so to achieve a dynamic equilibrium, which is -- in Devilman -- manifested in the acceptance of ones inner demons.

Colors of Devilman are not black and white; there is no strict dualism which helps us create moral separations. It ventures so far to question God himself and makes us wonder what truly is evil.