#kief rambles about devilman

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Literally i think the best way to illustrate just how different Akira looks between the end of The Birth and the beginning of Demon Bird is to just put these two pics side by side

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In relation to that last post I reblogged:

Like. I’m of the mind that focusing Solely on ships for any piece of media is not normally a good thing especially when the media doesn't focus on romance at all, and I do still feel that way here too.

But, in the case of Devilman, Ryo and Akira’s whole relationship is tied to the entire rest of the plot that you literally lose the whole narrative if you write it out or try to divorce it from the story. Ryo is the one who gets Akira to become Devilman, they’re the ones hunting demons together, the fact that they fight and argue on how to handle the whole situation is part of what spurs the rest of the conflicts in the story on. Akira is the whole reason Satan jeopardized his plans and sacrificed one of his best men so Akira could have a chance to survive the war!! He loved him that much that he risked all of that for him!! And there’s a reason the manga ends tragically on the last conversation between the two of them before Akira’s death!! And considering this was written in the fucking 70s, no matter how problematic the way it was handled might be by today’s standards, that’s still fuckin huge!

Yes, the manga is about the existentialism of humans and their capacity for evil and the horrors and pointlessness of war and the problems with climate change and So Many Other Things, and I am extremely interested in discussing those aspects too, as are others!! But Ryo and Akira’s relationship is wrapped directly into every single other aspect of this story as well, and trying to act like that doesn’t matter or that people have no right to put some focus on it is just plain wrong.

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Thinking about Akira’s fang again because if I don’t do so at least twice a day I start going insane

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You know, as much as I do love Akira’s design in the second ova, I almost wish they’d kept this design for him from the ending of The Birth post becoming Devilman, it looks a lot more like his actual look in the manga in my opinion

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A collection of ghost Akira's in places he should not be~

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Okay so I’m rewatching the OVA’s again after reading the manga because A. I need a laugh and B. I want to see what I missed the first time around, and this time around, I’m thinking about Ryo’s little speech to Akira after they blow up the car fighting off the first demons on the side of the road.

The giftset I reblogged prior to this post has what I assume is the subbed dialogue of this scene, but I’m thinking about the dub dialouge specifically atm, because in the dub it goes as follows:

Akira: (sits down, clearly in shock) “...They’re real...wow, how incredible.”

Ryo: “Yes... (pause) Akira...I’m so sorry. But you’re my only friend, and I need help. Believe me, if there was any other way for me to fight these things alone I would have done so, but the fact is I’m just not strong enough. I can only hope you’ll forgive me.”

Akira: (looking back up at Ryo) “It’s okay, Ryo.”

It is...so interesting to hear this little exchange after reading the manga and knowing what Ryo’s true identity is. The fact that he had no clue who he was at the time and fully believed he was just Ryo the human, and was this scared enough to reach out to the One friend he could trust enough to bring into this fight with him...I dunno man but it hits me somewhere deep in the heart.

Like if you look at it from the point of view once the whole Satan reveal has happened, it almost feels manipulative considering how he’s apologizing to Akira here but still clearly wanting Akira to join him, and he ultimately admits he had ulterior motive for wanting to ensure Akira’s survival by getting him in on the whole thing. But on the other hand, considering he had no idea he was Satan at the time, it’s just kinda touching to see how deeply he cares about and trusts Akira even now when he doesn’t know everything that’s going on.

I don’t have a concreate point to what I’m saying here, but this is just something I was musing over as I watched the OVA’s again.

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The way that I see some people talk about Ryo makes me see red ngl

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Thinking About Him <3

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*cracks knuckles*

Alright. I slept on it after coming home from work, so here’s some of my post Devilman thoughts:

- First off, I’m gonna be mourning that ending for a Looong time. There’s been a lot of story endings that hit me pretty hard (Midnight Mass comes to mind for recent ones I’ve seen) but this was something else entirely.

- I went into this story not exactly sure what to expect. I knew it got heavy at some point, but I’d so thoroughly managed to avoid any and all plot spoilers that I was indeed going into it all blind and I think that made it all the better? I thought it might just end up being some fighting manga focused on a fight between demons and such. To see it turn into such a serious and poignant anti war story was Not At All what I was expecting and yet, now I can’t really imagine any other way it could have gone.

- I ALSO was not expecting the more queer themes of the story to be brought up so blatantly?? Like I was fully expecting this to be a story where I read queer themes into it because I myself am queer. I was not at all expecting to be confronted so openly with Zenon calling out Satan for falling in love with Akira in such like...plain wording. I would have expected if that was brought up at all to have it be only in subtext or in more hidden wording but no they just flat out say it.

- On that same topic...it definitely could have been handled a bit better obviously. This was written in the 70′s, so I’m not surprised, and from what other folks have said I’ve been led to believe only the fan translation uses the outdated slur for Satan being intersex, but even in the official translation its said that his love for Akira comes from that aspect of his existence which is...obviously not that great of a way to word it or explain it. I have to assume some of this was a censor issue especially for its time period, but either way it’s definitely not without criticism.

- With that said tho, Ryokira/Satankira? real, I Will be crying over them for eternity.

- I am usually Really iffy when it comes to media that blatantly shows the death of children, but I think that the imagery of Tare’s death is gonna haunt me forever and that it was like...I don’t know how to properly word what it made me feel, but you can tell it was put there on purpose to Really drive home the horrors of the story that you’re watching unfold in the manga, and it Definitely has that intended affect.

- Panels That Are Going To Haunt Me Forever (sometime I’ll make separate posts on these):

- I will say, I think reading this manga Now with everything that’s currently going on in world politics made it hit all the more in its anti war narrative, and I think it’s going to stick with me more deeply because of that.

- There’s something I want to elaborate on in a separate post later, but I think there’s some interesting symbolism to be had with Ryo specifying his dad killed his bird in the beginning of the story and that it was a Canary specifically. That caught my eye immediately when I read it and it ended up being for good reason in hindsight.

- Once again, I’m deeply in love with narratives that incorporate Christian iconography, so lemme tell you I lost my entire shit when Satan’s true identity was revealed and holy Fuck the final battle being between a fallen angel and devilmen was just so fucking good for my specific tastes. Gonna chew on that imagery for awhile.

I’m sure there’s more I’ll want to elaborate on in the future, but this was the stuff that’s been rattling around my brain in the immediate twelve hours post finishing the manga. Overall, I loved it, I don’t think its perfect, but I definitely think it’s an important story especially for the time that it was written in and with its cultural context in mind.

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A few cute Akira’s from “Divina Commedia” by CLAMP because why not

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Which crybaby did well:

-Not having used the old-fashioned insult of intersex on satan, much less using it as a method of censorship

Things crybaby did wrong:

-Not having openly expressed Ryo's love for Akira as the manga did

-Making an abusive Ryo and an insensitive satan

They didnt go the open route about Ryo loving Akira?? What the actual fuck?!

Man if you can do that in the 70's you should have done it in the modern anime...thats bullshit.

I can't corroborate the abusive claim since I haven't (and most likely won't) watch crybaby, but that is something I've heard people say quite often about crybaby Ryo specifically so I'll take your word for it on here.

At least they went the better route with the intersex thing, that's definitely an improvement.

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Here, I'll put my list of Devilman related drawing ideas here in one post, and yall either reply or send me an ask telling me which one I should do first when I have time:

- Ryokira Hannigram cliff scene swap

- Ryo w bite marks on neck/shoulder

- Something something Respite on the Spitalfields lyrics with Devilman and Satan back to back

- Compulsory ova screencap redraw 

- Ryo in funny shirts i’ve found because i need content catered to my tastes

- Akira Teef/ Bare Your Teeth lyrics

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Sitting here crying thinking about Akira Fudo...god he literally carried his heart to the very end and that kills me.

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Y'know I'm still wondering about what the fuck happened with the translation of Devilman Lady that I read where they changed Akira saying he loved Ryo to saying he liked Ryo. Was that a mistranslation, or does the actual translation not say that he loves him, or what?

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That actually makes me really fuckin mad that Crybaby changed Miki so much, I loved how she was in the manga with being more ready to call shit out and be more brash, making her some bland popular girl whos softer around the edges is so bullshit.

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This is such a minor difference between the ova and the manga but I think all the time about how in the ova, Akira just gets a bloody nose during the Sabbath fight because he’s getting punched around like Ryo, and meanwhile in the manga he gets a fucking bottle smashed in his face so hard that there’s glass shards stuck there