Devilman Lady Episode 26 Discussion

Stygian_Prisoner said:
This show was honestly kinda disappointing to me. I might have set my expectations a bit too high when i saw reviews here putting this on the same level as NGE.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
Truthfully, this anime does not hold up in a post-Crybaby world.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
It follows the same basic story beats as the original Devilman, but it all feels very watered-down mostly because, due to it being a TV-broadcast series, it had to cut back on the franchise's main appeal: edgy violence and sex.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
All the while, it's padded out with a bunch of inconsequential Monster-of-the-Week episodes that don't do much in terms of character development and characterization.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
Remind me again why i should care about Asuka's betrayal, when she and Jun barely even had a relationship to begin with? Unless popping up to bark orders and exposition at Jun and telling her to "get stronger" every episode counts as a "relationship".

hybridial said:

I notice one review did, not mine, because I did not like NGE and so I wouldn't compare them at all. I thought NGE had some neat visuals here or there, but it was so boring, static and nihilistic, I didn't enjoy it.

hybridial said:
Yeah, it does, because good horror will always hold up regardless of the modern audience's increasing ability to not understand it. I liked Crybaby but I still like Lady way more because it was far more effective at horror. Crybaby was a lot more chaotic tonally and because of that some scenes in it came off weird even though the point of them should have been straightforward.

hybridial said:
It's not as extreme in those elements, true enough, I would argue against edgy violence or sex being the franchise's main appeal at least in so far as the original Devilman manga (which did have the violence but very little sexual content) or this series goes, because I consider the stories being the main appeal and in Lady's case, the excellent gothic atmosphere which I think stands out greatly about it.

hybridial said:
I'd disagree. I thought every single one of those episodes were interesting in themselves and did explore an aspect of Jun's situation which did more to inform her character, and also explored different facets of Devil Beast behaviour which helped to demonstrate the potential dangers when the time would come that they would be more numerous. It was a collection of quality horror shorts framed around Jun's character and her needing to cope with what she's become and what others are becoming. I do think a lot of people do not understand her character in this series, because she is essentially an introvert and prone to anxiety and depression. As someone more than aware of what that's like, I thought her character having those difficulties but put in the situation she is in was extremely well done and it was used in several episodes to great effect. And yes, I know Shinji was supposed to be like that in Evangelion, and I won't say the depiction of that was bad but I don't think the story knew when to ease up on it and he ended up more like a parody of someone in that situation, whereas Jun I thought was actually more proactive, but struggled a great deal.

hybridial said:
I definitely don't think its a perfect series by any means, but I love it for its atmosphere, relateable and grounded characters and the feeling of slow burn horror, almost none of which can be found elsewhere in anime, and these days I would say I like it as a horror fan, because anime is something that I've largely lost interest in now because it's become so insular and trope-orientated and there's very little with universal appeal based on one of the main genres. I like it so much as I said in a thread I made I'm working on my own take as a novel, and I have definitely made changes, one of them being to replace Maeda entirely with a character with far more purpose for being in the story and Asuka's relationship with Jun is definitely motivated by something specific. So I definitely feel that things about it could be done better, with the benefit of hindsight and no real constraints, and if you have any interest in an attempt to improve on the series, I'd ask that you give what I'm doing a look, because I think I do try to improve on everything you had issues with, but also just further build on all the strengths I think it had, which I think were numerous.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
Hello there. Sorry for the late reply; i had read your response soon after you posted and saw that you had made some really good points, but i was caught up in a very stressful Uni semester at the time, so i told myself that i would come back here once it's over to give you an appropriate response after i regained my mental strength lol.

Stygian_Prisoner said:

I don't really know what to say here. I think it's great that you got so much out of Jun's character, but i'm afraid i just didn't see it. I don't think Monster-of-the-Week Eps. are inherently bad and i know they can be used to further characterization (Eva also does it a lot), but i could never see much progress being done with Jun's character development (or the people around her) through them. Like, i know what drives Shinji to pilot the Eva is his desperate search of approval from his father, but what drives Jun to come back to Asuka and slay demons day after day? I could never tell.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
I feel like i would have understood her better if they gave her some internal monologues to express her state of mind, or at least one Ep. dedicated to showing what her life was like and how her personality affected her relationships with others before all the Devil business.

Stygian_Prisoner said:
i sincerely believe it would do wonders for both the characterization and the pacing if you could sprinkle in a few lighthearted character interaction moments into your novel, and the transition between those and the darker horror moments would definitely help make them feel much more impactful.

hybridial said:

There's a short scene in the first episode... in fact a lot happens in the first episode that I think can be somewhat easily missed but this is the most important bit to me; after meeting up with Kazumi, Jun murmurs to herself that she doesn't find her own life "cool" as Kazumi calls it. And I don't think that's just grumpiness from a long work day, I think she's distinctly unhappy and dissatisfied with herself. She's worked hard to build this life for herself and yet hasn't found what she thought she wanted. You ask what drives her, the thing is, she doesn't know herself. And this can be seen in other places, like her past relationship with Aoi Kurosaki, where she was willing to explore but ultimately rejects embracing it. Whilst some might interpret that Aoi was too forward and physical, in the end Aoi was the one injured; Jun is left carrying guilt over it rightly or wrongly. Asuka I think just represented a more forceful will that Jun found easier to simply follow than to confront her own inner conflicts. And she is afraid of what she is, and these fears become more and more reinforced through her failures to save Aoi and Hitomi in particular, hence Naperius' later resurrection of them in her attack.

The show has a fair few moments of her having dreams or visions, plus her own dialogue that I do think conveys a fair amount, I don't really understand how you wouldn't get anything from it.

But well, in a novelisation, there is of course going to be way way more of that stuff. And hey, her mother will be a recurring cast member and not just mentioned like twice. And who her father was being a pretty big plot element in itself. There's more of a backstory to why Jun and Asuka are where they are in my take.

hybridial said:
There's no easy way to put it, I just don't agree. For one, I love the soundtrack. I love it. It actually does have a few modes, like some it is quite sensual, the jazz influences are great, and the battle music I think at the right times becomes less horror and more uplifting . If you saw my music folder and it's exclusive inclusion of gothic doom and melodic death metal you'd probably consider me a lost cause on this :P

hybridial said:
And yeah, whilst I've seen pretty nice examples of levity in some of my favourite horror movies such as William Peter Blatty's great dialogue in The Exorcist and Exorcist 3: Legion at points, and then you've got something like Re-Animator that just is a straight up black comedy, but Devilman Lady is a pretty heavily psychological story, and its about people turning into man eating monsters. David Cronenberg doesn't use any comedy in his movies, Clive Barker didn't. And I bring those up as examples because I think Devilman Lady is more like them than 99.9% of anime. Maybe some levity might show up naturally as I write it, but well, it hasn't really happened so far and I'd say I've gone even darker in some areas. I like consistency, to me levity can feel forced in a story that's so clearly devoted to a dark atmosphere.

hybridial said:
If there is one anime I think shares a lot of similar appeal to Devilman Lady, its less violent and adult but mostly as moody, that would be Witch Hunter Robin, which I also liked a lot.

hybridial said:
If you've got an account on deviantart I could just link you my page, I'm a bit too honest for my own good so it is age gated, but if not I could email you some of my work if that's easiest.