Devilman Crybaby arrived on Netflix on January 5, 2018, all 10 episodes at once. Masaaki Yuasa directed the series for Science Saru, with Aniplex and Dynamic Planning producing and Netflix releasing it worldwide. It adapts Go Nagai’s Devilman manga, announced in 2017 to mark Nagai’s 50th anniversary as a creator. The show runs one season, 10 episodes, and every one of them aired the same day.
That release shape matters. Crybaby was built for a single sitting, and its ugliest turns land harder when you cannot step away between them.
Trailer, via Netflix.
Akira Fudo and the Sabbath Party
Akira Fudo is a high school student living with Miki Makimura — his only friend and longtime crush — along with her brother Taro and her parents, Noel and Akiko. When Akira tries to defend Miki from a gang led by the rapper Wamu, his childhood friend Ryo Asuka rescues him.
Ryo tells Akira his expedition to the Amazon rainforest turned up proof that demons exist, and that governments are suppressing it. To expose them, Ryo takes Akira to the Sabbath Party at an underground nightclub. He attacks the patrons with a broken bottle. Demons appear. Ryo films them massacring the humans, then gets pinned by one.
Akira’s will overpowers Amon, the powerful demon trying to possess him. He transforms into Amon’s demon form and slaughters the room. That is the deal the title describes: the powers of a demon, the soul of a human. Ryo proposed the union because he believed the only way to beat demons was to take their power.
Koki Uchiyama voices Akira. Ayumu Murase voices Ryo. Megumi Han plays Miki Makimura.
Jinmen, Sirene, and the Cost of the Secret
The fights that follow are not clean wins. Akira and Ryo face several demons, including the sadistic Jinmen, who is responsible for the deaths of Akira’s parents. Amon’s lover Sirene and her associate Kaim also figure into the run.
Ryo’s methods get worse. He goes on television and reveals that track star Moyuru Koda and fellow athlete Miki “Miko” Kuroda are demons, which pushes Akira to recruit them. The friendship strains as Ryo takes increasingly extreme steps to protect Akira’s secret.
Meanwhile the revelation of demons triggers global panic. Riots and paranoia escalate, and humanity turns on itself. The demons possess humans on a large scale, spreading fear and distrust through the population.
Akira, Koda and Miko start hunting for other devils. Disgusted by Ryo’s apathy toward the chaos he caused, Akira keeps moving anyway.
Rappers Replace the Delinquents
Crybaby moves Nagai’s 1970s setting into the 21st century. The manga’s delinquents who bullied Akira become rappers here, and some episodes carry extended rap sequences performed by professional rappers. Those performances work as a kind of narrator across the series.
Yuasa explained the swap: “rappers are the people who speak what’s on their minds today.”
The show also runs commentary through rapid text messages and social media to track how humans react to demons. Yuasa said the technology and social media’s popularity made the modern situation very close to the manga’s violent scenario, because “people are a lot more connected, for good and bad.”
He named the bad side plainly: people getting shot over a video game, police brutality toward African-Americans, the rise of nationalism in politics, problems blamed on foreigners. On the good side, he cited people coming out as LGBT through social media and a greater “acceptance of different opinions and lifestyles.”
The original Devilman’s anti-war themes get reinterpreted as a metaphor for bigotry. Manipulation and paranoia run through the allegory of demons as “the other.” Critics have dug into the series’ treatment of puberty, sexuality, sex, love and LGBT identity, and argued over whether its perspective and ending are nihilistic.
What the Update Actually Buys
Here is what this paper rates highest, most to least.
- The Sabbath Party sequence. Ryo’s broken bottle, the demons, Akira’s transformation into Amon’s form — the show’s whole thesis in one room.
- The rap narration. It replaces the manga’s bullies with something the series can actually use.
- The social media and text-message layer. It sells the panic as a lived thing rather than a plot event.
- The Koda and Miko reveal. Ryo’s television move is the sharpest turn in the back half.
- The Sirene and Kaim thread. It is the thinnest of the major threads, and the show rushes it.
The 1970s Devilman TV series exists inside this universe. Its theme song turns up as a child’s ringtone, and one child’s bedroom is filled with Devilman anime objects. That is a wink, but it also sets the terms: this is a remake that knows exactly what it is remaking.
Fans were divided on Yuasa’s take. The announcement and release did their job regardless. Crybaby is not a nostalgia piece, and it does not want to be.
The Verdict on Devilman Crybaby
Crybaby earns its reputation because it commits to the ugliness instead of decorating it. The transformation is not a power fantasy. Akira gains Amon’s strength and keeps a human soul, and the series tracks the fallout across its 10 episodes.
The update from delinquents to rappers is the smartest single choice here. It gives the show a voice for the present instead of a costume from the source manga’s decade, and the rap sequences carry narration without a narrator. The social media layer does the same work for the crowd.
Our complaint is pacing in the back third. Once Ryo goes on television and the global panic starts, the series has a lot of ground to cover and not much room. Sirene and Kaim arrive with history the show does not fully pay off. The friendship between Akira and Ryo is the spine, and it holds, but some of the demons around it blur together.
The nihilism debate is fair. Crybaby does not offer comfort, and it does not pretend the panic is anyone’s fault but humanity’s. That is the point of the bigotry allegory: the demons are “the other,” and the humans do the rest themselves. Whether the ending earns that bleakness is a real question, and reasonable people land on both sides.
What is not in question is the craft. Science Saru’s animation bends and distorts exactly when it needs to, and Yuasa’s direction keeps the horror personal even when the scale goes global. The voice cast — Uchiyama, Murase, Han, Ami Koshimizu as Miki “Miko” Kuroda, KEN THE 390 as Wamu, Subaru Kimura as Gabi — sells a story that could easily have played as shock for its own sake.
What separates Crybaby from the shock-anime pile is its patience with Ryo. The series gives him room to be likable before it shows what he has done, so the turn lands as a bill arriving rather than a trick. That is a harder move than the gore, and it is why the final episodes hold up.
Devilman Crybaby holds an 8.9/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 89% critics’ score.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.