DEVILMAN (2004)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I'd read a handful of the DEVILMAN manga long ago, but didn't recall them very well when I decided to review this 2004 adaptation. So I consulted an online zine to reread a few of the early episodes of the 1972 manga. I don't usually read other film-reviews as well, but even a quick glance at Wikipedia informed me that this movie was a big box office bomb in 2004, and rated as one of the "Worst Japanese Films of All Time."

It's true that DEVILMAN is a very cheap looking film, and the Nagai concept is not one that can be done on the cheap. Ordinary high-schooler Akira Fudo is convinced by classmate Ryo Asuka that Earth stands in peril of being devastated by a race of powerful demons. The only way to battle such entities is if certain humans, such as Akira, bond with certain demons and use the demons' powers to stave off the invasion. That means lots of skull-busting violence in the approved shonen manner, and that's something DEVILMAN the film could not deliver.

Still, it's not a total loss. In the 2004 effort, the script intensifies the relationship of Akira and Ryo, in that Akira is something of a fanboy to the distant-seeming Ryo. This change may have been to make the Ryo character more consequential to the action, in keeping with a casting-gimmick. Akira and Ryo were played respectively by two brothers, Hisato and Yusuke Izaki, better known then as idol-singers than as actors. Yusuke's not very good as Ryo, but Hisato is at least adequate as a more genial version of Akira Fudo. The emphasis on Ryo does have a plot-payoff, but it reduces the participation of the hero's girlfriend Miki somewhat.

Once Akira becomes Devilman, he has a few CGI fights with the invading demons. These battles aren't the worst I've ever seen of their kind but they're no better than ordinary. 

There's a different kind of action as the demons subvert various humans to do their bidding, which of course saves on the budget. I believe this was an attempt to follow Nagai's commentary, that he wished the DEVILMAN manga to have an "anti-war" subtext. The film promotes this idea a little too assiduously, and thus bogs down in the last quarter. The climax is better, revealing a hidden ambition on Ryo's part, and this does work a bit better than the manga, wherein Akira and Ryo barely know one another.

Verdict: I can think of a lot of MCU adaptations much less faithful to their sources than the 2004 DEVILMAN. And these days fidelity ought to count for something.