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Devil May Cry the Animated Series v3
Devil May Cry has
spawned four best selling games across multiple consoles. It has been
met with near universal acclaim and also introduced gamers to one of the
coolest protagonists of the last decade or so. Yes, Dante with his dual
pistols, massive sword and cocky attitude embodies cool like no other.
So it makes sense that its creators would want to capitalise on this,
and an anime series seems like the perfect jumping off point. So here we
have Devil May Cry: The Animated Series, featuring Dante and his
cohorts Trish and Lady, doing what they do best. Hunting demons while
trading snappy one liners.
This set includes the final four episodes of the
series, which culminates with the final battle between Dante and the
demon Sid. The last two episodes round out the plot arc of the series
whereas the first two are standalones like most of the series episodes.
The standalones involve Dante hunting for a demon at a high stakes poker
game, and Dante being challenged to a fight by a power hungry warrior.
These episodes are standard fare, and follow the same framework, Dante
gets job, investigates and beats down on a demon. For such interesting
source material, Devil May Cry never really gets going as a
series.
The series differs a little from the games, which is
also where the series begins to falter. The main change is Dante. Sure
Dante is still very cool, but they seemed to have made him a little more
buffoon like for the series. So we get Dante the incompetent gambler,
who loves pizzas and strawberry Sundaes like a regular ninja turtle. We
still get to see him kick all kinds of ass, but these little changes do
nothing to really service the series. Next we have the addition of
Patty, a little kid that Dante saves that becomes part of the series.
She is mostly there to argue with Dante about childish things and seems
like she was shoehorned in for no particular reason.
Apart from this the episodes are just a little
boring. The fight scenes aren’t particularly well staged, which is
something you wouldn’t expect coming from a series based on a game with
such spectacular combat. Most of the stories aren’t all that interesting
either. The final two episodes kick things up to high gear, which is
something the rest of the series could have dealt with. The most
disappointing aspect is that it never really lives up to the standard of
the games, and certainly doesn’t do the characters justice.
Devil May Cry could
have been a stand out series, but it falls short of the mark. It has
interesting characters to work with, but just doesn’t fulfil their
potential. As such if you are a Devil May Cry fan you might as
well just replay the videogames. If you are an anime fan, there are many
series about demon hunting that are preferable to watch. Dante may be
one cool dude, but he can’t save this series from being anything more
than a mediocre adaptation.
The special features in this disc include some
footage of Devil May Cry 4, some trailers and the clean opening and
closing from the series. |
