This is the anime adaptation of the video game series Devil May Cry.
It takes place between the events of the first game and the fourth game and it is part of the original series of the game and not part of the reboot DMC timeline as well.
The voice actor for the original video games and not the reboot Reuben Langdon returns to play as Dante once again and he does an excellent job voicing him. And the voice acting for the other characters like Trish and Lady do sound a lot like the original voice actors in the video games. The voice acting for demons as well sounds threatening and scary.
I’ll start off with the story. It uses an overarching story that forms up to one big event in the later episodes of the series. Much of the earlier episodes of show it takes place in a self-contained procedural format showing Dante not taking on world ending contracts like the ones he usually does in the game and glimpses of his daily life outside of demeon hunting. Some of the story episodes did had interesting ideas like Dante being in a street race with a leader of the biker gang in order to hunt down this mysterious biker demon.
Some of the other story ideas for episodes were pretty cliched as well. My least favorite one was this Romeo And Juliet storyline where a demon and a woman fall in love much to the disappointment to her father. Other times there was loose threads that were not resolved in the show.
But the final episodes of the series is when the show starts to pick up the pace as it focuses on a world ending threat and one episode where Dante is going up against two demon brothers who were the apprentices of Sparda Dante’s demonic father. And that is when the threat level starts to rise up as well. Which sets off the events for the final episodes of the story where things get to be more interesting.
The story is a mixed bag to say the least. As it focuses more on Dante being in multiple action scenes. While the action scenes are good and very fast paced. But Dante is pretty overpowered and it doesn’t take much hits for the demon to die unlike in the video games.
The characters other than Dante,Trish and Lady are also one sided and shallow. For example, Patty in this show is a spoiled brat who hardly has any relevance to the plot and is background character most of the time.
And the main bad guy of the show Sid. He is pretty much just another ambitious power-hungry manipulative villain you could see in any other form of entertainment. And he is not as threatening as a villain like Vergil,Arkham or Mundus in the video games. Trish and Lady even though they are major characters in the series they are hardly utilized in the show and Patty would often take up most of the time instead of them. The character chemistry between Dante and Patty is apathetic you wouldn't really care if her or another character besides Lady,Trish or Dante were to be killed. In addition they both treat each other like crap and bicker much of the time and its pretty distracting as well from the main plot.
The show like in the original video games does have pretty funny moments in it as well. And Dante always comes up with funny remarks to mock any demon he is fighting no matter how powerful he is. And Dante is still a really likable character and he is highly talented in any of the aspects he could do in the show such as riding a motorbike or slaying demons.
The action scenes in the show whenever Dante is fighting a Demon is pretty good. Each demon does have their own strategy and their own powers to further their own selfish goals. Dante whenever he fights is pretty cool. But as I mentioned he can be overpowered at times and the demons even though they do look really threatening. They can be taken down within a few hits without any trouble for the most part.
The art style of the show is faithful to the games. It looks dark and the Gothic ambiance and design is still there. And it does give off a horror styled feel to the show as well. The background designs look nicely made.
Dante,Trish and Lady do look pretty good in an anime format. Some of the other characters as well look typical anime characters and they didn’t really stood out to the show as well.
The animation is pretty smooth and fluid and it also reminds me of Hellsing Ultimate as well considering that both Hellsing ultimate and Devil May Cry were both animated by Madhouse studios.
There was pretty good camera angles and close ups during the show especially in the action scenes.
The music is similar to the original video games. Such as a fast-paced energetic rock track. It does sound good but much of the soundtrack often sounds like different variants of the opening theme of the show. I did found the audio as well to be really high quality and the sound effects were alot like the video game.
It still is overall a decent anime despite its many shortcomings.
And I’ll give it 3 stars.
To be fair it is faithful to the video game series and its for mainly fans of Devil May Cry. So if you like the series you could give it a shot if you wish. I prefer the main video game series to be honest.