What is Devilman Crybaby?
The 1972 manga, told whole, in ten episodes of liquid motion.
Devilman Crybaby is the ten-episode retelling of Nagai’s manga produced by Science Saru, directed by Masaaki Yuasa, and released worldwide on Netflix on January 5, 2018. It is an alternate, modernized version of the story, the first screen Devilman to take the manga’s full arc, beginning to end, as its brief. It arrived the same season Seven Seas finally published the manga in English, and the two releases fed each other all year.
THE CRAFT
Science Saru · 2018Yuasa’s hand
Masaaki Yuasa, anime’s great liquid animator, directs with his signature looseness: bodies stretch, crowds surge, and the 1970s designs move like water instead of standing like statues.
The score
Kensuke Ushio’s electronic score drives the series; the opening theme is Denki Groove’s “Man Human.” As a bridge across forty-six years, Crybaby remixes the 1972 TV theme “Devilman no Uta” as an insert song, performed by Queen Bee’s Avu-chan. The two-disc, 48-track soundtrack was released by Aniplex on January 10, 2018, and pressed on vinyl by Milan Records in 2024.
Modernized, on purpose
The retelling relocates Nagai’s mass-hysteria mechanics into the social-media present and gives the track-team world of Akira and Ryo’s school life a rap soundtrack, supervised by Ken the 390, who also voices the character Wamu.
THE RECEPTION
Anime of the YearThe awards
At the Crunchyroll Anime Awards for 2018, Devilman Crybaby won Anime of the Year, and Yuasa won Best Director. It was also selected by the jury of the 22nd Japan Media Arts Festival.
The critics
Rotten Tomatoes collected a critic approval of 89%; Polygon and Crunchyroll’s own staffs later placed Crybaby among the best anime of the 2010s, and Paste ranked it among the best anime of all time. For a 1972 property, it was a second first impression, made for the whole world at once.