What is Devilman Lady?
Devilman reimagined with a woman at its center, the sequel Nagai built twenty-five years later.
In 1997 Go Nagai returned to his darkest creation with a simple what-if: what if the main character was a woman? The result, Devilman Lady (published in English as Devil Lady), follows Jun Fudo, a model who discovers she can transform into the towering Devil Lady, and who protects humanity from the devil beasts emerging around her. It is an original story, not a retelling, a second, alternate sequel to the 1972 manga, standing beside Violence Jack.
THE MANGA
Weekly Morning · 1997–200017 volumes
Serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning from January 30, 1997 to July 6, 2000, and collected in 17 tankōbon volumes; a nine-volume bunko edition followed. Where Devilman ran in a boys’ magazine, Lady ran in a magazine for adults.
The sequel question
Devilman has two claimants to “the sequel”: Violence Jack (1973) and Devilman Lady (1997). Nagai has treated Violence Jack as its own universe, which leaves Lady as the straighter continuation of Akira’s story, and the two are often shelved as alternate futures of the same ending.
Akira, in silhouette
Akira Fudo’s silhouette appears briefly in the opening of the Devil Lady anime, and Fudo is Jun’s family name: the sequel keeps the original hero in the corner of the frame, deliberately.
THE ANIME
TMS · 1998–9926 episodes
TMS Entertainment’s Devil Lady ran from October 10, 1998 to May 9, 1999 on MBS, directed by Toshiki Hirano with scripts led by Chiaki J. Konaka. Its storyline is almost completely its own, built around Jun Fudo and Lan Asuka.
In English
ADV Films released the anime on DVD in the US in 2003–2004; the license later passed to Discotek Media. The manga itself reached English readers only in Italy’s d/visual edition, a famous gap in the Devilman shelf.