Devilman

Devilman (デビルマン) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai which originally started as an anime adaptation of the concept of Nagai's previous manga series, Demon Lord Dante. A 39 episode anime series was developed by Toei in 1972 and Nagai began Devilman as a manga in Kodansha's Shōnen Magazine, barely a month before the anime series started. The series has since spawned numerous OVAs, manga, novels, and films.

Devilman and other characters from the series have shown up in cameo appearances numerous times in Go Nagai's other works. The most notable is Tomoharu Katsumata's 1973 feature film Mazinger Z Vs. Devilman, which features Devilman teaming up with Nagai's titular robot to fight Dr. Hell.

Plot
Devilman is about a teenager named Akira Fudo. At first, Akira is very shy, modest and gentle, trying to avoid conflict. When his parents are lost on a business trip in the Arctic, Akira goes to stay with his childhood friend Miki Makimura and her family (mother, father, and bratty kid brother Tare). Both soon form a close relationship. Miki, a tough, smart, self-sufficient girl, loves Akira but wishes that he would stand up for himself when he gets pushed around, and is frustrated by his lack of backbone. She often has to defend herself from bullies even when Akira is with her. In the first OVA, she saves Akira from a gang of bullies who are threatening him.

One day, Akira's best friend, Ryo Asuka, asks a favor and completely changes Akira's life. Ryo's father had discovered the existence of demons when he found a mask during an excavation of the ruins of an ancient Mayan temple. This mask turns out to be a fossilized demon skull, which shows whomever wore it what the world was like when demons ruled over it. Ryo shows Akira this and informs him about the demons' revival. Akira then sees Ryo's plan: "To fight a demon, one must become a demon."

Demons have the ability to possess and control humans. However, Ryo believes that people like Akira may be able to harness a demon's powers when possessed, due to the fact that Akira has a pure heart. Ryo takes his friend to a nightclub and picks a fight to draw demonic attention to the club. Demons possess the clubbers and threaten Ryo and Akira, until a demon known as Amon the Lord of War, also called the Beast of Hell, and also one of the strongest demons attempts to possess Akira. However Akira manages to gain the upper hand of the possessing process with Amon and transforms into Devilman. Devilman contains the strength and power of the demon Amon, as well as the heart and soul of Akira, giving Akira complete control.

After he becomes Devilman, Akira is no longer timid and shy. He becomes very aggressive and no longer lets anyone push him around. This change pleases Miki, although she is unaware of Akira's new-found powers.

Throughout the series, Devilman has many battles with the demon hordes. He encounters many foes such as Sirène the demon bird, the water demon Geruma, and a large turtle-like demon called Jinmen.

In the manga, the story ends with Akira discovering that his friend Ryo is really Satan in a dormant state. After Miki and her whole family are brutally slain by a paranoid human horde (in a particularly famous scene, Akira retrieves Miki's dismembered body from her burned house and later is seen holding her head in his arms), the final fight between Devilman and Satan ensues. The Earth is totally destroyed during this battle, and Devilman dies at the hands of Satan.

The 1972 anime TV series has no such apocalyptic conclusion and the ending is happier for Akira and Miki than in the manga. Devilman's identity as a real demon is exposed to Miki in the final episode, but she accepts that she is in love with Devilman, even if he is not human.

Production
Devilman evolved from Go Nagai's previous manga, Demon Lord Dante, after Toei Animation approached Nagai about turning Dante into a television series. The producers wanted certain elements toned down, and a more human-like anti-hero created. Devilman was born as a result of this. Go Nagai worked on the anime's scenario along with Masaki Tsuji, a well-known anime scenario and science-fiction writer who later worked on such series as Captain Future, Urusei Yatsura, and Dr. Slump.

Along with the television series, Devilman was also produced as a serialized manga with over 53 issues in Shōnen Magazine beginning in 1972. Go Nagai designed the manga to be more horror-like and mature than the anime version, making it similar in tone to Demon Lord Dante. It was later reprinted in a five-volume series, and has enjoyed over a dozen reprints in five different languages. The manga's occult horror elements, extreme violence, and complex apocalyptic story made it an instant hit.

Manga
The manga was originally published by Kodansha from June 11, 1972 to June 24, 1973 in Shōnen Magazine. The series has been published in tankōbon format several times, most of them by Kodansha. Starting with the 1987 publishing, most Kodansha editions include Shin Devilman, which originally was not meant to be included in the canon of the original series, as a part of the volumes.

The manga has also been published along with Cutie Honey in the magazine Gekkan Kanzenban Devilman x Cutie Honey (月刊完全版デビルマン×キューティーハニー) published by JIVE during 2004 in order to take advantage of the release of the live-action films of both series.

Shin Devilman (新デビルマン) was originally published in Kodansha's Shōnen Magazine Special in May 25, 1979, January 25, 1980, September 15, 1980, March 6, 1981 and May 8, 1981. All chapters were drawn by Go Nagai, but the first chapter was written in collaboration with Masaki Tsuji, while chapters two and three were written by Hiroshi Koenji. The rest of the chapters were done by Nagai. The manga is sometimes known as Devilman 2 and Neo Devilman. In this manga, Akira and Ryo travel to different epochs and places from human history in order to stop demons from causing hate between humans and thus make humanity destroy itself. In the first chapter they meet a young Adolf Hitler, in the second the French heroine Joan of Arc, in the third the goddess Nike, in the fourth Marie Antoinette, and in the last chapter the Cheyenne and Custer.

A one-shot, which is not originally part of Shin Devilman, but that has always been compiled along with the series in Tankobon, was published in the magazine Variety by Kadokawa Shoten. This 16-page story does not have any text and it presents the moments of Akira after the death of Miki in the original series, but before the battle with Satan, as he buries the remains of Miki and encounters Ryo.

Anime
The anime series was 39 episodes long and ran from July 8, 1972 to April 7, 1973 on NET (now TV Asahi). The series enjoyed high ratings while it was on the air, though its popularity was dwarfed by that of Nagai's longer-running Mazinger Z on Fuji TV. The storyline of the anime series is different from that of the manga and of the OVAs. Outside Japan, the TV series was broadcast in Italy in 1983 and enjoyed great popularity there.
 * Akira and his father are killed while mountain climbing in the Himalayas, and Devilman chooses Akira's body as a cover to disguise himself. Although Devilman takes on his appearance, Akira is gone and Devilman is the body's sole occupant.
 * Devilman's mission is to cause death and destruction on Earth to pave the way for a demonic invasion of the human world. However, when he moves in with the Makimuras under the disguise of Akira, he finds himself attracted to Miki's tough, no-nonsense ways, and is thus distracted from his mission. The lord of the demons sends forth a succession of demons to eliminate the distraction by killing Miki, and Devilman/Akira resolves to fight to protect Miki.
 * Unlike in the manga, Miki survives at the conclusion of the anime series.
 * The characters Ryo Asuka and Satan do not appear in the anime series. In Satan's place is a demon named Lord Xenon who commands the Demon Tribe from the Kingdom of Ice. Lord Xenon appears as a shadowy figure that appears very similar to Demon Lord Dante.
 * The violence in the anime series was toned-down significantly from the manga.

OVAs
Devilman: The birth (デビルマン 誕生編) was released in November 1, 1987 by King Records. It was followed by Devilman: The Demon Bird (デビルマン 妖鳥シレーヌ編), released in February 25, 1990 by Bandai Visual. Kazuo Komatsubara, an animation director on the original TV series, was the character designer for the OVAs, which were animated by his Oh Production.

Both were directed by Tsutomu Iida and were closely developed in conjunction with Nagai himself. The OVAs' plot revolves around Akira's transformation into Devilman up until his battle with Sirène. Besides a few minor alterations, the OVAs are faithful to the original manga. Both OVAs were released on Laserdisc and on a single DVD by Bandai Visual in March 28, 2003. The two OVAs are also the only Devilman anime to have been commercially released in the United States (by Manga Entertainment), although the DVD release includes only the English-dubbed version (the original Japanese version was previously released on VHS).

In 2000, Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman was released as a pay-per-view event in Japan and was later released on video and DVD. It covers the period between the humans becoming aware of demons and the final battle between Devilman and Satan.

Films
Mazinger Z Vs. Devilman is a crossover film between Devilman and Mazinger Z produced by Toei and released in July 18, 1973. The movie features alternative versions of the events from both series, and is therefore not canonical to either one.

In October 9, 2004, a live-action tokusatsu film directed by Hiroyuki Nasu was theatrically released in Japan. The film starred Hisato Izaki as Devilman, Yūsuke Izaki as Ryo Asuka and Ayana Sakai as Miki Makimura. The cast also included AV Idol Maria Yumeno.

Music
A large number of soundtrack albums have been released since the beginning of the original series.

Other media
Three novels have been released. The first one Shin Devilman (真・デビルマン) was written by Go Nagai's brother Yasutaka Nagai with illustrations by Go. It was originally published in 1981 by Asahi Sonorama in four books. It is not related to the manga Shin Devilman, from which some chapters were also written by Yasutaka. With the release of the first OVA, in 1987 a single volume novel based on it was released by Kodansha titled Shin Video Shosetsu - Devilman: Tanjo Hen (新ビデオ小説 デビルマン 誕生編). It was also written by Yasutaka Nagai, but it had illustrations by the OVA's main designer, Kazuo Komatsubara. In 1999 a second novelization of 4 volumes titled Devilman: The Novel (デビルマン　The　Novel) was published by MediaWorks and once again written by Yasutaka and illustrated by Go. All three series of novels are unrelated to each other even though all were written by Yasutaka Nagai.

A video game based on Devilman was released for the Famicom by Namco on April 25, 1989. Bandai also released a game based on Devilman for the Sony PlayStation and Windows 98 on April 13, 2000. Along with several of Nagai's other creations, Devilman appeared in the Japanese Super Famicom game CB Chara Wars: Ushinawareta Gag (ＣＢキャラウォーズ　笑われたギャーグ).

Devilman and other characters from the series have shown up in cameo appearances numerous times in Go Nagai's other works. The most notable is Tomoharu Katsumata's 1973 feature film Mazinger Z Vs. Devilman. Miki is the first female protagonist of the 1974 manga Oira Sukeban, and Akira has appeared in various incarnations of Cutie Honey, most notably the 1994 OVA New Cutie Honey. Miki and Ryo Asuka also appear as dogs (with dog-like bodies and human heads) in the Violence Jack manga.

Powers and Abilities
Devilman possesses a variety of powers that are mostly consistent with every appearance.


 * Devil Cutter: Slicing discs from the belt buckle.
 * Devil Wing: Wings from the back that allow flight.
 * Devil Beam: Summons lightning from the sky and turns into green beams from the palms. Can also be used as a large fire ball.
 * Devil Arrow: Orange energy bolts from the antennae. Can also be used as a sonic attack.
 * Devil Eye: Allows Devilman to see in pitch black darkness and find an enemy's weakest point.

His other powers include super human agility and strength, regeneration that allows him to grow back limbs in a matter of hours, and has a high resistance to heat and acids except for his wings. In the television series he could use echolocation to locate his opponents, survive in space, and could change his size, usually being around 20 feet tall.

Demons
Throughout the Devilman franchise demons have been used as Devilman's opponents in both the manga and the anime. In the original manga and the OVA trilogy, demons were ancient life forms that required to consume other creatures including other demons to grow and become stronger. In the television series they became more similar to demons from religions such as Christianity and were more organized, although they were just as brutal toward each other.

From The Manga

 * Jinmen: A demon similar to a tortoise.
 * Agwel: One of two demons that serve Sirene.
 * Ghelmer: One of two demons that serve Sirene.
 * Sirene: A powerful demon with characteristics of a bird.
 * Kaim: A powerful horned demon Sirene fused with after losing to Devilman.
 * Amon: The most powerful demon and arch-rival of Satan, he was the demon that fused to Akira for him to become Devilman.

From The Series
The Demon Tribe consists of demons from ancient times lead by Xenon, a shadowy figure that replaces Satan in the anime and appears similar to Demon Lord Dante. It has been shown in various episodes that they care very little for other organisms and even each other, as they often fight to the death no matter how small the disagreement. Devilman becomes rogue against the rest of the Demon Tribe in the first episode. Most of the demons have supernatural powers such as shapeshifting, telekinesis, teleportation, possession of organisms and objects, illusions, and phasing through matter. Since most of the demons, including Devilman, often fly back from Japan to the Himalayas in under a minute, the presumed flight speed is around Mach 14.


 * Feiras: Appears in episode 1. Is the first member of the Demon Tribe to be killed by Devilman and has no known powers.
 * Dalm: Appears in episode 1. Is the second member of the Demon Tribe to be killed by Devilman and has no known powers.
 * Henge: Appears in episode 1. Powers include highly advanced shapeshifting, traveling through mirrors, telekinesis, and pyrokinesis.
 * Sirene: Appears in episode 2. Powers include flight, human disguising, hurricane winds from the wings on her head, shapeshifting into butterflies armed with sleeping rays, talons on her hands and feet, mind scanning antennae, telekinesis, and heat resistance.
 * Geruge: Appears in episode 3. Powers include flight by traveling in a tornado, green acid from the tail, shapeshifting, and reformation. Because he is based on a slug he will dissolve if he remains in contact with salt.
 * Zannin: Appears in episode 4 and onward. Powers include a whip-like tail, heat rays from the eyes on his torso, and torso armor that absorbs and reflects or simply deflects attacks.
 * Bedora: Appears in episode 4. Powers include flight, shapeshifting, possessing humans using special spiders, electric shocks, webs from the mouth that form like nets, and swimming.
 * Zoldover: Appears in episode 5. Powers include teleporting herself and objects long distances, super strength enhanced by her staff which also fires lightning bolts, telekinesis, a spear, illusions, entangling hair, a high resistance to pain, a dagger, regeneration, taking on forms of others she eats, and fireballs from the mouth of the face on her chest.
 * Rockfel: Appears in episode 6. Powers include phasing through matter, disguising himself as a human, fire breath, possession of objects, and morphing his hair into arms.
 * Zool: Appears in episode 7. His only real power is making clay dummies that are used like voodoo dolls.
 * Abil: Appears in episode 7. Powers include flight, fire breath, teleportation, and mouth fireballs.
 * Bauu: Appears in episode 8. Powers include levitation, invisibility, whip antennae, burrowing, and a constricting tongue.
 * Iyamon: Appears in episode 8. Powers include disguising herself as a human, hypnosis from the eyes, wall crawling, a toxin injecting tongue, agility, and a detaching tail.
 * Gondroma: Appears in episode 9. Powers include teleportation, miniature versions of himself spawned from severed fingers that will possess other organisms, and regeneration.
 * Gandai: Appears in episode 10. Powers include human disguises, can merge into environments with her single eye, peddles on the arms and neck that act like propellers, and can launch peddles and regenerate them.
 * Ganda: Appears in episode 10. Powers include disguising herself as a human, skin that will absorb attacks into herself, flight, a hand on her tail, and electrical immunity.
 * Gande: Appears in episode 10. Powers include merging into the environment, size changing, a constricting tail, and dual whip tentacles on the head.
 * Laflelu: Appears in episode 11. Powers include shape shifting, terrakinesis, illusions of herself, sleeping gas from the mouth, swimming, levitation, vine arms, and tentacled hair.
 * Fiam: Appears in episode 12. Powers include pyrokinesis, agility, and flight.
 * Aguilar: Appears in episode 12. Powers include flight, rock armor, and sonic deconstructing lasers from the mouth of both heads. Has a very sensitive tail.
 * Mermaim: Appears in episode 13. Powers include turning herself into water, a hydrokinetic staff, a pet snake, has a giant clam with liquid that turns life forms into pearls and has a sea anemone in its body, and can reduce her body into goo.
 * Himura: Appears in episode 4, although his true bat-like form is not revealed until episode 14. Powers include flight, disguising himself as a human with enhanced reflexes, and emitting thick black fog.
 * Ebain: Appears in episode 15. Powers include appearing and traveling in mirrors, manipulation of the arms of others using invisible arms from the mirror world that belonged to her victims, a human disguise, twin head horns, and invisibility, and size changing.
 * Muzan: Appears in episode 15. Powers include teleportation, icy wind breath, control over animal and wind, can place buildings in another dimension, shape shifting into snake demons and tornadoes, and can summon needles from the sky.
 * Genie: Appears in episode 16. Powers include reducing herself to a red light, hypnosis that causes nightmares and eventual mind control, illusions that make her victims feel like they are burning alive, levitation, tentacled hair, and a red force field.
 * Dagon: Appears in episode 17. Powers include a human disguise, emitting fog from the mouth, object possession, realistic illusions of demons in stamps, invisibility, levitation, and a spiked carapace.
 * Memu: Appears in episode 18. Powers include a human disguise named Miyako, emitting very powerful pheromones that greatly increase testosterone, restraining spit globs, and flight. Due to being based on a slug she has a great fear of frogs.
 * Adal: Appears in episode 19. Powers include mystical dummy minions, hand webs, and flight.
 * Drango: Appears in episode 20. Was originally the best friend of Devilman. Powers include a cloud form that can freeze humans upon contact, ultra sharp claws, a human disguise, toxic pollen flowers with tentacle-like roots, agility, size changing, and freezing beams from the shoulders and head.
 * Doro: Appears in episode 21. Powers include a slime-like body, swimming, absorbing life forms, dividing into smaller pieces and reforming, teleportation, and can merge with clouds to fuse with rain. His body is easily burnt.
 * Mugal: Appears in episode 22. Powers include illusions using eye lights and octopus tentacles.
 * Bera: Appears in episode 23. Powers include flight, can travel in a misty tornado that can block projectiles, revival of human remains that zombify others, and can extend her hair like tentacles.
 * Jakon: Appears in episode 24. Powers include soul eating, a cat disguise, dimensional traveling by teleportation, telepathic communication, mind control, can have mind controlled humans levitate objects, phase through walls, and hypnotize humans to sleep, eye beams, electrical resistance, mist spray from the mouth, can run fast enough to form a tornado, and sharp claws.
 * Dimensional Demon: Appears in episode 25 and is a tentacled entity that guards Muzan's dimension. Can release highly pressurized water from the mouth on it's waist.
 * Lala: Appears in episode 26 and throughout the rest of the series. Powers include levitation, rearranging faces, can alter chemical composition of objects, and shape shifting.. Her powers wear off if she sneezes.
 * Dodo: Appears in episode 26. Powers include shape shifting, phasing through matter, size changing, and can summon living nets.
 * Reikoku: Appears in episode 27. Powers include manipulation of star light, teleportation of body parts, levitation, freezing time for non-demonic entities, energy blasts of stardust from her dragon's mouth, a whip, a coiling tail from her dragon, changing her size, converting her dragon's tongue into coiling stardust, uncuttable constricting hair that can be converted into large drills and whips, and shedding damaged skin. If the face in her belt is damaged she will greatly weaken.
 * Jewel: Appears in episode 27. Powers include reducing itself to a diamond, hypnotic jewels, diamond slicing halos from the diamond on it's forehead, and a drill tail.
 * Miniyon: Appears in episode 28. Powers include size reduction of itself and others down to 20 centimeters, can retract his head into his body, levitation, size reduction bolts from the body, teleportation, eyebrow tentacles, pink fire from the body, regeneration, and electric bolts from the eyebrows.
 * Kenetos: Appears in episode 29. Powers include flight, feathers that turn into necklaces that transport heads to another dimension upon wearing them, cold winds from the nostrils and wings on the head, talons, and homing razor feathers.
 * Faizel: Appears in episode 30. Powers include flight, turning turning evil and nihilistic in his shadow, coiling tentacles, and reformation.
 * Kilski: Appears in episode 31. Powers include empowerment by alcohol, setting objects a flame by throwing them with messages inside, size increase, flight, can convert his body into a cane that launches pink acid, can encase himself in a fire ball, a whip tail, can create an electric and energy resistant wall of pink acid with his mouth, immunity to his own acid, and tooth regeneration.
 * Aurora: Appears in episode 32. Powers include emitting very bright light from her body, teleportation, illusions, summoning fire balls, flight, and creating electric aura prisons with star light restraints.
 * Weathers: Appears in episode 33. Powers include heat based powers from his left half and cold based powers from his right half, primarily with control of environmental and weather temperatures. He can also levitate and become invisible.
 * Arlon: Appears in episode 34. Powers include extending her body long distances, flight, invisibility of her head, and immunity to slicing attacks.
 * Magdora: Appears in episode 36. Powers include manipulating lava to the point of splitting his body apart, flight, mouth lava balls, drawing geothermal energy to the point of allowing him to fight for up t a week, spawning tornadoes from his wings, a lava based body that makes him extremely hot and immune to cutting attacks, spinning his body immensely fast, and surviving in space although he will become much weaker by doing so.
 * Wuduu: Appears in episode 37. Powers include manipulating plant life and mutating it, burrowing, pink acidic streams from the mouth, and constricting necks.
 * Possessed Tree: Appears in episode 37. Powers include pain resistance and highly acidic fruits formed from dead flowers.
 * Dorimoon: Appears in episode 38. Powers include surviving in space, a black hole-like gravity from the Moon on his chest, and electrical resistance. If he becomes too nervous he will be sucked up by his own black hole force gravity.
 * Whip Demon: Appears in episode 38. His power is a pair of acidic whips on his head.
 * Bull Demon: Appears in episode 38. His power is acidic saliva.
 * Cromagnon Demon: Appears in episode 38. His power is great strength.
 * Godo: Appears in the final episode. Powers include summoning weather at will, teleporting objects, making carnivorous animals more aggressive, teleportation, reviving dead animals like dinosaurs, levitation, summoning a pterodactyl that breaths fire, God Cutter, God Arrow, and God Beam.
 * Bugo: Appears in the movie Mazinger Z vs. Devilman. Powers include shapeshifting and swimming.

Remakes and sequels
Go Nagai released a manga series called Violence Jack. The series takes place during the aftermath of Armageddon and the battle between Satan and Devilman. This series became an OVA in 1986, and was released in the United States in the 1990s in an edited release by Manga Entertainment and an uncensored release by Critical Mass.

The cast of Devilman also crossed over with characters from Mazinger Z and Violence Jack in the 1991 OVA CB Chara Nagai Go World. This release featured the familiar characters in comical and lighthearted antics in super deformed form. In this series, it is revealed that Violence Jack is a future version of Akira Fudo. It is also revealed that Miki is an otaku and that she knew of Akira's identity as Devilman due to reading the manga offscreen.

In 1997, Nagai created Devil Lady. Devil Lady is based on Nagai's idea of if the main character was a woman. The Devil Lady series contains its own original story that stands out from the Devilman series.

Popular reception and themes
The storyline in Devilman made it stand apart from other manga of the time. However, its extreme violence made it a major target of protest for the PTA and other groups. The manga has been translated into English in a series of five bilingual manga volumes published by Kodansha, although the only Devilman anime to have been commercially released in America are the late 1980s OVAs.

Go Nagai is said to have been highly shocked that his giant-robot work Mazinger Z, which was on Japanese TV at the same time as Devilman and which he originally did not take very seriously, surpassed Devilman in popularity. The reason was that he had worked especially hard on Devilman and only made Mazinger as a way to blow off steam.

In an essay written three decades after the debut of the original manga and TV series, Nagai commented that he designed Devilman as an anti-war work. According to Nagai, the fusion of humans and demons is an analogy for the draft, and Miki's gruesome death parallels the death of peace. "There is no justice in war, any war," wrote Nagai, "nor is there any justification for human beings killing one another. Devilman carries a message of warning, as we step toward a bright future."