Neo Devilman Chapter 7

 Ryo's got that crazy in his eyes.

 

This poor Masaru guy...

This chapter starts very comedic, then turns dark pretty quickly (kinda like the original Devilman heh). I like the exploration of what it would be like to be a side character during the demon war, how absurd it would be to watch everyone go insane with paranoia.

 

The art is nice. It's nothing outstanding, but it's pleasing to the eye and clear to read which isn't something Go Nagai always achieves so in my eyes it's good. I love how the art is relatively simple aside from the graphic scenes of the demon hunt; it makes those scenes all the more impactful.

I don't really understand the time-reversal thing at the end, but honestly I don't care. 

I love the dark comedy. I love Masaru and his bad-ass grandpa. This chapter is definitely recommended.

Neo Devilman Chapter 6

 

It's a while since I last wrote a Neo Devilman review.

 In this chapter the art style is to fucking die for; it's so gothic and detailed, but simultaneously cartoony and expressive!!!
 

Devilman looks fucking sick, Sirene looks utterly beautiful and Jinmen looks absolutely horrific. Its everything you could ask for. I also love the way Akira looks, his features are all so sharp. Miki is the only one who didn't get an awesome interpretation, she looks pretty boring in all honesty. Ryo is barely here, Akira is lugging around his unconscious body in such a way that you can't even see his face so I can't say much about his design.

 

The story is basically nothing-burger, like many of these chapters. This demon, Damudo, is pretty cool, but he isn't really used much and that sucks. Then the double Sirene thing is just random as hell. The black sirene reminds me of the one from Amon: Darkside of Devilman, but isn't as interesting. 

 

Overall this chapter is only worth reading for the cool art style.

 

Neo Devilman Chapter 8

 

This chapter is interesting. It reminds me a lot of Shin Devilman, where Ryo and Akira travel back in time to stop demons from altering history. 

 

However, this time they aren't stopping a demon from changing history at all. 

 

This chapter is about the Holocaust. That is a very ambitiously sensitive topic to try and explore in a single chapter within an anthology, but I think the way the author handled it was not bad at all. Although, I think the message they delivered through it was rather weak.

 

Ryo is just bugging out the whole chapter and idk why. There's a panel of Satan and its really beautiful. Overall the art is beautiful and elegant, which contrasts heavily with the bleak horror of the Concentration Camps.

 

A la Steven Universe, Akira talks the demon down out of her anger and replaces her lost faith in God with a newfound faith in humanity. I think that could be pretty powerful but it happens much too fast to have a real impact.

 

I wouldn't recommend this chapter since it doesn't really explore anything that isn't explored in the original manga, and the topic is pretty heavy-going.  

Neo Devilman Chapter 10 (and chapter 9)

 Guys 😭 this chapter 😭 is so damn good😭

I'm quickly realising that within this anthology, the chapters that really stand out to me are the ones that take a little part of the Devilman canon and expand on it, while not breaking or deviating far from the actual events of the original story.

This one fits that description exactly: it's about a detective character who visits the crime scene at the Asuka manor. He merges with a demon and I love all these twisty moments of him wondering what he really is, what he might be doing when he's not conscious, if he's really in control and all that. I love that kind of psychological horror. 

The artist really makes use of manga as a medium, too– at tense moments, the panels are chopped up really tiny in a unique way I've never seen before; during some action scenes the panels are slanted to give a real feeling of falling and disorientation; in one panel they use a really glitchy screen tone effect that I've also never seen before– and all of these and more make this chapter such a treat to read. 

No material from the original is retraced, apart from whats necessary to relate the stories, and I love that. The main characters of Devilman don't even show up, and I don't even care. 

My only critique is that the art which feels so fluid in almost all pages, feels sort of flat during the action scene (when it should arguably feel most fluid!). I'm just assuming that isn't this artist's strong point, but that's fine because everything else was brilliant.

I highly recommend this chapter

(I also read chapter 9. It wasn't good so I don't wanna review it. It's written by Nagai again and it sucks. I also haven't read Devilman Lady yet so I didn't know who the catgirl was, but I dont think knowing who she was would add anything.)