digitalalterego

 My profile picture is Ryo Asuka from one of the Devilman side stories. It's a story where Ryo dreams about Satan breaking out of the ice.

I chose it, not just because I already had that panel saved but because everytime I post on this website it comes out of a moment like in the panel. Where I feel like I've suddenly woke up from some revelation and MUST share it or dissect it. When I've had just a little moment of clarity. And it's usually at night like that. 

I just love Ryo.
Especially the schizo Ryo from the original manga.

I actually managed, for a decent price, to get my hands on the first half of the Devilman classic collection; I know the real difficulty is gonna come now that I'm looking for the second half. It's fucking expensive everywhere, and I'm a cheapskate. My only hope is that someone has a rabid dog that mangles their copy dreadfully enough to bring the price down less than £40. Because I'm not a collector, I don't care what the fuck it looks like as long as I can read it.

I looooove making playlists for fictional characters and media and recently I've been SO obsessed with Devilman I just wanted to post about all the songs I've chosen!!!

The first song, which I just listened to for the first time and made me decide to post these, is BUCK-TICK's song Ash-ra from their COSMOS album. I love BUCK-TICK, I'm slowly making my way through their albums but this one is probably my favourite one so far. Because all their albums have at least one song I love, but this one gripped my attention the entire way through. And the lyrics are great too. There are a lot of BUCK-TICK songs that remind me of Devilman in some way, so this is probably just the first of many~

The title Ash-ra is a stylization of Ashura- a warrior demon yokai originating from Buddhism. They love combat, war and violence. Within Buddhism's reincarnation cycle, whenever you die you are reborn into one of 6 realms based on how good you were in that past life. In Japanese Buddhism, the Ashura reside in the 3rd realm, aptly called Ashurado. This realm comes after the Heavenly realm and the Human realm, which are considered "good" realms, meaning while Ashurado is not pleasant it is much better than going to, for example, the Hungry Ghost realm (my favourite realm just because its name lol).Ashura are also highly controlled by their emotions, meaning it is difficult for them to escape the cycle and achieve enlightenment.

Of course this reminds me of Devilman. The demons of Devilman are much like the Ashura in their love of violence and war. The entire reincarnation cycle of Buddhism is also very in-line with Devilman's loop theory. Take Ryo. Ryo specifically is highly controlled by his emotions, and is a very emotionally explosive character both as the human Ryo and as Satan. He is stuck in God's loop (reincarnation cycle) and God plays on his extreme emotions to force him to relive the same emotional mistakes and self-wrought destruction time and time again (much like how the emotions of the Ashura keep them out of Nirvana). If Ryo were to overcome his emotions, I'm sure he could break the loop (and I'm writing a fan-fiction about it as we speak) but that would be a betrayal to his character.

"Please, let's dance a passionate dance, to the rhythm of love that seems to curse everything"

This lyric reminds me of the way love is portrayed in Devilman. It does seem like a curse, or at least that is the way God makes it out to be. We see it time and time again. God punishes Satan for his empathy (a form of love) towards the demons, Haim kills himself out of his love for Silene, Akira experiences immeasurable pain when his loved ones are killed, and Ryo's creation of Devilman (which he does to protect Akira out of his love) is what leads to his downfall every time. My personal theory is that Devilman's God doesn't believe in love at all and sees it as a weakness, hence why he cast Satan out and used his own love against him to eternally punish him, proving to Himself that love is a useless weakness. No matter how you look at it, God is the true villain of Devilman.

"I only loved you, and now I hate you deeply."

Akira is a kind of Jesus-like character in the way that he loves those around him. Depending on the iteration he is a very selfless character. Which is his motivation for following and believing in Ryo in the first place. If a friend you hadn't seen for months contacted you, pulled a knife on your crush and asked you for a favour with no further explanation, would you go with them? Hell no! But Akira does, not just because he is naive (which he is, at least at the beginning) but because he loves humans, and tries to see the best in them, much like Jesus. But the hate of someone who loves everyone is a very powerful thing.
Notice how the lyric says "I *only* loved you" but doesn't say "Now I *only* hate you"? After all the terrible things Ryo has done, Akira hates him. But he doesn't stop loving him and believing him. Hate and love coexist.

I wish I could understand Japanese so I could analyse the lyrics better, and analyse more of them, but that will have to do for now since it's getting late~~~

Listen to the song NOW!