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[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/devilman_8827.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:If you think that this image is frightening, turn around because you have seen NOTHING.]]
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''Manga/DemonLordDante''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[ExaggeratedTrope much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
A teenage boy named Akira Fudo, living with his female friend Miki Makimura and her family due to absent parents, discovers the Earth is being invaded by demons. His other friend, an unusual boy named Ryo Asuka, convinces him that the only way to stop the demons is to merge with one of them. Akira gains the ability to transform into a superpowerful, batlike demon. As Devilman, he fights bizarre demons, most notably the harpy-like Siren, the turtle-like Jinmen, and the leader of the demons himself, [[BigBad Demon Lord Zenon]], while still trying to lead a normal life. Eventually, his struggles lead him into a battle against {{Satan}} himself for the fate of the entire world.
While [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the TV series]] was dark by {{shonen}} anime standards, the manga and most other versions are pure horror, filled with things like graphic violence and dismemberment.
The events of ''Devilman'' lead into Nagai's later sequel series ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' and ''Manga/DevilmanLady'', which were similarly violent and controversial. Its characters have also appeared in other manga and anime shows and movies, [[{{Crossover}} meeting]] Nagai's other famous creations like ''Anime/MazingerZ'' and ''Anime/CuteyHoney''.
To promote the final [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' in 1999, Go Nagai resurrected the manga in two forms. One is a collection of short stories entitled ''Neo-Devilman'' where he and many other writers/artists (17 to be precise) contribute to the Devilman mythos with their own spin-offs and visions for the original tale, and the other is where Nagai teamed up with Yuu Kinutani to create a 6-volume manga simply called ''AMON'', which is centered around and expands the events between humanity's persecution of demon/human hybrids and the final battle between Devilman and Satan. Go Nagai scripts and Yuu Kinutani provides pencils with highly-detailed art. In 2005, the two teamed up again to create ''Strange Days'', a single manga volume centered around a duo of Devilmen, Kira and Ryuu, clashing at Devilman vs. Satan's final battle. It tells their story of how their rivalry came to be during the persecution against Devilmen.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believed herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
On 25 December 2014 ''Devilman Saga'' was released in Shogakukan. It is written and drawn by Go Nagai, and its main character is Yuki Fudo, a Japanese roboticist who is called in to study a strange and ancient mural from Antarctica. According to promotional material, it is the final chapter in the original Devilman storyline of ''Devilman'' and ''Devilman Lady''.
Devilman appears in the MassiveMultiplayerCrossover game, ''VideoGame/SundayVSMagazineShuuketsuChoujouDaikessen''. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39anQm12y5s crossover OVA trilogy]] with ''Manga/{{Cyborg 009}}'' called ''Anime/Cyborg009VsDevilman'' came out in October 2015, celebrating the franchise's 50th Anniversary. It received a worldwide release streaming on Creator/{{Netflix}} in April 2016, complete with an all-new English dub. Devilman himself will also feature in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsDD'', fighting alongside and against [[HumongousMecha giant robots.]]
An animated adaptation of the manga, called ''Anime/DevilmanCrybaby'' was created under director Creator/MasaakiYuasa and was released by Creator/{{Netflix}} on January 5th 2018. The teaser trailer can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmOWPSc9Vv8 here]].
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!!Trope examples:
%%* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: In the second OVA, Akira fights Jinmen in what could be considered this.
* ActorAllusion: In ''The Birth'', it isn't the first time the voice actor for Professor Asuka, Mikio Terashima, voiced a character who [[spoiler:[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman commits suicide]]]].
* AdaptationalDistillation: The Famicom game is based directly from the manga, but certain events are rearranged, such as [[spoiler: Miki's parents being captured by Demon Hunters]] as soon as Akira gains his powers, and covers boss battles with Sirene, Aguel, and Zenon.
* AdaptationalVillainy: The ''AMON'' [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] made the title character much more ObviouslyEvil, when in the manga he is just a tad more bitter than Akira turned out to be after the Devilman transformation.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Mikiko's (Miko) chapter in ''Neo-Devilman''. Her first pages in the story have her touching herself while in deep thought as to why she doesn't see herself as a good girl. In this version, that's even how she became a devilman in the first place since, apparently, demons like to possess girls during their ''moments''.
* ADayInTheLimelight: ''Neo-Devilman'' is basically this, given that it was made by ''17 different writers/artists'', everyone with a pencil and ink had a chance to share their view of the characters and portray some side-characters in a more protagonist light.
* AnAesop: WarIsHell. In addition, just because you're strong does not mean you have the right to trample over other beings- only through mutual respect can humanity really grow, as it has done many times in the past. [[spoiler: Demonkind's failure to learn this is ultimately what dooms them and humanity, as Satan states at the end of the series.]]
* AndIMustScream:
** Victims of the turtle-like demon Jinmen are doomed to live an eternity as a tile in his shell.
** He does it again in chapter 0 of ''Devilman Grimoire'' [[spoiler: where he mocks a Harpy by revealing he ate her boyfriend and then eats her next.]]
* AllYourPowersCombined: Agira from ''Neo-Devilman''. His Devilmen power is to absorb and assimilate anything into his body from weapons to demons and Devilmen. He eventually absorbs ''legions'' of demons. In this version, Agira is the unnamed giant beast from the original manga that Devilman rides into the final battle against Satan with his multi-headed dragon.
* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The short sequel for the ''AMON'' manga, ''Strange Days'', features a whole new cast of characters, whom some will become Devilmen and clash at the Devilman vs. Satan final battle. The focus is Kira and Ryuu, and their band ''THE FLYERS''.
%%* AntiHero: Akira (Devilman), Ryo before his [[spoiler: FaceHeelTurn]].
* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Even the main character and his sweetheart.]]
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Class 0 or class 3 at the end of the manga.]]
* AscendedExtra: Amon, the original demon whom Akira's Devilman form take its powers from, stops being merely a past legacy mentioned in the original manga to being given a personality and form in the manga with his name. In it, Amon actually takes over Akira's entire body, both in demon and human form, thus being promoted to protagonist.
* BigBad: Demon Lord Zenon is the leader of the demonic forces out to conquer Earth and the main enemy of the titular hero, though he is doing it on behalf of the GreaterScopeVillain, Demon King {{Satan}}. [[spoiler:However, once Ryo Asuka recovers his memories as Satan, he takes over as main villain for the rest of the series.]]
* BigNo: Akira [[spoiler: after he discovers the anti-demon corps killed Miki's parents.]]
* BigRedDevil: Generally averted as the demons are a CastOfSnowflakes, Amon being the only one who plays it straight.
* BloodstainedGlassWindows
* BodyHorror: The way demons merged with humans and make them undergo horrific transformations is not different from how the titular alien from ''Film/TheThing1982'' assimilate its victims.
* BreakingSpeech: [[spoiler: Jinmen gives Akira one about how the demons are justified by BlueAndOrangeMorality, and how Akira is clearly the bad guy for killing demons. Akira [[ShutUpHannibal tells him to go fuck himself.]]]]
* BroadStrokes: The prequel manga ''Demon Knight'' explains a few things, like why Satan is a hermaphrodite ([[spoiler:he/she is a forced fusion of the male SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Lucifer and human girl Yuria]]) and the origins of demons ([[spoiler:they are humans or aliens forcefully hybridized with animals by God, who is a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien/[[AncientAstronauts Ancient Astronaut]]]]). However, it does directly contradict stuff found in ''Amon: Darkside of Devilman'', ''Devilman Lady'' or even the original manga, and does not explain other stuff, like the hermaphroditism of other angels than Satan, and ignores the existence of Michael. But this is quite possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the fact it's stated to be memories of an AlternateUniverse, which allows the events of the past to occur in numerous, different variations.
* BroughtToYouByTheLetterS: The ''AMON'' manga has Akira in the iconic yellow shirt from the anime even though it follows the original manga.
* CainAndAbel: Ryo and Akira. [[spoiler: Satan and Amon in the Amon manga]]
* CanonWelding:
** Almost all incarnations of Devilman (and ''Manga/ViolenceJack'') can be considered linked together thanks to TheReveal in the Amon manga that [[spoiler:God himself put the entire universe in a time loop to punish Satan by making him constantly relive the death of the one he loves]]. This means that technically, the inconsistencies in various works can be [[HandWaving excused]] due to them taking place at different iterations in the repeatedly-reset timeline.
** In Manga/DevilmanGrimoire, Jun Fudo ([[AdaptationalNameChange renamed Jun Lan]]) and Aoi Kurosaki from ''Manga/DevilmanLady'' appear as teachers in Akira and Miki's school, with the former being their homeroom teacher while the latter is a P.E. teacher. They are also [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbian lovers]] who seemingly have no problem getting it on during the middle of the school day.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Miki.
* CompositeCharacter:
** In ''Devilman vs Manga/GetterRobo'' Akira has the story and personality of his manga incarnation but the powers of the anime incarnation. Silene in that manga has the look of her manga version, the powers and personality of the anime version and little bits of later incarnations, including her love for Amon.
* ContinuitySnarl:
** ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' is a sequel to ''Devilman'', but so is ''Manga/DevilmanLady'', making it a complicated matter. Fans have been discussing it for years, noting that ''Lady'' has much more solid connections to the original than ''Jack'', but without having an official answer to which is supposed to be the true sequel. At the end, Nagai stated that ''Violence Jack'' should be treated as its own universe, which implies ''Lady'' is meant to be ''Devilman'''s true continuation. However, considering that [[spoiler:the franchise's s world is on a constant loop thanks to God's continuous punishment against Satan, it is also possible to believe that both ''Jack'' and ''Lady'' are simply separate iterations of the cycle.]]
** It seemed to be the case in the ''AMON'' manga. Despite it was billed as an {{Interquel}} set during the war, at its ending Amon had taken over Akira's body completely with no chance to revert back, which would negate the original story in which Akira was himself till the final clash with Satan by stating that Amon is the one in control now. However, ''Strange Days'' came and showed Akira in control of his body just in time for the final battle, implying that Akira was back in control sometime between ''AMON'' and ''Strange Days''; the war went on for 20 years after all.
* CrapsackWorld: The world during the war.
* {{Crossover}}:
** With ''Anime/MazingerZ'' in TheMovie, ''Mazinger Z vs Devilman''.
** And with Manga/GetterRobo in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' manga. [[spoiler: Which features Devilman and Getter COMBINING.]]
** There's also the appearance of the cartoon version of Devilman in the manga ''Manga/MazingerAngels''. Once again, he holds his own against giant robots. Later in that series, [[Manga/DororonEnmaKun Enma-kun]] passes Akira by at a festival, and they give each other a knowing, angry glance.
** ''Chibi Chara Go Nagai World'' is a chibi crossover between Devilman, Anime/MazingerZ, Manga/GetterRobo and Manga/ViolenceJack, [[LampshadeHanging which actually weirds out the titular characters]], since Jack is a reincarnation of [[spoiler:Akira]], after all.
** ''Devilman vs Hades'' manga has Akira pick a fight with the BigBad of Anime/GreatMazinger [[spoiler: after he murdered Hades' wife trying to bring Miki back to life.]]
** ''Anime/Cyborg009VsDevilman'' is a rare crossover with a series not created by Go Nagai or Ken Ishikawa.
* CurbStompBattle: [[spoiler: Satan vs Amon in first volume of ''Amon: The Darkside of Devilman''. And if Satan's memories are true, his fight with ArchangelMichael was even more one-sided and involved literal curbstomp.]]
** It's implied that the FinalBattle of the series is one of these [[spoiler: with Satan doing the curb-stomping against Akira and his Devilman Army. Despite Akira being torn in half, Satan is completely unharmed. Considering they're a literal deity, this is only to be expected, but it's no less tragic.]]
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira wins]].
* DeathByAdaptation: In the original ''Devilman'', Dosu Roku, Masa and the fat guy with big teeth from Dosu Roku's gang went from being Akira's enemies to his friends and allies, essentially becoming human members of the Devilman Army. While the fat guy's ultimate fate is unknown, [[spoiler: Masa was killed trying to save Miki and Tare from the lynch mob while Dosu Roku played a major part in the ''AMON'' manga]]. In ''Devilman Grimoire'', [[spoiler:Dosu Roku and the fat guy are unceremoniously eaten alive by a demon in the first chapter, while Masa lasts until the second chapter, where his head is bitten off by Silene]]. This establishes the fact that ''Grimoire'' is not just a retelling of the original story but is a whole new continuity, with the ultimate fates of the main characters up in the air.
* DeathOfAChild:
** [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler:Miki's severed head is put in a pike and paraded by the blood-thirsty mob.]]
* DeconstructorFleet: ''Amon: The Darkside Of Devilman'' arguably takes original series and deconstructs a few things. The original manga itself seems to deconstruct or [[UnbuiltTrope unbuild]] many common shonen/sentai tropes.
** One of the most prominent things the series tears apart is the predisposition that shonen series have towards ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption. While Akira ripping apart his demon foes is initially framed as heroic, it soon becomes clear that it's slowly corrupting him morally. The war between demons and humans also begins as GrayAndGrayMorality; demons view humans as legitimate intruders to their ancestral homeworld and want them gone, especially considering how much humanity has polluted the planet. While some demons like Jinmen are definitely evil, others like Silene and Kaim are genuinely [[NobleDemon Noble Demons]]. On the other hands, demons are slaughtering humans en-masse in horrifically violent ways, which perhaps justifies why humanity is so violent towards them in return. In the end, the cycle of violence is so all-consuming that humans become no better than demons at their absolute worst, turning the series into EvilVersusEvil. [[spoiler: In the end, the demon's ploy to take back their homeworld through violence ends up wiping them out instead, having dragged the remainder of humanity to their level. As a result, everyone suffers- Akira dies after losing his only family, and Ryo/Satan murders their only loved one.]]
* DemonLordsAndArchdevils: Lord Zenon, leader of the demons and second only to Satan himself.
* DemonicPossession: It only works properly on humans who've "lost their reason" (such as from madness, panic, rage, and the altered state you get into when participating in a drug-and-booze-fuelled party/orgy). Doing it on a person in a regular state of mind causes the death of both the demon and the human.
* DependingOnTheArtist: Satan. In Nagai's hands, s/he is not only a hermaphrodite, but Nagai draws him/her with female-like facial features and body curves, also in some designs (though not all) he seems to imply that Satan's lower parts are those of a woman. Other artists on the other hand, like Yu Kinutani from ''AMON/Strange Days'' and many others from ''Neo-Devilman'', maintain [[spoiler:Ryo's]] male psyche even in Satan form, and in some extremes they might draw Satan with a male lower part too; and yet the breasts are present in all renditions of Satan.
* DependingOnTheWriter:
** Satan's motivations for trying to bring his "order" upon earth. In some versions, he is doing it for human- and demon-kind's well-being (in his eyes), aside from for Akira, of course. In others, he is doing it ''just'' for Akira and no one else.
** [[spoiler: In ''AMON'' all of those motivations are, to some extent, true - Satan wants to create a better world for demons, but also wants to bring his own vision of order, which is why Amon opposes him. He reveals Akira's secret out of jealousy towards Miki because he thinks he is the only one who can save Akira.]]
* DevilButNoGod: Played in the live-action movie.
* DiedStandingUp: [[spoiler: Siren]]
* DisposableWoman: [[spoiler: Sachiko and little Yumi in the ''AMON'' OVA.]]
* DistaffCounterpart: Manga/DevilmanLady. Also Mikimura from ''Strange Days'', whose Devilmen form is the exact female version of Akira's own Devilman, even closer for being less [[{{Fanservice}} fanservicey]] than the original distaff Devilman Lady.
* DoingInTheWizard: ''Demon Knight'' does it, kind-of. Check BroadStrokes above for details.
* DownerEnding:
** [[spoiler:The Devilmen lose the war against the demons, but the demons are apparently wiped out too in the process, not to mention mankind. Akira dies for nothing, and Satan will be imminently killed by God's angels. It is also revealed in sequels and spinoffs that God will create a TimeLoop to punish Satan eternally.]]
** Averted in the NES game, however, as [[spoiler:beating Satan in the final battle [[EarnYourHappyEnding wins you a happy ending]], while losing to him gets you the same ending as the manga and OVA.]]
** Also averted in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'', though it's still [[BittersweetEnding not without tragedy]] as many members of the cast end up dying. [[spoiler:Jack regains his original form as Akira and Devilman, and resumes his battle with Satan, but this time, he ends up winning the fight]].
* DudeLooksLikeALady: Ryo Asuka. In Nagai's hands he is very lady-like, to the point that, when he is seen in [[spoiler:Satan form Ryo ''becomes'' a woman, Nagai draws his face with unmistakable female facial features and body curves]]. Only other artists downplay Nagai's original design and maintain Ryo just in lady-like territory.
* EldritchAbomination: God himself. A huge ball of light that instantly incinerates all nearby demons and [[TakenForGranite turns humans who see it]] [[MythologyGag into pillars of salt]] ''just by being there''. Even Satan has a nervous breakdown just from seeing him on TV.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Amon in his dedicated manga, where he is clearly selfish and evil, but has his own set of standards and Silene seems to work as his MoralityPet. Averted in the OVA adaptation.
* EverybodysDeadDave
* EvilVersusEvil: Amon vs other demons in the ''Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman''.
* {{Expy}}:
** The story and main character come officially from ''Manga/DemonLordDante'', Go Nagai's earlier work.
** Ashura from the ''Amon'' manga is clearly an expy of Baron Ashura from ''Anime/MazingerZ''.
* FakeMemories: Nagai himself goes this way in his chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'': at the climax of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback of Akira meeting Ryo for the first time at school, but here Ryo seems to manipulate Akira's memories to make it so they already knew each other, implying that a few traces of Satan were there since the very beginning.
* FanDisservice:
** When Akira gets the powers of the demon Amon and transforms into Devilman, [[FullFrontalAssault he does not wear anything]] since his transformations [[ClothingDamage destroy his clothing]], leaving him [[ShapeShiftingExcludesClothing naked each time he returns to human form]]. [[CrapsackWorld The world around him is so horrible, however]], that it's hard to appreciate.
** Akira's girlfriend Miki Makimura is a PluckyGirl with beautiful legs and a rather nice rack, but one scene that "showcases" them has her first [[spoiler: stabbed InTheBack bloodily]], then subjected to an horrifying BreakTheCutie at the hands of a maddened mob (including her [[spoiler: watching as her brother Taro is murdered and beheaded and having visions of herself subjected to BodyHorror]]) and, towards the end, [[spoiler: her ''dismembered'' body parts (including her head, her legs and her bare torso) [[DeadGuyOnDisplay are put in pikes]].]]
** The BigBad, Satan, is [[FullFrontalAssault naked]]. And he has [[PrettyBoy a really pretty face]]! Problem is, [[spoiler: he is an {{hermaphrodite}}, he used to be Akira's best friend Ryo Asuka, and he's officially revealed as the BigBad when ''everything'' has gone FromBadToWorse.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath:
** The demon Jinmen devours humans and absorbs their living souls onto his shell.
** [[spoiler: Satan's fate as revealed in ''AMON'' is to eternally lose the one s/he loves for all eternity as punishment for rebelling against God. The horrific treatments he's subjected to as Ryo in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' (which is also part of the time loop, meaning it's also going to happen) may also figure into it.]]
* FanservicePack: Fusing with Amon not only grants you superpowers and a demonic SuperForm, but evidently a killer human body (and less compunction to [[ShamelessFanserviceGirl cover it up]]) as well. Miki even lampshades this in ''Devilman Grimoire'', jokingly wishing ''she'' had been possessed after seeing the improvements Amon made to Akira's build.
-->'''Miki:''' He really screwed me over. If only he had possessed me instead, I could have gotten the best body in class.
* FromBadToWorse: It starts with a demonic invasion of earth and ends with [[spoiler: the extinction of humanity]].
* GhibliHills: The late '80s OVA series was animated by Creator/OhProduction, which provided animation assistance for many Ghibli films. Kazuo Komatsubara, character designer for both the '70s TV anime and the '80s OVA, worked in that same capacity on ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', and thus his designs for the OVA have a very "Ghibli" look at times.
* {{God}}: Creator of the Earth along with angels, humans and sometimes demons. His characterization varies between adaptations from being merely remote and alien to being GodIsEvil. The only thing common is God [[spoiler: doesn't like demons and sees them as [[MyGreatestFailure an abomination.]]]]
* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler:In ''Amon'', where it's revealed God has everything happen in an endless loop that makes '''everyone''' suffer and die just to make Satan watch Akira die by his/her own hands for eternity. This means that he is condemning two whole sapient species to suffer and die horribly and pointlessly over and over for eternity [[DisproportionateRetribution just to punish a single rebel]] ({{Satan}}, of course).]] However, this detail is not consistent with all adaptations.
* {{Gorn}}: Not as bad as some others, but still incredibly horrific, particularly in the {{OVA}}s.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Oddly enough, no one's really evil, but no one's really good either. The demons only want humans gone because they're seen as intruders; the humans want the demons gone because they don't like the idea of dying. [[spoiler:This is eventually [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] as both humans and demons become increasingly horrible to the point where [[EvilVersusEvil humans become just as bad as demons at their worst.]]]]
* HaveWeMetYet: In Nagai's own chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'', centered on the final moments of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback to when Ryo and Akira first met in school. In this vision it seems that Ryo implanted fake memories of Akira and him being childhood friends; Akira even wonders if they ever met before but gets familiar with Ryo shortly after. This seems to be the case in the first [=OVA=] as well, in which Akira's confusion when he sees Ryo for the first time lingers for a long moment, before he immediately acts as if he's known him all along.
* HeroicSacrifice: Played with when it comes to Kaim and Sirene in the second OVA. With Sirene bleeding to death, she begs Xenon to give her some help, which he does in the form of a set of demons, Kaim included. Kaim refuses to fight, insisting that he give his life to provide Sirene his body to help her fight Devilman. After [[YourHeadAsplode detonating his own head]], Sirene is so devastated by Kaim's death that she manages to fuse with his body and uses the new powers it provides to defeat Devilman, before she finally dies.
* HeroicWillpower: How someone can turn the tables on possessing demons and become a human/demon hybrid with the human mind still in command, i.e. a devilman.
* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Ryo and Akira accidentally ''create'' Hitler by going back in time to stop a demon.
* HotterAndSexier: Go Nagai took full advantage of Yuu Kinutani's incredibly detailed art style while making the ''AMON'' manga. While there's no explicit sex, many of the girls including Miki herself were given more curvaceous body proportions, and humanoid female demons like Siren who are mostly in the nude were often given many panels focusing on their breasts and buttocks. Still, Go Nagai averted the series taking the {{Fanservice}} route by simply making these "improvements" only a visual extra.
* HowDoIShotWeb: Averted unlike most superhero works. Akira knows a good amount of Amon's movelist the instant he's merged with him inside the Sabbath. Sort of like a demonic form of BrainUploading, since they've come to share the same body.
* HowWeGotHere: The last volumes of ''AMON'' are spent building up the events that will happen in the first volumes, basically the first part is protagonized by Amon and the second part is protagonized by Akira.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Initially only the demons shared this idea, since Earth belonged to them first, and they say humanity stole it from them. After demons and devilmen became public knowledge, Akira and other devilmen started to think like this too, as most of humanity went in a senseless rampage against demons, devilmen, or any living being that they ''thought'' was aiding the "monsters". This aspect is expanded further in the ''AMON'' manga, where Akira simply reaches the conclusion that humans are the ''real'' demons and that he will help anyone that values life, regardless of whether it's a demon, devilman, or even human.
* ImAHumanitarian: Demons tend to love to eat humans as well as [[MonstrousCannibalism each other]].
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice:
** The manga is rife with violent ways to maim or kill, impalement is one such way.
** When Kaim appears to assist Silene he deploys a group of minions to attack Akira. Akira dispatches the last of them by hopping into the air and impaling its body on a tree trunk.
** Silene impales Akira with one of Kaim's horns; a wound which incapacitates him.
* InelegantBlubbering: A heartbreaking example in the ''Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman'' OVA. Upon finding [[spoiler: Miki's severed head on a pike held by a mob, Akira kills those responsible. He then clutches her head to his chest and begins to cry.]] Akira then falls to his knees, anguishedly sobbing and screaming as Satan and Psychogenie watch from a distance.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: In the live action movie, the [[spoiler:the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.]]
* {{Irony}}:
** As the demon-human war progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that there is very little moral distinction left between demons and humans. Ryo comes to the ironic conclusion that Akira, a demon, has a human heart filled with more righteousness than what remains of humanity. Even if saving humanity is a lost cause, their good nature can live on through Akira who embodies what the current humanity has now lost. Akira is caught off guard by this argument, and reacts to it with disgust, but Ryo is closer to the truth than Akira would like to admit.
** Ryo is a very human individual, struggling with the duality of a human heart's goodness and its darkness. Ryo is a person full of layered emotions, that even the most human among the demons would struggle to grasp. Even his dismissal of human morality shows that he's aware humans possess moral standards they ought to live up to; revealing how infected by humanity he is. Even after reawakening as Satan, he is unable to cast off Ryo's humanity, a fact that Xenon mocks him for. Most damning of all is that when Xenon claims Satan is in love with Akira, Satan doesn't even bother to deny it. Despite siding with the demons, Ryo's human heart (and by proxy Akira who fostered it) had already '''won''' the war against Satan philosophically.
** By contrast, the once loving, kind and heroic Akira becomes more like a demon as the story advances. It starts out subtly with him enjoying the battles he fights, and engaging in utter brutality, but he always held on to some semblance of his humanity. Akira loses what little connection he had left to his humanity after witnessing the death of Miki's parents and Miki herself. Afterward, a grief stricken Akira declares his indifference to humanity -- no longer caring if they live or die -- stating that it's no longer his job to save them, and subsequently declares war against Satan. Akira is no more, and Devilman is all that remains. Satan later confesses to the dying Akira that he harbored no more ill will towards humanity, and was filled with sorrow over the extinction of both the demons '''and''' the humans. The twist of fate is that the man who set out to save humanity, became a demon who no longer cared about anyone, while the angel who desired humanity's destruction became human enough to feel remorse for his actions. Worst of all, Satan's moral realization comes too late to salvage his relationship with Akira, or to save humanity.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: While nobody except maybe God is actually out-and-out evil, pretty much ''everyone'' is quick to leap to the bloodiest and goriest option possible. By the end, Akira gives up trying to care about or save anyone. If Manga/ViolenceJack is Akira, it's a wonder he isn't even ''more'' callous.
%%* KillEmAll
%%* LesbianJock: Aoi is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
%%* LipstickLesbian: Jun is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
* LoveMakesYouCrazy:
** [[spoiler:Ryo/Satan]] sacrifices many of his strongest demons to ensure Akira becomes Devilman. Also doubles as LoveMakesYouDumb.
** [[spoiler: S/he admits to being crazy at the end of the final volume of ''AMON''.]]
* LoveTriangle: Akira/Miki/Ryo. Developed further in ''Manga/ViolenceJack''.
%%* MadeOfPlasticine
* ManlyTears: Akira upon [[spoiler: being kissed by Miki for the first and only time and then seeing her disappear in the air, forever...]] Amon is StupidEvil enough to laugh at him for this. [[spoiler: As could be expected, this just doesn't end well for him]].
* MarshmallowHell: Any story that features Devilman's birth through the Sabbath [[OnceAnEpisode will usually feature]] Akira running face first into a topless woman on the dance floor. Whether he accidentally makes a wrong turn or gets PunchedAcrossTheRoom as retribution for associating with Ryo (who had been initiating a bar brawl to speed the Sabbath up) depends on the installment.
%%* MeaningfulEcho: Compare this scene of Miki from ''Devilman Grimoire'' with this one from ''Devilman''.
%%* MsFanservice: Miki.
%%* MutualKill: Silene tries this on Akira after he mortally wounds her. It doesn't quite work out for her.
* MythologyGag:
** In chapter 10 of ''Devilman Grimoire'', Akira fights an ice demon who bears a resemblance to Ryo Asuka. The end of the chapter is very similar to the end of the original manga, [[spoiler:except Akira and his foe's positions are reversed, with Akira revealed to be talking to the upper half of the demon's corpse. [[UnexplainedRecovery He gets better]], though]]. Also doubles as a [[ContinuityNod continuity nod.]]
** In chapter 13 of ''Grimoire'', after Akira and Miki have made love for the first time, Akira is shown hugging Miki against himself in a panel that is [[spoiler:identical to the one in the original Devilman where he hugs her severed head to his chest after slaughtering the lynch mob that murdered and dismembered her]].
** In the ''Sirene The Demon Bird'' OVA, while Akira transforms, he has a very ''Manga/ViolenceJack''-esque features. Someone working on the OVA must've done their homework as [[spoiler:Akira was reincarnated as the titular Violence Jack]].
* NoFourthWall: Akira telling the readers that the story is going to be [[{{Foreshadowing}} much darker...]]
%%* YouAreTheDemons: No Ryo, You Are Satan
* NotGoodWithRejection: God. Satan/[[spoiler:Ryo]] rebelling against him once and refusing to follow him has effectively ''derailed all of creation'', any notion of a "grand plan", and doomed the lives of everyone within it. The wrathful deity rips from the fallen angel, [[spoiler:Akira]] - the only person Lucifer ever did love, [[DisproportionateRetribution over and over again in a vicious time-loop]].
* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Miki's kid brother]] is possibly the best example in the manga.
* OneMythToExplainThemAll: Akira's friend Ryo tell him that demons once roamed the Earth before being frozen in the arctic while humans dominated the planet. He also mentions that some demons got free, and could be the true causes of monster myths like wolfmen, Dracula, and ogres.
* OrderVersusChaos: In ''AMON'' manga Satan and God are representing two different orders - one that involves demons and one that doesn't. Which is why [[spoiler: Amon, who is clearly chaotic, refuses to ally himself with Satan, as he sees no difference between Satan and God]].
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Unlike other portrayals of demons, here in Devilman they are portrayed as evolved humans who have merged with many other living beings, including every type of animal, plants and even machinery (as shown in later installments).
* OutOfClothesExperience: This happens a few times in different adaptations.
** In the original manga, Akira tries to convince himself and [[spoiler:the Makimuras]] that he is still human despite also being a devil. A vision then appears of Akira, naked, running from himself as a giant Devilman whose hands have closed around him.
** Akira has two more experiences in the ''Devilman: the Demon Bird'' OVA. Once as he is fighting [[spoiler: the turtle devil Jinmen, who has his mother's soul trapped on his shell after eating her. He is almost defeated and his mother calls out to him. Akira then appears naked in his human form in a vision of an icy cave and witnesses how his mother died. The vision allows him to gain the resolve to defeat Jinmen and save his mother's trapped soul.]] Later, Akira has a dream where he starts clothed in a swimsuit, but becomes naked when the dream quickly shifts into a nightmare that climaxes with Miki impaled on a demon's teeth.
* RapidFireFisticuffs: Devilman uses this to defeat Amon in the third OVA, just before he delivers the killing blow.
* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Ryo, is in fact, the {{hermaphrodite}} Satan, who took the body of a human to learn mankind's weaknesses and plot their demise.]]
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: A lot of Devilman's enemies manage to garner one from our hero.
* {{Satan}}: [[spoiler:Ryo Asuka]].
* ShapeShifterBaggage: Averted. Ryo explains that when he moved the heavily burned, demon-possessed corpse of [[spoiler:his "father" Dr. Asuka,]] the body's mass was twice as what it should be.
* ShrinkingViolet: Akira before merging with Amon, though he reverts back to this whenever Miki flirts with him.
* SlasherSmile: Though it's a given with Devilman, Akira will occasionally do this as well.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: An interesting case. The manga is gut-wrenchingly cynical, but Nagai (who wrote ''Devilman'' as a cautionary tale) is firmly idealistic and believes that humanity is heading for a bright future. The writing process took such a heavy toll on him that he had to write the ''much'' LighterAndSofter ''Anime/MazingerZ'' on the side to blow off steam.
%%* SomethingPerson
%%* SparedByAdaptation:[[spoiler:Susumu]] in the live action movie.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Shirenu has been spelled Silen, Sirene, Silene, Siren,... The list goes on and on.
** Psycho Genie? Psycho Jenny?
** The name of the Hell General serving Satan is either Zenon or Xenon.
* StockSoundEffect: Someone in Toei must be a Franchise/{{Godzilla}} fan, because an episode has the demon Godo sending a ''Tyrannosaurs rex'' in modern day Japan sounding just like said monster.
* StupidEvil: Amon at one point in the ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' OVA, but the prize goes to the demon sent to kill Miki and Michiru in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' - Akira saves Miki and the demon escapes with Michiru, but, instead of outright killing her, he wastes time wondering if he should eat or rape her and concludes to do both right before Akira finds them and kills him.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: [[spoiler: What God, and by extension Satan, Amon and Sirene are revealed to originally have been in ''Demon Knight'', the official prequel manga to Devilman. Seems to outright contradict some important story elements from both the original manga and ''Amon: Darkside of Devilman'', but look up BroadStrokes above.]]
* SummoningRitual: Used by Miki in ''Devilman Grimoire'' to summon demons. [[spoiler:Unfortunately ''actual'' demons show up and they weren't summoned by the ritual.]]
* SuperPoweredEvilSide: Amon was originally this, but he transcended to pure evil after [[spoiler: Miki Makamura got killed]]. Might be an UnbuiltTrope as it's probably one of the first if not the first use of it in manga and one of the rare instances that shows how having one corrupts and changes a once cowardly boy into a BloodKnight.
* SureLetsGoWithThat: When one of the mob calls Miki a witch, in the heat of the moment, she's gloats that she is certainly a witch and warns them not to underestimate her. But as the mob begins to surround her, she says she's ''not'' a witch.
* ThematicRoguesGallery: Demons, duh.
* TookALevelInBadass:
** At the start of the manga, Akira Fudo is so weak and timid, Miki has to stand up to bullies for him. After he merges with Amon, not only does [[{{Squee}} Miki take notice of his swagger]], Akira literally beats his bullies one-handed.
** While Miki became a non-action girl, and Ryu got to show off his shooting skills later, in the OVA Akira shows some bravery, as well as that missing toughness not seen in the manga. He stands up to three goons who killed nearly all the rabbits in a pen, all except one, he takes a bike chain to the head and several punches but refuses to let them have the rabbit. They back off when their leader is impressed.
** Also in ''Devilman Grimoire'', after losing one of his feet, Akira decides to stay behind and let the demons devour him in order to buy time for Miki to escape.
** After ending up [[{{StuffedIntoTheFridge}} stuffed into the fridge]] in the original manga and a mute, quadruple-amputee sex slave in ''Violence Jack'', Miki has become this in the 2010s. She becomes a Getter pilot in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'', and in ''Devilman Grimoire'' she's a witch who [[spoiler: later becomes a Devilman.]]
* TornApartByTheMob: This is the fate of Miki Makimura and her little brother in pretty much every version of ''Devilman'' once the existence of demons is revealed to the world at large. When Akira arrives too late to save them, the mob's parading around of their heads and limbs is the final straw that causes him to snap out and kill the whole mob.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: ''Devilman Saga'' takes place in the year 2025.
* WarIsHell: This is THE real, core theme of the series, according WordOfGod.
* WaterfallShower: Silene takes a shower under a melting glacier in the 2nd OVA.
* WhatIf?: The Amon manga and OVA's explore what'd happen if say, Akira was completely possessed after Miki [[spoiler: dying]]. The result? [[EvilVersusEvil Not pretty.]]
* WorldOfHam
* WouldHurtAChild: Amon. Especially in the third OVA.
----
[[caption-width-right:300:If you think that this image is frightening, turn around because you have seen NOTHING.]]
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''Manga/DemonLordDante''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[ExaggeratedTrope much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
A teenage boy named Akira Fudo, living with his female friend Miki Makimura and her family due to absent parents, discovers the Earth is being invaded by demons. His other friend, an unusual boy named Ryo Asuka, convinces him that the only way to stop the demons is to merge with one of them. Akira gains the ability to transform into a superpowerful, batlike demon. As Devilman, he fights bizarre demons, most notably the harpy-like Siren, the turtle-like Jinmen, and the leader of the demons himself, [[BigBad Demon Lord Zenon]], while still trying to lead a normal life. Eventually, his struggles lead him into a battle against {{Satan}} himself for the fate of the entire world.
While [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the TV series]] was dark by {{shonen}} anime standards, the manga and most other versions are pure horror, filled with things like graphic violence and dismemberment.
The events of ''Devilman'' lead into Nagai's later sequel series ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' and ''Manga/DevilmanLady'', which were similarly violent and controversial. Its characters have also appeared in other manga and anime shows and movies, [[{{Crossover}} meeting]] Nagai's other famous creations like ''Anime/MazingerZ'' and ''Anime/CuteyHoney''.
To promote the final [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' in 1999, Go Nagai resurrected the manga in two forms. One is a collection of short stories entitled ''Neo-Devilman'' where he and many other writers/artists (17 to be precise) contribute to the Devilman mythos with their own spin-offs and visions for the original tale, and the other is where Nagai teamed up with Yuu Kinutani to create a 6-volume manga simply called ''AMON'', which is centered around and expands the events between humanity's persecution of demon/human hybrids and the final battle between Devilman and Satan. Go Nagai scripts and Yuu Kinutani provides pencils with highly-detailed art. In 2005, the two teamed up again to create ''Strange Days'', a single manga volume centered around a duo of Devilmen, Kira and Ryuu, clashing at Devilman vs. Satan's final battle. It tells their story of how their rivalry came to be during the persecution against Devilmen.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believed herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
On 25 December 2014 ''Devilman Saga'' was released in Shogakukan. It is written and drawn by Go Nagai, and its main character is Yuki Fudo, a Japanese roboticist who is called in to study a strange and ancient mural from Antarctica. According to promotional material, it is the final chapter in the original Devilman storyline of ''Devilman'' and ''Devilman Lady''.
Devilman appears in the MassiveMultiplayerCrossover game, ''VideoGame/SundayVSMagazineShuuketsuChoujouDaikessen''. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39anQm12y5s crossover OVA trilogy]] with ''Manga/{{Cyborg 009}}'' called ''Anime/Cyborg009VsDevilman'' came out in October 2015, celebrating the franchise's 50th Anniversary. It received a worldwide release streaming on Creator/{{Netflix}} in April 2016, complete with an all-new English dub. Devilman himself will also feature in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsDD'', fighting alongside and against [[HumongousMecha giant robots.]]
An animated adaptation of the manga, called ''Anime/DevilmanCrybaby'' was created under director Creator/MasaakiYuasa and was released by Creator/{{Netflix}} on January 5th 2018. The teaser trailer can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmOWPSc9Vv8 here]].
----
!!Trope examples:
%%* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: In the second OVA, Akira fights Jinmen in what could be considered this.
* ActorAllusion: In ''The Birth'', it isn't the first time the voice actor for Professor Asuka, Mikio Terashima, voiced a character who [[spoiler:[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman commits suicide]]]].
* AdaptationalDistillation: The Famicom game is based directly from the manga, but certain events are rearranged, such as [[spoiler: Miki's parents being captured by Demon Hunters]] as soon as Akira gains his powers, and covers boss battles with Sirene, Aguel, and Zenon.
* AdaptationalVillainy: The ''AMON'' [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] made the title character much more ObviouslyEvil, when in the manga he is just a tad more bitter than Akira turned out to be after the Devilman transformation.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Mikiko's (Miko) chapter in ''Neo-Devilman''. Her first pages in the story have her touching herself while in deep thought as to why she doesn't see herself as a good girl. In this version, that's even how she became a devilman in the first place since, apparently, demons like to possess girls during their ''moments''.
* ADayInTheLimelight: ''Neo-Devilman'' is basically this, given that it was made by ''17 different writers/artists'', everyone with a pencil and ink had a chance to share their view of the characters and portray some side-characters in a more protagonist light.
* AnAesop: WarIsHell. In addition, just because you're strong does not mean you have the right to trample over other beings- only through mutual respect can humanity really grow, as it has done many times in the past. [[spoiler: Demonkind's failure to learn this is ultimately what dooms them and humanity, as Satan states at the end of the series.]]
* AndIMustScream:
** Victims of the turtle-like demon Jinmen are doomed to live an eternity as a tile in his shell.
** He does it again in chapter 0 of ''Devilman Grimoire'' [[spoiler: where he mocks a Harpy by revealing he ate her boyfriend and then eats her next.]]
* AllYourPowersCombined: Agira from ''Neo-Devilman''. His Devilmen power is to absorb and assimilate anything into his body from weapons to demons and Devilmen. He eventually absorbs ''legions'' of demons. In this version, Agira is the unnamed giant beast from the original manga that Devilman rides into the final battle against Satan with his multi-headed dragon.
* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The short sequel for the ''AMON'' manga, ''Strange Days'', features a whole new cast of characters, whom some will become Devilmen and clash at the Devilman vs. Satan final battle. The focus is Kira and Ryuu, and their band ''THE FLYERS''.
%%* AntiHero: Akira (Devilman), Ryo before his [[spoiler: FaceHeelTurn]].
* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Even the main character and his sweetheart.]]
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Class 0 or class 3 at the end of the manga.]]
* AscendedExtra: Amon, the original demon whom Akira's Devilman form take its powers from, stops being merely a past legacy mentioned in the original manga to being given a personality and form in the manga with his name. In it, Amon actually takes over Akira's entire body, both in demon and human form, thus being promoted to protagonist.
* BigBad: Demon Lord Zenon is the leader of the demonic forces out to conquer Earth and the main enemy of the titular hero, though he is doing it on behalf of the GreaterScopeVillain, Demon King {{Satan}}. [[spoiler:However, once Ryo Asuka recovers his memories as Satan, he takes over as main villain for the rest of the series.]]
* BigNo: Akira [[spoiler: after he discovers the anti-demon corps killed Miki's parents.]]
* BigRedDevil: Generally averted as the demons are a CastOfSnowflakes, Amon being the only one who plays it straight.
* BloodstainedGlassWindows
* BodyHorror: The way demons merged with humans and make them undergo horrific transformations is not different from how the titular alien from ''Film/TheThing1982'' assimilate its victims.
* BreakingSpeech: [[spoiler: Jinmen gives Akira one about how the demons are justified by BlueAndOrangeMorality, and how Akira is clearly the bad guy for killing demons. Akira [[ShutUpHannibal tells him to go fuck himself.]]]]
* BroadStrokes: The prequel manga ''Demon Knight'' explains a few things, like why Satan is a hermaphrodite ([[spoiler:he/she is a forced fusion of the male SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Lucifer and human girl Yuria]]) and the origins of demons ([[spoiler:they are humans or aliens forcefully hybridized with animals by God, who is a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien/[[AncientAstronauts Ancient Astronaut]]]]). However, it does directly contradict stuff found in ''Amon: Darkside of Devilman'', ''Devilman Lady'' or even the original manga, and does not explain other stuff, like the hermaphroditism of other angels than Satan, and ignores the existence of Michael. But this is quite possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the fact it's stated to be memories of an AlternateUniverse, which allows the events of the past to occur in numerous, different variations.
* BroughtToYouByTheLetterS: The ''AMON'' manga has Akira in the iconic yellow shirt from the anime even though it follows the original manga.
* CainAndAbel: Ryo and Akira. [[spoiler: Satan and Amon in the Amon manga]]
* CanonWelding:
** Almost all incarnations of Devilman (and ''Manga/ViolenceJack'') can be considered linked together thanks to TheReveal in the Amon manga that [[spoiler:God himself put the entire universe in a time loop to punish Satan by making him constantly relive the death of the one he loves]]. This means that technically, the inconsistencies in various works can be [[HandWaving excused]] due to them taking place at different iterations in the repeatedly-reset timeline.
** In Manga/DevilmanGrimoire, Jun Fudo ([[AdaptationalNameChange renamed Jun Lan]]) and Aoi Kurosaki from ''Manga/DevilmanLady'' appear as teachers in Akira and Miki's school, with the former being their homeroom teacher while the latter is a P.E. teacher. They are also [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbian lovers]] who seemingly have no problem getting it on during the middle of the school day.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Miki.
* CompositeCharacter:
** In ''Devilman vs Manga/GetterRobo'' Akira has the story and personality of his manga incarnation but the powers of the anime incarnation. Silene in that manga has the look of her manga version, the powers and personality of the anime version and little bits of later incarnations, including her love for Amon.
* ContinuitySnarl:
** ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' is a sequel to ''Devilman'', but so is ''Manga/DevilmanLady'', making it a complicated matter. Fans have been discussing it for years, noting that ''Lady'' has much more solid connections to the original than ''Jack'', but without having an official answer to which is supposed to be the true sequel. At the end, Nagai stated that ''Violence Jack'' should be treated as its own universe, which implies ''Lady'' is meant to be ''Devilman'''s true continuation. However, considering that [[spoiler:the franchise's s world is on a constant loop thanks to God's continuous punishment against Satan, it is also possible to believe that both ''Jack'' and ''Lady'' are simply separate iterations of the cycle.]]
** It seemed to be the case in the ''AMON'' manga. Despite it was billed as an {{Interquel}} set during the war, at its ending Amon had taken over Akira's body completely with no chance to revert back, which would negate the original story in which Akira was himself till the final clash with Satan by stating that Amon is the one in control now. However, ''Strange Days'' came and showed Akira in control of his body just in time for the final battle, implying that Akira was back in control sometime between ''AMON'' and ''Strange Days''; the war went on for 20 years after all.
* CrapsackWorld: The world during the war.
* {{Crossover}}:
** With ''Anime/MazingerZ'' in TheMovie, ''Mazinger Z vs Devilman''.
** And with Manga/GetterRobo in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' manga. [[spoiler: Which features Devilman and Getter COMBINING.]]
** There's also the appearance of the cartoon version of Devilman in the manga ''Manga/MazingerAngels''. Once again, he holds his own against giant robots. Later in that series, [[Manga/DororonEnmaKun Enma-kun]] passes Akira by at a festival, and they give each other a knowing, angry glance.
** ''Chibi Chara Go Nagai World'' is a chibi crossover between Devilman, Anime/MazingerZ, Manga/GetterRobo and Manga/ViolenceJack, [[LampshadeHanging which actually weirds out the titular characters]], since Jack is a reincarnation of [[spoiler:Akira]], after all.
** ''Devilman vs Hades'' manga has Akira pick a fight with the BigBad of Anime/GreatMazinger [[spoiler: after he murdered Hades' wife trying to bring Miki back to life.]]
** ''Anime/Cyborg009VsDevilman'' is a rare crossover with a series not created by Go Nagai or Ken Ishikawa.
* CurbStompBattle: [[spoiler: Satan vs Amon in first volume of ''Amon: The Darkside of Devilman''. And if Satan's memories are true, his fight with ArchangelMichael was even more one-sided and involved literal curbstomp.]]
** It's implied that the FinalBattle of the series is one of these [[spoiler: with Satan doing the curb-stomping against Akira and his Devilman Army. Despite Akira being torn in half, Satan is completely unharmed. Considering they're a literal deity, this is only to be expected, but it's no less tragic.]]
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira wins]].
* DeathByAdaptation: In the original ''Devilman'', Dosu Roku, Masa and the fat guy with big teeth from Dosu Roku's gang went from being Akira's enemies to his friends and allies, essentially becoming human members of the Devilman Army. While the fat guy's ultimate fate is unknown, [[spoiler: Masa was killed trying to save Miki and Tare from the lynch mob while Dosu Roku played a major part in the ''AMON'' manga]]. In ''Devilman Grimoire'', [[spoiler:Dosu Roku and the fat guy are unceremoniously eaten alive by a demon in the first chapter, while Masa lasts until the second chapter, where his head is bitten off by Silene]]. This establishes the fact that ''Grimoire'' is not just a retelling of the original story but is a whole new continuity, with the ultimate fates of the main characters up in the air.
* DeathOfAChild:
** [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler:Miki's severed head is put in a pike and paraded by the blood-thirsty mob.]]
* DeconstructorFleet: ''Amon: The Darkside Of Devilman'' arguably takes original series and deconstructs a few things. The original manga itself seems to deconstruct or [[UnbuiltTrope unbuild]] many common shonen/sentai tropes.
** One of the most prominent things the series tears apart is the predisposition that shonen series have towards ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption. While Akira ripping apart his demon foes is initially framed as heroic, it soon becomes clear that it's slowly corrupting him morally. The war between demons and humans also begins as GrayAndGrayMorality; demons view humans as legitimate intruders to their ancestral homeworld and want them gone, especially considering how much humanity has polluted the planet. While some demons like Jinmen are definitely evil, others like Silene and Kaim are genuinely [[NobleDemon Noble Demons]]. On the other hands, demons are slaughtering humans en-masse in horrifically violent ways, which perhaps justifies why humanity is so violent towards them in return. In the end, the cycle of violence is so all-consuming that humans become no better than demons at their absolute worst, turning the series into EvilVersusEvil. [[spoiler: In the end, the demon's ploy to take back their homeworld through violence ends up wiping them out instead, having dragged the remainder of humanity to their level. As a result, everyone suffers- Akira dies after losing his only family, and Ryo/Satan murders their only loved one.]]
* DemonLordsAndArchdevils: Lord Zenon, leader of the demons and second only to Satan himself.
* DemonicPossession: It only works properly on humans who've "lost their reason" (such as from madness, panic, rage, and the altered state you get into when participating in a drug-and-booze-fuelled party/orgy). Doing it on a person in a regular state of mind causes the death of both the demon and the human.
* DependingOnTheArtist: Satan. In Nagai's hands, s/he is not only a hermaphrodite, but Nagai draws him/her with female-like facial features and body curves, also in some designs (though not all) he seems to imply that Satan's lower parts are those of a woman. Other artists on the other hand, like Yu Kinutani from ''AMON/Strange Days'' and many others from ''Neo-Devilman'', maintain [[spoiler:Ryo's]] male psyche even in Satan form, and in some extremes they might draw Satan with a male lower part too; and yet the breasts are present in all renditions of Satan.
* DependingOnTheWriter:
** Satan's motivations for trying to bring his "order" upon earth. In some versions, he is doing it for human- and demon-kind's well-being (in his eyes), aside from for Akira, of course. In others, he is doing it ''just'' for Akira and no one else.
** [[spoiler: In ''AMON'' all of those motivations are, to some extent, true - Satan wants to create a better world for demons, but also wants to bring his own vision of order, which is why Amon opposes him. He reveals Akira's secret out of jealousy towards Miki because he thinks he is the only one who can save Akira.]]
* DevilButNoGod: Played in the live-action movie.
* DiedStandingUp: [[spoiler: Siren]]
* DisposableWoman: [[spoiler: Sachiko and little Yumi in the ''AMON'' OVA.]]
* DistaffCounterpart: Manga/DevilmanLady. Also Mikimura from ''Strange Days'', whose Devilmen form is the exact female version of Akira's own Devilman, even closer for being less [[{{Fanservice}} fanservicey]] than the original distaff Devilman Lady.
* DoingInTheWizard: ''Demon Knight'' does it, kind-of. Check BroadStrokes above for details.
* DownerEnding:
** [[spoiler:The Devilmen lose the war against the demons, but the demons are apparently wiped out too in the process, not to mention mankind. Akira dies for nothing, and Satan will be imminently killed by God's angels. It is also revealed in sequels and spinoffs that God will create a TimeLoop to punish Satan eternally.]]
** Averted in the NES game, however, as [[spoiler:beating Satan in the final battle [[EarnYourHappyEnding wins you a happy ending]], while losing to him gets you the same ending as the manga and OVA.]]
** Also averted in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'', though it's still [[BittersweetEnding not without tragedy]] as many members of the cast end up dying. [[spoiler:Jack regains his original form as Akira and Devilman, and resumes his battle with Satan, but this time, he ends up winning the fight]].
* DudeLooksLikeALady: Ryo Asuka. In Nagai's hands he is very lady-like, to the point that, when he is seen in [[spoiler:Satan form Ryo ''becomes'' a woman, Nagai draws his face with unmistakable female facial features and body curves]]. Only other artists downplay Nagai's original design and maintain Ryo just in lady-like territory.
* EldritchAbomination: God himself. A huge ball of light that instantly incinerates all nearby demons and [[TakenForGranite turns humans who see it]] [[MythologyGag into pillars of salt]] ''just by being there''. Even Satan has a nervous breakdown just from seeing him on TV.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Amon in his dedicated manga, where he is clearly selfish and evil, but has his own set of standards and Silene seems to work as his MoralityPet. Averted in the OVA adaptation.
* EverybodysDeadDave
* EvilVersusEvil: Amon vs other demons in the ''Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman''.
* {{Expy}}:
** The story and main character come officially from ''Manga/DemonLordDante'', Go Nagai's earlier work.
** Ashura from the ''Amon'' manga is clearly an expy of Baron Ashura from ''Anime/MazingerZ''.
* FakeMemories: Nagai himself goes this way in his chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'': at the climax of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback of Akira meeting Ryo for the first time at school, but here Ryo seems to manipulate Akira's memories to make it so they already knew each other, implying that a few traces of Satan were there since the very beginning.
* FanDisservice:
** When Akira gets the powers of the demon Amon and transforms into Devilman, [[FullFrontalAssault he does not wear anything]] since his transformations [[ClothingDamage destroy his clothing]], leaving him [[ShapeShiftingExcludesClothing naked each time he returns to human form]]. [[CrapsackWorld The world around him is so horrible, however]], that it's hard to appreciate.
** Akira's girlfriend Miki Makimura is a PluckyGirl with beautiful legs and a rather nice rack, but one scene that "showcases" them has her first [[spoiler: stabbed InTheBack bloodily]], then subjected to an horrifying BreakTheCutie at the hands of a maddened mob (including her [[spoiler: watching as her brother Taro is murdered and beheaded and having visions of herself subjected to BodyHorror]]) and, towards the end, [[spoiler: her ''dismembered'' body parts (including her head, her legs and her bare torso) [[DeadGuyOnDisplay are put in pikes]].]]
** The BigBad, Satan, is [[FullFrontalAssault naked]]. And he has [[PrettyBoy a really pretty face]]! Problem is, [[spoiler: he is an {{hermaphrodite}}, he used to be Akira's best friend Ryo Asuka, and he's officially revealed as the BigBad when ''everything'' has gone FromBadToWorse.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath:
** The demon Jinmen devours humans and absorbs their living souls onto his shell.
** [[spoiler: Satan's fate as revealed in ''AMON'' is to eternally lose the one s/he loves for all eternity as punishment for rebelling against God. The horrific treatments he's subjected to as Ryo in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' (which is also part of the time loop, meaning it's also going to happen) may also figure into it.]]
* FanservicePack: Fusing with Amon not only grants you superpowers and a demonic SuperForm, but evidently a killer human body (and less compunction to [[ShamelessFanserviceGirl cover it up]]) as well. Miki even lampshades this in ''Devilman Grimoire'', jokingly wishing ''she'' had been possessed after seeing the improvements Amon made to Akira's build.
-->'''Miki:''' He really screwed me over. If only he had possessed me instead, I could have gotten the best body in class.
* FromBadToWorse: It starts with a demonic invasion of earth and ends with [[spoiler: the extinction of humanity]].
* GhibliHills: The late '80s OVA series was animated by Creator/OhProduction, which provided animation assistance for many Ghibli films. Kazuo Komatsubara, character designer for both the '70s TV anime and the '80s OVA, worked in that same capacity on ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', and thus his designs for the OVA have a very "Ghibli" look at times.
* {{God}}: Creator of the Earth along with angels, humans and sometimes demons. His characterization varies between adaptations from being merely remote and alien to being GodIsEvil. The only thing common is God [[spoiler: doesn't like demons and sees them as [[MyGreatestFailure an abomination.]]]]
* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler:In ''Amon'', where it's revealed God has everything happen in an endless loop that makes '''everyone''' suffer and die just to make Satan watch Akira die by his/her own hands for eternity. This means that he is condemning two whole sapient species to suffer and die horribly and pointlessly over and over for eternity [[DisproportionateRetribution just to punish a single rebel]] ({{Satan}}, of course).]] However, this detail is not consistent with all adaptations.
* {{Gorn}}: Not as bad as some others, but still incredibly horrific, particularly in the {{OVA}}s.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Oddly enough, no one's really evil, but no one's really good either. The demons only want humans gone because they're seen as intruders; the humans want the demons gone because they don't like the idea of dying. [[spoiler:This is eventually [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] as both humans and demons become increasingly horrible to the point where [[EvilVersusEvil humans become just as bad as demons at their worst.]]]]
* HaveWeMetYet: In Nagai's own chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'', centered on the final moments of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback to when Ryo and Akira first met in school. In this vision it seems that Ryo implanted fake memories of Akira and him being childhood friends; Akira even wonders if they ever met before but gets familiar with Ryo shortly after. This seems to be the case in the first [=OVA=] as well, in which Akira's confusion when he sees Ryo for the first time lingers for a long moment, before he immediately acts as if he's known him all along.
* HeroicSacrifice: Played with when it comes to Kaim and Sirene in the second OVA. With Sirene bleeding to death, she begs Xenon to give her some help, which he does in the form of a set of demons, Kaim included. Kaim refuses to fight, insisting that he give his life to provide Sirene his body to help her fight Devilman. After [[YourHeadAsplode detonating his own head]], Sirene is so devastated by Kaim's death that she manages to fuse with his body and uses the new powers it provides to defeat Devilman, before she finally dies.
* HeroicWillpower: How someone can turn the tables on possessing demons and become a human/demon hybrid with the human mind still in command, i.e. a devilman.
* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Ryo and Akira accidentally ''create'' Hitler by going back in time to stop a demon.
* HotterAndSexier: Go Nagai took full advantage of Yuu Kinutani's incredibly detailed art style while making the ''AMON'' manga. While there's no explicit sex, many of the girls including Miki herself were given more curvaceous body proportions, and humanoid female demons like Siren who are mostly in the nude were often given many panels focusing on their breasts and buttocks. Still, Go Nagai averted the series taking the {{Fanservice}} route by simply making these "improvements" only a visual extra.
* HowDoIShotWeb: Averted unlike most superhero works. Akira knows a good amount of Amon's movelist the instant he's merged with him inside the Sabbath. Sort of like a demonic form of BrainUploading, since they've come to share the same body.
* HowWeGotHere: The last volumes of ''AMON'' are spent building up the events that will happen in the first volumes, basically the first part is protagonized by Amon and the second part is protagonized by Akira.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Initially only the demons shared this idea, since Earth belonged to them first, and they say humanity stole it from them. After demons and devilmen became public knowledge, Akira and other devilmen started to think like this too, as most of humanity went in a senseless rampage against demons, devilmen, or any living being that they ''thought'' was aiding the "monsters". This aspect is expanded further in the ''AMON'' manga, where Akira simply reaches the conclusion that humans are the ''real'' demons and that he will help anyone that values life, regardless of whether it's a demon, devilman, or even human.
* ImAHumanitarian: Demons tend to love to eat humans as well as [[MonstrousCannibalism each other]].
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice:
** The manga is rife with violent ways to maim or kill, impalement is one such way.
** When Kaim appears to assist Silene he deploys a group of minions to attack Akira. Akira dispatches the last of them by hopping into the air and impaling its body on a tree trunk.
** Silene impales Akira with one of Kaim's horns; a wound which incapacitates him.
* InelegantBlubbering: A heartbreaking example in the ''Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman'' OVA. Upon finding [[spoiler: Miki's severed head on a pike held by a mob, Akira kills those responsible. He then clutches her head to his chest and begins to cry.]] Akira then falls to his knees, anguishedly sobbing and screaming as Satan and Psychogenie watch from a distance.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: In the live action movie, the [[spoiler:the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.]]
* {{Irony}}:
** As the demon-human war progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that there is very little moral distinction left between demons and humans. Ryo comes to the ironic conclusion that Akira, a demon, has a human heart filled with more righteousness than what remains of humanity. Even if saving humanity is a lost cause, their good nature can live on through Akira who embodies what the current humanity has now lost. Akira is caught off guard by this argument, and reacts to it with disgust, but Ryo is closer to the truth than Akira would like to admit.
** Ryo is a very human individual, struggling with the duality of a human heart's goodness and its darkness. Ryo is a person full of layered emotions, that even the most human among the demons would struggle to grasp. Even his dismissal of human morality shows that he's aware humans possess moral standards they ought to live up to; revealing how infected by humanity he is. Even after reawakening as Satan, he is unable to cast off Ryo's humanity, a fact that Xenon mocks him for. Most damning of all is that when Xenon claims Satan is in love with Akira, Satan doesn't even bother to deny it. Despite siding with the demons, Ryo's human heart (and by proxy Akira who fostered it) had already '''won''' the war against Satan philosophically.
** By contrast, the once loving, kind and heroic Akira becomes more like a demon as the story advances. It starts out subtly with him enjoying the battles he fights, and engaging in utter brutality, but he always held on to some semblance of his humanity. Akira loses what little connection he had left to his humanity after witnessing the death of Miki's parents and Miki herself. Afterward, a grief stricken Akira declares his indifference to humanity -- no longer caring if they live or die -- stating that it's no longer his job to save them, and subsequently declares war against Satan. Akira is no more, and Devilman is all that remains. Satan later confesses to the dying Akira that he harbored no more ill will towards humanity, and was filled with sorrow over the extinction of both the demons '''and''' the humans. The twist of fate is that the man who set out to save humanity, became a demon who no longer cared about anyone, while the angel who desired humanity's destruction became human enough to feel remorse for his actions. Worst of all, Satan's moral realization comes too late to salvage his relationship with Akira, or to save humanity.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: While nobody except maybe God is actually out-and-out evil, pretty much ''everyone'' is quick to leap to the bloodiest and goriest option possible. By the end, Akira gives up trying to care about or save anyone. If Manga/ViolenceJack is Akira, it's a wonder he isn't even ''more'' callous.
%%* KillEmAll
%%* LesbianJock: Aoi is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
%%* LipstickLesbian: Jun is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
* LoveMakesYouCrazy:
** [[spoiler:Ryo/Satan]] sacrifices many of his strongest demons to ensure Akira becomes Devilman. Also doubles as LoveMakesYouDumb.
** [[spoiler: S/he admits to being crazy at the end of the final volume of ''AMON''.]]
* LoveTriangle: Akira/Miki/Ryo. Developed further in ''Manga/ViolenceJack''.
%%* MadeOfPlasticine
* ManlyTears: Akira upon [[spoiler: being kissed by Miki for the first and only time and then seeing her disappear in the air, forever...]] Amon is StupidEvil enough to laugh at him for this. [[spoiler: As could be expected, this just doesn't end well for him]].
* MarshmallowHell: Any story that features Devilman's birth through the Sabbath [[OnceAnEpisode will usually feature]] Akira running face first into a topless woman on the dance floor. Whether he accidentally makes a wrong turn or gets PunchedAcrossTheRoom as retribution for associating with Ryo (who had been initiating a bar brawl to speed the Sabbath up) depends on the installment.
%%* MeaningfulEcho: Compare this scene of Miki from ''Devilman Grimoire'' with this one from ''Devilman''.
%%* MsFanservice: Miki.
%%* MutualKill: Silene tries this on Akira after he mortally wounds her. It doesn't quite work out for her.
* MythologyGag:
** In chapter 10 of ''Devilman Grimoire'', Akira fights an ice demon who bears a resemblance to Ryo Asuka. The end of the chapter is very similar to the end of the original manga, [[spoiler:except Akira and his foe's positions are reversed, with Akira revealed to be talking to the upper half of the demon's corpse. [[UnexplainedRecovery He gets better]], though]]. Also doubles as a [[ContinuityNod continuity nod.]]
** In chapter 13 of ''Grimoire'', after Akira and Miki have made love for the first time, Akira is shown hugging Miki against himself in a panel that is [[spoiler:identical to the one in the original Devilman where he hugs her severed head to his chest after slaughtering the lynch mob that murdered and dismembered her]].
** In the ''Sirene The Demon Bird'' OVA, while Akira transforms, he has a very ''Manga/ViolenceJack''-esque features. Someone working on the OVA must've done their homework as [[spoiler:Akira was reincarnated as the titular Violence Jack]].
* NoFourthWall: Akira telling the readers that the story is going to be [[{{Foreshadowing}} much darker...]]
%%* YouAreTheDemons: No Ryo, You Are Satan
* NotGoodWithRejection: God. Satan/[[spoiler:Ryo]] rebelling against him once and refusing to follow him has effectively ''derailed all of creation'', any notion of a "grand plan", and doomed the lives of everyone within it. The wrathful deity rips from the fallen angel, [[spoiler:Akira]] - the only person Lucifer ever did love, [[DisproportionateRetribution over and over again in a vicious time-loop]].
* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Miki's kid brother]] is possibly the best example in the manga.
* OneMythToExplainThemAll: Akira's friend Ryo tell him that demons once roamed the Earth before being frozen in the arctic while humans dominated the planet. He also mentions that some demons got free, and could be the true causes of monster myths like wolfmen, Dracula, and ogres.
* OrderVersusChaos: In ''AMON'' manga Satan and God are representing two different orders - one that involves demons and one that doesn't. Which is why [[spoiler: Amon, who is clearly chaotic, refuses to ally himself with Satan, as he sees no difference between Satan and God]].
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Unlike other portrayals of demons, here in Devilman they are portrayed as evolved humans who have merged with many other living beings, including every type of animal, plants and even machinery (as shown in later installments).
* OutOfClothesExperience: This happens a few times in different adaptations.
** In the original manga, Akira tries to convince himself and [[spoiler:the Makimuras]] that he is still human despite also being a devil. A vision then appears of Akira, naked, running from himself as a giant Devilman whose hands have closed around him.
** Akira has two more experiences in the ''Devilman: the Demon Bird'' OVA. Once as he is fighting [[spoiler: the turtle devil Jinmen, who has his mother's soul trapped on his shell after eating her. He is almost defeated and his mother calls out to him. Akira then appears naked in his human form in a vision of an icy cave and witnesses how his mother died. The vision allows him to gain the resolve to defeat Jinmen and save his mother's trapped soul.]] Later, Akira has a dream where he starts clothed in a swimsuit, but becomes naked when the dream quickly shifts into a nightmare that climaxes with Miki impaled on a demon's teeth.
* RapidFireFisticuffs: Devilman uses this to defeat Amon in the third OVA, just before he delivers the killing blow.
* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Ryo, is in fact, the {{hermaphrodite}} Satan, who took the body of a human to learn mankind's weaknesses and plot their demise.]]
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: A lot of Devilman's enemies manage to garner one from our hero.
* {{Satan}}: [[spoiler:Ryo Asuka]].
* ShapeShifterBaggage: Averted. Ryo explains that when he moved the heavily burned, demon-possessed corpse of [[spoiler:his "father" Dr. Asuka,]] the body's mass was twice as what it should be.
* ShrinkingViolet: Akira before merging with Amon, though he reverts back to this whenever Miki flirts with him.
* SlasherSmile: Though it's a given with Devilman, Akira will occasionally do this as well.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: An interesting case. The manga is gut-wrenchingly cynical, but Nagai (who wrote ''Devilman'' as a cautionary tale) is firmly idealistic and believes that humanity is heading for a bright future. The writing process took such a heavy toll on him that he had to write the ''much'' LighterAndSofter ''Anime/MazingerZ'' on the side to blow off steam.
%%* SomethingPerson
%%* SparedByAdaptation:[[spoiler:Susumu]] in the live action movie.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Shirenu has been spelled Silen, Sirene, Silene, Siren,... The list goes on and on.
** Psycho Genie? Psycho Jenny?
** The name of the Hell General serving Satan is either Zenon or Xenon.
* StockSoundEffect: Someone in Toei must be a Franchise/{{Godzilla}} fan, because an episode has the demon Godo sending a ''Tyrannosaurs rex'' in modern day Japan sounding just like said monster.
* StupidEvil: Amon at one point in the ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' OVA, but the prize goes to the demon sent to kill Miki and Michiru in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' - Akira saves Miki and the demon escapes with Michiru, but, instead of outright killing her, he wastes time wondering if he should eat or rape her and concludes to do both right before Akira finds them and kills him.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: [[spoiler: What God, and by extension Satan, Amon and Sirene are revealed to originally have been in ''Demon Knight'', the official prequel manga to Devilman. Seems to outright contradict some important story elements from both the original manga and ''Amon: Darkside of Devilman'', but look up BroadStrokes above.]]
* SummoningRitual: Used by Miki in ''Devilman Grimoire'' to summon demons. [[spoiler:Unfortunately ''actual'' demons show up and they weren't summoned by the ritual.]]
* SuperPoweredEvilSide: Amon was originally this, but he transcended to pure evil after [[spoiler: Miki Makamura got killed]]. Might be an UnbuiltTrope as it's probably one of the first if not the first use of it in manga and one of the rare instances that shows how having one corrupts and changes a once cowardly boy into a BloodKnight.
* SureLetsGoWithThat: When one of the mob calls Miki a witch, in the heat of the moment, she's gloats that she is certainly a witch and warns them not to underestimate her. But as the mob begins to surround her, she says she's ''not'' a witch.
* ThematicRoguesGallery: Demons, duh.
* TookALevelInBadass:
** At the start of the manga, Akira Fudo is so weak and timid, Miki has to stand up to bullies for him. After he merges with Amon, not only does [[{{Squee}} Miki take notice of his swagger]], Akira literally beats his bullies one-handed.
** While Miki became a non-action girl, and Ryu got to show off his shooting skills later, in the OVA Akira shows some bravery, as well as that missing toughness not seen in the manga. He stands up to three goons who killed nearly all the rabbits in a pen, all except one, he takes a bike chain to the head and several punches but refuses to let them have the rabbit. They back off when their leader is impressed.
** Also in ''Devilman Grimoire'', after losing one of his feet, Akira decides to stay behind and let the demons devour him in order to buy time for Miki to escape.
** After ending up [[{{StuffedIntoTheFridge}} stuffed into the fridge]] in the original manga and a mute, quadruple-amputee sex slave in ''Violence Jack'', Miki has become this in the 2010s. She becomes a Getter pilot in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'', and in ''Devilman Grimoire'' she's a witch who [[spoiler: later becomes a Devilman.]]
* TornApartByTheMob: This is the fate of Miki Makimura and her little brother in pretty much every version of ''Devilman'' once the existence of demons is revealed to the world at large. When Akira arrives too late to save them, the mob's parading around of their heads and limbs is the final straw that causes him to snap out and kill the whole mob.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: ''Devilman Saga'' takes place in the year 2025.
* WarIsHell: This is THE real, core theme of the series, according WordOfGod.
* WaterfallShower: Silene takes a shower under a melting glacier in the 2nd OVA.
* WhatIf?: The Amon manga and OVA's explore what'd happen if say, Akira was completely possessed after Miki [[spoiler: dying]]. The result? [[EvilVersusEvil Not pretty.]]
* WorldOfHam
* WouldHurtAChild: Amon. Especially in the third OVA.
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to:
[[caption-width-right:300:If you think that this image is frightening, turn around because you have seen NOTHING.]]
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''Manga/DemonLordDante''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[ExaggeratedTrope much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
A teenage boy named Akira Fudo, living with his female friend Miki Makimura and her family due to absent parents, discovers the Earth is being invaded by demons. His other friend, an unusual boy named Ryo Asuka, convinces him that the only way to stop the demons is to merge with one of them. Akira gains the ability to transform into a superpowerful, batlike demon. As Devilman, he fights bizarre demons, most notably the harpy-like Siren, the turtle-like Jinmen, and the leader of the demons himself, [[BigBad Demon Lord Zenon]], while still trying to lead a normal life. Eventually, his struggles lead him into a battle against {{Satan}} himself for the fate of the entire world.
While [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the TV series]] was dark by {{shonen}} anime standards, the manga and most other versions are pure horror, filled with things like graphic violence and dismemberment.
The events of ''Devilman'' lead into Nagai's later sequel series ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' and ''Manga/DevilmanLady'', which were similarly violent and controversial. Its characters have also appeared in other manga and anime shows and movies, [[{{Crossover}} meeting]] Nagai's other famous creations like ''Anime/MazingerZ'' and ''Anime/CuteyHoney''.
To promote the final [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' in 1999, Go Nagai resurrected the manga in two forms. One is a collection of short stories entitled ''Neo-Devilman'' where he and many other writers/artists (17 to be precise) contribute to the Devilman mythos with their own spin-offs and visions for the original tale, and the other is where Nagai teamed up with Yuu Kinutani to create a 6-volume manga simply called ''AMON'', which is centered around and expands the events between humanity's persecution of demon/human hybrids and the final battle between Devilman and Satan. Go Nagai scripts and Yuu Kinutani provides pencils with highly-detailed art. In 2005, the two teamed up again to create ''Strange Days'', a single manga volume centered around a duo of Devilmen, Kira and Ryuu, clashing at Devilman vs. Satan's final battle. It tells their story of how their rivalry came to be during the persecution against Devilmen.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believed herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
On 25 December 2014 ''Devilman Saga'' was released in Shogakukan. It is written and drawn by Go Nagai, and its main character is Yuki Fudo, a Japanese roboticist who is called in to study a strange and ancient mural from Antarctica. According to promotional material, it is the final chapter in the original Devilman storyline of ''Devilman'' and ''Devilman Lady''.
Devilman appears in the MassiveMultiplayerCrossover game, ''VideoGame/SundayVSMagazineShuuketsuChoujouDaikessen''. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39anQm12y5s crossover OVA trilogy]] with ''Manga/{{Cyborg 009}}'' called ''Anime/Cyborg009VsDevilman'' came out in October 2015, celebrating the franchise's 50th Anniversary. It received a worldwide release streaming on Creator/{{Netflix}} in April 2016, complete with an all-new English dub. Devilman himself will also feature in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsDD'', fighting alongside and against [[HumongousMecha giant robots.]]
An animated adaptation of the manga, called ''Anime/DevilmanCrybaby'' was created under director Creator/MasaakiYuasa and was released by Creator/{{Netflix}} on January 5th 2018. The teaser trailer can be viewed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmOWPSc9Vv8 here]].
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!!Trope examples:
%%* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: In the second OVA, Akira fights Jinmen in what could be considered this.
* ActorAllusion: In ''The Birth'', it isn't the first time the voice actor for Professor Asuka, Mikio Terashima, voiced a character who [[spoiler:[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman commits suicide]]]].
* AdaptationalDistillation: The Famicom game is based directly from the manga, but certain events are rearranged, such as [[spoiler: Miki's parents being captured by Demon Hunters]] as soon as Akira gains his powers, and covers boss battles with Sirene, Aguel, and Zenon.
* AdaptationalVillainy: The ''AMON'' [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] made the title character much more ObviouslyEvil, when in the manga he is just a tad more bitter than Akira turned out to be after the Devilman transformation.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Mikiko's (Miko) chapter in ''Neo-Devilman''. Her first pages in the story have her touching herself while in deep thought as to why she doesn't see herself as a good girl. In this version, that's even how she became a devilman in the first place since, apparently, demons like to possess girls during their ''moments''.
* ADayInTheLimelight: ''Neo-Devilman'' is basically this, given that it was made by ''17 different writers/artists'', everyone with a pencil and ink had a chance to share their view of the characters and portray some side-characters in a more protagonist light.
* AnAesop: WarIsHell. In addition, just because you're strong does not mean you have the right to trample over other beings- only through mutual respect can humanity really grow, as it has done many times in the past. [[spoiler: Demonkind's failure to learn this is ultimately what dooms them and humanity, as Satan states at the end of the series.]]
* AndIMustScream:
** Victims of the turtle-like demon Jinmen are doomed to live an eternity as a tile in his shell.
** He does it again in chapter 0 of ''Devilman Grimoire'' [[spoiler: where he mocks a Harpy by revealing he ate her boyfriend and then eats her next.]]
* AllYourPowersCombined: Agira from ''Neo-Devilman''. His Devilmen power is to absorb and assimilate anything into his body from weapons to demons and Devilmen. He eventually absorbs ''legions'' of demons. In this version, Agira is the unnamed giant beast from the original manga that Devilman rides into the final battle against Satan with his multi-headed dragon.
* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: The short sequel for the ''AMON'' manga, ''Strange Days'', features a whole new cast of characters, whom some will become Devilmen and clash at the Devilman vs. Satan final battle. The focus is Kira and Ryuu, and their band ''THE FLYERS''.
%%* AntiHero: Akira (Devilman), Ryo before his [[spoiler: FaceHeelTurn]].
* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler: Even the main character and his sweetheart.]]
* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler:Class 0 or class 3 at the end of the manga.]]
* AscendedExtra: Amon, the original demon whom Akira's Devilman form take its powers from, stops being merely a past legacy mentioned in the original manga to being given a personality and form in the manga with his name. In it, Amon actually takes over Akira's entire body, both in demon and human form, thus being promoted to protagonist.
* BigBad: Demon Lord Zenon is the leader of the demonic forces out to conquer Earth and the main enemy of the titular hero, though he is doing it on behalf of the GreaterScopeVillain, Demon King {{Satan}}. [[spoiler:However, once Ryo Asuka recovers his memories as Satan, he takes over as main villain for the rest of the series.]]
* BigNo: Akira [[spoiler: after he discovers the anti-demon corps killed Miki's parents.]]
* BigRedDevil: Generally averted as the demons are a CastOfSnowflakes, Amon being the only one who plays it straight.
* BloodstainedGlassWindows
* BodyHorror: The way demons merged with humans and make them undergo horrific transformations is not different from how the titular alien from ''Film/TheThing1982'' assimilate its victims.
* BreakingSpeech: [[spoiler: Jinmen gives Akira one about how the demons are justified by BlueAndOrangeMorality, and how Akira is clearly the bad guy for killing demons. Akira [[ShutUpHannibal tells him to go fuck himself.]]]]
* BroadStrokes: The prequel manga ''Demon Knight'' explains a few things, like why Satan is a hermaphrodite ([[spoiler:he/she is a forced fusion of the male SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Lucifer and human girl Yuria]]) and the origins of demons ([[spoiler:they are humans or aliens forcefully hybridized with animals by God, who is a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien/[[AncientAstronauts Ancient Astronaut]]]]). However, it does directly contradict stuff found in ''Amon: Darkside of Devilman'', ''Devilman Lady'' or even the original manga, and does not explain other stuff, like the hermaphroditism of other angels than Satan, and ignores the existence of Michael. But this is quite possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] by the fact it's stated to be memories of an AlternateUniverse, which allows the events of the past to occur in numerous, different variations.
* BroughtToYouByTheLetterS: The ''AMON'' manga has Akira in the iconic yellow shirt from the anime even though it follows the original manga.
* CainAndAbel: Ryo and Akira. [[spoiler: Satan and Amon in the Amon manga]]
* CanonWelding:
** Almost all incarnations of Devilman (and ''Manga/ViolenceJack'') can be considered linked together thanks to TheReveal in the Amon manga that [[spoiler:God himself put the entire universe in a time loop to punish Satan by making him constantly relive the death of the one he loves]]. This means that technically, the inconsistencies in various works can be [[HandWaving excused]] due to them taking place at different iterations in the repeatedly-reset timeline.
** In Manga/DevilmanGrimoire, Jun Fudo ([[AdaptationalNameChange renamed Jun Lan]]) and Aoi Kurosaki from ''Manga/DevilmanLady'' appear as teachers in Akira and Miki's school, with the former being their homeroom teacher while the latter is a P.E. teacher. They are also [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbian lovers]] who seemingly have no problem getting it on during the middle of the school day.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Miki.
* CompositeCharacter:
** In ''Devilman vs Manga/GetterRobo'' Akira has the story and personality of his manga incarnation but the powers of the anime incarnation. Silene in that manga has the look of her manga version, the powers and personality of the anime version and little bits of later incarnations, including her love for Amon.
* ContinuitySnarl:
** ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' is a sequel to ''Devilman'', but so is ''Manga/DevilmanLady'', making it a complicated matter. Fans have been discussing it for years, noting that ''Lady'' has much more solid connections to the original than ''Jack'', but without having an official answer to which is supposed to be the true sequel. At the end, Nagai stated that ''Violence Jack'' should be treated as its own universe, which implies ''Lady'' is meant to be ''Devilman'''s true continuation. However, considering that [[spoiler:the franchise's s world is on a constant loop thanks to God's continuous punishment against Satan, it is also possible to believe that both ''Jack'' and ''Lady'' are simply separate iterations of the cycle.]]
** It seemed to be the case in the ''AMON'' manga. Despite it was billed as an {{Interquel}} set during the war, at its ending Amon had taken over Akira's body completely with no chance to revert back, which would negate the original story in which Akira was himself till the final clash with Satan by stating that Amon is the one in control now. However, ''Strange Days'' came and showed Akira in control of his body just in time for the final battle, implying that Akira was back in control sometime between ''AMON'' and ''Strange Days''; the war went on for 20 years after all.
* CrapsackWorld: The world during the war.
* {{Crossover}}:
** With ''Anime/MazingerZ'' in TheMovie, ''Mazinger Z vs Devilman''.
** And with Manga/GetterRobo in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' manga. [[spoiler: Which features Devilman and Getter COMBINING.]]
** There's also the appearance of the cartoon version of Devilman in the manga ''Manga/MazingerAngels''. Once again, he holds his own against giant robots. Later in that series, [[Manga/DororonEnmaKun Enma-kun]] passes Akira by at a festival, and they give each other a knowing, angry glance.
** ''Chibi Chara Go Nagai World'' is a chibi crossover between Devilman, Anime/MazingerZ, Manga/GetterRobo and Manga/ViolenceJack, [[LampshadeHanging which actually weirds out the titular characters]], since Jack is a reincarnation of [[spoiler:Akira]], after all.
** ''Devilman vs Hades'' manga has Akira pick a fight with the BigBad of Anime/GreatMazinger [[spoiler: after he murdered Hades' wife trying to bring Miki back to life.]]
** ''Anime/Cyborg009VsDevilman'' is a rare crossover with a series not created by Go Nagai or Ken Ishikawa.
* CurbStompBattle: [[spoiler: Satan vs Amon in first volume of ''Amon: The Darkside of Devilman''. And if Satan's memories are true, his fight with ArchangelMichael was even more one-sided and involved literal curbstomp.]]
** It's implied that the FinalBattle of the series is one of these [[spoiler: with Satan doing the curb-stomping against Akira and his Devilman Army. Despite Akira being torn in half, Satan is completely unharmed. Considering they're a literal deity, this is only to be expected, but it's no less tragic.]]
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira wins]].
* DeathByAdaptation: In the original ''Devilman'', Dosu Roku, Masa and the fat guy with big teeth from Dosu Roku's gang went from being Akira's enemies to his friends and allies, essentially becoming human members of the Devilman Army. While the fat guy's ultimate fate is unknown, [[spoiler: Masa was killed trying to save Miki and Tare from the lynch mob while Dosu Roku played a major part in the ''AMON'' manga]]. In ''Devilman Grimoire'', [[spoiler:Dosu Roku and the fat guy are unceremoniously eaten alive by a demon in the first chapter, while Masa lasts until the second chapter, where his head is bitten off by Silene]]. This establishes the fact that ''Grimoire'' is not just a retelling of the original story but is a whole new continuity, with the ultimate fates of the main characters up in the air.
* DeathOfAChild:
** [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
* DecapitationPresentation: [[spoiler:Miki's severed head is put in a pike and paraded by the blood-thirsty mob.]]
* DeconstructorFleet: ''Amon: The Darkside Of Devilman'' arguably takes original series and deconstructs a few things. The original manga itself seems to deconstruct or [[UnbuiltTrope unbuild]] many common shonen/sentai tropes.
** One of the most prominent things the series tears apart is the predisposition that shonen series have towards ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption. While Akira ripping apart his demon foes is initially framed as heroic, it soon becomes clear that it's slowly corrupting him morally. The war between demons and humans also begins as GrayAndGrayMorality; demons view humans as legitimate intruders to their ancestral homeworld and want them gone, especially considering how much humanity has polluted the planet. While some demons like Jinmen are definitely evil, others like Silene and Kaim are genuinely [[NobleDemon Noble Demons]]. On the other hands, demons are slaughtering humans en-masse in horrifically violent ways, which perhaps justifies why humanity is so violent towards them in return. In the end, the cycle of violence is so all-consuming that humans become no better than demons at their absolute worst, turning the series into EvilVersusEvil. [[spoiler: In the end, the demon's ploy to take back their homeworld through violence ends up wiping them out instead, having dragged the remainder of humanity to their level. As a result, everyone suffers- Akira dies after losing his only family, and Ryo/Satan murders their only loved one.]]
* DemonLordsAndArchdevils: Lord Zenon, leader of the demons and second only to Satan himself.
* DemonicPossession: It only works properly on humans who've "lost their reason" (such as from madness, panic, rage, and the altered state you get into when participating in a drug-and-booze-fuelled party/orgy). Doing it on a person in a regular state of mind causes the death of both the demon and the human.
* DependingOnTheArtist: Satan. In Nagai's hands, s/he is not only a hermaphrodite, but Nagai draws him/her with female-like facial features and body curves, also in some designs (though not all) he seems to imply that Satan's lower parts are those of a woman. Other artists on the other hand, like Yu Kinutani from ''AMON/Strange Days'' and many others from ''Neo-Devilman'', maintain [[spoiler:Ryo's]] male psyche even in Satan form, and in some extremes they might draw Satan with a male lower part too; and yet the breasts are present in all renditions of Satan.
* DependingOnTheWriter:
** Satan's motivations for trying to bring his "order" upon earth. In some versions, he is doing it for human- and demon-kind's well-being (in his eyes), aside from for Akira, of course. In others, he is doing it ''just'' for Akira and no one else.
** [[spoiler: In ''AMON'' all of those motivations are, to some extent, true - Satan wants to create a better world for demons, but also wants to bring his own vision of order, which is why Amon opposes him. He reveals Akira's secret out of jealousy towards Miki because he thinks he is the only one who can save Akira.]]
* DevilButNoGod: Played in the live-action movie.
* DiedStandingUp: [[spoiler: Siren]]
* DisposableWoman: [[spoiler: Sachiko and little Yumi in the ''AMON'' OVA.]]
* DistaffCounterpart: Manga/DevilmanLady. Also Mikimura from ''Strange Days'', whose Devilmen form is the exact female version of Akira's own Devilman, even closer for being less [[{{Fanservice}} fanservicey]] than the original distaff Devilman Lady.
* DoingInTheWizard: ''Demon Knight'' does it, kind-of. Check BroadStrokes above for details.
* DownerEnding:
** [[spoiler:The Devilmen lose the war against the demons, but the demons are apparently wiped out too in the process, not to mention mankind. Akira dies for nothing, and Satan will be imminently killed by God's angels. It is also revealed in sequels and spinoffs that God will create a TimeLoop to punish Satan eternally.]]
** Averted in the NES game, however, as [[spoiler:beating Satan in the final battle [[EarnYourHappyEnding wins you a happy ending]], while losing to him gets you the same ending as the manga and OVA.]]
** Also averted in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'', though it's still [[BittersweetEnding not without tragedy]] as many members of the cast end up dying. [[spoiler:Jack regains his original form as Akira and Devilman, and resumes his battle with Satan, but this time, he ends up winning the fight]].
* DudeLooksLikeALady: Ryo Asuka. In Nagai's hands he is very lady-like, to the point that, when he is seen in [[spoiler:Satan form Ryo ''becomes'' a woman, Nagai draws his face with unmistakable female facial features and body curves]]. Only other artists downplay Nagai's original design and maintain Ryo just in lady-like territory.
* EldritchAbomination: God himself. A huge ball of light that instantly incinerates all nearby demons and [[TakenForGranite turns humans who see it]] [[MythologyGag into pillars of salt]] ''just by being there''. Even Satan has a nervous breakdown just from seeing him on TV.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Amon in his dedicated manga, where he is clearly selfish and evil, but has his own set of standards and Silene seems to work as his MoralityPet. Averted in the OVA adaptation.
* EverybodysDeadDave
* EvilVersusEvil: Amon vs other demons in the ''Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman''.
* {{Expy}}:
** The story and main character come officially from ''Manga/DemonLordDante'', Go Nagai's earlier work.
** Ashura from the ''Amon'' manga is clearly an expy of Baron Ashura from ''Anime/MazingerZ''.
* FakeMemories: Nagai himself goes this way in his chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'': at the climax of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback of Akira meeting Ryo for the first time at school, but here Ryo seems to manipulate Akira's memories to make it so they already knew each other, implying that a few traces of Satan were there since the very beginning.
* FanDisservice:
** When Akira gets the powers of the demon Amon and transforms into Devilman, [[FullFrontalAssault he does not wear anything]] since his transformations [[ClothingDamage destroy his clothing]], leaving him [[ShapeShiftingExcludesClothing naked each time he returns to human form]]. [[CrapsackWorld The world around him is so horrible, however]], that it's hard to appreciate.
** Akira's girlfriend Miki Makimura is a PluckyGirl with beautiful legs and a rather nice rack, but one scene that "showcases" them has her first [[spoiler: stabbed InTheBack bloodily]], then subjected to an horrifying BreakTheCutie at the hands of a maddened mob (including her [[spoiler: watching as her brother Taro is murdered and beheaded and having visions of herself subjected to BodyHorror]]) and, towards the end, [[spoiler: her ''dismembered'' body parts (including her head, her legs and her bare torso) [[DeadGuyOnDisplay are put in pikes]].]]
** The BigBad, Satan, is [[FullFrontalAssault naked]]. And he has [[PrettyBoy a really pretty face]]! Problem is, [[spoiler: he is an {{hermaphrodite}}, he used to be Akira's best friend Ryo Asuka, and he's officially revealed as the BigBad when ''everything'' has gone FromBadToWorse.]]
* FateWorseThanDeath:
** The demon Jinmen devours humans and absorbs their living souls onto his shell.
** [[spoiler: Satan's fate as revealed in ''AMON'' is to eternally lose the one s/he loves for all eternity as punishment for rebelling against God. The horrific treatments he's subjected to as Ryo in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' (which is also part of the time loop, meaning it's also going to happen) may also figure into it.]]
* FanservicePack: Fusing with Amon not only grants you superpowers and a demonic SuperForm, but evidently a killer human body (and less compunction to [[ShamelessFanserviceGirl cover it up]]) as well. Miki even lampshades this in ''Devilman Grimoire'', jokingly wishing ''she'' had been possessed after seeing the improvements Amon made to Akira's build.
-->'''Miki:''' He really screwed me over. If only he had possessed me instead, I could have gotten the best body in class.
* FromBadToWorse: It starts with a demonic invasion of earth and ends with [[spoiler: the extinction of humanity]].
* GhibliHills: The late '80s OVA series was animated by Creator/OhProduction, which provided animation assistance for many Ghibli films. Kazuo Komatsubara, character designer for both the '70s TV anime and the '80s OVA, worked in that same capacity on ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', and thus his designs for the OVA have a very "Ghibli" look at times.
* {{God}}: Creator of the Earth along with angels, humans and sometimes demons. His characterization varies between adaptations from being merely remote and alien to being GodIsEvil. The only thing common is God [[spoiler: doesn't like demons and sees them as [[MyGreatestFailure an abomination.]]]]
* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler:In ''Amon'', where it's revealed God has everything happen in an endless loop that makes '''everyone''' suffer and die just to make Satan watch Akira die by his/her own hands for eternity. This means that he is condemning two whole sapient species to suffer and die horribly and pointlessly over and over for eternity [[DisproportionateRetribution just to punish a single rebel]] ({{Satan}}, of course).]] However, this detail is not consistent with all adaptations.
* {{Gorn}}: Not as bad as some others, but still incredibly horrific, particularly in the {{OVA}}s.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: Oddly enough, no one's really evil, but no one's really good either. The demons only want humans gone because they're seen as intruders; the humans want the demons gone because they don't like the idea of dying. [[spoiler:This is eventually [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] as both humans and demons become increasingly horrible to the point where [[EvilVersusEvil humans become just as bad as demons at their worst.]]]]
* HaveWeMetYet: In Nagai's own chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'', centered on the final moments of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback to when Ryo and Akira first met in school. In this vision it seems that Ryo implanted fake memories of Akira and him being childhood friends; Akira even wonders if they ever met before but gets familiar with Ryo shortly after. This seems to be the case in the first [=OVA=] as well, in which Akira's confusion when he sees Ryo for the first time lingers for a long moment, before he immediately acts as if he's known him all along.
* HeroicSacrifice: Played with when it comes to Kaim and Sirene in the second OVA. With Sirene bleeding to death, she begs Xenon to give her some help, which he does in the form of a set of demons, Kaim included. Kaim refuses to fight, insisting that he give his life to provide Sirene his body to help her fight Devilman. After [[YourHeadAsplode detonating his own head]], Sirene is so devastated by Kaim's death that she manages to fuse with his body and uses the new powers it provides to defeat Devilman, before she finally dies.
* HeroicWillpower: How someone can turn the tables on possessing demons and become a human/demon hybrid with the human mind still in command, i.e. a devilman.
* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Ryo and Akira accidentally ''create'' Hitler by going back in time to stop a demon.
* HotterAndSexier: Go Nagai took full advantage of Yuu Kinutani's incredibly detailed art style while making the ''AMON'' manga. While there's no explicit sex, many of the girls including Miki herself were given more curvaceous body proportions, and humanoid female demons like Siren who are mostly in the nude were often given many panels focusing on their breasts and buttocks. Still, Go Nagai averted the series taking the {{Fanservice}} route by simply making these "improvements" only a visual extra.
* HowDoIShotWeb: Averted unlike most superhero works. Akira knows a good amount of Amon's movelist the instant he's merged with him inside the Sabbath. Sort of like a demonic form of BrainUploading, since they've come to share the same body.
* HowWeGotHere: The last volumes of ''AMON'' are spent building up the events that will happen in the first volumes, basically the first part is protagonized by Amon and the second part is protagonized by Akira.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Initially only the demons shared this idea, since Earth belonged to them first, and they say humanity stole it from them. After demons and devilmen became public knowledge, Akira and other devilmen started to think like this too, as most of humanity went in a senseless rampage against demons, devilmen, or any living being that they ''thought'' was aiding the "monsters". This aspect is expanded further in the ''AMON'' manga, where Akira simply reaches the conclusion that humans are the ''real'' demons and that he will help anyone that values life, regardless of whether it's a demon, devilman, or even human.
* ImAHumanitarian: Demons tend to love to eat humans as well as [[MonstrousCannibalism each other]].
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice:
** The manga is rife with violent ways to maim or kill, impalement is one such way.
** When Kaim appears to assist Silene he deploys a group of minions to attack Akira. Akira dispatches the last of them by hopping into the air and impaling its body on a tree trunk.
** Silene impales Akira with one of Kaim's horns; a wound which incapacitates him.
* InelegantBlubbering: A heartbreaking example in the ''Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman'' OVA. Upon finding [[spoiler: Miki's severed head on a pike held by a mob, Akira kills those responsible. He then clutches her head to his chest and begins to cry.]] Akira then falls to his knees, anguishedly sobbing and screaming as Satan and Psychogenie watch from a distance.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: In the live action movie, the [[spoiler:the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.]]
* {{Irony}}:
** As the demon-human war progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that there is very little moral distinction left between demons and humans. Ryo comes to the ironic conclusion that Akira, a demon, has a human heart filled with more righteousness than what remains of humanity. Even if saving humanity is a lost cause, their good nature can live on through Akira who embodies what the current humanity has now lost. Akira is caught off guard by this argument, and reacts to it with disgust, but Ryo is closer to the truth than Akira would like to admit.
** Ryo is a very human individual, struggling with the duality of a human heart's goodness and its darkness. Ryo is a person full of layered emotions, that even the most human among the demons would struggle to grasp. Even his dismissal of human morality shows that he's aware humans possess moral standards they ought to live up to; revealing how infected by humanity he is. Even after reawakening as Satan, he is unable to cast off Ryo's humanity, a fact that Xenon mocks him for. Most damning of all is that when Xenon claims Satan is in love with Akira, Satan doesn't even bother to deny it. Despite siding with the demons, Ryo's human heart (and by proxy Akira who fostered it) had already '''won''' the war against Satan philosophically.
** By contrast, the once loving, kind and heroic Akira becomes more like a demon as the story advances. It starts out subtly with him enjoying the battles he fights, and engaging in utter brutality, but he always held on to some semblance of his humanity. Akira loses what little connection he had left to his humanity after witnessing the death of Miki's parents and Miki herself. Afterward, a grief stricken Akira declares his indifference to humanity -- no longer caring if they live or die -- stating that it's no longer his job to save them, and subsequently declares war against Satan. Akira is no more, and Devilman is all that remains. Satan later confesses to the dying Akira that he harbored no more ill will towards humanity, and was filled with sorrow over the extinction of both the demons '''and''' the humans. The twist of fate is that the man who set out to save humanity, became a demon who no longer cared about anyone, while the angel who desired humanity's destruction became human enough to feel remorse for his actions. Worst of all, Satan's moral realization comes too late to salvage his relationship with Akira, or to save humanity.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: While nobody except maybe God is actually out-and-out evil, pretty much ''everyone'' is quick to leap to the bloodiest and goriest option possible. By the end, Akira gives up trying to care about or save anyone. If Manga/ViolenceJack is Akira, it's a wonder he isn't even ''more'' callous.
%%* KillEmAll
%%* LesbianJock: Aoi is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
%%* LipstickLesbian: Jun is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
* LoveMakesYouCrazy:
** [[spoiler:Ryo/Satan]] sacrifices many of his strongest demons to ensure Akira becomes Devilman. Also doubles as LoveMakesYouDumb.
** [[spoiler: S/he admits to being crazy at the end of the final volume of ''AMON''.]]
* LoveTriangle: Akira/Miki/Ryo. Developed further in ''Manga/ViolenceJack''.
%%* MadeOfPlasticine
* ManlyTears: Akira upon [[spoiler: being kissed by Miki for the first and only time and then seeing her disappear in the air, forever...]] Amon is StupidEvil enough to laugh at him for this. [[spoiler: As could be expected, this just doesn't end well for him]].
* MarshmallowHell: Any story that features Devilman's birth through the Sabbath [[OnceAnEpisode will usually feature]] Akira running face first into a topless woman on the dance floor. Whether he accidentally makes a wrong turn or gets PunchedAcrossTheRoom as retribution for associating with Ryo (who had been initiating a bar brawl to speed the Sabbath up) depends on the installment.
%%* MeaningfulEcho: Compare this scene of Miki from ''Devilman Grimoire'' with this one from ''Devilman''.
%%* MsFanservice: Miki.
%%* MutualKill: Silene tries this on Akira after he mortally wounds her. It doesn't quite work out for her.
* MythologyGag:
** In chapter 10 of ''Devilman Grimoire'', Akira fights an ice demon who bears a resemblance to Ryo Asuka. The end of the chapter is very similar to the end of the original manga, [[spoiler:except Akira and his foe's positions are reversed, with Akira revealed to be talking to the upper half of the demon's corpse. [[UnexplainedRecovery He gets better]], though]]. Also doubles as a [[ContinuityNod continuity nod.]]
** In chapter 13 of ''Grimoire'', after Akira and Miki have made love for the first time, Akira is shown hugging Miki against himself in a panel that is [[spoiler:identical to the one in the original Devilman where he hugs her severed head to his chest after slaughtering the lynch mob that murdered and dismembered her]].
** In the ''Sirene The Demon Bird'' OVA, while Akira transforms, he has a very ''Manga/ViolenceJack''-esque features. Someone working on the OVA must've done their homework as [[spoiler:Akira was reincarnated as the titular Violence Jack]].
* NoFourthWall: Akira telling the readers that the story is going to be [[{{Foreshadowing}} much darker...]]
%%* YouAreTheDemons: No Ryo, You Are Satan
* NotGoodWithRejection: God. Satan/[[spoiler:Ryo]] rebelling against him once and refusing to follow him has effectively ''derailed all of creation'', any notion of a "grand plan", and doomed the lives of everyone within it. The wrathful deity rips from the fallen angel, [[spoiler:Akira]] - the only person Lucifer ever did love, [[DisproportionateRetribution over and over again in a vicious time-loop]].
* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Miki's kid brother]] is possibly the best example in the manga.
* OneMythToExplainThemAll: Akira's friend Ryo tell him that demons once roamed the Earth before being frozen in the arctic while humans dominated the planet. He also mentions that some demons got free, and could be the true causes of monster myths like wolfmen, Dracula, and ogres.
* OrderVersusChaos: In ''AMON'' manga Satan and God are representing two different orders - one that involves demons and one that doesn't. Which is why [[spoiler: Amon, who is clearly chaotic, refuses to ally himself with Satan, as he sees no difference between Satan and God]].
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Unlike other portrayals of demons, here in Devilman they are portrayed as evolved humans who have merged with many other living beings, including every type of animal, plants and even machinery (as shown in later installments).
* OutOfClothesExperience: This happens a few times in different adaptations.
** In the original manga, Akira tries to convince himself and [[spoiler:the Makimuras]] that he is still human despite also being a devil. A vision then appears of Akira, naked, running from himself as a giant Devilman whose hands have closed around him.
** Akira has two more experiences in the ''Devilman: the Demon Bird'' OVA. Once as he is fighting [[spoiler: the turtle devil Jinmen, who has his mother's soul trapped on his shell after eating her. He is almost defeated and his mother calls out to him. Akira then appears naked in his human form in a vision of an icy cave and witnesses how his mother died. The vision allows him to gain the resolve to defeat Jinmen and save his mother's trapped soul.]] Later, Akira has a dream where he starts clothed in a swimsuit, but becomes naked when the dream quickly shifts into a nightmare that climaxes with Miki impaled on a demon's teeth.
* RapidFireFisticuffs: Devilman uses this to defeat Amon in the third OVA, just before he delivers the killing blow.
* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Ryo, is in fact, the {{hermaphrodite}} Satan, who took the body of a human to learn mankind's weaknesses and plot their demise.]]
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: A lot of Devilman's enemies manage to garner one from our hero.
* {{Satan}}: [[spoiler:Ryo Asuka]].
* ShapeShifterBaggage: Averted. Ryo explains that when he moved the heavily burned, demon-possessed corpse of [[spoiler:his "father" Dr. Asuka,]] the body's mass was twice as what it should be.
* ShrinkingViolet: Akira before merging with Amon, though he reverts back to this whenever Miki flirts with him.
* SlasherSmile: Though it's a given with Devilman, Akira will occasionally do this as well.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: An interesting case. The manga is gut-wrenchingly cynical, but Nagai (who wrote ''Devilman'' as a cautionary tale) is firmly idealistic and believes that humanity is heading for a bright future. The writing process took such a heavy toll on him that he had to write the ''much'' LighterAndSofter ''Anime/MazingerZ'' on the side to blow off steam.
%%* SomethingPerson
%%* SparedByAdaptation:[[spoiler:Susumu]] in the live action movie.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Shirenu has been spelled Silen, Sirene, Silene, Siren,... The list goes on and on.
** Psycho Genie? Psycho Jenny?
** The name of the Hell General serving Satan is either Zenon or Xenon.
* StockSoundEffect: Someone in Toei must be a Franchise/{{Godzilla}} fan, because an episode has the demon Godo sending a ''Tyrannosaurs rex'' in modern day Japan sounding just like said monster.
* StupidEvil: Amon at one point in the ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' OVA, but the prize goes to the demon sent to kill Miki and Michiru in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' - Akira saves Miki and the demon escapes with Michiru, but, instead of outright killing her, he wastes time wondering if he should eat or rape her and concludes to do both right before Akira finds them and kills him.
* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: [[spoiler: What God, and by extension Satan, Amon and Sirene are revealed to originally have been in ''Demon Knight'', the official prequel manga to Devilman. Seems to outright contradict some important story elements from both the original manga and ''Amon: Darkside of Devilman'', but look up BroadStrokes above.]]
* SummoningRitual: Used by Miki in ''Devilman Grimoire'' to summon demons. [[spoiler:Unfortunately ''actual'' demons show up and they weren't summoned by the ritual.]]
* SuperPoweredEvilSide: Amon was originally this, but he transcended to pure evil after [[spoiler: Miki Makamura got killed]]. Might be an UnbuiltTrope as it's probably one of the first if not the first use of it in manga and one of the rare instances that shows how having one corrupts and changes a once cowardly boy into a BloodKnight.
* SureLetsGoWithThat: When one of the mob calls Miki a witch, in the heat of the moment, she's gloats that she is certainly a witch and warns them not to underestimate her. But as the mob begins to surround her, she says she's ''not'' a witch.
* ThematicRoguesGallery: Demons, duh.
* TookALevelInBadass:
** At the start of the manga, Akira Fudo is so weak and timid, Miki has to stand up to bullies for him. After he merges with Amon, not only does [[{{Squee}} Miki take notice of his swagger]], Akira literally beats his bullies one-handed.
** While Miki became a non-action girl, and Ryu got to show off his shooting skills later, in the OVA Akira shows some bravery, as well as that missing toughness not seen in the manga. He stands up to three goons who killed nearly all the rabbits in a pen, all except one, he takes a bike chain to the head and several punches but refuses to let them have the rabbit. They back off when their leader is impressed.
** Also in ''Devilman Grimoire'', after losing one of his feet, Akira decides to stay behind and let the demons devour him in order to buy time for Miki to escape.
** After ending up [[{{StuffedIntoTheFridge}} stuffed into the fridge]] in the original manga and a mute, quadruple-amputee sex slave in ''Violence Jack'', Miki has become this in the 2010s. She becomes a Getter pilot in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'', and in ''Devilman Grimoire'' she's a witch who [[spoiler: later becomes a Devilman.]]
* TornApartByTheMob: This is the fate of Miki Makimura and her little brother in pretty much every version of ''Devilman'' once the existence of demons is revealed to the world at large. When Akira arrives too late to save them, the mob's parading around of their heads and limbs is the final straw that causes him to snap out and kill the whole mob.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: ''Devilman Saga'' takes place in the year 2025.
* WarIsHell: This is THE real, core theme of the series, according WordOfGod.
* WaterfallShower: Silene takes a shower under a melting glacier in the 2nd OVA.
* WhatIf?: The Amon manga and OVA's explore what'd happen if say, Akira was completely possessed after Miki [[spoiler: dying]]. The result? [[EvilVersusEvil Not pretty.]]
* WorldOfHam
* WouldHurtAChild: Amon. Especially in the third OVA.
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* AntiHero: Akira (Devilman), Ryo before his [[spoiler: FaceHeelTurn]].
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* ActorAllusion: In ''The Birth'', it isn't the first time the voice actor for Professor Asuka, Mikio Terashima, voiced a character who [[spoiler:[[Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman commits suicide]]]].
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* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler: Miki and Sachiko.]]
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* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: In the second OVA, Akira fights Jinmen in what could be considered this.
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* KillEmAll
* LesbianJock: Aoi is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
* LipstickLesbian: Jun is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
* LesbianJock: Aoi is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
* LipstickLesbian: Jun is this in ''Devilman Grimoire''.
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* MadeOfPlasticine
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* MsFanservice: Miki.
* MutualKill: Silene tries this on Akira after he mortally wounds her. It doesn't quite work out for her.
* MutualKill: Silene tries this on Akira after he mortally wounds her. It doesn't quite work out for her.
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* SomethingPerson
* SparedByAdaptation:[[spoiler:Susumu]] in the live action movie.
* SparedByAdaptation:[[spoiler:Susumu]] in the live action movie.
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* GreyAndGrayMorality: Oddly enough, no one's really evil, but no one's really good either. The demons only want humans gone because they're seen as intruders; the humans want the demons gone because they don't like the idea of dying.
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* GreyAndGrayMorality: Oddly enough, no one's really evil, but no one's really good either. The demons only want humans gone because they're seen as intruders; the humans want the demons gone because they don't like the idea of dying. [[spoiler:This is eventually [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] as both humans and demons become increasingly horrible to the point where [[EvilVersusEvil humans become just as bad as demons at their worst.]]]]
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* MeaningfulEcho: [[http://mangafox.me/manga/devilman_grimoire/v01/c001/45.html Compare this scene of Miki]] from ''Devilman Grimoire'' with [[http://mangafox.me/manga/devilman/v05/c001.3/42.html this one]] from ''Devilman''. Also compare [[http://mangafox.me/manga/devilman/v05/c001.3/13.html these]] [[http://mangafox.me/manga/devilman_grimoire/v01/c001/48.html two.]]
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* NoFourthWall: [[http://mangafox.me/manga/devilman/v03/c001.3/44.html Akira telling the readers that the story is going to be]] [[{{Foreshadowing}} much darker...]]
* [[spoiler: [[YouAreTheDemons No Ryo, You Are Satan]] ]]
* [[spoiler: [[YouAreTheDemons No Ryo, You Are Satan]] ]]
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* NoFourthWall: [[http://mangafox.me/manga/devilman/v03/c001.3/44.html Akira telling the readers that the story is going to be]] be [[{{Foreshadowing}} much darker...]]
* [[spoiler: [[YouAreTheDemons %%* YouAreTheDemons: No Ryo, You Are Satan]] ]]Satan
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** And with Manga/GetterRobo in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' manga. [[spoiler: Which features Devilman and Getter [[CrazyAwesome COMBINING]].]]
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** And with Manga/GetterRobo in ''Devilman vs Getter Robo'' manga. [[spoiler: Which features Devilman and Getter [[CrazyAwesome COMBINING]].COMBINING.]]
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''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''Manga/DemonLordDante''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
to:
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''Manga/DemonLordDante''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven ''[[ExaggeratedTrope much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
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* DeathOfAChild:
** [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
** [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
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* InfantImmortality:
** Horrifically subverted, as [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
** However, this trope is played straight in the live action movie, where [[spoiler:the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.]]
** Horrifically subverted, as [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
** However, this trope is played straight in the live action movie, where [[spoiler:the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.]]
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* InfantImmortality:
** Horrifically subverted, as [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
** However, this trope is played straight inImprobableInfantSurvival: In the live action movie, where the [[spoiler:the only survivor characters are Susumu and Miko after Satan destroys the world.]]
** Horrifically subverted, as [[spoiler: Miki's younger brother is ''beheaded'' before her very eyes. We even get to see his head and its ''crying face''.]] Also earlier on when [[spoiler: one of her brother's friends is eaten by his demon-possessed parents, while his pleas go unrecognized]]. Also, [[spoiler: when a young friend of Akira's named Sachiko is eaten and absorbed by the demon Jinmen, her sorrowful face now a part of its turtle-like shell, forcing Akira to end her pseudo-life to kill the demon, with her smashed face still visible after the shell dries. Did I mention that she also tells him from the shell the exact manner of her horrific death?]] During [[spoiler: the demon invasion, a mother watches her family torn apart by a tentacled demon, including her infant, before she herself is split in two from crotch to head.]]
** However, this trope is played straight in
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* HaveWeMetYet: In Nagai's own chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'', centered on the final moments of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback to when Ryo and Akira first met in school. In this vision it seems that Ryo implanted fake memories of Akira and him being childhood friends; Akira even wonders if they ever met before but gets familiar with Ryo shortly after.
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* HaveWeMetYet: In Nagai's own chapter for ''Neo-Devilman'', centered on the final moments of the Devilman vs. Satan battle, there's a flashback to when Ryo and Akira first met in school. In this vision it seems that Ryo implanted fake memories of Akira and him being childhood friends; Akira even wonders if they ever met before but gets familiar with Ryo shortly after. This seems to be the case in the first [=OVA=] as well, in which Akira's confusion when he sees Ryo for the first time lingers for a long moment, before he immediately acts as if he's known him all along.
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* tornApartByTheMob: This is the fate of Miki Makimura and her little brother in pretty much every version of ''Devilman'' once the existence of demons is revealed to the world at large. When Akira arrives too late to save them, the mob's parading around of their heads and limbs is the final straw that causes him to snap out and kill the whole mob.
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* tornApartByTheMob: TornApartByTheMob: This is the fate of Miki Makimura and her little brother in pretty much every version of ''Devilman'' once the existence of demons is revealed to the world at large. When Akira arrives too late to save them, the mob's parading around of their heads and limbs is the final straw that causes him to snap out and kill the whole mob.
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* tornApartByTheMob: This is the fate of Miki Makimura and her little brother in pretty much every version of ''Devilman'' once the existence of demons is revealed to the world at large. When Akira arrives too late to save them, the mob's parading around of their heads and limbs is the final straw that causes him to snap out and kill the whole mob.
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* NotGoodWithRejection: God. Satan/[[spoiler: Ryo]] rebelling against him once and refusing to follow him has effectively ''derailed all of creation'', any notion of a "grand plan", and doomed the lives of everyone within it. The wrathful deity rips from the fallen angel, [[spoiler: Akira]] - the only person Lucifer ever did love, [[DisproportionateRetribution over and over again in a vicious time-loop]].
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* NotGoodWithRejection: God. Satan/[[spoiler: Ryo]] Satan/[[spoiler:Ryo]] rebelling against him once and refusing to follow him has effectively ''derailed all of creation'', any notion of a "grand plan", and doomed the lives of everyone within it. The wrathful deity rips from the fallen angel, [[spoiler: Akira]] [[spoiler:Akira]] - the only person Lucifer ever did love, [[DisproportionateRetribution over and over again in a vicious time-loop]].
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''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
to:
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]''.''Manga/DemonLordDante''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
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** The story and main character come officially from ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]'', Go Nagai's earlier work.
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** The story and main character come officially from ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]'', ''Manga/DemonLordDante'', Go Nagai's earlier work.
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To promote the final [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' in 1999, Go Nagai resurrected the manga in two forms; one is a collection of short stories entitled ''Neo-Devilman'' where he and many other writers/artists (17 to be precise) contribute to the Devilman mythos with their own spin-offs and visions for the original tale, the other is where Nagai teamed up with Yuu Kinutani to create a 6 Volume manga simply called ''AMON'', which is centered around and expands the events between humanity's persecution of demon/human hybrids and the final battle between Devilman and Satan. Go Nagai scripts and Yuu Kinutani provides pencils with high detailed art. In 2005 they two teamed up again to create ''Strange Days'', a single manga volume centered around a group of Devilmen, Kira and Ryuu, clashing at Devilman vs. Satan's final battle; it tells their story of how their rivalry came to be during the persecution against Devilmen.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believes herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believes herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
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To promote the final [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVA]] ''Apocalypse of Devilman'' in 1999, Go Nagai resurrected the manga in two forms; one forms. One is a collection of short stories entitled ''Neo-Devilman'' where he and many other writers/artists (17 to be precise) contribute to the Devilman mythos with their own spin-offs and visions for the original tale, and the other is where Nagai teamed up with Yuu Kinutani to create a 6 Volume 6-volume manga simply called ''AMON'', which is centered around and expands the events between humanity's persecution of demon/human hybrids and the final battle between Devilman and Satan. Go Nagai scripts and Yuu Kinutani provides pencils with high detailed highly-detailed art. In 2005 they 2005, the two teamed up again to create ''Strange Days'', a single manga volume centered around a group duo of Devilmen, Kira and Ryuu, clashing at Devilman vs. Satan's final battle; it battle. It tells their story of how their rivalry came to be during the persecution against Devilmen.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, whobelieves believed herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who
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* HeroicSacrifice: Played with when it comes to Kaim and Sirene in the second OVA. With Sirene bleeding to death, she begs Satan to give her some help, which he does in the form of a set of demons, Kaim included. Kaim refuses to fight, insisting that he give his life to provide Sirene his body to help her fight Devilman. After [[YourHeadAsplode detonating his own head]], Sirene is so devastated by Kaim's death that she manages to fuse with his body and uses the new powers it provides to defeat Devilman, before she finally dies.
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* HeroicSacrifice: Played with when it comes to Kaim and Sirene in the second OVA. With Sirene bleeding to death, she begs Satan Xenon to give her some help, which he does in the form of a set of demons, Kaim included. Kaim refuses to fight, insisting that he give his life to provide Sirene his body to help her fight Devilman. After [[YourHeadAsplode detonating his own head]], Sirene is so devastated by Kaim's death that she manages to fuse with his body and uses the new powers it provides to defeat Devilman, before she finally dies.
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** Almost all incarnations of Devilman (and ''Manga/ViolenceJack'') can be considered linked together thanks to TheReveal in the Amon manga that [[spoiler:God himself put the entire universe in a time loop to punish Satan by making him constantly relive the death of the one he loves]].
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** Almost all incarnations of Devilman (and ''Manga/ViolenceJack'') can be considered linked together thanks to TheReveal in the Amon manga that [[spoiler:God himself put the entire universe in a time loop to punish Satan by making him constantly relive the death of the one he loves]]. This means that technically, the inconsistencies in various works can be [[HandWaving excused]] due to them taking place at different iterations in the repeatedly-reset timeline.
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** ''Chibi Chara Go Nagai World'' is a chibi crossover between Devilman, Anime/MazingerZ, Manga/GetterRobo and Manga/ViolenceJack [[spoiler: which actually weirds out the titular characters, as Violence Jack is reincarnated Akira]]
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** ''Chibi Chara Go Nagai World'' is a chibi crossover between Devilman, Anime/MazingerZ, Manga/GetterRobo and Manga/ViolenceJack [[spoiler: Manga/ViolenceJack, [[LampshadeHanging which actually weirds out the titular characters, as Violence characters]], since Jack is reincarnated Akira]]a reincarnation of [[spoiler:Akira]], after all.
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** It's implied that the FinalBattle of the series is one of these [[spoiler: with Satan doing the curb-stomping. Despite Akira being torn in half, Satan is completely unharmed. Considering they're a literal deity, this is only to be expected, but it's no less tragic.]]
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira wins]]
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira wins]]
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** It's implied that the FinalBattle of the series is one of these [[spoiler: with Satan doing the curb-stomping.curb-stomping against Akira and his Devilman Army. Despite Akira being torn in half, Satan is completely unharmed. Considering they're a literal deity, this is only to be expected, but it's no less tragic.]]
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akirawins]]wins]].
** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira
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** Also averted in ''Manga/ViolenceJack'', though it's still [[BittersweetEnding not without tragedy]] as many members of the cast end up dying. [[spoiler:Jack regains his original form as Akira and Devilman, and resumes his battle with Satan, but this time, he ends up winning the fight]].
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A teenage boy named Akira Fudo, living with his female friend Miki Makimura and her family due to absent parents, discovers the Earth is being invaded by demons. His other friend, an unusual boy named Ryo Asuka, convinces him that the only way to stop the demons is to merge with one of them. Akira gains the ability to transform into a superpowerful, batlike demon. As Devilman, he fights bizarre demons, most notably the harpy-like Siren, and the turtle-like Jinmen, while still trying to lead a normal life.
to:
A teenage boy named Akira Fudo, living with his female friend Miki Makimura and her family due to absent parents, discovers the Earth is being invaded by demons. His other friend, an unusual boy named Ryo Asuka, convinces him that the only way to stop the demons is to merge with one of them. Akira gains the ability to transform into a superpowerful, batlike demon. As Devilman, he fights bizarre demons, most notably the harpy-like Siren, and the turtle-like Jinmen, and the leader of the demons himself, [[BigBad Demon Lord Zenon]], while still trying to lead a normal life.
life. Eventually, his struggles lead him into a battle against {{Satan}} himself for the fate of the entire world.
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* BigBad: Demon Lord Zenon is the leader of the demonic forces out to conquer Earth and the main enemy of the titular hero, though he is doing it on behalf of the GreaterScopeVillain, Demon King {{Satan}}. [[spoiler:However, once Ryo Asuka recovers his memories as Satan, he takes over as main villain for the rest of the series.]]
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** Doubles as FridgeBrilliance, according to Abrahamic Lore, Angels ARE stronger than demons, and considering [[spoiler: Satan]] was the closest to God.... It'd be a miracle that [[spoiler: Akira wins]]
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Reboot is a disambig.
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A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A {{Reboot}} of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believes herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
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A new Devilman manga, ''Manga/DevilmanGrimoire'', ran in Champion Red magazine from March 19, 2012 to December 19, 2013. It was written by Go Nagai and illustrated by Rui Takato. A {{Reboot}} ContinuityReboot of the original manga, it starred Akira Fudo and Miki Makimura, who believes herself to be a witch. It featured many characters from the original Devilman.
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* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Unlike other portrayals of demons, here in Devilman they are portrayed as evolved humans who have merged with many other living beings, including every type of animal, plants and even machinery (as shown in later installments).
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** Jun Fudo and Aoi Kurosaki from ''Manga/DevilmanLady'' appear as teachers in Akira and Miki's school, with the former being their homeroom teacher while the latter is a P.E. teacher. They are also [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbian lovers]] who seemingly have no problem getting it on during the middle of the school day.
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** In Manga/DevilmanGrimoire, Jun Fudo ([[AdaptationalNameChange renamed Jun Lan]]) and Aoi Kurosaki from ''Manga/DevilmanLady'' appear as teachers in Akira and Miki's school, with the former being their homeroom teacher while the latter is a P.E. teacher. They are also [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbian lovers]] who seemingly have no problem getting it on during the middle of the school day.
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''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}}
the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
to:
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}}
[[Anime/{{Devilman}} the concurrent anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
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''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]''. The manga was originally made to promote the concurrent anime by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
to:
''Devilman'' is a {{manga}} and {{anime}} franchise enormously popular and influential in Japan for combining superhero tropes with supernatural and religious horror, with elements inspired by the Abrahamic religions exotic to Japanese eyes. It was created by the (in)famous Creator/GoNagai in 1972 as a reworking of his earlier ''[[Manga/MaoDante Demon Lord Dante]]''. The manga was originally made to promote [[Anime/{{Devilman}}
the concurrentanime anime]] by Creator/ToeiAnimation, which Nagai worked on along with veteran scenario writer and novelist Masaki Tsuji and which was LighterAndSofter than ''Dante'', but it soon revealed its own much, ''[[UpToEleven much]]'' DarkerAndEdgier direction. It has spawned several spin-offs over the decades and was later adapted into two {{OVA}}s in 1987 and 1990 covering the first two volumes, a CD Drama covering the planned final battle for the cancelled OVA series, and a live action movie in 2004.
the concurrent
