Fudo Jun is a beautiful supermodel who is idolized by many. She also has a dark secret that not even
she knows about at first, for within her veins run the genes that hold the next step in the evolution
of mankind. The same blood as the beastlike superhumans that terrorize the city. Unlike the rest of
them, though, Jun has managed to hold a tenuous grip onto her humanity, and she is recruited by the
mysterious Asuka Ran, member of a secret organization within the government, aimed at controlling, if
not eliminating, these berserk destroyers of mankind. Jun, as Devilman Lady, must now exterminate her
own kind, but how much longer can she keep her sanity in a situation she never chose in the first
place?
(Source: Anime News Network)
__THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR DEVILMAN LADY AND DEVILMAN CRYBABY__ I watched Devilman crybaby back in 2018, and was immensely impressed. Oozing with style and substance, it ended up becoming a favorite of mine. So recently, I decided to watch its spin-off. However, it kind of left me with mixed feelings. I know that Lady predates Crybaby by two decades. But since it’s a faithful adaptation of the original 1972 manga, so I’ll be using it as a reference for my comparisions. __Visuals__ The dark 90s aesthetic looks pretty good, and maintains an atmosphere fitting for a show of its nature. The artstyle looks nice too. Lacks in the animation department. It’s pretty standard, and the fight scenes don’t look all that great. Another problem being that a lot of scenes are way too dark and you can barely understand what’s going on. __Story__ This is where the real problem lies: It more or less is the exact same narrative as the original series, with a few changes here and there. The protagonist, Jun Fudo (This series’ version of Akira Fudo), awakens her latent devil-beast gene after being attacked to become a devilman, and goes around killing other beasts in a monster-of-the-week fashion under the orders of Lan Asuka (This series’ version of Ryo Asuka). The first half of the anime was the more enjoyable one, despite it all. The second half then focuses on the main plot, which is thematically weak. It reuses the idea of devil-beasts becoming public knowledge and everything going into chaos. The primary idea here is the evolution of mankind to devil-beasts and how cruel humans can be under dire circumstances. The series doesn’t really do anything unique with this idea. __Characters__ Jun Fudo was a solid protagonist, even better than Akira to a certain extent. Her psychological struggle with walking the line between her human and devil self was portrayed nicely. The visuals are at their best when showing this. Lan Asuka was alright but like I said, was more or less just Ryo save for the fact that she’s the child of god instead of being Satan. Satoru was a typical bad guy who just wants to kill humans. Kazumi was Jun’s primary love interest. Something that came off as weird to me as initially, as she was introduced as someone who thinks of Jun as her older sister, so I am not sure what kind of dynamic were they going at here. Which brings me to another problem: At least half the cast was in love or obsessed with Jun in some way. I counted like, 7 of these people. And that’s what most of them were: mere love interests with no real depth to them. __Sound__ Opening’s okay, OST is okay. The first ending was good, but the second one was whatever. __Enjoyment__ Setting my complains with the writing aside, I had fun watching this. The first half was fun, and the second half had a few good moments here and there. Jun was also an interesting character and I liked watching about her. __Overall__ You can watch it if you’re craving more Devilman content, but otherwise, it’s not great enough to recommend.