Photo courtesy of IMDB.com

Devil’s in the details with fantastic DMC adaptation

In previous issues of GI, I covered various Devil May Cry games and the manga tie-ins to DMC 3. The Netflix adaptation of DMC is Capcom-approved but created by Castlevania director Adi Shankar. It’s been on my radar for a minute, and I’m pleased to say the first two episodes live up to the DMC reputation.

Episode 1 starts out in Vatican City where a demonic terrorist known as the White Rabbit and his mercenaries are raiding the Vatican Museums in search of the sword known as Force Edge. It was once held by Sparda, a legendary demon who created a barrier between Earth and Hell. When the White Rabbit acquires Force Edge, he kills the mercenaries and makes a worldwide broadcast about dissolving Sparda’s barrier to bring about the apocalypse, allowing demons to rule over humanity.

When word of the attack on Vatican City reaches Washington, the White House obtains the counsel of Dr. Fisher, a demonic expert working with Dark Force Command or DARKCOM, an interdimensional security group funded by affluent individuals led by Vice President William Baines. When Dr. Fisher explains that the White Rabbit is in search of a demon hunter, DARKCOM captures underworld information broker Enzo Ferino who tells DARKCOM agents that the White Rabbit is looking for the demon hunter Dante. During Enzo’s interrogation, Barnes and Dr. Fisher believe that Dante holds half of the amulet needed for Force Edge to remove its barrier. Elsewhere, Plasma, a top henchman of the White Rabbit, finds Dante and uses various forms of people and objects including Dante’s brother Virgil to take Dante’s half of the amulet but is unsuccessful. After the battle, Dante begins to question who would want his amulet and why demons and other unknown players want him.

Episode 2 continues events. DARKCOM agents, ordered by Barnes to supervise multiple teams of hired mercenaries, worked to capture Dante and retrieve his half of the amulet for examination by DARKCOM scientists. During the mission briefing, Mary Arkham, a supervisor to the DARKCOM team overseeing the mercenaries, encounters a demon and eliminates it. After the briefing, Barnes adds Anders, the lone survivor of a previous DARKCOM mission to eliminate White Rabbit, to the team. During the raid on Dante’s office, Barnes forces Enzo to lure Dante out, but Dante realizes Enzo’s scheme and refuses to give up the amulet. While Dante succeeds in escaping the mercenaries’ attack, he faces off against Lady who succeeds in capturing Dante and implants a bomb in his neck but takes Dante’s amulet and captures him and Enzo, taking them to DARKCOM headquarters for questioning.

The animation for Devil May Cry isn’t developed in the usual anime style. Shankar, while negotiating with Capcom and Netflix for streaming rights, sought out Studio Mir of Seoul to provide animation services for the series. Keeping pace with his take of video game animated series known as “The Bootleg Universe,” Shankar and his writing partner Alex Larsen used actual locations such as Vatican City and Washington to bring the level of DMC games action in to attract fans of the series and fans of political action shows. I personally like Shankar and Larsen’s take that they wrote an original concept for the series instead of coping various storylines from DMC’s games. As a DMC fan, I became fully invested in the anime but had to pace myself from binge watching to avoid being distracted from other activities. And as a treat for fans, there are a few Easter Eggs from DMC and other Capcom games such as Captain Commando and Resident Evil.
Capcom had some of its employees involved in production and should be applauded for allowing creative freedom in a long-running series such as this.

The choice of casting for characters was on point with Johnny Yong Bosch taking the role of Dante and Scout Taylor-Compton’s performance as Mary. Kari Wahlgren portraying Dante’s mother Eva was great, and legendary voice actor Kevin Conroy gave an outstanding performance as Barnes in his final performance. I have respect for Shankar for dedicating the first season to Conroy’s memory. Overall, this adaptation from Netflix did an excellent job of bringing a game series like DMC to a new audience without being carbon copied or too short.

Will Dante be able to stop White Rabbit from unleashing hell on Earth? Will DARKCOM uncover the true motives of demons invading the human realm? Who side is Barnes really on? We’re keeping it stylish while binge-watching the next episodes.

Brandon Beatty is editor-at-large of Gaming Insurrection. He can be reached by email at brandonb@gaminginsurrection.com