The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is the 2004 adaptation of Devilman. I read the original manga in preparation for it, and while I'm not a fan of this particular franchise, it's safe to assume it's better than this movie.

• Full disclosure, I'm watching the English dub (because I'd prefer to leave the subtitles to movies that are actually good), and it's strange that they still pronounce Ryo's name Rye-O.
  
• Some day, you'll be one of us. You'll star in your own found footage horror movie and call yourself Peachfuzz.
  
• I wiped out like I usually do at Track Practice. Which is probably a sign I shouldn't have bothered joining the track team in the first place. I don't know if this is some quirk of Japanese schools where everyone has to take part in some sport or club, but surely there has to have been a better choice.
  
• Okay, maybe I shouldn't harp too much on their mispronouncing Japanese names if they can't even pronounce "valence" correctly.
  
• An Antarctic lake? Are you sure you're not talking about the sea?
  
• So, one of the biggest problems with this film is that they cram the contents of a manga that was about 1,320 pages long into a 2 hour film. And the crucial chapter where they set up what the fuck the demons actually are and how Akira becomes a Devilman is pushing 200 pages on its own. So, naturally, a lot of shit's going to get elided. If you think the Harry Potter movies are bad with this, you ain't seen nothing yet. Those 200 pages are crammed into 7 minutes.
  
• Let's be realistic, this was a shitty sci-fi movie from 2004. Did you really not expect crappy CGI?
  
• Who are you? is a reasonable question, but perhaps more important is why the fuck do you have wings on your head?
  
• The power of Devilman is leaving me... So why is there an hour and a half left?
  
• So the Demons in this continuity actually can effectively possess humans (for the most part). A bit of a change from the original where, frequently, possessing humans led to the death of both the human and demon.
  
• And the showdown with Jinmen is so underwhelming. I'd say that maybe eating the train like the original would be too expensive, but then again, The Asylum did the same, and their budget wasn't the equivalent of $49 million.
  
• Everybody stay in your bathroom!
  
• So, it's gone all the way to the later part of the book where the demons declare war on humanity. And they didn't have a floating demon head officially declare war on the world like the Manga.
  
• This is like a worse version of The Thing than the 2011 remake.
  
• Just arresting the demons?
  
• Having kids? What's wrong? Well, we'll just let Arthur Schopenhauer give you something to start with.
  
  
  
• You know, for a supposed Demon superhero, he does surprisingly little in the way of superheroics.
  
• Japan has counter-attacked? You know something's gone wrong when that happens. Especially since Japan has barely anything in the way of a military. And has been like this since August 1945.
  
• You know, I ragged on the one demon with wings coming out of her head, but the designs from the manga were so creative that it's glaringly obvious that we barely even see any demons.
  
• Okay, I have to admit, seeing Al Roker turn into a three-headed version of EDP445 is scary. I wish I didn't have to wait 88 minutes for it.
  
• Ryo, the prospect of man turning against themselves to potentially save themselves from the demon menace shouldn't have been surprising to you, even as a misanthrope. Hell, the biggest part of their conquest plan in the manga hinged on exactly that happening.
  

Next week, Sextette, Mae West's star-studded tribute to gerontophilia.