The Devil Lady

TV – 26 episodes

Known as Devilman Lady in Japan this horror show takes the Devilman mythos and does something surprisingly good with it.

Jun Fudou is a well known model, slowly becoming jaded to her career until a mysterious woman, Lan Asuka, pitches her into a nightmare world of violence and death. Jun carries the ‘Devil Beast’ gene, and the cold hearted Asuka plans to make use of it. Most people with this gene mutate into vicious monsters under stress, losing what humanity they have in the process. Jun can retain this humanity, curbing the killer instinct and focusing it on the other devil beasts in an attempt to stop them decimating human kind. But how does the gene appear in the first place? Is Jun doing the right thing, and will she be able to shield her closest friend Kazumi from this expanding horror? And just what is Asuka’s ultimate goal?

I will admit that after hearing good things about this show I was rather disappointed for the first few episodes. Things just seem to happen for very little reason, especially Jun’s following Asuka in the first episode, and it did remind me of the Guyver crossed with a Godzilla movie for a little while. Fairly bloody battles between monsters with seemingly not much else to it. However, from episode four or five onwards the writers obviously got their act together because the characters start becoming real people and the gravity of the situation actually sunk in. By the end of it I was thoroughly hooked, even with all the tragedy that the show throws at you. By the climax of the show itself is nothing short of epic, although it can seem a little odd with its spiritual and religious nature. It does require you to suspend disbelief a bit much at times, but the rest of the show makes up for it.

This is most definitely a show for mature viewers only. There is a great deal of blood and violence along with sexual themes and the whole thing is very dark in terms of its storytelling. Also those with very strong religious beliefs might have some issues with the ending.

The only other real problem with this show is that it was obviously not made on a large budget, and as such the animation looks somewhat dull or stilted at times. Also there are one or two short scenes where the animators really should have been given lessons on how to draw people. The monsters, which range from the very creepy to the formulaic are often shown in fairly full light, making them far less scary than they could have been. It’s just a shame that more thought wasn’t given to the camera and lighting work, even if it would have pushed the budget up a little. That said though the character designs are generally nice, as is Jun’s Devilman form and the semi-beast children, and the animation quality does pick up in the later parts of the show.

The dub for this isn’t particularly good a lot of the time and the accents sound very wrong for some of the characters. Also they aren’t very consistent as to what Jun should sound like in Devilman form, sometimes using sound manipulation techniques and sometimes just leaving it plain. Jun’s normal softer voice and Kazumi sound a lot better when they are talking emotionally than they do in normal conversation. Asuka on the other hand has a very nice snide quality to it, and Jun’s angry side comes out very well in those conversations. Not one to recommend really, but it’s better than some.

If you like big monster or horror shows then you’ll like this. If not then you’re probably better off avoiding this one unless you’re willing to sit though the poor first episodes to get to the good stuff. Personally I really like this, and I actually think it’s the best of the monster vs. monster genre shows that I’ve seen. If you’re unsure I would say go for it, but remember your patience won’t be rewarded until the end of the first or beginning of the second DVD, but it really pays off to make it to the end of this one.

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