Comparing The 2 Devil May Cry Shows (Article)

“Kyrie, can you really love me? Knowing the truth… that I am, mixed race?” - Nero, if he ever shows up on the Netflix Devil May Cry.

Netflix’s latest animated production (animated by Studio Mir) is an adaptation of Capcom's Devil May Cry, and while Dante looks like his game counterpart, it’s still a substantial departure from the source material, nearly as much as 2013’s DmC: Devil May Cry.

Dante, this time explicitly lives in the United States of America, a country founded in 1776 by one George Washington, after seceding from the British crown. He lives in New York, a city encompassing an island and the surrounding areas on the East Coast of said country, sometime between the late 90s and early 2000s; judging by TV still being broadcast in 4:3 but also the existence of Dance Dance Revolution style computer games.

Devil May Cry (2025) Netflix

This time Dante doesn’t just have to take on invaders from Hell but the US government as well, who intend on colonising the Underworld, which in addition to being populated by one-eyed shape shifting blob monsters, is also home to wholesome humanoid robe wearing alien refugees with Star Trek head ridges.

If this sounds like someone’s original parable glued onto Devil May Cry then you’d be right. It’s rather ungraceful at that. To pull this off, the Netflix show has to make up elements that simply do not exist in the games, such as regular human looking demon-folk, just looking to live in peace with their baby demons. Though, even the boss demons that make an appearance from the games are displaying a new level of empathy unseen in the source material.

It’s safe to say the original intent of the games is completely shattered by this new dynamic. No longer does the demon-side of our half-demon heroes serve to represent the darkness within, a darkness to be overcome, but now it’s more like they got their DNA results back from an ancestry website.

Devil May Cry (2025) Netflix

In the games, Kyrie’s apprehension at the reveal Nero is part demon, is somewhat understandable in a world where all demons are either feral monsters or arrogant warlords, but if this story were ever to be told on Netflix DMC, her hesitance could only be construed as bigotry; which is coincidentally how Lady’s aversion to demons gets framed in this show.

Are the demon’s in the game’s evil on an ontological level? Well, obviously no, there are very prominent outliers like Trish and Sparda, but the exceptions are framed as flukes, to be taken on a case by case basis, rather than as a reason to readjust our prejudices. Outside of exceptions, demons are either portrayed as animalistic or if they can talk at all, as arrogant warriors with no understanding of modern morality, and since most of those chatty ones are thousands of years old and you know… from Hell, it’s hardly surprising they’d behave like that.

In fact, this may be the only Devil May Cry project ever to end (as of season 1) on the sentiment that humanity are the evil ones. Even DmC (2013), didn’t rocket off in that direction, completely antithetical to the message of every game, reinforced even more here by the new humanoid townspeople displaying less prejudice towards humans than the humans do towards demons.

Devil May Cry (2025) Netflix

And for what? To tell a morality tale about US intervention in the early 2000s? (The human leading the war on demons to colonise Hell and extract resources is an obvious stand in/caricature of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, accompanied by a more soft-spoken cowboy President). Yes, if you had released this show in 2003, it would have been the height of controversial. In 2025 though, is there some huge group of people still around who think American intervention in the 2000s was some roaring success? Who needs telling-off so badly we need to rework Devil May Cry from the ground up to tell that story? I feel like that ship sailed a while ago.

It’s a very Zack Synder approach to the material, that keeps stopping to ask, what would it be like if Dante and demons existed, how would the media, government and regular Joe, react?

Well yes, I would have to believe that if super-human half demon Dante existed, and the US government was aware of him, it would be their top priority to neutralise said individual strutting freely around on American soil; but see what’s happening here? We’re drifting off to tell some totally different story from the games, with very little do with exploring existentialism and the ties of family and legacy on the stage of gothic opera.

Devil May Cry (2007) Madhouse/Capcom

Some near 20 years ago there was another Devil May Cry animated show, and the disparity in approach is significant. For starters, produced by anime studio Madhouse and overseen by Capcom themselves, the old show got to be a canonical entry in the game’s story line, taking place in a gap between titles; as a result though unlike the new show you get the sense Madhouse were given strict instructions to not do anything that would rock the status quo, resulting in 12 episodes where very little of note even happens.

Dante fights some monsters, a few old characters show up and exchange some banter, Dante’s rival/brother Vergil never appears or is even explicitly mentioned and from what I remember Dante never even uses his powered-up Devil Trigger form the whole show.

Contrast this with the Netflix show which in its first episode is so eager to show its hand; contriving a way to show us Vergil for no reason, patting itself on the back by lampshading the series lore, breaking it down in detail and calling attention to the more outlandish elements of it to reassure you that we're cooler than the property we’re adapting; all while having to explain the US government's, of all things, understanding of demons and the Underworld.

It’s exhausting, jumbled and lacking in confidence.

Devil May Cry (2025) Netflix

The Madhouse show may have ultimately been an empty calorie meal but its approach to story at least reflected its cool characters. They’re not gonna bring up the darkest days of their past so why should the show explicitly do otherwise? Specific plot elements from the games may go undiscussed, making the show fairly impenetrable for non-fans, but the events of games set before the show like DMC3 and DMC1 are still felt. The past lingers on the shoulders of the characters and inform the way they behave and interact. There is nothing here for them to be passionate about, but within the larger story of the franchise as a whole it manages to serve some sort of purpose. What do these characters do in between game installments, when the demons showing up to fight are so weak their appearance constitutes nothing much more than an average day at the office, quickly forgotten?

Devil May Cry (2007) Madhouse/Capcom

Madhouse were not allowed to use their show to imbue the overall series story with any kind of forward momentum, but they turn that into a unique selling point all its own. What is it like for Dante when the stakes aren’t high? He whittles the days away; begrudgingly doing the bare minimum; his mind and soul clearly uninvested in the present, focused on a past only those who were there (by playing the games) will ever hear about.

What does Netflix DMC get to do with its free reign? Well it gets to waffle on about some well trodden and discussed real world geo-political controversies and then climax on the opposite message every entry in the series has had, thanks for that.

In terms of action and spectacle I don’t think either series really capture the games. The Madhouse show has striking angles, the kind of focus on dynamic single shots that anime is often famous for, rather than intricate movement, but far too often the fights feel like an after thought to the story of the episode, sometimes even just skipping the fight entirely to cut back to home base for the sitcom style wrap-up.

Devil May Cry (2007) Madhouse/Capcom

The Netflix show definitely got either more budget or time to animate more intricate action packed sequences that move from room to room and street to street; characters using their environment in creative ways. Yet it doesn’t feel uniquely Devil May Cry, in the way say the game cutscenes translate the brutal impact, yet play-fullness of the gameplay. Usually this creative cutscene action hinges on unique twists, usually related to the characters move-set, such as Nero's singular "motorbike-gun", Red Queen. Here much of the action set pieces are not that original, getting lifted from popular movies like, Iron-Man 3, The Matrix Reloaded and The Raid/Dredd.

Studio Mir’s work on the Netflix show gets to be a little more bouncy and playful but that overtly colourful look just doesn’t capture the more gothic spirit of the games. Madhouse’s work is a little more stiff but ultimately more consistent, its overall darker palette brings to mind the darker mood of the games more and it lacks the garish CGI monsters Netflix’s show imposes over the 2D world to awkward effect.

Like its CG demon models, Netflix Devil May Cry sticks out like a sore thumb in the franchise. Sporting the look of Devil May Cry while clearly being built in a completely inappropriate way, fit for some other universe entirely.

Before I go, here’s a quick list of one-off things that got on my nerves.

• Vergil sporting his classic design while serving as Nelo Angelo is awful. His authentic self should be reflected in his design.

• The demon world is portrayed as some tacky brown alien swamp. The striking white/red field glimpsed at the end of DMC5, the ornate marble madness of the end of DMC3? Nothing that striking.

• While in a subsequent season they may find a way to work this moment in, Dante telling Mary he thinks she should go by “Lady”, rather than Lady pro-actively adopting the word as her new identity herself, in a moment of self-actualisation, is pretty lame.

• American Idiot plays over footage of the US government colonising Hell, finally the intent of the games, honoured at last.

  

  Devil May Cry (2007) Madhouse/Capcom