Devil May Cry: The Animated Series Part 3 Episodes 9-12

For a while now, it seems like something has been watching Dante from the shadows, benefiting from his most recent jobs.  Now the puppet masters plans come to light and the whole world is on the brink.  What’s worse, Patty’s long lost Mom is used as bait to lure Dante’s young friend into a dangerous trap.  Together with Lady, Trish and Morrison, Dante must brave a city’s worth of Demons to rescue Patty and put a stop to the Monster who’s been playing him all along.  Even if there’s no money involved, the world needs saving, and Devils need to cry.

Devil May Cry 2 is widely seen as the black sheep, if not the worst, of the franchise.  One of the main criticisms is the change to Dante’s personality.  He’s a lot more serious and less prone to one liners than in his debut game (though he does get a solid one on the final boss at the end of the game).  While it’s an inexcusable approach to try and make Dante more mature, his change in tone and personality makes sense when you realize he’s had to deal with a crappy 12 episode Anime series filled with boring villains, insufferable kid characters, and the feeling that Devil May Cry was having both hands tied behind its back the whole time and was unable to let loose like it should…yeah I’d be depressed and pissed off so much I’d be a bit grumpy going into DMC2.
 
While a lot of the final four episodes are the usual song and dance of problems, there are some bigger ones than usual and those issues actually could have saved the series.  Let me explain.  Episode 10 introduces a pair of Demon brothers who knew and trained with Sparda himself.  White Knight Baul was Sparda’s apprentice and wanted to prove himself by defeating Sparda in combat, but never got the chance since Sparda left for the Human World and has seemingly died.  Now he can only test his skills on the next best thing: The Son of Sparda.  This premise alone could have been the main arc of the series.  No, It SHOULD have been the main arc.  Having Dante square off against a foe who personally knew the Dad he knows next to nothing about personally would be a good incentive to get him into a fight.  Not to mention he’d have an uneasy wild card ally in Baul’s brother Modeus, who has reservations about his brothers wishes.  But no, Episode 10 wastes this premise as another slow burn monster of the week plot with no good payoff and spends half of its runtime having Modeus have to listen to Patty’s constant bellowing about Dante.
 
Speaking of, I was right: The final two episodes are a Patty heavy finale.  If, like me, you haven’t been able to stand her since Episode 1, then not only do you have zero reason to care about the less than half assed resolution to her arc (what little of it there was) but you’re gonna hate her more than ever when she stupidly jumpstarts an apocalyptic event despite her Mother begging her not to.  The brat’s already wasted a lot of this shows runtime with her pestering Dante to buy her clothes and ice cream (and her voice is so damn grating too).  And no, kid or not, she’s the worst.  Her Mom isnt much better as she quits just as Sid comes to conquer Earth with the Demon Abigail’s power.  You know, given how much of a pain in the ass they’ve both been, it’s kind of funny Dante sends Patty away to be with her Mom seemingly without a second thought.  She wont be missed and seeing as how she hasn’t appeared in any of the games, I think the feeling is generally mutual among the staff and fanbase.
 
As for the finale itself, Patty issues aside, it’s as dull as the rest of this show has been.  Even with some extra action, it’s hardly exciting and not really appealing to look at.  Of course given how subpar of a job Madhouse has done with animating, is it really a surprise no extra effort is made to make the final boss fight look passable?  Sid was hardly a challenge and, to be honest, it boggles the mind why Dante didn’t do away with him the second he made a reappearance and was clearly up to no good several episodes ago.  Sid’s gathering of materials from each of Dante’s cases didn’t amount to much and really, this whole situation could have been avoided if Dante had just shot him back in Episode 1 and called it a day.  At least we do get to see Lady and Trish kicking demon ass together and looking good while doing so.  Why we don’t have a spin off series or even a game with just these two (that’s not backtracking DLC like Devil May Cry 4), I do not know.  Even that’s not enough to keep me from groaning when Dante delivers his signature finisher line, “Jackpot,” cause this doesn’t even come close to qualifying as one.
 
Final thoughts: Look I get why people don’t like the Netflix Devil May Cry Anime and I agree with a lot of those criticisms.  I have to say though, I’ll take it over the borefest that is Devil May Cry: The Animated Series any day.  The show looks terrible for being animated by Madhosue.  Most of the episodes have little action and would rather focus on introspective pontification than Demon slaying.  Dante, Trish and Lady have their usual chemistry but aren’t given adventures worthy of their time.  And the less said about the time wasters that are Patty and Sid the better.  It’s not like Devil May Cry cant tell great stories around amazing action sequences, each game is plenty proof of that (especially DMC 3 and 5).  But this series is trying to be something Devil May Cry isnt: slow, boring, and a gigantic waste of time.  No wonder Dante sleeps through most of it.
 
1/10
 
Well we cant end Halloween on such a disappointingly sour note now can we?  Heck we haven’t even gotten to Halloween itself yet.  Well fear not, Dear Readers, cause something is on the way, a special week long marathon of colorful supernatural/scifi/horror/action flicks including a couple of titles I’ve been holding off on looking at cause of the Mega Mecha Summer Event.  Our Halloween Movie Double Feature starts Next Monday with Predator: Killer of Killers right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.