What a shame that I didn't watch this film before I watched Sakuya: Demon Slayer (Japan, 2000), as it surely would have given me a totally different appreciation of the latter film had I done so. Not that either film really has all that much in common, other than cute Japanese girls – one of whom in Devilman also wields a samurai sword for almost one whole scene. But whereas Sakuya: Demon Slayer follows the old-fashioned way of models and prosthetics and trick photography, Devilman relies on bad CGI and an occasional touch of worse makeup. Not good. But then, that is only one of many "not good" things about Devilman that would have probably made me realize that Sakuya: Demon Slayer really isn't that crappy of a film after all – if only in comparison.
The last film by Japanese director Hiroyuki Nasu – a familiar name to us milk-drinkers, I am sure – Devilman is the umpteenth version of a popular manga by Gô Nagai, the earliest version of which was a long-running and popular animated television series in 1972 (credit sequence). The 39-episode animi series ends on a much more positive note than either the manga or this filmic version of the story, but in the end it is the depressing ending of the film that is perhaps the movie's only truly redeemable quality. Devilman is, on the whole, a pretty crappy film – but then, it is also close to impossible to compress an epic story – the manga itself was serialized in over 53 issues of the magazine it ran in – into roughly two hours and achieve anything other than confusion and disinterest. And confusion and disinterest is what Devilman produces the most, other than a great desire to do dishes, vacuum, clean the windows, scrub the toilet, change the bed sheets, etc, etc. If you do manage to make it through to the ending, it is at least a good one, sorta, but damn, it takes so frigging long to get to it...
To cut the plot down to a few lines: Wimpy Akira Fudô (Hisato Izaki), who lives with the Makimura family since his parents were killed in a car accident, is possessed by a demon after the scientist father of his best friend Ryo Asuka (Yusuke Izaki) accidently releases demons from the earth's core. Akira is pure of heart or something – a virgin, maybe? – so he gains the upper-hand in the internal battle and becomes a good demon named Devilman, who supposedly fights for humanity. The rest of the demons want to take over the earth. Since you really can't tell who is or who isn't a demon, human society falls apart and WW III starts and everyone kills everyone and the world sort of ends but for a little boy and a girl half-demon. Other stuff happens in-between – his best buddy Ryô, for example, turns out to be Satan – but it's almost all boring stuff, and very poorly staged...
For the most part, wimpy Akira Fudô is wimpy even as Devilman; he hardly ever actually fights and when he does, he tends to lose. Also, his full changeover to Devilman (and his appearance as Devilman) is always in CGI, the result being an animated winged demon that hardly looks more effective or convincing than when Akira runs around half-changed, looking like a beanpole on a bad-hair day imitating someone imitating Bela Lugosi's Dracula but without the cape. (Really – he has the positioning of the arm as seen in Plan Nine from Outer Space [1958 / trailer] down pat.) The slow devolution of human society and how the people slowly become frenzied blood-thirsty killers is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film, but like everything in the movie it is underdeveloped and overly rushed. In general – actually: across the board – the acting sucks, and often, I would hazard to say, not only by Western standards. The girls are all cute; the guys all skinny and butt-ugly. And having said that, let's get to the true underlying messages of the movie. The most obvious message (as in for Film Class 101) of Devilman is that demons are people, too, and sometimes people are demons (or at least evil) – many of the demons, for example, just want to survive and don't really do evil, whereas the humans do a lot of evil by the end of the film (hell, they destroy the world). But there is a bigger message hidden in the film, one that is decipherable when you view things from a distance and start putting together one plus one.
Devilman is actually a tract on alternative sexualities (re: homosexuality) and learning to accept them in others and yourself. Obviously, there is a deep-seated latent homosexual attraction from childhood between Akira and Ryô, and the tension it causes is intensified in their teens by the appearance of an attractive girl Miki (Ayana Sakai of Battle Royal 2: Survival Program [2003 / trailer]) who not only has the hots for Akira but awakens heterosexual desires in the young lad – to the great displeasure of Ryô, whom Miki instinctively dislikes (she probably senses the latent sexual tension between the two youths). That Akira realizes his true homosexual nature is reflected by his possession by the demon, who first appears in the form of a huge squiggly spermatozoon that flies about before penetrating Akira. At that point, Akira begins to distance himself from Miki, who he loves but realizes he cannot be with because he is "different". At the same time, Akira is angry with Ryô, and gets even angrier when he realizes that Ryô is a demon (re: homosexual) too – a reflection, perhaps, of the self-hate felt by some who have been raised to believe alternative sexualities are wrong. (See William Friedkin's Boys in the Band [1970 / trailer] for a dated but hilariously bitchy and entertaining take on "homosexual self-hate".) But their inability to accept each other, society's hate for all demons (re: homosexuals), and Ryô's total distaste for humans 
(re: "breeders") first brings about the destruction of everyone they love and then Akira himself – who smiles in death because, as Ryô tells him, Ryô shall soon follow and they will be united in the after (life, not butt). Could it be that Ryô has AIDS?Not that this interpretation really makes Devilman any better...
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