Spoiler alert and content warning: Mentions of gore

Ah! Holy Week is upon us and with it traditions we’ve long embraced: Visita Iglesia (don’t forget the sunscreen and hydration!), pescetarian meals, curiosity at dropping by a Pasyon #ForTheExperience, and of course, the rewatch.

Yes! The Rewatch. Lent is a time of reflection, right? And what better way to reflect than to revisit a familiar piece of media or work of art and see what new takes can be mined. It’s restful, too, as research proves that going back to familiar media can be a form of mental healthcare.

Ever notice how TV stations replay the same set of movies every Lenten season, especially during Holy Week and particularly during its last three days? The usuals include religion-based movies like “The Passion of the Christ” (2004) and “The Prince of Egypt” (1998) and also subtler films but with spiritual undertones such as “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (still not over Tagalized Gollum, TBH), and even anime movies like “Your Name” (2017).

On the surface, this faithful (no pun intended) remake of the 1971 manga by Go Nagai draws heavily from Christian imagery and iconography

But here’s a suggestion, a Holy Week rewatch you’d never expect but might just work: 2018’s gory and horny “Devilman Crybaby,” a Netflix mainstay where the eponymous protagonist works with a professor to stop demons from devouring humanity. The questions posed are just as hardcore as the action depicted.

My editor’s been seeing “Devilman Crybaby” clips resurfacing around TikTok recently and I think this is Jung’s collective unconscious theory at play. I think we know, at a subconscious level, that the series’ endurance has to do with its themes as much as its spectacle.

On the surface, this faithful (no pun intended) remake of the 1971 manga by Go Nagai draws heavily from Christian imagery and iconography. Satan is literally a main character (his condo unit is 666 for crying out loud). One episode shows a Last Supper painting. There’s a scene where a dad reads the Bible to his son. Devilman himself, with his bleeding heart and deep empathy (thus, his being a crybaby), is an archetypal Messianic figure.

As the story unfolds, “Devilman Crybaby” proves it’s more than just a superhero epic playing dress-up in priestly garb, going where previous remakes didn’t dare, making for a work of art that rewards those who stay till the end. “Devilman Crybaby” asks hard philosophical questions, entering the realm of theology.

Devilman Bible study

For the record, theology as a study isn’t about converting people to a religion. It can be undertaken by anyone regardless of persuasion.

Think of it as literary analysis using sacred texts as a primary source and lens, all as common practices in other scholarly fields are applied: contextualization, explication, and application of insight to current events.

As the story unfolds, “Devilman Crybaby” proves it’s more than just a superhero epic playing dress-up in priestly garb, going where previous remakes didn’t dare, making for a work of art that rewards those who stay till the end

The creative team behind “Devilman Crybaby” chose an art style vastly different from the manga’s all as director Masaaki Yuasa took thematic and plot liberties given his status as a director known for generally optimistic, faith-in-humanity work.

It’s precisely these liberties taken by Yuasa-san, which takes “Devilman Crybaby” beyond the aesthetics of Christianity and towards the ideas—and praxis—of Christianity.

For the most part, the series avoids the deus ex machina trap. The plot is moved, and ended, by human (and demon) agency. This highlights a central question in Christianity made more stark by modern skepticism: Where is God in a silent universe?

When “Devilman Crybaby” transitions from a monster-of-the-week first act to a second act depicting humanity’s last days on Earth, certain important and I daresay perennial themes take the fore.

Too real, fam

For one, there’s media’s role, both traditional and social, in fermenting chaos, depicting how hate speech, dehumanizing rhetoric, and even public service announcements made in bad faith fueled recent and ongoing crises like today’s lopsided wars and resulting refugee crises, the far-right’s in the Western, Arabic, and Asian worlds, and closer to home, the tolerance and normalization of extrajudicial killings.

After the existence of demons are exposed in a widely-broadcast massacre of high school athletes, human society devolves into infighting, and the mistrust already present only worsens.

For the most part, the series avoids the deus ex machina trap. The plot is moved, and ended, by human (and demon) agency. This highlights a central question in Christianity made more stark by modern skepticism: Where is God in a silent universe?

I can’t help but remember this line from the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects”: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” a play on Shakespeare’s “the devil can quote scripture for his purpose.”

In “Devilman Crybaby,” Satan’s true identity is revealed late: By then, humanity’s infighting decimated most of our population, leaving Satan and his demon army happy to devour any stragglers.

Behind the scenes, working as a consultant to governments, Satan initially goes around as blond-haired Professor Ryo, appearing to help humanity. This whole arc can be seen as a commentary on realpolitik, or a “pragmatic,” Machiavellian approach to politics. Shielded by a white coat and media machinery, Satan was actually sowing more fear, mistrust, and division.

“Who is my neighbor?” the series asks at this point, echoing the scribe’s question to Jesus, which led to his telling the Good Samaritan parable. To this, Yuasa poses a new question: “How far can individual acts of goodness work in a culture massively demoralized and awash in self-destruction?”

And while naively tragic Devilman attempts to be a Good Samaritan using his newfound powers, can he really fight against organized, institutional machinery?

Devilman came to be when a pure-hearted high school boy resisted possession by the most powerful demon, taking on its powers while retaining his human soul. As the series progresses, other Devilmen make themselves known, suggesting that physical power isn’t enough if not anchored by psycho-emotional growth.

Devilman came to be when a pure-hearted high school boy resisted possession by the most powerful demon, taking on its powers while retaining his human soul. As the series progresses, other Devilmen make themselves known, suggesting that physical power isn’t enough if not anchored by psycho-emotional growth

A scene in the penultimate episode has Devilman putting himself between people tied to stakes and a mob stoning them, all this after Professor Ryo “reveals” that demons spawn from people discontented with society.

After numerous pleas, finally offering himself to be stoned instead, the crowd is jolted back to their senses after a child drops his rock and runs to Devilman, hugging him, echoing the Biblical scene where Jesus confronts a mob trying to stone an adulterous woman to death.

“Devilman Crybaby” seems to suggest that maybe if more people acted like this, humanity may have avoided its self-destruction.

Sadly, that same episode contains one of anime’s most brutal scenes to date, where Devilman’s neighbors, in a fit of frenzy fueled by disinformation, turn on Devilman’s love interest and friends. Arriving too late to save them, Devilman is forced to watch as their body parts are paraded on stakes around his burning home. He spent the whole series protecting humans from demons, only to be betrayed by humanity’s worst tendencies.

“In the end, it’s about love,” Yuasa affirms, and in the final battle, we see, juxtaposed between Devilman’s and Satan’s punches, flashbacks of their shared childhood, and each time a punch is thrown, we see young Devilman trying to pass a baton to young Ryo

Looking at the Passion of Christ, wasn’t it this same frenzy that led the crowds to turn against a man who, just a week ago, was speaking truth to power while helping the most marginalized? When presented with the option to free Jesus or a bandit, the riled-up crowd chose the latter, all while continuously calling for Jesus’ execution.

Devilman’s love interest Miki dies horribly in almost every remake, but in “Devilman Crybaby,” her death hits different as she was built up as a realistic example of flawed, human strength and warmth, endearing her to audiences, in contrast to her more one-dimensional writing in past iterations.

As she and her friends fight off the mob, she refuses to resort to killing and her friends, some of them hardened gangsters, follow suit, fighting with nonlethal techniques. Here, I can’t help but recall Jesus’ arrest and his disciples’ hasty defense, where one of them is rebuked by Jesus after lopping off the ear of one of Christ’s arrestors: “He who lives by the sword will die by it.”

Jesus then proceeds to heal his arrestor’s wound.

“Love does not exist. That’s what I thought,” goes the show’s opening line, narrated by Ryo. Perhaps the greatest trick the devil ever played was believing he didn’t need love

I recall a YouTube comment on Miki’s death going along the lines of “what hurt me the most wasn’t the character deaths, but the realization that innocent people were and continue to be killed like this around the world.”

In an interview with BuzzFeed Japan, director Yuasa confirmed that the story belongs more to Satan/Ryo, who realized too late that he loved Devilman.

“In the end, it’s about love,” Yuasa affirms, and in the final battle, we see, juxtaposed between Devilman’s and Satan’s punches, flashbacks of their shared childhood, and each time a punch is thrown, we see young Devilman trying to pass a baton to young Ryo.

Each time, the baton drops, but each time, Devilman tries to pass it on, pass it on, pass it on. Behind Devilman are his friends, now dead, passing the baton to each other before it reaches him, before he reaches out to Ryo again.

“Love does not exist. That’s what I thought,” goes the show’s opening line, narrated by Ryo. Perhaps the greatest trick the devil ever played was believing he didn’t need love.