“Easy, Fido! How about I take you out for a walk? C’mon puppy, let’s go!”
Adapting a long running franchise is tough. There are a lot of factors to consider how much to adapt and how much changes from the original. I am normally a fan of creatives doing what they want with a property. Trying something different to what might be expected. If you aren’t going to do something interesting with it, something different, then why make an adaptation? Which is my main criticism of the Netflix “Devil May Cry” adaptation. It isn’t accurate and the changes that it makes also lose most of what makes the “Devil May Cry” series specia. The series also fails to address the flaws in the story of the games. It isn’t bad, I’d actually say it’s good but a terrible adaptation of “Devil May Cry”. I would even say the “Devil May Cry” license holds this series back from what it wants to be.
“Jackpot!”
Let’s start with the good. The series is beautifully animated. The fight scenes are fantastic. It’s a lot of fun, sometimes. The music is really cool. They got a lot of big tracks from the early 2000s which feels perfect. The “Devil May Cry” games have always had really amazing soundtracks full of hard rock and metal music. “Bury the Light” and “Devil Trigger” are consistent bangers. The voice acting is also fantastic. The Demon Realm, just called Makai in this version, is very different from the games. It’s more like an actual society which adds something “human” to it. The Demon Realm and its inhabitants are more relatable which is relevant to the story. This move also loses some of the more interesting elements of the “Devil May Cry” lore.
I like the idea of there being Demons who are oppressed by the King of the Demons, Mundus. That is a powerful metaphor or allegory to let a viewer connect with the story. Any of the demons could have their own interesting stories to tell. It’s a cool idea but I found myself wondering why it was in a “Devil May Cry” series and this wasn’t just its own separate story. I also love that Lady is a key character of the series and is actually able to do things. She is a full character and a driving force in the plot. Which is a lot better than her treatment in “Devil May Cry 4” where she shows up for like two seconds and doesn’t do anything. She fights with a rocket launcher with a massive bayonet on the front. Why does she not get any screentime until the fifth game? I loved seeing her as a lead in this series.
“Mary died a long time ago…” “My name… is Lady.”
Capcom has always struggled in the games with characters that aren’t Dante, Vergil, and Nero. Trish has a cool character arc in the games as a demon who ends up envying humanity rather than trying to destroy them. Which we really never see again. The same thing occurred with Lady in the games. She has a great arc in “Devil May Cry 3”, then her father is killed and she kind of gets better, and then never does anything cool again. She gets a lot more time and a pretty good character arc in the Netflix series. I have my complaints with it, mainly that they changed her back story very slightly but aside from that she is supposed to be the same character. So I am not sure why they changed her backstory at all. She is also tied to Darkcom which ties her to some of the best changes the adaptation makes and also some of the worst changes.
There are quite a few changes like that in the first season. Changes that just seem to be for the sake of changing something from the game’s canon. Lady also comes off as really dumb sometimes. Which is something she shares with Dante in this version. They both make really terrible decisions sometimes which can make things feel overly contrived.
Speaking of contrived, I really disliked how many times Dante gets captured, tied up, kidnapped and incapacitated in other ways. This gets better in season 2 but in the first season it really feels like we should be getting his origin story and he should be driving the story forward. Instead he gets tossed in the back of a truck and things go on without him. It makes the first season feel really disconnected.
No one has any personal stakes with the villains because the one who should, Dante, is handcuffed. Mary is not the same as the Video Games and that is okay. She fits this story better than Mary in the games. She fits a bit too well, the first season is her story and Dante is a side character. This really becomes prevalent once Episode 6 hits. Episode 6 is a great episode of television but it feels like a different series. The shifting tone and elements is part of why the series really doesn’t feel like “Devil May Cry”.
“How much longer are you gonna keep zapping? Come out and SHOW YOURSELF Mundus!”
The fleshed out Demon Realm makes for some fantastic conflict and character development. The most important element is non-violent Demons who aren’t evil and want to just escape the chaos and poison of the demon realm. Looking for a better life these refugees are a key part of the motivation for the villain in the first season. This is a really grounded and relatable conflict. The White Rabbit is a great villain. Someone who wanted to do the right thing but the world kept hurting him for trying to make things better. So he finally decided that he would do whatever it takes to change things. Even if he had to commit the worst possible atrocities to do it.
It is genuinely a great character arc and an equally great villain. The Rabbit doesn’t feel like a “Devil May Cry” villain even though his connection to Lady is really interesting. He feels like he should be in a different series where Lady is the main protagonist and he is opposing her. Dante being there at all and this series being a “Devil May Cry” show feels pointless. It feels like the “Devil May Cry” elements are holding the series back from what it wants to be rather than being a different take on the games.
“I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIGGGHHHTT!”
Series creator, Adi Shankar, really wants you to know that corporations are bad! As he creates another series for one of the biggest corporations in entertainment. To show you how bad they are, and how bad the United States government is. Darkcom, possibly an evil version of Capcom, the shadowy shadow organization that shadows the US government and runs everything!
“You’ve been chasing this for an eternity… and it’s nothing but useless shit.”
Look, Darkcom sucks. Both seasons are completely written around this stupid shadow organization and Mary working for them. It’s boring and uninspired. You’ve seen this same exact satire of the American Military Industrial Complex before. The satire reminds me of “Starship Troopers” or “Helldivers”, but done in a series that doesn’t understand that satire is supposed to be witty. Vice President Baines, the leader of Darkcom in the first season, is the kind of villain that would be killed in the opening credits of the games. I would have loved to see him get removed while he continued his constant bible thumping. Dante would’ve had a great one liner about his annoying preaching. Another example of human systems blown away before the might of hell.
Similar to the “Doom” series, “Devil May Cry” demons are horrific and otherworldly. The point is that humans aren’t meant to mess with the Demon Realm. That’s why Sparda sealed it off completely. It’s beyond us and our best bet is to run the hell away from it. The glimpses of the Demon Realm we see in the games show that not even gravity is constant there. Which is why it’s such a fun power fantasy to play as Dante or Nero and kick the living hell out of Demons in the games. This series completely does away with that and replaces it with on the nose satire that I found pretty uninteresting.
“Cheer Up Crew Cut!”
I miss the “Devil May Cry” that showed military personnel getting shredded by demons because humanity is small in the “Devil May Cry” universe. The changes make the demons lose the horrific edge that they have in the games. In the games the demon realm feels massive and endless. Demons are epic in scale and basically walking natural disasters by themselves. Despite the more mature story of war and hatred that “Devil May Cry” tries to tell. It somehow has less bite than the games. I have an idea why as well.
“Devils Never Cry.”
This series doesn’t understand subtlety. It often makes jokes that completely undercut the more serious tone it’s going for. A great example is in Episode 2 of Season 2 where Lady and Dante are filmed in therapy. Yes, that is what happens for half of the episode. Which could be hilarious, except their comedic recounting of events completely undercuts the actual PTSD flashback that Dante experiences upon learning that Vergil is alive and willingly working for the bad guy. Neither of these scenes are bad, by themselves, it’s putting them directly next to each other that completely ruins the emotional impact of both. The next episode leads with a flashback showing how Vergil got separated from Dante in the first place and features a child Vergil being tortured with fire. Yeah, the comedic bits really don’t hit after watching that.
“You cut off your son’s arm for THIS?”
A lot of the story and emotional beats in the “Devil May Cry” games are subtle. In “Devil May Cry 3”, Dante doesn’t outright say it’s painful to fight against his brother. Even though Vergil is power hungry and sacrificing innocent lives for that power. You can just tell from the way that he keeps trying to bring Vergil back. It is subtextual. He doesn’t have to say he cares. He says it when he still tries to save Vergil. After their final battle in “Devil May Cry 3” Dante tries to stop Vergil from falling back into the demon realm. He may be a power hungry bastard but he is still Dante’s brother and Dante wants to save him from the evil he’s been wrapped up in. Which is a great dynamic between the two and one of the main reasons why Season 2 of the show is much better.
“Why do you refuse to gain power? The power of our father Sparda.”
The second season refocuses back onto Dante, Vergil, and Lady. Which works a lot better in my opinion. It takes a couple of episodes but they end up going back to Vergil’s philosophy that power is the only thing that matters. His ideals are manipulated by Mundus and Dante is trying to stop him. There is also a big bad guy who is trying to do some bad demonic stuff. This plot seems a little simpler and maybe a bit less mature than the war and refugees that the first season introduced. However it still struggles to shake off those elements that keep getting in the way.
The “Devil May Cry” games keep their story simple, this is on purpose, keeping things simple allows you to focus on big moments. It makes big moments feel earned. If every episode is a new PTSD flashback from our broken characters. It can paradoxically make an audience feel less invested in their struggles. Season 2 recovers this by giving Dante and Lady something to fight for that is more personal in Vergil and Lady finally turns against Darkcom. Her motivation being her guilt for not seeing the harm that the organization was doing. So the series mostly recovers, it still doesn’t really nail the feeling of “Devil May Cry”. If I can forgive the “Devil May Cry” games for their strange ups and downs, I can forgive some really bizarre story telling choices in this Netflix series. At least we got some great demon fights out of it and some sweet music, Afterlife by Evanescence is at its peak.
If you want some more dark stories but with good jokes this time check out Taylor’s article on Dark Comedies for summer time enjoyment:
https://thegeekwave.com/2026/05/dark-comedies-to-soak-up-the-summer-sun/
