Welcome to the left over section from the Devilman OVA review, the third and final OVA related to Devilman: Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman.
As always, some background: In 1999, Nagai and artist Yu Kinutani created Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman, a spinoff manga which asked the question: “What would have happened Amon took control of Akira at the end of the series?” One year later, an OVA was based off this, and supposedly a continuation of the first two OVAs, yet an adaptation of the first volume of the Amon manga. There would be some changes, the team who had made the original two OVAs were replaced with a completely new team and a studio primarily known for in-between animation. The original voice actors were also replaced, so Yuu Mizushima would not be voicing Ryo Asuka, instead Tomokazu Seki (Domon Kasshu from G Gundam, and Toji from Evangelion) was his replacement.
The OVA starts out promising. If you’ve seen Devilman: Crybaby, you know the framework. Ryo Asuka announces a hunt on demons, and mass panic ensues. Miki, well if you saw the series, you’d probably remember her head was on a pike. This set up takes about 15 minutes, one third of the anime were those last two sentences, can you say this OVA is padded? Do bears do their business in the woods?
Still, there were issues, for starters the fluid and rounded animation style is nonexistent, as this OVA goes for an angular, stylized approach. I’m not sure if this is better, yet it is unique, so I’ll give the anime some props there. The problem comes in the timing of scenes, which results in unintentional comedy. I’ll get into that, near the end.
After the opening, the series devolves into Fist of the North Star, Akira’s even sporting Kenshiro’s iconic outfit! However, it’s Fist of the North Star combined with a confusing narrative. The remaining OVA has four different narratives intercut seemingly at random, the past (with normal Akira and Miki), a recent past, the real world, and what happening in Akira’s head, it all gets quite confusing, even with visual bookmarks.
I kid a bit. The plot does make some sense, and it’s laid out simplistically enough. However, the story requires you to guess a lot of point points, which isn’t good storytelling, and lead to a scene which the culmination of this unintentional comedy came to fruition.
I briefly alluded this in the beginning, this OVA is ridiculously funny, just not intentionally. Miki’s brother’s death has the timing of a death from Ideon, except it’s goofier. and the fight scene between Amon & Akira/Devilman takes this Fist of the North Star concept and turns it into a crowning jewel of narm. In short, they ruined two shows with one fight scene, well done!
Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman, is an OVA which ascends the likes of Angel Cop and M.D. Geist can seemingly reach: it is so bad it’s good. It’s the perfect encapsulation of bad decisions, expensive voices actors misused, and badly drawn animation. After the excellence of the first two Devilman OVAs, this is just sad.
