#dmc discourse

[3142-redgrave-avenue]

Welp its over for ikemen 2007 anime dante. Goodbye. So long, your google image results. I will miss you and cherish every frame i have left before April 2025.

The time has come, my handsome devil.

[4dmc]

Been reading and rereading people's takes on DmC and i guess it's because of the netflix anime adaptation they've been coming out..

Anyway long tldr yappy rant from a 30s something watching fandom shenanigans & just realize that we're human... doesn't negate the fact i do have negative feelings about it

There really was an entire decade (and still going) of how people are offended by DmC and it is frustrating and obnoxious to see at least of the dmc fandom, even though I do understand these are people's views of it and it comes from somewhere

And it's usually the core hateful fans' narrative where that's coming from, and there's still yapping, where they hypocritically and unironically miss everything, but the oddest ones to me are the ones where they're expecting to be spoonfed a pseudo-empowering "badass" feminist narrative and I get it... But like, they too turn around and become sexist themselves (it's not shocking most of them are likely cis-het male)

I do understand the overall need to have women characters just be depicted as fully fledged beings. And I get that they're disgusted with Lilith and what was done to her. And I don't quite recall if I made a point about her here but I feel like I need to add on to a mutual's point defending her ..

But it's maddening to think people are equating that to what Ninja Theory believes about women. Which is insane, because so many writers before and after have written women in many ways, despite the fact they actually may or may not have a positive or humane view of women (..... Neil Gaiman.... 💀)

There's also the fact many writers and creatives have both done beloved masterpieces that do appeal to a mass audience, but have also created the most depraved, brutal, dark and offensive masterpiece that would definitely offend a mass audience, and would take an open mind to understand why. (I'm not saying the most beloved appealing type of masterpieces would easily be understood, the inverse happens)

And Lilith's story and figure, while it has shortcomings, is just the most remarkably truthful take about the reality of women, and how they are as perpetrators themselves, weaponizing the very things about what makes women and where they are in the world, in spite of their statuses, or even because of their statuses.

The way some of the opinions against DmC really is a symptom of a mixture of rigid readings about what feminism is, and the toxic positivity that women characters "should just be a certain way" and nothing else. And girl, that certainly reads into what they must view of women in real life, but I'm thankfully just assuming...

Whatever happened to the whole "women are put in pedestals" and fighting that? Because i think any fully fledged female character can be anything. And by anything, it would mean depictions that will not be comfortable nor a badass escapism story, or of how deplorably flawed women can be

There's also the obnoxious and quite widespread notion, especially now, how one equates their joyful entertainment and relatability to a piece of media as the most important metric, to the point it is the only metric whether or not that piece of media is worth any nuanced opinion of. Or worse, their enjoyment, relatability and escapism of the piece of media is a metric for whatever their own ideologies be and if it's a solid match.

Basically, they're being shallow, unchallenged AND quite frankly making their preferences as the only absolute metric

I may be discussing usually of devil may cry, but this kind of very rigid and shallow reading has been permeating in online spaces and soon even in real life, for quite a long while now.

Perhaps it's so coincidental that such a thing has been well recorded at the same time as when DmC was coming out. Now, this game wasn't the only one treated like garbage by an obnoxious audience, and I have been in some game and fiction fandoms in the late 2000s to mid 2010s. So yes, the horrible takes have been quite everywhere. And soon from the 2010s onwards, as online spaces truly overlapped in our public spaces and persona, it's mutated into an inescapable reality.

To me, the biggest shortcomings about Lilith was that we don't get to have "fun" with how cruel she is. Now I'm not asking for gruesome Salo film style depravity, but even just 2 more cutscenes of her inner workings would've hit the nail on the heads what kind of sick world the demons are running.

I mean yeah there's Capitalist demon Mundus sure, but it's quite inferred he's rarely come down his ivory tower. I mean he's the boss, he doesn't need to always run his hands dirty

But Lilith is interesting and much more on theme with the way Limbo City aesthetically looks like and how very heavily implied the seedy, sleazy underbelly is on this worn out city. It definitely draws a lot of the 90s to 2000s grungy gritty action films, particularly even some of the slightly bloody vampire films like Wesley Snipes' Blade.

Like they did say They Live was an inspiration, but definitely the grainy, worn out looks of Fight Club and the tall & cold monolithic like structures in Nolan's Batman films were quite there too.

As for her end, as gruesome as it is, it's not as un-feminist as people say it is. But nor is it a feminist one either. Because neither of them is the point. And not everything involving women will be automatically feminist. And that's not a bad thing. (any right wing dipshit reading this shoot yourself to Mars for us with Elon Musk and never come back)

I feel like people for the last 20 years or so, as an audience, became too genre savvy, too technical, and even too hyperfocused about the "rights and wrongs" of an ideology that they use as a lens of criticism, to the point it looped back around that they're just not really understanding what's in front of them. And in a way it's a bit of a refusal to see what the creators/writers/artist intended.

Did they not realize how cold and straightforward Lilith's death was. And it also highlighted Vergil's flaws: his impatience, his opportunistic and dishonorable traits. And on top of that, he has the gall to be shocked in his own actions.

It's gruesome, no glamor, razor sharp in condemning Vergil as the perpetrator, by Dante. And Vergil's actions reignites a second wave of an inciting incident so they can finally break into the tower.

It also shines Dante as the actual honorable figure while the inverse happens to Vergil, whose charm and smarts reveals him to be a calculating and uncharitable figure. The ongoing theme of nothing is as it seems is a ball rolling upon the three lead characters, so yes including Kat. She has been underestimated by Vergil at the last chapters of the story. But there is the overall enslavement and milling of humanity, as nothing but swill to be churned for the demons' systemic gluttony. And Kat being human means she's at the bottom of the food chain.

In her perspective, Kat is fighting eldritch entities from Hell and she wishes nothing but the few who can see the demons to fight back for the rest who can't. Odds are stacked against her, yet she's overcome them not just with magic she has but with outwitting them, outlasting them & corny as this sounds, with the power of friendship. Her befriending Dante had been her best hand against demonkind

But just going back to Lilith I do understand where some of the readings are coming from but it's also doing many of us a disservice to think that how you read it is the only way and must be unequivocally something Ninja Theory is as people. At the same time the hyperfocus of wanting only right things happening is denying the conflicts being raised in DmC and even devaluing the moral grey issues it's trying to infer to us to weigh on

Lilith is a cruel villainess who will not hesitate to do war crimes. But she was given grace to live because of a very dire situation and she has to uphold her end, as Dante does for her. She isn't without any agency. This is the deal and a deal even Mundus must now play and abide by. If Vergil hadn't assassinated her, who's to say she won't exact revenge when they get Kat exactly on that pier.

Anyway.... I feel like this has gone on too long...

I think i needed to discuss this because, yes there's Shankar's adaptation of DMC on netflix, but because the comparisons raised about how the demons are depicted are brought up, and among the ones the dmc fandom has been comparing them is through Lilith's situation and other gaps they try to bring up.

And of course, I can't really trust them to "know" anything about the most hated game in the franchise. While I'm no expert, reading their takes is making me lose hope that these "core fans" are representative of the DMC community

also fuck shankar... Enjoy the anime, but omg, i can't take the guy seriously....

[xo2dee]

ladstwt is the absolute most miserable, insufferable and braindead place ive ever seen

[kinnoth]

I still don't know how to phrase this, so it's gonna be sloppy:

The proliferation of gay incest ships from the early 2000s and especially brother ships was specifically caused by the homophobia of popular media at the time. Like popular media wanted these intense, obsessive, "let me keep you and care for you and kill for you and be your everything" relationships between men but they did not want to write gay men, because it was the early 2000s it was not a good time to be gay.

So instead they'd write these relationships and put them in a family dynamic. Brothers can be obsessed with one another because being brothers precludes them from hooking up; it precludes the relationship from accusations of being gay, and the narrative has full license to explore this type of relationship without that relationship being between gay men.

"They're not gay, they love each other because they're brothers "; "they're not gay; brothers are allowed to hug and kiss each other"; "they're not gay; so what if they keep having really emotionally intense conversations while their faces touch, they're brothers".

But then in the fandom, we all were reading them as gay anyway, because that's all of what we were doing in fandom anyway: pulling gay subtext and running with it. It felt no different than pulling the gay subtext out between two straight men or two married men or two men otherwise precluded from hooking up with each other because it kind of wasn't: the narrative was writing a homo relationship and just putting a different flag on it.

[whyamiherewhosummonedme]

I swear to god I'm screaming into the void here with the dmc anime discourse

Can't speak for everyone of course, but the reason I'm so worked up over the anime is bc it was SO CLOSE to being perfect. The spectacle of it all, the gore, the thorough understanding of the world and the little cameos everywhere - this was a love letter to the series. Taking a look at the series if the existence of Hell and demons was actually taken known about and taken seriously by government bodies, and taking the idea of morally grey demons and humans that are the case in the games further is a really neat idea! Focusing more on Hell as a mirror to Earth, an alternate dimension that's the same, and then thinking about what Sparda's actions would do long-term to a universe like that - I love these ideas very much. (I wish the original demon designs were more, yknow, creative - make the refugees visually more monstrous! Really make the complicated moral situation pop! But I also know that my standards for monster designs are set stupidly high so I'll let it slide and just enjoy the usage of kickass monstrous designs from the series. Using Rchidna and Plasma and Cavaliere (even if it was very very weird to have a Cavaliere that wasn't an Angelo!) as proper characters in their own right was fucking awesome, I loved Plasma so much and I hope he's not actually dead though I'm sure he is) The aesthetics are perfect, the homage to early 2000s punk culture with Dante and even the military bootlicking worship culture of the era too with how they used Lady, and the gore, oh the GORE. And the soundtrack! The messaging is hamfisted but then again, it's A) netflix and B) dmc has always been pretty hamfisted yknow? So it's overlookable even if shallow. Also I really wish that Dante's monologue wasn't just in the Japanese version - it's such a good deepening of his character! In just a couple minutes it shows that Dante's not a complete moron - that it wasn't lack of knowledge, but rather that he was in denial. That demons killed his family, so even though he knew that he himself was demonic, he denied it as much as he could to absurd degrees as a desperate attempt to simplify the world. It's so fucking good and is integral to his character why was it not included in the other translations

But what gets me, the one thing that has made me unable to love the anime like I so badly want to, is them seemingly forgetting the single most important step of family. The core of the series, the part that makes it so very beloved, is the family aspect of it all. And they seem to have just... Forgotten it. And it makes the rest of the show ring hollow to someone who has loved the games for years, because despite everything being awesome and on point it's just... Missing something. Missing the core theme.

I desperately hope that this was just first season setup blues. The teaser image for season 2 is already giving me hope, as we have Dante with Ebony and Ivory (who were sorely missed during season 1!), longer hair and seemingly embracing his demonic nature more. And on top of that we have Vergil taking a more active role! The idea of what Dante would do in response to a human world that betrayed him so thoroughly is so intruiging to me - he is a weird combination of extremely vengeful and extremely forgiving, mostly due to being basically immortal giving him a very weird perspective on what constitutes pain. Anything that affects himself is basically brushed off and considered unimportant - but touch his family, touch what he cares about, and you are dead. And I imagine, especially from some of the lines at the end there, that what the US Government has done to Hell is enough to have Dante after them once he gets out. The idea of Dante VS The United States Government honestly sounds so incredibly kickass I love the idea very much I hope to god netflix doesn't make him go "uhhh but humans good and demons bad"

So yeah. I'm a masochist and therefore have high hopes for season 2 and am looking forward to it

[kirby-roth]

Kept following people for trigun art only to realize I already followed yall for atelier content. Stampede really reactivated us like sleeper agents.

[electricprincess96]

Seen a bunch of Netflix DMC fans complaining about "gatekeepers" and "game purists".

Also seen one of them claim "I've played the games its not a deep continuous story anyway" which is bullshit anyone with 1 iota of media literacy would know that. Vergil's whole character arc spans 3 whole games.

But regardless, we aren't trying to "gatekeep" DMC we are begging people to engage with the source material to better understand why we are upset. But also I'll just say to a degree a little bit of gatekeeping is not a bad thing. Because I've watched plenty of franchises morph themselves into something completely different in order to try and appeal to "new audiences" and I don't want that to happen to DMC.

They said "be happy more people will play the games now and Capcom will give us more content" but if these fans come in and start demanding the series change for them then honestly I'd rather DMC5 be its ending.

But also there's been plenty of high profile game adaptations recently and more often than not it's been found they do NOT result in an increase in sales for the game. Arcane did not lead to more League players like they literally reported this as a huge failing of the series despite its critical acclaim. Castlevania did not lead to more Castlevania game sales again despite the fact normies mostly liked it. The Last of Us didn't result in a huge increase in sales for TLOU Part 1 or Part 2. A small handful of people who probably would have been tempted to buy the games anyway might pick them up when they're on sale and let's be real that sends absolutely no message to Capcom whatsoever. If you are a non-gamer on Netflix a cartoon you like is not going to compell you to suddenly become a gamer and DMC would not be a beginner friendly game anyway.

So basically stop spreading lies about DMC game fans we don't like your shitty show cause it wasn't very good and we are allowed to say that. And 99% of us aren't gatekeeping the series we'd much rather you bought the games.

[clearpurpleskies]

The Tides That Bind Us in Ao3 ||

Chapter 17 & 18 are up! A VERY messy emotional charged thing to be honest. I kinda hate myself a little, but I'm compelled to write it like this because I thrive to emotionally wreck Jack Sparrow into healing lol.

Also, obsessed with this song as an anthem for whatever is going on in Jack's head:

"Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch? Did I build a ship to wreck?"

Screams Jack's emotional wreckage to me. Also, he's a mess because I made him go see his mom, that didn't help.

[dmc-questions-anon]

In another world there is so much discourse surrounding Vergil and I am so glad I do not live in that world

[un-gato-muy-picante]

For those of you wondering. You get a free badge and a free blaze a month for having a Tumblr membership [best part is there are no more ads on my feed]. I choose to use mine blazing whatever the fuck I please, so there is your answer. You're welcome and yet you still reblog the post even though you're complaining/upset about having to see it. Thanks for giving my mutual the engagement

🫰🏽🤞🏽

[hanteugi]

Depending on how you look at it, there were elements from the DmC reboot and DMC 5 that sort of created the foundation that the anime was based on. I genuinely thought it was a fun rehash of the lore that’s allowing everyone from various fandom stages to enjoy something together. I got into DMC4 when Nero was announced, and I’m honestly not surprised there’s been such a varied response to the new anime…

/goes to rewatch the series again

not the dmc purists having an aneurysm because the non canon adaptation isn't 1:1 with dmc3 or any of the games

[the-goopy-gaymer]

A massive pet peeve of mine is ppl insisting that you should experience a series in chronological order instead of release order. It's like completely insane to me. Why would u play DMC3 before DMC1 it like specifically expects u to already be familiar with the series. You're supposed to wonder how this connects and why dante is more brash. Why would u play fnaf 2 first. Would you really recommend someone play AC origins before like. the desmond era. Why would u watch the star wars prequels first they spoil the OT.

Especially for games it's really stupid bc playing the 5th game in a series and then going back to the first is gonna fucking suck dude.

[electricprincess96]

The fact I've seen people on both the right and the left complain about this show and it's butchered attempt at a message shows to me that it doesn't really matter what Shankar's intent was, it was clearly so poorly portrayed.

Like let's ignore the refugee sized elephant in the room for now and just look at how he portrays religion in the show and keep in mind he says here it was not anti-religion.

However I definitely came away with the impression it wanted to at best remove the inherent religious aspects of DMC (by trying to sci-fi jargon away what a demon was) and at worst that it took a disdainful view of religion in general.

The fact he says that was not the intention is quite frankly irrelevant here because that's what came across to me and many others. So if he didn't intend for that to be the case then he did a very bad job writing this show, because he failed to get across his message and themes accurately.

Yes media can often morph and be taken out of context from what the creator wanted but I don't think this is a case of fans misunderstanding the material, especially when we have source material to compare to how they would have done it. It would not have been hard for him to not include the scientific jargon trying to remove the mysticism and religion from the core of the series, it wouldn't have been hard for him to not portray the obvious future bad guy as a religious fanatic. Those were choices he and his team made. He cannot then say we are misunderstanding his intentions regarding religion.

[dangerousbride]

Okay finally got to watch all of the DMC Netflix. A good show had its flaws but its clearly setting up a lot of things. I saw the discourse so I was kind of afraid but seeing it yeah a lot of the discourse is people not paying attention to what the show tells us. And people dont get Mary isnt Lady yet and she is being stupid for good reasons that make sense from her POV. Cant wait for next season and yes double thumbs up.

omg it's so good to read you watched it with an open mind despite of the discourse. It's definitely not the best show out there but I believe it has good potential and we would be missing out if we don't get to see what happens next just because purist fans don't like AUs. And I'm glad you understood that Mary isn't Lady yet, she even tells Dante "my name's Mary, though" by the end, making it extra clear to us viewers that we still have to see her character develop until she becomes more like the Lady we all know and love (but people insist on comparing her to dmc3 Lady... it's so tiring to see lmao) So I'm very happy you had a good time watching it and gave it double thumbs up!! 😆💕

[electricprincess96]

My biggest issue is as you say the people who demand we "separate from the source material" don't realise this show would never have been made without the source materials name being slapped on it. So I feel they need to show a little more respect to Devil May Crys name.

But even if we took the Devil May Cry name off it and just had the plot let over, all the characters names were changed, I'd still think this was a bad show. Because it was badly written with huge plot contrivances (those special bullets were like 1 hit kills one minute and utterly useless the next depending on how much tension the show needed at any given time), it don't do a very good job of portraying it's themes (mostly because White Rabbits plan is overall very fucking stupid if you stop to think about it for more than 1 minute), and most of the characters were horribly unlikable even if you take away the fact they are meant to be beloved characters from DMC.

So while I can go on and on about how annoyed I am at the disrespect shown to the source material, I can go even longer on how it's just not a well written show and the music arguably is the best part of it. But all the music was licensed I can listen to that on Spotify without subjecting myself to the godawful plot and characters.

Before I make other posts related to Netflix DMC, I would like to know how some of you approached the adaptation because I asked myself and perhaps I'm stupid, I can admit to that, but for me it was difficult to judge the adaptation as its own thing and I've seen other statements that were similar.

What I'm trying to say is that it has the name DEVIL MAY CRY attached to it. The adaptation was build on a series that already existed, it's not a case of criticizing an original work.

To me it was kind of difficult to separate what I know about the series in relation to this adaptation. Based on some comments I've seen on social media, praise has given mostly for the quality of the animation, the music...but not so much for the characterization.

So, ultimately, would most of you have liked it if the animation was original, with a story about humans and demons, similar to Devil May Cry and so many other anime with the same concept?

Because I've seen quite a few of those statements where people say "judge it on its own", but again isn't that hard?

In the end, personally this adaptation seemed like the DMC characters were used as puppets to tell the story of the producer (and some of you know what I think about that guy if you read my post about him) who wasn't able to create something original and had to use a beloved franchise.

If I saw people mostly praising the elements I mentioned before minus the characterization that apparently it's hard not to compare, then would you have liked the animation just the same?

Like ok it has cool fights scenes, a "badass strong woman who curses a lot and that's what makes her cool", a dude who is part demon that makes jokes...Sounds like you could have still liked a show with characters that were portrayed similar to Netflix DMC and had the aspects I mentioned before, right?

Like I said, I might be stupid but I think it's hard not to compare.

So yeah, I do have some issues with how some things were presented in the show which I regarded as poorly written but again it seems to me that some people would have liked it even if it wasn't related to DEVIL MAY CRY and it was just like many other media with similar concept.

So yeah, please tell me if I'm wrong in what I said. I would like to hear your opinions!

[4dmc]

I do apologize for such a lengthy outburst.. This is to respond to yelldeadcellvrremix

I do understand how it got to that reading and I still do disagree, so I'll leave it at agreeing to disagree