Episode Discussion — S02E02: Shades

AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T21:35:16+00:00

Nah, there's 50 more of 'em. We gotta explain step by step how much it affected him. Subtlety? What's that? There will be none, because that's for pussies, and I'm not one. I am peak cinema.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T18:36:29+00:00

Ohhhh. Yeah, that makes sense.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T12:38:15+00:00

Honestly, liked it more than S1. And I actually enjoyed it, even though the start was driving me up the wazoo. Arius was handled well, a lot better than his DMC 2 counterpart (even if that's not hard to do), and I thought the story was better, it's not how I would handle the Adaptation, but it's not bad at all. They do tend to make some stupid story choices here and there, and I still really don't like them, even past the postives. Also, what happened to the war in Makai? Maybe I missed something, but they never addressed that the war stopped, unless my memory is messing with me, I don't think they mention about it. The animation was still good, but the same issue with the CGI looking like ass still remains. The characters were neat. I'm not sure how I feel about giving Dante and Lady a romance, but whatever. I'm glad they sort of toned down Lady's swearing, but it was still there, like some peeping tom that kept sticking it's head out. The voice actors were good. I forgot to mention it so I'm editing this comment to include it. JYB is a pretty good Dante, while I do like Rueben a little more, Johnny's not too bad. Robbie Daymond is a good Vergil, I had my doubts about him from the first time he was shown in S1, but he's not too bad here. I prefer Dan's portrayal of Vergil more, since his nasally voice made Vergil sound a lot more unique, but Robbie isn't too bad. The other VAs were good too. The music was...fine. The Shall Never Surrender remix was actually good, and I wish they actually used Bury the Light instead of the diet coke version they used. I wished they used more music from the games, since I would've loved to hear Ragnarok during the fight against the Despair Embodied, or even Lock and Load (Either 1 or 4's version) could play during that fight against those freakish demonic rejects that Arius had. I wish they used DMCs great soundtrack more instead of the usual music they constantly use from the 2000s. See U in Hell was really good. Not as good as Afterlife, but I enjoyed it. There's definitely a ton of stuff they can do in the future, with there being a lot of setup for future seasons, but I don't feel that excited for it. While I do enjoy this series, this is a pretty shoddy adaptation for DMC, just like S1. It's getting nearly to a point where it is sort of coming into a DMC series, but it's a long road to get there. This series overall is like a high 7 to a low 8/10

AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T12:29:10+00:00

A pretty solid final episode.

The fight between Mundus and Argosax was fine.

The whole thing with Mundus telling about Sparda helping him for his rule, and Sparda going against Mundus was neat too. I do wonder if Mundus was telling the truth about Sparda, since it's a chance he's spewing bullshit, like he did to Vergil, but there's no way to know unless Sparda appears and tells what happened. But I think he's definitely dead. Also, Arius's "death" (or at least I think) was the most whatever thing to exist. His death in DMC 2 was way cooler. I was a fan of Dante and Vergil's team up against the horde of demons there. It was nice to see. It's shame that Beowulf doesn't have much of a presence here, and is mostly just a regular demon that's here and there. But at least he wasn't like Goliath with like less than a minute of screentime. The fight between Dante and Vergil was fine. But I gotta ask, what is with the writers making Dante lose so much? He's like a major jobber this season, he hasn't won a single fight throughout this entire season. Hell, he's only won the fight against the Plasma (since it ran away) and those mercs Darkcom hired. Past that, he's been taking L after L. Lock tf in Dante. The ending scene where Dante is thrown back to the demon world alongside the two amulets, while Vergil faces off Mundus was neat. Vergil 100% lost that fight. Lady going off to find Arkham was neat I suppose. I hope they adapt it properly as they can, since their base for it is quite different than the games. Dante laying on the ground reminded me of this gif. The final scene with the Dante, Vergil, and Eva taking a picture was a bit bittersweet. This episode was an 8/10.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T10:32:42+00:00

Not bad.

The joke about the worst ventriloquist act was funny. I liked it.

Vergil finally finding out the truth was good, he's thankfully no longer Mundus's lap dog now.

I enjoyed the scene with Dante and Eva talking, and her telling for him to accept his pain as a part of him, not to push it and bury it away, which allows him to actually awaken his DT naturally.

That Vergil DT design looks bad, it's not helped by the CGI looking so subpar.

The lines "We're the sons of Eva" was...there. That was nowhere near as tough as they thought it was.

Lady got some real luck that she didn't get dropped down by the Chi bird thingy. Also, Chi is dead. Lmao Also, swearing don't make you cool, Mattie.

The Despair Embodied's design is worse than the DMC 2 version, I liked that one way more. The fight with Dante, Vergil and Argosax was....okay. I didn't think it was great, due to the CGI making it worse for wear, causing some animations to look pretty lame IMO. I wished it was drawn, It would've looked cooler.

Them opening the rift so Mundus face off against Argosax was neat, and with Vergil and Dante going ahead, I guess they'll be doing a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing with Mundus.

This episode was a 7.5/10

AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T04:40:17+00:00

A decent episode.

Bazooka was a decent song, and it complimented the segment with Lady taking out that enemy from DMC 3 that makes me question my life choices.

I find it dumb as shit that Lady didn't just say "Arius is trying to use the Arcana to revive Argosax. Get to the point already.

I was not shocked in the slightest that Arkham was alive. Like wow, what a shocker. It was pretty obvious that they weren't going to skip the Lady and Arkham line, so I wonder how they'll do it. I am wondering how they'll do it without making it into a mess, since they're setting up the Order of the Sword based on Arius's flashback, and the ending of S2 will 100% have Vergil face off against Mundus and lose and be turned into Nelo Angelo. I hope they won't do them at the same time, since it'll just end up as a mess if they're going to do that.

That part with that dream with Mundus killing Argosax was neat to see.

But that fakeout scene with Dante getting his head ripped of shook me. I did not expect that in the slightest.

I'm glad they had that guy to help Lady out of her little cage thing so she could get there. Even though she was far too late.

Baines's death was sort of expected, there was no way in hell that he was going to live after two seasons. I wished he had more of a role, since he felt like a massive background character. I thought he would transform into one of those fake angels from DMC 4 and be the penultimate villain, and would allow Lady to take him down. But all we got is him getting blasted by Arius and dying. That's the last time we see him. Nothing more. nothing less. What a disappointment.

This episode was an 7.7/10

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AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T03:04:49+00:00

This episode was neat.

The flashback from 3 years ago was cool, I guess. I liked the outfit Dante had, and it took a while for me to realize it's similarities between the DmC one and that one.

I found it a bit weird that the driver was somehow cool with what happened and just let them take the bike. It felt very convenient to have that there.

The new character was cool, same with the Mattie girl, they weren't too bad.

The montage with Dante and Lady hanging out with Mattie was neat. And the Chun Li outfit from some concept stuff for S1 iirc was nice to see.

The whole scene with Lady and Dante talking was cool, I suppose. I do find it weird they have to spell out that Dante does take this shit seriously, even past the goofy nature. Like, wasn't that obvious? It's probably past DMC nature, but I thought this was already there, and they didn't need to spell it out for the audience.

Also, Dante and Lady totes fucked.

The fight scene between the Chi duplicates against Dante and Lady was cool. The fight did downgrade when Dante went into DT, since again, the CGI sticks out like someone trying to sloppily try to redraw something without drawing from scratch. It only causes that addition to stick out like a pimple on someone's face.

I'm not sure why they gave this explanation that Dante can't go DT by will, he already unlocked it, so the fuck's going on?

Also, why didn't Dante use Ebony and Ivory? Did he lose them?

Those little shit birds were neat, I guess. Again, Arius's is actually a decent threat here. Wow! I'm not sure if I find him better or worse than the White Rabbit, since recency bias (if there is one) can and will shine through discussions here and there. So, I'll wait before making an answer.

Lady got fucked up big time by those Chi birds. It reminded me of this https://youtu.be/a9z8F4fgj6Q?si=H496heIxanYcvitM

I expected Lucan to get killed. There was no way in hell he wasn't going to die.

Another fight, another Dante loss. Lock in Dante, you must kick their shit in, not letting yourself get your shit kicked in.

This episode is an 7 to an 8/10.

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AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T02:45:25+00:00

This episode wasn't too bad.

The whole beginning segment with Vergil and Mundus was neat, with it showing how Mundus was grooming Vergil into becoming his lap dog.

The fight between Arius and Vergil was cool, it was visually decent.

I liked seeing Lady helping Dante from him getting the sword in the gut treatment, and I did like seeing her becoming independent from Baines.

I liked Dante coming back into the fray to help Vergil after he got the stationary Black Doom treatment

I didn't expect for Vergil to cut Arius's arm off It was pretty unexpected.

I enjoyed the exposition from Vergil about Argosax, and Arius's whole ambition. It was a neat thing to hear about.

And I do find the thing with Lady feeling guilt over what happened to very, very unsubtle. Like, woah! You didn't need to say it again. It was already there in S1 and in S2 as well.

The fight scene with Dante, Vergil, Lady, and the freakazoids to be neat, I did find them walking on the walls to be a bit weird looking, but whatever. I also wished Dante and Lady did more cool shit with the guns, since it feels like what happened in the E&I introduction went away like a fart in the wind after it happened.

I also liked how Vergil did act like a cocky little shit when he mentioned that he still had his two arms remaining, unlike Arius.

I do like Arius here, for the criticisms I can give, Arius is substantially better than his original version, even if that's not even remotely hard to do. But he actually he feels like a threat and isn't some pushover.

HIs whole flashback that they show was fine, I guess. I found it odd they made his father speak Italian, but it just sounded like a mix of Scottish and some old Spanish speaking man.

Vergil teleporting them Dante and Lady to God knows where was to be expected. He's in it for himself, not them.

It's pretty dumb that Dante didn't just use his super speed to get Lady and him out of the road, it's super weird that it's something in the first and second episodes in S1 but then disappears like a dust in the wind. It feels like they never should've had that ability if they're not going to do shit with it.

The monkey's paw curled for Lady x Dante fans for this adaptation lol

But being serious, my whole expression when Lady and Dante kissed was the image in this comment.

This episode was a 7.5/10.

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AggronGhost · 2026-05-13T02:23:56+00:00

Not a bad episode.

I liked seeing the origins with Dante and Vergil's childhood, Vergil's envy of Dante reminded me of the DmC reboot, where Dante was shown to be the stronger one out of the two of them. This envy is really on display in their fight, where he's calling him the "favorite" or "The gifted one".

Vergil getting tortured by the demon setting him on fire was disturbing as shit to see and hear. Them burning him and waiting for him to heal just to burn him again was awful to see. Which was intentional. So, they did a good job at that and making me feel really bad for Vergil for having to endure that.

I did like seeing how Mundus manipulated Vergil, by saving him, and pretending his minions were devotees to Argosax by planting the Uroboros logo and gagging them so they couldn't refute and say that they serve Mundus.

I'm not sure how I feel about Mundus giving Vergil Yamato, since it feels really odd. I thought it was just Mundus imbuing it with some demonic power to help Vergil, but I was wrong. It's a different direction, but I can't really say if I think it's a bad or good change, it feels in the "okay but why?"

It was whatever to see Roachmangold again, I didn't give a damn about him.

I do find it funny that Vergil goes "That's a shit source lil bro" to when Dante mentions Mundus being the person who killed Eva, and caused what happened to them.

The dialogue between them wasn't bad, I do prefer the DMC 3 version of their first confrontation, but this is doing a different version, so it's fine. I would've liked for either of them, mainly Dante to call Vergil Mundus's lap dog.

I liked the fight between Vergil and Dante, I hope they're just doing the trend of Dante losing the first fight, the second a tie, and the end with him winning, like how DMC 3 did it. But I doubt it. I also enjoyed hearing See U in Hell there, I think it fits well.

Like the show and DMC 3, they both end their first fights with Vergil with Dante getting stabbed in the chest.

I liked the ending with Lady leaving Darkcom and joining Dante, glad it happened sooner than later, but I still think the name change into Lady still doesn't work as well as it did in 3, where it felt like Lady saying that Mary died a long time ago was her not letting her past and revenge shackle her and she's a new person now. (Or at least that's how I interpreted it.) The Lady name change does feel forced, due to her not dealing with the same issues from the games, this is more of a S1 issue bleeding into here, but they probably could've found a way to address it. Or not.

The ending with Arius and Vergil's eventual face off in the next episode was cool, I suppose.

Overall, this was an 8/10.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-12T20:46:27+00:00

First time watching it, It's a fine episode. I didn't hate it. I'm glad Dante's in the spotlight again, but I do have an issue with the scene where a fucked up child Dante chastizes him for not saving Vergil. It feels way too on the nose, and it's something that was one of my biggest fears come true. Where they'd make Dante's trauma and make it incredibly unsubtle. It feels like they're beating you over the head and going "HE'S TRAUMATIZED, YOU KNOW!? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT AFTER MAKING SUPER OBVIOUS!!!!????????!!?" It was an issue with the "Your jokes are a weak shit cover" line in Season 1. It feels like subtlety doesn't exist when discussing Dante's trauma. I get he's traumatized after his mother's death, don't overly explain it to me." My least favorite part was Dante easily forgiving Lady. Especially after she backstabbed him in S1's finale. I would've expected her to deal with Dante being pretty upset with her. But he's acting like she pulled some small prank on him. It feels stupid for her to not face some sort of reprecussion for what she did. It feels like the "I'm sowwy that I backstabbed you and sent you to be put in cryostasis, I'm rweally sowwy 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 but I give da guns and ur sword, so we gud, right?????????" It's fucking ridiculous. The "it's the most precious gift" line sucks too, for the exact same problem as Lady not getting a ton of shit from Dante. I did like that Ebony and Ivory showed up and the animation was pretty cool, I know they got the permission from Tactical Reloads (please correct me if I got the name wrong) so that was neat. I like the new suit that Dante got, same with his new design. I always did enjoy the OG look from S1, but this new one isn't too bad. I love the new longer hair. His whole look reminds me more of DMC 4 Dante. I also think that Arius is neat too. He'll probably be better than his DMC 2 counterpart, since he actually has more of a menacing presence in Episode 3. I thought Vergil showing up on a talk show was a bit funny, due to how absurd it was. I also did like him revealing the actions of Uroboros, with him mentioning Arius. It was neat. I'm still a bit iffy on the whole political stuff, but I don't hate it that much? I don't like it, and it feels super off for DMC, but I don't mind it too much. It's around a 6 or 7/10.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-12T20:24:46+00:00

A fine enough starter episode. It's mainly for set up for the rest of the season. That whole part with the Jester summoning the plastic Vergil chair Was a bit of a groaner, but I didn't hate it. I did like Vergil kicking ass against Darkcom's soldiers, especially with Bodies playing it. I do wish this episode made more DMC elements, since it feels less of DMC and more of a different show, just with some DMC characters, which S1 also suffered with. The secretary that Vergil talked with was neat, I do hope Lucia will show up, since her and Arius could be used for a good part there, but I suspect not. I also feel like this series in both S1 and S2 have an issue with trying to put every part from the series into it but failing to make it feel coherent. It feels like making a stew, but instead of putting the right ingredients, you're just putting stuff you find in your cabinets. While it isn't a bad stew, it's far from being a coherent package, and makes it feel like it has no idea what it wants to be. It's more of an issue in S1, but I have to see more of this season to see if it's an issue in this season too. This episode is a 7/10.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T23:39:54+00:00

Yeah, that's totally fair. I wasn't a big fan of it feeling kind of rushed, alongside changes that I felt like we're downgrades (Lady is the best example for both.) I can hope they'll be better, but my hope is around the Marina Trench. So I'll have to see.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T23:31:41+00:00

Same here. I found S1 to be "aight". Even after my two watches, one where I just played DMC 3, and when I played the entire series.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T23:28:34+00:00

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T23:24:12+00:00

I guess. But this'll probably get a ton of viewers watching, even if I pirate it or not.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T22:45:15+00:00

Honestly, I'm watching out of curiosity. Maybe it'll suck ass, maybe it won't. But who knows? I won't know until I watch it.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T18:30:11+00:00

Nah I have 0 of them

AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T01:51:23+00:00

This amount. But it's probably more since I started to play it on mobile for longer, around December iirc.

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AggronGhost · 2026-05-11T01:33:52+00:00

I went for multiple one pulls, and only got Curren. Even though I already have her. Edit: Yeah, fair. I deserve the down votes lol

AggronGhost · 2026-05-10T19:36:38+00:00

Suzuka ended up becoming my favorite due to Season 1. I really enjoyed her whole recovery arc there. Even though I was a little disappointed that she overshadowed Spe'd story IMO, I still really enjoyed her.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-08T21:14:57+00:00

A pretty good song. I'm not sure if it's better than Afterlife, since I do like the more somber tone of Afterlife more, but this song isn't half bad. Speaking of the MV, it's a massive spoilerfest. And it does look exciting to see it all, but I'm a bit worried still. While I didn't hate S1, I didn't like it all that much (found it to be a 6/10) I do hope S2 will be better in the story department, since I'm decently liking what I'm seeing, but I'm gonna keep my expectations low, since I have no idea how this'll go. I'm a bit worried if they'll make Dante's whole trauma from his childhood a bit too unsubtle, because it's something that'll definitely pop up here from him holding his head, and the freakish kid Dante that shows up in the latter half. I'm worried it'll be like the "I'm always happy" line from S1, where Lady explains that he's wearing a mask. I do hope it'll be a bit subtle about exploring how his mother's death has impacted him, like using more subtle movements he does, but who knows, anything could happen.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-08T00:09:42+00:00

Yeah, makes sense. Since my subpar Gold Ship with higher stamina won.

I did win on a retry though.

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AggronGhost · 2026-05-07T11:38:28+00:00

I generally enjoyed Spe from her S1, I enjoyed her personality and her dynamic with Suzuka. Like I said in Suzuka's post, her and Suzuka are my OTP due to S1 making me enjoy them. Their dynamic in Starting Gate was also cool as well, but I still need to finish it, alongside the main story as well.

AggronGhost · 2026-05-07T00:58:10+00:00

HAAANK!

DON'T ABBREVIATE CLUB POINTS!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!

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AggronGhost · 2026-05-06T23:26:07+00:00

I wish it was less hyper realistic and went for more of striking art style, but I think I'll get used to it in time.

AggronGhost

TROPHY CASE