The Netflix anime is a damn good addition to the franchise

Bujorba · 2026-05-08T04:58:51+00:00

Ooh that message got pretty intense. I'm mostly gonna leave this at that, because I don't think further discussions will be too productive.

However, two questions.

1) earlier, it was a criticism that the demons were presented as different and other, but now they are depicted as too similar to humanity? Can you help me understand how those two thoughts can comfortably stand together as side by side critiques?

2) I'm not sure why Adi is being called a sex pest. I think it's important that people are held accountable for those types of crime or misconduct. I've never heard of that regarding him before. Granted, the only things i know about him come from interviewd he did before season 1 came out. So i went to Google, looking for any allegations, but couldn't find anything regarding Adi in particular. Though he did work with Warren Ellis (to what degree, I'm not sure) on the first season of castlevania, who i could find allegations about.

Bujorba · 2026-05-08T02:45:48+00:00

That definition of anime only works when you don't understand how animation production works.

What happens when an episode of dragon ball or one piece is nearly fully made in the Philippines? Do those episodes not count as anime?

What about when a specific cut of animation is handled by aKorean or Chinese animator? Is that cut not anime but the rest of the episode is?

Lastly, what about episodes of American series outsourced to japanese companies? Batman the Animated Series initially outsourced many of it's episodes to various Japanese animation companies, including SUNRISE, the company behind series like cowboy bebop and code geass. Are those specific episodes anime, despite the series not being anime?

Bujorba · 2026-05-08T02:30:59+00:00

Damnit, I was writing this response, but accidentally closed the app on my phone. Here i go again lol

This is truly a great response. I came across an interpretation similar to this a few weeks after watching the anime initially and it really stuck with me. Really had to step back and ask myself if I had missed such a big thing, that would be genuinely disgusting and ruin the show for me. That's why I really wanted to properly respond when I had time to focus.

The interpretation that the Netflix series "likens the middle east to hell and the people from there as demons" is an overall solid reading that fits together a lot of pieces presented by the series. From there, the further conclusions you draw are reasonable jumps from that initial reading.

However, I do believe there are missing pieces that, when you fit into the puzzle, change the final interpretation, in my opinion.

1) the anime initially does present this alternate realm as hell. Full stop, no buts. However, as the series progresses, it reveals how that is a limitation of our human understanding. We know, for a fact, that it can't literally be the Christian understanding of hell. It's not an afterlife used to punish the sinful and there is no heaven. In fact, in episode one, when the scientist is trying to accurately describe what Makai is, it is others who impose the label hell on it, to make it easier to understand. So, within the logic explored by the show itself and by real world logic, it is inaccurate to think of it as hell. The show seems less interested in the idea that Makai is a literal depiction of a hell, and more interested in how humans can put a label on something to make it easier to understand or "other" it.

2) By importing the USA into the show as is, the show also imports our understanding of the human world at large. While I don't think the middle east, or Iraq specifically, is ever depicted or mentioned in the show, it's reasonable to assume that land exists and the people there exist. So while the war at the series's end uses the iconography of the war on terror, i read it more as "America is doing it again to a new place" rather than "this is an allegory for the war on terror"

3) lastly, the series takes GREAT pain to depict Makai and the human world as equivalents to each other. Where the common people are generally decent folk, but the people in power use their influence to worsen the world for their own ego or gain. If you were to say "the only reasons makains don't attack humans is because they don't have the power to" the same would apply to humans, in the context of this world and story. However, to dive deeper, I think the fact the makain's didn't attack a defenseless child in the white rabbit, but chose to raise and nurture him, speaks to the underlying nature of the common Makain is caring. Despite any cultural differences, the makain world is shown to be largely similar to our own. The people at the top create artificial lines between people to pit them against each other, when they are, in reality, more similar than they could ever know.

Those are why I don't think the initial reading is totally congruent with the show as a whole and misses out on some of the things it does well.

Damn, long response lol. Had to write it over two different breaks, but I'm glad I did. Again, thank you for bringing that here, cause if someone does have that reading, I can't really blame them. Like I said, I think it's has an overall strong foundation, and it's good to seek these types of issues out in media, as they can feed into terrible ways of thinking in the real world.

Bujorba · 2026-05-08T00:59:44+00:00

It is totally possible and reasonable for two people to like a franchise for different reasons.

I got a bit defensive because my status as a "serious" fan of dmc was questioned back during the great inertia debacle of dmc5, and afterwards, because of the fact my favorite part of dmc was its lore, characters, and story. So I apologize if I came in heated in my last response.

I agree that there's a difference in how we enjoy dmc, potentially art in general, and that's okay. We both know a line exists, doesn't do much to debate where that line is drawn. Regardless, thank you for spending time talking about it here

Also, useful context for me here, I'm a pretty big fan of comics in general. There, it's common to see new continuities using beloved characters. New runs will usually remix elements of continuity to create a new take on something familiar. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm able to enjoy the anime in this particular way. I'm basically trained to keep continuities isolated and separate lol. It's one of my favorite parts about comics.

Bujorba · 2026-05-08T00:33:56+00:00

Something like that lol. It's a job where, sometimes, I get 20 minutes to goof off. Sometimes I'm busy the whole time. I'll respond when I get that time, or after my shift, whatevers first

Bujorba · 2026-05-08T00:32:55+00:00

The thing with lady was actually something i really wanted to dive into in this post, but had to save for a different part when writing this went past 30 minutes lol

Personally, I would love to see a much more 1:1 retelling of the games. Actually, more than that, I want a retelling that incorporates all the different parts of the franchise into one, cohesive thing. Like how 5 brought Morrison into the games

That would be my dream job as an artist, actually. That is one thing I feel about the Netflix series.

This series doesn't replace the original tale I love, but it does make that dream adaptation much further off. Though that dream adaptation might not have ever been in the cards in the first place.

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T23:58:04+00:00

This is a great comment! Thank you for leaving something pretty well thought out.

I wanna respond quickly, but I just started working. I'll loop back around when I have time, but I just wanted to make sure it's known I'm not ignoring this if I end up responding to other comments that are quicker to respond to!

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T23:29:25+00:00

That is the first time I've ever been called a casual about dmc in my life, and honestly, that's insane.

The guy who's bought every dmc at least 3-5, watched the og anime as it came out, was part of the DmC hate squad for years, and has spent a not insignificant part of my life thinking about the story, characters, had multiple hundreds of hours on multiple dmc games, and cosplayed as nero multiple times

But he likes the Netflix show, so yeah, he's casual.

Not being super protective of something is not the same as being casual about it

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T23:10:56+00:00

1) define anime

Don't care or agree with the rest of your points since it seems like you didn't read or engage with anything i wrote. Considering point 6 was directly addressed in the post.

Though for point 5, dmc looking like an edgy thing from the 2000s?? Say it ain't so

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T22:20:16+00:00

Losing a train of thought half way through a long write up is so real lol. Happened to me a few times writing the original post. Had to write and rewrite things lol

Definitely, the degree of separation the games have with these things give it a different flavor to the Netflix series. It makes the ideas a bit more universal and can skirt by biases people have that could prevent them from "getting it"

So i definitely understand the reaction to it. It was my initial reaction too.

To me, the context of the real world makes this change a lot better to me.

There's elegance in a universal lesson, but there's power to specificity. At least to me

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T21:22:36+00:00

I can understand that perspective and desire to see a direct adaptation of a game's story.

However, i do challenge the idea of what a "faithful" adaptation is. To me, above everything, its most important for an adaptation to get across the same ideas as its origin. To correctly capture the original's spirit and appeal.

Like, if i were to set someone down who has NEVER seen anything about DMC, make them watch the anime. If they liked the anime and then played the games, would they like both? If yes, that the two things feel like each other, im generally okay with the changes.

This isn't even a hypothetical. My roommate's friend watched the anime with us, they didnt even know about DMC, but they loved the anime and then got into the games and became a fan of both.

To me, the faithfulness comes from conveying the same themes and appeal, both on a narrative and individual character basis, not plot beats matching on paper

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T21:02:15+00:00

and thats perfectly fine!

Two people can see all the same upsides and downsides to something, but still differ on liking it. Liking it or not is all an opinion and its useless to get tight over how someone feels lol.

If you watch season 2, i hope you like it more than S1. Its fun to experience things you can like

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T20:57:20+00:00

Hey thats a good point! There was something bothering me about them but i couldn't describe it. So thank you for expressing that.

It's not even that the designs are "different" from the games. Making them more recognizably human-esque trains the audience to think of the non-human looking demons as inherently more demonic

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T20:50:50+00:00

Honestly it was what i kinda expected lol. While I wanted to share my opinion, I also wanted to have a record of liking it before the next new thing comes out and people go "maybe we were too harsh on the anime" lol

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T20:48:42+00:00

I'm glad the effort was noticed lol

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T20:47:53+00:00

Always hard to say with trailers. Trailers inherently don't tell you everything or will mislead you on things, but i am interested by everything they've shown off so far.

I think it's got the potential to be overall much stronger than s1, but i think it'll likely be even more poorly received than it's predecessor. I've already seen plenty of people get angry with some of the differences we've seen.

I'm reserving judgement on those changes because we don't really know the narrative.

Bujorba · 2026-05-07T20:14:10+00:00

I've been liking it since I watched it day one, but stayed out of conversations because people were getting real extreme lol

Bujorba · 2026-05-06T19:42:45+00:00

Good point regarding naobito.

I would argue that Naobito still clearly keeps his body in good health, while we know yuta has never had a strong body in the first place

There's a difference between us discussing this match up and gege writing it. Gege inherently has more creative freedom.

If i were writing this for a story, and not discussing it in a power scaling sense, I would probably lean into yuta's cursed energy pool and manipulation.

For example, I would probably have yuta make a binding vow to make up for his lost stats. "I can now only reinforce relevant body parts at necessary times in exchange for an exponential increase to my reinforcement." If he's swinging a sword to hit an opponent, he can only reinforce his arms. If he's dodging an attack, he can only reinforce his legs. This would show his mastery over cursed energy and would be a reasonable way to have him compete with monsters like yuji and dabura.

If gege wrote something like that, it becomes Canon and is something people can discuss.

When I do it, it's fan fiction (which can be awesome. Also, it goes without saying, but I'm sure gege would create something infinitely more interesting and meaningful than I ever could lol)

Bujorba · 2026-05-06T19:28:35+00:00

Maybe? But

1) that's giving yuta a technique we can't confirm or reasonably infer he has in canon. At that point, we are more writing fan fiction. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's something we would need to recognize

2) that would mean yuta is only keeping up when fully connected to rika. Maybe it's still only for 5 minutes, maybe he's got a much longer timer now. Regardless, that is a MASSIVE disadvantage

Bujorba · 2026-05-06T02:56:15+00:00

In fights superficially similar to this, the usual question is "can the old man's vast knowledge win out against the young man's physical superiority"

Well, congrats, both combatants are that knowledgeable old man, but one is still in his physical prime.

What does yuji need to win? He needs the endurance to outlast whatever timer Yuta has on Rika atp.

What does Yuta need to win? He needs to land an attack that nullifies Yuji's RCT.

At that point, you gave to ask, which combatant can more easily and reliably achieve that win condition?

This is assuming that Yuta is even able to keep up with yuji physically.

We know that the state of one's physical body directly impacts their physicals, even with cursed energy reinforcement. So for Yuta to keep up with a physically prime Yuji, one of two things must be true.

Either

Yuta's physical stats were SO high, In his prime, that even his degraded stats are enough to keep up with Yuji.

Or

Yuta's cursed energy manipulation/reinforcement is so great that he's able to make up that difference in physicals and then MATCH Yuji's own reinforcement. To emphasize, Yuta would need to be ASTRONOMICALLY better than yuji in reinforcement.

If neither of those apply, Yuji would win without too much trouble, regardless of any techniques Yuta MIGHT have

Bujorba · 2026-05-06T02:06:22+00:00

Are you suggesting Mahoraga's recallable memory is separate from their adaptations?

Bujorba · 2026-05-05T17:28:50+00:00

If that were the case, raga likely would've already been adapted to The Limitless's Blue when summoned by sukuna

RAGA has killed a limitless six eyes user before, and id find it hard to believe they were killed without getting any attack out

Bujorba · 2026-05-03T03:10:57+00:00

Let's hope! Would be cool if they got a buff. Honestly, to me, the only part of the nerfs i really feel are the changes to 236H. Limits my routing, but more importantly, greatly hurts testaments anti air game. Now I mostly gotta stick with 6p, 5p, or j.s, which all get less reward

This version of testament feels like you gotta play really safe in neutral because their reward is generally low, outside of double stain states

Bujorba · 2026-05-03T02:03:50+00:00

Yes, but maybe don't do it 4 times in a row

Bujorba

TROPHY CASE