Devilman Crybaby’s beautiful, devastating finale is perfection

Devilman Crybaby, a Netflix-exclusive anime that premiered in early January, is a masterpiece. I knew that just from watching the season’s first half, as I discussed shortly after its debut. But the finale is where creator Masaaki Yuasa really amps up what makes the show so special in order to create what ranks as one of the most brutal, unforgettable, and perfect endings I’ve ever seen.

(It should probably go without saying here, but just in case, major spoilers ahead.)

After nearly four hours of explosive sexuality, an endlessly growing body count and mounting disarray, Devilman Crybaby wraps up right where it should: at the end of the world, with every human, demon or both dead and gone. All that remains is the promise that the horrors that befell Earth will start over; the one being left alive, Satan, is doomed to repeat this cycle for eternity.

Those horrors are shocking, even more so than the rampant sex-turned-death that opened the anime. Akira, the “Devilman Crybaby,” loses all of the loved ones he fought to protect as he balanced his demonic possession and inner humanity. Chief among them is Miki Makamura, the love of his life, and her younger brother Taro. But as Akira’s childhood best friend Ryo — who also exposed Akira to the powerful demon underbelly in an experiment gone wrong — becomes increasingly paranoid about the number of demons populating the human world, he encourages Akira to join him in eradicating humanity.

What results is an orgiastic succession of cannibalism (Taro, who becomes a demon, eats his mother), suicide and murder. In a sense, it’s Akira’s fault for rejecting Ryo’s offer to join him on the demon-killing side. But Akira’s real failure highlights the dark heart Yuasa borrowed from the original Devilman anime and manga for his iteration of the classic story. Despite humankind quickly devolving into the craving the same violent pleasures as the demons, Akira’s intent on protecting those he cares about bleeds through.

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But the world doesn’t deserve him, despite his efforts to fend off the power-hungry people instigating the apocalypse. Killing off everyone but the villain is both tragic and shockingly bold; it is especially so as that villain is Ryo — who reveals himself to be Satan. And despite his desire, as Satan, to decimate as much as possible, Ryo’s lifelong love for Akira leaves him devastated. In Devilman Crybaby, even Satan sheds tears over losing the people he cares for. There is something bold and beautiful about it, that makes such a nihilistic ending feel not so totally hopeless after all.

There’s one post-credits scene, at the end of episode nine, that encapsulates all of the pain and beauty that defines this show: After Miki is stabbed to death just minutes before the credits roll, the text cuts away to she and Akira riding off on a motorbike into the sunset. It will never happen; this is not the reality they have won. But even amid all of the death and destruction and myriad reasons to give up, love continues to exist and win.

I already called Devilman Crybaby a triumph before. By the end of the series, I was even more sure that it was.