Pop Culture Reviews

Distributor: Madman  Released : 16/07/2009 Genre: Anime/Supernatural/Fantasy Credits: Director: Shin Itagaki Writer: Bing Morihashi Starring: Toshiyuki Morikawa (voice of Dante)  Rating: M

This DVD was supplied by Madman Entertainment New Zealand for review

Dante is doing what he does best – kicking demon butt and doing it in style. If you’re not familiar with Dante, the half demon half human anime babe who kills demons for a living, you’ve been missing out! The Devil May Cry animated series is definitely one of the better anime franchises around and it’s based on an equally cool video game by Capcom.

In volume two of the series we have episodes five – eight which are ‘In Private’, ‘Rock Queen’, ‘Wishes Come True’ and ‘Once Upon A Time’. I wasn’t too impressed with the first episode which basically features some guy who has a crush on the girl that works at Dante’s local diner. Strawberry sundaes are his favourite. Of course, this girl has a crush on Dante (ho hum) and tells her prospective boyfriend that he should be more like him. In an effort to uncover just what it is about Dante this girl likes so much, random guy follows Dante around and even breaks into his house!

Eventually he discovers that Dante is a demon hunter and tells the girl to stay away. The story continues with Dante confronting a demon that is chasing the other guy and the two end up being friends at the end of it. Dante, being the gentleman that he is, tells the guy to go back to the girl. Awww.

The story is pretty lacklustre but the action scenes, fighting and general demon slaugther that ensues more than makes up for any lapses in the plot.

The other three episodes are better than the first with the demon-possessed rock star chick in the following story proving to be a pretty good fight for Dante, and the following demon that grants wishes to the unfortunate soul that encounters him (in this case, a fisherman). The final story has Dante trying to find out who is blaming him for a fire that burns down an entire town! No matter what, Dante’s always got his hands full.

The animation is great and is very much like the video games – if you’ve played the games before, you’re bound to see alot of similarities. Published by Funimation who are well-known for publishing some great anime titles, Devil May Cry volume 2 is really one of the more decent and entertaining anime available.