Air Date: Feburary 25, 1990

Genres: Horror, Sci-Fi, Supernatural

Type: OVA

Studio: Oh! Production

Age Rating: MA

Rating: 8/10

/Summary

After becoming the Devilman, Akira is faced with demons coming trying to kill him. Fueled by the his desire to save the world and the people he loves, he faces them head on.

/Review

Since reviewing the first part I've read the manga, and it's turned into one of my favorites ever. I've also re-watched some of the other anime adaptations. All of that to say that I am now very familiar with Devilman and can actually talk about it well. Devilman: Demon Bird covers the second part of the manga. I honestly thought that it would cover the rest of the story, skipping the demon of the week thing. It's the opposite, they only do the demon of the week thing. That's one of my favorite parts of the manga so I don't mind. This does mean that the OVA was never continued until the ending, which is a shame since this is the most faithful and my favorite Devilman adaption.

It does make some changes to fit it into the runtime but the things changed still serve their original roles in the story well. Like how instead of the little girl that Akira plays with and saves being the one on Jinmen's shell, it's his mother. Either way it causes grief and guilt while forcing him into a dilema. I do think the little girl dying is a bit better since he fails to save her AS Devilman. With his mother she was all the way across the world. The Sirene fight wasn't cut though, neither was much of the pre-fight within the house.

The Sirene fight was amazing and lived up to the manga's version. It doesn't play that major of a role in the grand plot but does offer some nice world building with kinda showing that Ryou's characterization of the demon's where kinda wrong. He painted them as barbaric beings that don't care about anything other than killing, but they do have personal relationships and investments to each other. Makes them a bit more human rather than being kill count fodder for Akira. I also enjoy that you can really see how much Amon affected Akira's personality, even in appearance.

The animation for OVA was and still is beautiful, but what really wowed me was the backgrounds. My favorite was around the 40 minute mark, when they're both flying with the moon behind them. It amazed me so much when I first saw it that I replayed it multiple times, taking it in. I gushed about it in the first review so I won't say more about the animation but even the most mundane things look amazing in this OVA. Just a wonderful piece of art. These versions of the demon's designs where also nice. Go Nagai's designs are pretty simplistic so I've always liked seeing how different adaptations interpreted them.

I still recommend this as a good place to start for Devilman, but since it doesn't complete the story you'd either have to read the manga or watch some of the other adaptations. Honestly I really recommend you read the manga first.