Various people provide a decent chunk of dead air in the aftermath of the main character freaking the heck out last episode. Government types are getting suspicious of whatever craziness Asuka the Abusive Boss Lady is up to. Dead dead dead air. Now some creepy dude is interrupting Kazumi's cooking of pasta (presumably with ketchup and oil) to tell her not to expect Jun to be home, you know, ever. Jun's all strapped to a table being experimented on for a while, then the people doing so take a break, and she wanders off. Don't they usually sedate people in these situations? Meanwhile, Kazumi wanders off to a totally deserted big loud night club, and runs into uh... her modeling boss that was only even in like, 1 episode? And meanwhile, Jun is wandering around some more. If it seems like I'm overusing meanwhile here, that's because this show really likes to arbitrarily switch back and forth between locations every 5 seconds, regardless of whether anything interesting is happening in any of'em. It's rather annoying. Anyway though, Jun wanders into another one of those scenes where it looks like something incredibly inappropriate is being displayed, but there's too many all-concealing shadows and quick jumpy edits to be sure what exactly. I definitely see Dr. What'shisname... let me pause it and check notes, oh yeah, Jason. Anyway, he's in Devilman form, and chained to a wall (OK, at this point in the series, I have made the connection that I don't like the outcome when people are chained to walls), and Asuka although fully clothed, appears to be... humping his leg or something. It's probably "something" and I'm probably glad I don't know what, and I'll probably find out anyway. Or maybe I won't, because Asuka gives a suspicious glance at the pillar she's behind and leaves... oh, and he's chained to a cross actually. Meanwhile, the dance club now has people in it, and one of them is monstering out. Meanwhile, Jun is talking to Jason (see? Jumps like crazy). The gist is, he's chained up because HA is a bunch of jerks, and hey don't like him being a jerk too, that's too much to deal with. Meanwhile, correction, everyone but Kazumi in the nightclub is monstering out. They're turning into anthropomorphic unicorns and stuff. So now it looks like some sorta Furry Rave. Meanwhile, "I like this form better." Meanwhile, goons cone to shoot the monsters, and a random girl pops out of the floor to safely and calmly sneak Kazumi out through the sewer. Meanwhile, I'm missing the boring Devilmen conversation because I'm typing meanwhile so often. The general gist is lack of job satisfaction all around. And, of course, being hit on by a guy who looks like Satan. Meanwhile, Asuka takes a shower, followed by some heroin, followed by bossing people around via computer. Followed by saying Jun's all super powery compared to monsters. Meanwhile, in the sewer, random girl introduces Kazumi to a bunch of sewer kids, in front of some graffiti I think says Heaven's Gate. Will they all commit suicide to board a comet to paradise? No, but random girl will take her hat off to reveal cat ears. "No! No! No!" I've found an underground lair of annoying anime fangirls! Meanwhile Asuka has a thing for Devilmen I guess, according to Jason, and Jason has a thing for being the coolest one there is... or at least the coolest one's dad. At this point he has Jun pinned to the floor. She starts monstering out so she can properly slap him across the face, and he says something to the effect of "woohoo! Hot monster on monster action!" Meanwhile (GAH!) Asuka is sitting at a computer watching them through the security camera, evidently fully keen on this. "Start recording." I knew it all along! All this stuff about fighting monster was a front! The HA are really just out to make freaky monster porn! "Give me your RNA!" so I become more powerful is an odd line, and concept. "Woo, it's such a huge turn on when girls hate me and try to prevent me from raping them!" (It's sad how close the actual dialog is to what I'm typing here). Another quick meanwhile so we can see Asuka slowly licking her fingers, which really kills the last of any hope that I was kidding about the porn bit. "Let's mix our blood together!" (Meanwhile, Asuka says one line, I'm just trying to count the jumps now) Now we've got some engrish I'm not repeating... and uh... both Devilmen grow to city destroying size. OK, so I guess that whole gimmie your RNA bit and blood mixing actually really was referring to some sorta loopy plan to get the "Grow-to-city-destroying-size!" enzymes into his own bloodstream. Meanwhile Asuka seems disappointed at this turn of events, because I guess now she'll need to go find a camcorder or something... or a military task force. So, basically, GIANT MONSTER FIGHT! And apparently, cheating to turn into a giant monster is enough to make Jason here legitimately be an inhuman monster mentally wise, so it's a legitimate actiony monster fight now, instead of some sorta freaky psuedo-porny fight. Yay. Asuka, on being questioned by someone or other, kinda cryptically mentions that as far as she's concerned, the whole notion of humanity being overtaken by humans that can shapeshift into big ol' monsters is lame. The real things that should replace humanity should just plain be big giant monsters all the time! And... no more Jason. Good, he skeeved me out. Oh, and they changed the ED song. It's now a pseudo-sappy wussy rock thing with, if I read that right, "my skin melts off" in the lyrics somewhere. What a weird time to change that.
Random girl somewhere talking to her dad on the phone about evacuating. Didn't we already start like 3 episodes with that sort of random scene? Anyway, the gist of what's up right now is, Jun's on the lamb, and Asuka's heading off to America to score more heroin or something, and being all "mwahaha, everything is going according to my evil plan" to Maeda here, before firing him. Meanwhile, Kazumi seems to have escaped from the underground catgirl hovel while off camera, making me wonder what the point of any of that was, and is crashing with some gay guy for now. And Jun is crashing in a drainage ditch. Oh, the random kid from earlier's dad is Jun's modeling boss. Suddenly, TOTALLY SILLY SEA TURTLE MAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET gets blown away with a bazooka. What a hilariously random thing to abruptly cut to. Meanwhile, Butterfly Boy is amassing an army of elite goons, like this guy here who can evidently smell when someone is capable of monstering out. Meanwhile, Kazumi is lured into the sewer again by her new catgirl friend (to hang with her fang having friend, and her antennae having friend). They're evidently harmless monstery people whose forms don't really do much or anything or revert. Or something. Meanwhile, Jun calls her grandmother. Meanwhile, boss-man's wife and kid are skipping town, because, well, town's full of monsters and stuff. He's staying behind because he's a workaholic. Meanwhile, here's another really silly looking monster. Meanwhile, Jun comes in to work, having heard about it from her grandmother. Yeah, that's totally how to keep a low profile. On the plus side, she did kinda have to run away from the HA because they were sick of all the property damage, and at least doing modeling work gets you a decent new set of clothes instead of a randomly picked up trench coat (possibly Jason's actually, him being sensible like that). Oh, but apparently she doesn't get to keep those. Meanwhile, on a train, some fat guy turns into a giant tick or something, and Butterfly Boy's goons, in monster form, hover overhead, in various different silly birdish forms. Oh, and the train had boss-man's wife and kid on it. Oh, and boss man wants to sneak off with Jun and ditch'em, which I guess won't be a big deal because wifey went splat, and the kid seems to be the sole survivor... and the kid is evidently- oh... the kid is evidently on the box cover, and the fat guy didn't turn into a tick, but rather a centipede man. Lovely. Not only is this box cover pseudo-pornish, it's pseudo-porn involving a girl who's like, maybe 12. Once again, gift from my grandmother here! Anyway though, Jun tries to say to boss-man, "you don't wanna sneak off with me, I'm a monster" and goes to demonstrate by slowly transforming. This is honestly pretty hilarious because the first 90% of the transformation sequence is just her hair forming into the Retarded Devilman Haircut, and she gets cut off halfway through with an "I love you anyway!" and a kiss. Anyway, back at the train, Little Girl runs, steals a corpses cell phone, and interrupts the sappiness with a "there's a monster trying to kill me!" message. Maeda comes in conveniently to say where the trouble is (which would be contrived, but he was kinda in charge of tracking her down. So she goes and finishes with that demonstration of transformation sequence (ripping her trench coat to shreds) and goes to be all superhero-y. In the ensuing fight scene, we totally don't get the cover art picture, which is a Good Thing. Little girl runs from her savior for some reason. Best I can figure, she's scared away by the stupid haircut.
Starting things off today in the lab in America Jason there owned... Maeda (I think) is trying to look up info on Asuka in the computer, when he's caught by a local Big Fat Black Doctor (because, again, this lab is in America, and they have those there). Meanwhile, Asuka is talking to/hitting on her new secretary, who I'm going to call Dr. Girlfriend, because she's a doctor of some sort, and I need to make a reference to a good show about now for sanity's sake. Big Black Doctor makes arrangements to secretly meet with Maeda and plot exposition somewhere in New Jersey. And naturally, the next shot opens with a Tori gate somewhere, because the directly has ADD or something. Jun's in a park, and gets confronted by a cop, who's killed by some kinda harpy thing that also confronts her, and looks just like the one that helped kill Kazumi's parents. Asuka's off being manipulatey at some general. Oh, now it Jun's being attacked by a whole gaggle of previously killed monsters! She's confused by this, but it makes perfect sense to me. It's pretty much the standard to make you fight all the old bosses again when you get towards the end of the game after all. Evidently Dr. Girlfriend is actually a spy for the U.S. Government to keep tabs on Asuka, but Mr. Smell Out Monster People has her phone, presumably having killed her like, 5 seconds after she was introduced. Ah well. These things happen. Meanwhile, Kazumi and the lame monster girls (hereafter, the magical girls) are doing things. Now back to the fight scene. "As you say, we've already died once. Therefore, we can never die again." Time to run then. Oh no! The path is blocked by Mr. 2 T-Rexes! Ah, the magical girls are just looting a department since the city is kinda deserted. Meanwhile, two cops almost crash into the fight scene, which has spilled out into the road. They take a potshot at Jun, because obviously you should always shoot at the not scary looking monster all the others are trying to kill... actually, I can see a lot of contexts where that really would be good advice, but still. Evidently, one of the sillier bird people is the necromancer here, so we have one single monster to kill and end our big complex problem. Now the fight crashes through the floor into the magical girl's sewer, allowing our hero and our annoying moe character to wave at each other real quick before getting back to their respective tasks. Oh, and the necromantic bird girl is named Izumi, which I suppose is way easier to type. Anyway, the fight ends with everyone running off in different directions, and Asuka finding Jun collapsed somewhere random. Meanwhile, in New Jersey (hehehe), Big Black Doctor is named Todd Kimball, and seriously is crazily huge and racistly drawn. Like, it's really really dark in this scene here, so all you can really see is his eyes and lips. It's not nearly as bad as at least a dozen other things, but still. Oh, and yes, it is Maeda he's talking to. "And this is also where Lan Asuka killed her father." Meanwhile, back in Japan, Asuka is taking a shower while Jun is sleeping in the other room, when she notices there's someone on the other side of the shower curtain. Surprise! It's Butterfly Boy come to kill you. Also, Asuka has nipples right now. I kinda feel the need to mention this because, for instance, two episodes ago, there was a grand total of like, 5 minutes or so of Jun naked and lying on an examining room table and stuff like that, plus various people in showers and bath scattered around other episodes with the relatively TV-friendly nippleless boobs. I can deal with it if you always have'em, I can deal with it if you never have'em, I can even deal with it when it's conditional, like shower scene=no, rape scene=yes (but I'd REALLY rather not watch anything where that's a rule that I can establish). Here though it's just totally arbitrary, and that's weird. Mr. Unflattering Stereotype is, meanwhile, explaining how apparently, Asuka is actually the first person ever to have monstered out. Butterfly Boy, on the other side of the world, confirms... incidentally, I can't see a window in the Japan scene, but as best as I can figure, they seriously screwed up and made it the middle of the night in both Japan and New Jersey here. Oh, correction. Asuka's DAD was the first person ever to monster out, she just shot him after he killed her mom. Much like she just shot Butterfly Boy now to shut him up. That is to say, several times, because in both the flashback, and in now, they keep getting back up. Past dad's monster form is kind of a big monkey with horns. Asuka says something all crazy sounding to Butterfly Boy about how "humans are just stepping stones on her way to evolution, they just turn into beasts, while I'll turn into a god!" Jun: "Huh?" Then Butterfly Boy goes all Legato and telekineses her arm to stick the gun in her own mouth. In the flashback, Asuka blows her monster-dad's brains all over the wall (where the stain still is 4 years later for Maeda and friend to stare at while talking), while in the present, evidently blowing her own brains out. Maeda: "But that doesn't mean Asuka's a Beast too. Devil Beast Progress isn't supposed to be inheritable." Then why have you been calling it evolution all this time people? "Yeah, she's not a human OR a Devil Beast, but oh, the CIA's here, so I'll have to give you the rest of this exposition on a CD-ROM." And then turns into one of those Japanese Bib Bears so he can shield Maeda from the CIA's hail of bullets. "Oh, and when you get back to Japan, tell Jun she's the true hope of Devilmen!" Well, aside from you, apparently, the only other one there's been died last episode, and I'm assuming the main character from regular Devilman is dead or something, because I've yet to see any sort of attempt at a tie-in (unless I totally missed it, but this show SUCKS at doing anything subtly except concealing monster appearance, so I doubt it). Oh, and Asuka didn't kill herself, she shot the mirror at the last minute. Butterfly Boy leaves, Asuka says "sic'em Jun!" Jun says "woah woah woah, before I go do that, what was that bit about all of humanity being stepping stones in your path to godhood?" Meanwhile, Kazumi's having a sleepover with the magical girls, and they ask if she's like them, and get a yeah... and now you're saying "Beast gene" in the same episode you said it wasn't inheritable. Maybe the translators suck and they meant to say it was recessive, or maybe Go Nagai knows jack squat about what any of these terms mean. Anyway, the context of "Beast gene" is Maeda looking at what's on the CD-ROM. It has this shpiel about there being the beast gene, and then also this "lotus gene" that only one person has. And here's that person's stats: RUN ASUKA (Way to give the blond American girl there such a not english name, and way to frell it up in all the fansubs when you mention it despite it being written in english at this point) tall: 175cm hair color: blond blood type: B sex: male Yes, that's right boys and girls. It seems our evil abusive bisexual boss-lady is, in fact, not only evidently some sorta mutant god-monster, but also, for good measure, a transexual.
You know what's REALLY sad? I now totally see the logic behind the arbitrary nipple showing earlier. A small part of it is "ah, but this is technically a guy, we're allowed to draw THEIR nipples!" and a much bigger part of it is that weird habit anime/manga creators have of trying to make make the male audience drool over someone, and then go "haha! That's really a dude you're fantasizing about!" As far as I can tell, it's such a popular trend because all these people hate their fans and want to make them suffer. That or it's some sorta crazy Secret Gay Agenda like crazy people are always talking about. Nonono, it's not pro-gay sitcoms they're trying to use to turn our children gay! It's anime fan service! We must warn the people quickly! Anyway, back to watching the awful show now. I think I have one episode left. Seriously though, you know it's a horrible show when in retrospect you can go "Aha! That girl has nipples! She must really be a guy!"
One month later, an anti-turning into a monster vaccine is developed and distributed. Gee, what do you suppose the odds are that that'll actually make there be more monsters? 100% sound about right? Let's watch and see. Now we've got a confusing montage of Maeda going around and Jun running around, and technobabble about evil monster RNA, and the city has people in it, but it doesn't seem to have hurt the Magical Girls' foraging abilities. Before the technobabble is even up, yeah, the drug makes people monsters. They evidently tested it though before making it available to the general population, so... great. We have a done to death plot device, and then at the last minute, we decide not to even use it. Meanwhile, the magical girls are expositing too, about how first one of them went all cat-girl, and then all her friends became similar, and none of them went on killing sprees or anything, but still they're persecuted. Or should I say FURsecuted? The correct answer is, I should not. Because there is no context where that pun isn't infuriatingly awful. Oh, and yes, it seems Dr. Girlfriend has been replaced with a monster that disguises itself as her, or always was one. Not important which really.,, and Asuka's evidently on to her. This show has so many TOTALLY POINTLESS plot twists they throw away immediately! Anyway though, they're rounding up all the people carrying the monster gene and sticking them in a concentration camp, and giving them injections of either defective anti-monster serum, or poison, probably the latter. This is bad for the Magical Girls. Fortunately, Izumi shows up to take them all off to safety. Oh hey, she has no nipples when she reverts to human form here. She must really be a girl! And here's someone from the 70s riding into the city on his motorcycle, and here's someone monstering out in the street, and here's a hundred other people doing so. OK. Guess it wasn't poison. Maeda explains the deal with the drug to Jun elsewhere. I'm glad I stopped calling him "random goon" a while back, because he's kinda become like the 3rd most important character. The Magical Girls figure they're better off living on Monster Island (where the monster concentration camp turned hideout is) than with paranoid army dudes trying to kill'em. I'd just hide in a fangirl wad myself. Anyway, Maeda's all "I know Asuka sucks, but could you please go kill all these monsters for, you know, general principle's sake?" Anyway, army dudes are beating up the magical girls, so their leader transforms into Cheetara from Thundercats and... gets shot like 2000 times immediately after. Well, that was another pointless scene. Anyway, Jun comes to save the day, and Izumi comes to also save the day, and/or kidnap Kazumi, again, and lure Jun into a trap. Mainly the second one. OK, seriously, the crazy ADD editing in this episode is way way worse than normal. We're like,arbitrarily skipping over every other period of 15 seconds or something. Butterfly Boy says Kazumi really is a carrier of the monster gene, making that episode where "We've secretly replaced Jun's ward with an evil catgirl, let's see if she notices" episode that much more arbitrary and confusing. He then makes Kazumi watch while his all star bird people team pins Jun to the wall and beats the heck out of her. There's some blood being coughed up on Jun's side of things, and some Butterfly Boy telling Kazumi "Come on! Monster out and try to stop us! You know you wanna!" And then the episode ends, all 2 parter-y.
So yeah. This show's living up to my expectations better now. We've got a couple more That's Not Right moments, and we've got a coma-inducingly formulaic plot totally unravelling into incoherent (yet still somehow generic) mess where they pretty much decided to say "OK, the bad guys are bad guys still, the good guys are also bad guys, the government are bad guys, I guess the good guys are just these 6 girls and Maeda there." It's also dramatically upping the number of random silly monster designs per episode, and that's just super. They're hilarious.
The really good news though is, just one disc left and I am DONE with this sleazy boring badness.