Dante is the main character in the video game franchise Devil May Cry... and Dante is hot. If you put Dante in another game, I'll play it. If you tell me that lord hotness is going to be in a manga, I'm going to find a way to lay my hands on it... and that's what this article is about. I've just finished reading volumes 1 and 2 of the Devil May Cry 3 manga and I have a few things I want to share with you.
I usually don't do the manga thing. I leave that to Pandalicious and MagicMysticGrl... they know what they are doing. Whenever I get a new manga novel I always start at the wrong end. Yes, that page that annoys most regular manga readers on how to read the panels and start at the other end of the book... yeah, they make that for me. Sorry. But I'm digressing, I need to talk about the manga. I actually liked this manga. It took me a while to get the hang of following the action [as a newb, I find it difficult to track fighting sequences in manga form on occasion] but once I did, I found many of the things I love about the DMC series to be present in the manga.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the badassedness that is Dante can adequately be conveyed by print alone, but I did appreciate the attempts to include as many Dante-style one-liners in both volumes. There is at least one per page in the manga, but they somehow don't pack the same punch as the one liners in the actual original DMC1 game. If I'm fair, none of the subsequent DMC titles after the first game had Dante dropping the entertainment gold that previously spewed forth from sir I'm-so-hot-I-don't-need-a-shirt. [which is true, he doesn't need a shirt] But Dante was still a rough hero with a vendetta, and I wanted to know more about him.
The two volumes that I read cover some familiar territory: the lore about the legendary knight Sparda, and his twin sons that inherited a great deal of his power... one that embraces his human side, the other his inner demon. The manga traces the storyline set up by the DMC3 game where Vergil seeks out to open the bridge between the world of the demons and humans in order to bring man to his end. Been there done that. What is interesting about the story is the addition of a Madhatter, Alice, and Rabbit character.
The hatter, who speaks in riddles most of the time, is used to set both Vergil and Dante on the path to breaking all the seals needed to bridge together the two worlds of light and dark. The Rabbit ends up being the crutch of Alice, who turns herself over to the dark in order to be older faster. I'm not sure just how Alice will figure in later, but I have an idea. When I get closer to the end I'll tell you what it is and if I was right about it.
My only complaint would have to be the addition of the Enzo character. Enzo is a sidekick for Dante that has been thrown in kind of haphazardly if you ask me. Enzo's job is to set up gigs for Dante. Since when does the Archbishop of Arsewhoop require a middle man? Dante always answered his own phone and was a lone wolf. That's what added to his badassedness in the original game, and made it cool when he teamed up with Trish after defeating Mundis. The only sidekick Dante should ever have is one that is a strong, and bawlzy as he is. Trish and Lady are acceptable partners, a cowardly, sweaty, fat, loser-dude is not. A reaper seriously need to kill Enzo and I'd be happy.
All-in-all, if you've never picked up a manga before and like the Devil May Cry franchise, you should give this manga series a peek.
p.s.
I found this great DMC themed image while looking for the manga artwork, give this dude props for a neat lil SD version of the DMC3 main characters.
Labels: Dante, Devil-May-Cry, Lord-Hotness, Manga, Ninjasistah
« Home