gosh darn fiddlesticks

Emotional Support Riv

Illustration from Murzilka by Evgenii Rachev (1906-1997)

UH. UM.

this post is a pretty good guide on what to expect from all the different manga and anime versions so i would start there. you dont need to remember everything its just cool to know about

where to read is simple enough, i found good sites here and here. the version on both is a "director's cut" which adds a prologue chapter at the beginning and a couple side stories tacked onto the end, but as far as i can tell everything else is unchanged. ive heard some versions shove shin devilman in there somewhere, which is kind of a pseudo-sequel? interquel? maybe canon, maybe not? kind of awful for a lot of reasons but has some cool parts. like every other entry in the devilman franchise whether you read it or not doesnt really matter. everything in the devilman extended universe is both canon and not canon. it's fairly easy to tell apart from the original because of a slight art style change.

my personal first experience with devilman was being shown the english dub of devilman: the birth, an ova that adapts the first volume. i heartily recommend this to be everybody's first experience with devilman. it's so fucking awesome. the dub is part of that very special category of dubs that are technically "not good" but is crazy funny and fun to watch, and i think that fits the tone of the manga really well. it's on youtube. please watch it. (as a warning, it does include some pretty upsetting animal death about five minutes in, which wasnt in the original, in addition to all the gore and body horror that WAS in the original)

devilman is a story about the extremes of humanity, about war and violence and sex and it was written in 1972 and doesnt necessarily handle its subjects sensitively. most of the content isnt too crazy by today's standards but i dont know what your tolerance level is for that sort of thing, so just be mindful of yourself.

one of my favorite things about the devilman manga is that it looks weird as fuck. its so important and groundbreaking and influential and it looks like this

thats frankly inspiring to me. i read devilman and i feel capable of achieving my dreams.

the best anime adaptation of devilman is cb chara go nagai world and im not in the least bit kidding about that. but it's probably best not to start with that one, and also learn a little about mazinger z and violence jack before checking it out.