In an attempt to catch up with the Devil May Cry (DMC, for short) franchise’s multimedia offerings, I sat down this past weekend and read the DMC novels.
The first DMC novel is simply titled, Devil May Cry. Written by Shin-Ya Goikeda in tangent with Devil May Cry director, Hideki Kamiya, Devil May Cry promises to that it: “…takes the thrill of the smash-hit video game to the next level!”
The title leaves no guess work as to what the novel’s about. And the story, just like the title, gets straight to the point:
plot summary
Tony is a mercenary. He gets paid to kick ass and take names, but he’s real choosy about which jobs he agrees to; preferring to take only the most dangerous offers that have a certain feel. Wielding a giant sword and multiple guns of varying pedigree, Tony is a fearsome opponent.
Though Tony is a formidable man, this silver-haired merc is an unusual specimen among his kind; refusing to kill if he can help it and making a hobby of wiping out the city’s local mob. These characteristics have made Tony something of a legend in the underground merc scene. The city’s mercenaries look up to Tony for his smooth fighting skills and unbeatable reputation. They’ve even started emulating his compassionate stance in the field.
Everything Tony’s built up in the city, however, begins to go to hell, literally, with the arrival of the mysterious bandaged mercenary, Gilver. Gilver is quite, unassuming and a master swordsman with his katana.
His skills are almost a match for Tony’s but unlike Tony, Gilver prefers a more, violent solution to the tasks at hand. Although the two mercs are complete opposites they combine their skills, to devastating effect, in tough assignments. Lately, though, Tony’s solo skills have been in less demand as Gilver quietly replaces him as merc top dog.
As if losing his reputation wasn’t enough, Tony has become a target of inhuman attacks. Amidst the re-shifting in the mercenary ranks, is the onset of demons breaking through the veil of reality into the human world. Howling an unfamiliar name, these devilish phantoms stalk Tony relentlessly.
What are these demonic creatures? What do they want with Tony, and furthermore, how is Gilver, Tony’s antithesis, connected to these recent unearthly happenings?
review
I’ve always had a bit of trouble with translated novels. First off, the dialog tends to be stilted. Secondly, there are Japanese ideas and concepts that, if explained to a native speaker, can be explained in one word or short sentence. If explained to most Westerners in their native tongue, however, may take an afternoon to explain (gambatte took 15 minutes). Hence why, I believe, some scenes and dialog in Devil May Cry seemed not to flow very well.
Even though DMC was afflicted to a slight degree with these very real problems of stilted language and awkward scenes, they weren’t too noticeable. The dialog between characters was natural, or at least, as natural as two sword wielding fiends from Hell can be considered “natural”.
I had a much bigger problem with the excessive use of adjectives throughout, which made the novel seem a bit “wordy”.
The story itself while, none too dramatic or original, was still entertaining. Besides the lack of originality, there was also a decided lack of character development in DMC, and much was taken for granted on the part of the writer.
For example: Tony wasn’t given a back story, for whatever reason (oh wait, play the game! *wink, wink*) and fans of the games won’t have a hard time deciphering the “secret” behind Gilver (Oh, c’mon! I know you can figure that one out!). It seemed as if Devil May Cry was written for the already established fan base of the games and not for the uninitiated. Although, the unwashed masses could eke out some enjoyment from the book as well as veteran fans.
The book, however, lived up it’s video game heritage by reading, overall, just like the titular game, but not as fast paced or angst ridden as the original game.
That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, especially as seeing as how this novel was short and didn’t take any scenic shortcuts on the way leading up to the original game’s intro (which was what this novel was; an intro piece to the game.)
Yet, if the video game format was dragged out for any greater length than already done in the novel, the book would have been less entertaining and more tedious. As it was, I grew tired of the wordy descriptions of Tony’s frequent action scenes:
“The assaults constantly caught him off guard. Blades randomly ejected from walls and floors. Flaming cyclones chased friend and foe alike. Even the demons themselves were armed, taking swipes with long scythes.”
Action like that does not translate well, repeatedly, into a full length novel (which this, thank god, wasn’t). Repeated scenes like that only work for short stories, and even then, sparingly.
Interspersed between chapters is artwork, done by Shiro Miwa, illustrating various scenes in the book. The illustrations aren’t consistent however, and actually feel as though more than one artist had a hand in the novel.
All criticisms and nit-picking aside, as a fan of the games, I wasn’t disappointed with the books. I wasn’t disappointed because I read them with the insight that they wouldn’t be anything else but additional “missions” for Dante to carry out for my reading pleasure.
For other die-hard fans of the games, Devil May Cry offers up a brief glimpse of what happens before Devil May Cry. That’s all. The novel isn’t a deep, long look into Dante’s past. If you pick up the novel, don’t expect to learn Dante’s fave color (I’d guess red, but maybe he prefers green) or why he likes strawberry sundaes, or any other nagging questions you may have about the games. This isn’t that book. Instead, pick up this book if all you want is to read another action packed side adventure of everyone’s favorite silver-haired, demon ass-kicker, Dante. This is that book.
out of a possible four gummies.
