wait.. I thought ryo is intersex. At least his Satan/Angel form.. am I missing something?
for the purpose of clarity, i’m going to refer to ryo (human form) and satan (angel form) as separate entities by those names. this is probably gonna be a bit long.
please note: i talk about manga canon but i am in no way trying to give go nagai credit for representation he did not intend to write. books belong to their readers and i’m taking devilman from his grubby, grubby hands and this is how i read it.
satan is canonically intersex, yes. the question that some people are flipping out about is whether or not ryo is intersex. many people (myself included) believe that ryo should be intersex as well because
1. intersex people deserve more and better representation
2. only having satan, the Big Bad of Christianity, as intersex (especially in the way that nagai describes it) contributes to the fetishization/villainization/othering of intersex people whereas having both ryo and satan as intersex demonstrates that regular, NOT EVIL people can be intersex as well
3. why the fuck not? there’s no good reason for ryo to be dyadic (which means not intersex)
in terms of the manga, this can even be backed up. in og devilman, ryo is never shown without his shirt except for after the sirene fight, in which his bandages cover more than they did in the OVAs, as shown below. the bandages loop around his chest and up to his neck and he put a bandana on top (because he’s an icon). however, there would be no canonical basis for saying that og manga ryo isn’t intersex even if he was specifically shown without breasts because he could still have some other intersex condition that doesn’t cause breast development. ryo does not necessarily need to present intersexness in the same manner that satan does.
to my knowledge, only satan is shown in devilman lady, so ryo does not appear. as such, i’ll move on to the mess that is devilman saga. i have not read devilman saga because it is ongoing, still being translated, and seems to be a Fucking Mess™, but here is what i do know about it.
in devilman saga, ryuuji (may or may not be the same character as ryo; may be a human form of archangel michael rather than satan, but seeing as michael and satan are identical twins, the logic still holds true for ryo regardless) is presented canonically and visually as intersex. this portrayal is absolutely botched for a number of reasons i won’t get into here, but it’s there, as shown below. in a later panel that i can’t find on google images and i’m too lazy to dig for right now, ryuuji changes into a suit and jokingly gives yuuki (maybe the same as akira? same deal as with ryuuji; it’s unclear at the moment) a pair of fake boobs with the implication that ryuuji merely had fake boobs on and is not actually intersex. however, given nagai’s shitty sense of humor, ryo’s tendency to make odd jokes in the original manga, and ryuuji’s anxiety at yuuki’s reaction to his coming out, it’s pretty safe to just ignore this panel and assume that ryuuji is actually intersex and was just trying to calm yuuki down.
so for those of you keeping score at home, intersex ryo is ambiguous in og devilman, not relevant in devilman lady, and very much canonical in devilman saga. however, i only discuss this because some people are using manga canon to discredit intersex ryo headcanons and i personally find that to be bullshit because 1. people can headcanon whatever and 2. there isn’t actually any manga basis for denying intersex ryo because shit like neo devilman and shin devilman isn’t canon; only the three parts of the primary devilman trilogy are canon.
in terms of the anime adaptations, ova ryo is notably shown without breasts, but he could still have a condition that does not cause breast development (or you can do what i do and say “my ova ryo now” and just ignore how he is drawn in the films because the 70s-80s were not a great time for intersex representation and the animators were just cowards). crybaby ryo is never shown outside of his XXXXXXL polo, so he is ambiguous like manga ryo.
i hope this was helpful to anyone. just because a character is not canonically depicted a certain way doesn’t mean that you can’t headcanon it, especially in this case where it helps to spread representation for a marginalized group. however, given circumstances in the devilman manga, there’s very little canonical basis for denying intersex ryo if that helps you sleep at night.
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