So apparently the chronology for Devil May Cry is now
Backstory: Sparda fights the entire demonic army, wins, seals them away, seals the Temen-Ni-Gru, strips the names of the Seven Fallen away, seals the Hellgate in Fortuna City, apparently rules as the feudal lord, does demon hunting shit with the Vie Di Marli, settles down with Eva and has twin sons, Dante and Vergil, but then he vanishes, apparently dying, and Eva gets murdered by demons and Vergil and Dante are orphaned
Vergil Cutscenes In DMC4SE/Him Visiting Fortuna City/Conceiving Nero
Devil May Cry 3 Prequel Manga (were it not cancelled as a result of the artist just abruptly quitting)/Vergil’s campaign opening cutscenes
Devil May Cry: The Animated Series
Devil May Cry 4/Deadly Fortune
Devil May Cry 5: Before The Nightmare Prequel Novel
….and honestly? This actually does go a pretty decent way to explain why Dante Is Like That In Devil May Cry 2.
In Devil May Cry 3, he’s a teenager with a huge hatred of demons and nothing but scorn for his father, while also acting like what would happen if you gave the typical frat boy super powers, so he starts off the game and acts most the game as a cocky hedonist excited for new fights, with his stated motivation being that he doesn’t like Vergil and just wants to fight him, though he has a revelation where he has his awakening to justice like his father, as he explicitly lays out to Lady post defeat cutscene
In Devil May Cry 1, he’s far more serious, but he’s also a cocky smartmouth still, though he has his emotional moments
But in The Animated Series, he has a pretty boring and miserable life when he’s not fighting and killing demons.
He also tends to take a lot more damage than he’d usually take in the games, and he seems to be pretty sour and (badly) hiding pretty serious emotional problems when Trish and Lady ain’t around. In between this, and how there’s that recurring gag of him being a complete slob and not cleaning up the place…
It’s really likely that in the anime, Dante is depressed. Probably even to the point where he’s almost suicidal. He constantly eats junk food. He seems to miserable unless he’s hanging out with Trish, Lady, or both. He drinks frequently. He seems to have basically no drive in life, and no desire or interest in taking jobs that don’t catch his interest in very specific standards.
And so this brings us to DMC2.
Now, we know the REAL out of lore reason Dante is Like That is cause DMC2 was most likely not intended to have been a Devil May Cry game, but got retooled into a Devil May Cry game at some point during development.
But this newly retconned reason that Dante is a depressive person in crisis makes sense. He doesn’t really know Lucia all that well at all at first, and about all he knows about Matier and Lucia is that they’re demon hunters that are part of the Vie Di Marli, a demon hunting pseudo religious order that have the blood of fiends and that they contracted out to him for help to deal with Arius.
It even makes the stupid coin flip gimmick fit, too, since Dante appears to be using it to distance himself in a psychological way, but where he’s making himself reach the conclusion he wants to cause it’s a double headed coin. Guy barely talks until it comes to Lucia’s crisis that forms the crux of her character arc, and where she begs Dante to kill her, and he pointedly refuses and reassures her that demons don’t cry and worry about harming humans. So he volunteers to go down to Hell, a possible suicide mission without any hesitation.
and then you can even see some of this in Devil May Cry 4, too, rather surprisingly!
there’s the easter egg of him watching Nero in the intro to the game, but then in the opening cutscene, he breaks in and blasts Sanctus right between the eyes in front of his faithful. but there’s one thing about this opening fight before he runs into Nero, and even during a lot of his fight with Nero.
Dante is completely silent until Nero’s Devil Bringer is revealed to him, with Dante being surprised and remarking that Nero has “a trick up your [his] sleeve”
Then after all that, and after Nero starts to get the best of him (so Nero thinks), Dante starts to remark “so you too are a…”
But the question is, a what, exactly? A demon? Or….a relative of Sparda? At this point, Dante becomes a lot more like the Dante of old, most likely because Dante starts to realize and figure out that Nero is somehow related to him/Sparda/Vergil, and he gets excited again. He’s found someone he’s pretty damn sure is family to him, and he goes about mentoring him and leading him around through signs of his Order’s malfeasance in….a very Dante way.
“But Trill” you ask. “How could Dante not notice that Nero was probably related to him to start with? He can sense the presence of demons in the canon!”
My theory is the headcanon I got where Dante started off Devil May Cry 3 and 4 both times absolutely completely shitfaced. And all the Order of The Sword military members were demonic anyway, so he probably couldn’t tell which demon was what, lmao.
So Dante seems pretty cheery midway through to the end of Devil May Cry 4, cause he’s pretty sure the world’s gonna be okay with Nero and him around to keep an eye on things, and indeed according to official sources from artbooks and the “History Of DMC” video that was shown on Capcom TV, Nero and Dante have helped keep peace in the world for the years after DMC4. But as they say, nothing lasts forever…..
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