The DMCN show writing is so abysmal I couldn’t even enjoy my man Vergil killing supercops to Bodies by Drowning Pool. Do you know how bad your writing has to be for me to not be jumping up and down in delight at that.
I'm a month late, but I finally scrounged up the time to watch the Netflix DMC Anime Trailer. This breakdown goes frame by frame in a lot of places, connecting what I can to other DMC materials and occasionally rambling on about where I think the Anime might be going. Part 2 can be found here, and Part 3 can be found here.
First thing: Song's fun. I don't have much to say there. It fits the spirit well enough.
So, swords! I labeled them below. Note that for swords that appear in multiple games, I put the design they most resemble. For example, Rebellion in DMC5 puts the ribcage on the blade part of the sword rather than leaving the ribs on their own like they are in DMC3/4 and in this image, so I attributed it to DMC3 instead. Side Note: The background really reminds me of the Bloody Palace in DMC5. The arena changes a bit as you ascend the tower so I don't remember quite which level this resembles, but it's one of them. Makes me think of how Nero gets those breaks in between floor sets where he can choose his devil breaker...
Also it's interesting to me how only 3 swords get detail: Red Queen, Rebellion, and Alastor. Vendetta doesn't really have any good places to pop, but Agni and Rudra could (the heads). It could just be that they only wanted to do it with the front swords. It could be they're doing it because the closeup means you don't see blood coming from the front three as you do all the others.
Here's my best attempt at labeling them. All of these are Dante's, besides Red Queen which is Nero's, and Cutlaseer which is Lucia's. The question mark is there because it's a bit of a stretch; Lucia's swords are a bit more curved, and it's hard to get a good idea of the top of the swords with Alastor in the way. They're my best guess so, so that's the label they get.
Actually- they look less like Cutlaseer at this angle. I'm a bit stumped on these. They don't look like Lucifer either. Cutlaseer's my best guess. I think they were going for pretty much all of the playable character swords besides the Sparda and DSD.
From there, some flashing. First we get Dante's face in the background behind the swords, then the scene goes blue and changes scenery entirely, with the Yamato replacing Rebellion.
Note the tsuba/hand guard: it is neither round (DMC3, DMC4) nor pronged (DMC5). It's angular, which most resembles Yamato in DMC1. Now it could just be some artistic license being applied to DMC3 Yamato since many things in the Netflix anime have been pretty angular, but it's definitely not DMC5 Yamato.
As for scenery, the first thing that comes to mind is the scene in DMC5 where the bridge breaks under V in Mission 5. It could just be the city in DMC3 where the Temen-ni-gru emerges, with the bridge either being broken as a result of the Temen-ni-gru rising or because it's not a super nice place and it simply hasn't been repaired after other damage. But I think it's really interesting that Dante's background is the demonic one (Bloody Palace/strange curving protrusions) while Vergil's is human (a human city, complete with telephone pole). The colors also work very nicely as they encompass both the darker blue of Vergil's coat and the lighter blue of his demonic energy. I do really enjoy the flicker/glitch where Yamato turns into Rebellion and vice versa; it's not just one disappearing and the other takign its place, but more like a piece by piece replacement, or slurring/blurring of existence. The same thing happens with Dante himself.
What really fascinates me is the below, blink and you'll miss it:
Dante with a blue glow from his eyes. Some blue-green waves come over the screen for a frame or two during the flickering of his face before this, but it's the blue lightning that gets me because that's Nelo Angelo's thing. Nevan and Alastor both have purple lightning, and neither has a focus on Dante's eyes. Nelo Angelo doesn't get a zoom into his eyes while he's sparking blue, but he DOES have a few scenes where the camera zooms on his eyes, and he does spark blue when he fights against Mundus' influence! Lightning sound effects and everything. Yes there's the blue cloud too, but the lightning starts first before the blue cloud envelops him and he's transported.
And back to Dante, interesting choice for them to get rid of his pupils there... Is it to show power? To look cool? Or is it a reference to a son of Sparda whose pupils weren't visible during his possession/when he wasn't in control of himself...?
I'm going to go with it being meant to look cool. The blue could just be here for contrast. I like that when Dante swaps to the red skin here, the color starts gradually encroaching upon his cheek before he snaps to totally red. The black sclera makes me think they're taking from the way Dante and Vergil's sclera were drawn black in the manga when using certain demonic powers. They went red in one of the first trailers too, so I'd bet that's what this is supposed to be. If you want to see my comment on the Game Awards trailer, you can find it here.
Dante runs ahead with Rebellion (which he either rips out of the ground or has magically teleport into his hand in an animation error because the grip is not in his grip to start. I'm going to go with him ripping it out of the ground because the color scheme here matches that of when Rebellion was in the ground earlier), and out of the sky comes...
Cavaliere Angelo from DMC5! Which is interesting. But not completely unreasonable, given Trish was only there to power it, and the armor had already been made by Machiavelli if my memory serves. Point is, yes we the fans know it from DMC5, but it would've existed during DMC3 too. It would just need a different host/fuel.
Next we've got a Category 5 Bunny Warning. The White Rabbit from the DMC3 Manga. Sky portals are nothing new in DMC- we've got the portal to Hell in the sky of DMC3, and a bunch of flying demons come out of a red sky in the original DMC anime after Sid opens the portal to get to Abigail.
Takeout. The guns Dante's had so far haven't been Ebony and Ivory, but the ovals on these are giving me some pause. I don't see the inscriptions on them, and them being the same shade doesn't make them seem like Ebony and Ivory, but they have the right parts. I don't know gun anatomy so sorry for butchering this, but see the lines on the right edge of the below image? the little dip/opening on the left side? The uh. It's on the left of the above image in red, and it's there in the below but in gray/black. I'm going to stop embarrassing myself now and just say look at them and the important fact that both sets of guns have the oval portrait. I think it might be an inscriptionless Ebony & Ivory or a prototype made by Nell.
Moving on, we get a shot of the city and some action happening in Dante's silhouette.
I really like the bits of color in the moving section on the right, because to me, they represent the core of who Dante is: his hair (white, from his father), his amulet (red, from his mother), and his guns (his own choice). All three are inherited or gifts from others in some way, if we consider the guns a gift from Nell. Dante is who he is because of others. But he's also taken those things and made them his own! Every other part of him is obscured, and only those three things show.
Strawberry sundaes and Jackpot bullets I think speak for themselves. I will say it's a bit interesting Dante seems to have physical bullets here. Ebony and Ivory run off demonic energy, though if my memory serves the Coyote-A ejects shells. Could be that he hasn't figured out the demonic energy thing, could be that his demonic energy manifests in bullets which have Jackpot engraved on them (I'm split between whether he'd have customized his gun to engrave that or whether he'd use demonic energy to carve them even if the bullets themselves are physical/tangible objects), could it be the animators just skipped over that detail for the sake of something fun? Who knows. I think it's cute.
After that we get a shot of the city in blue, then this:
Which could be absolutely nothing. As in, maybe it's just some shapes made to look creepy and fill space in a transition for a handful of frames. But I feel like it should be something, I'm just not sure what.
Maybe it's this. The craggy pit Dante leaps into while lighting strikes in the sky. A descent into Hell if you ask me. That Hell is in the ground this time is a fun detail.
I'm going to end this post here as I'm pretty sure I'll hit the image limit sooner or later. I'll make another later today on the rest of the opening, starting with Lady's appearance a few frames after this!
man what if Twilia cut her heart in half to give to White Rabbit after he exploded.
she's fine btw. she still has that weird relationship with me on whether she is a sona or not. i'd rather not give a character a disability that i don't have. so her own heart healed, as it hasn't been completely minced (which is how she did not die) lol. meanwhile white rabbit is still disabled because i am not a fan of taking away a character's disability.
i may make this into an actual AU.
canonically; after wrabbit died she did grieve for a long while while in hiding, she truly did love him. but eventually she moved on. it just took a very, very long time. (dare i say a year or two)
