Devils' Line

Title:Devils' Line
デビルズライン
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: ISHIKAWA Yui
MATSUOKA Yoshitsugu
R1 License - Sentai Filmworks (ADV)
Tsukasa, a college student, is rescued from an attack by a devil, one of many vampires that can blend in among the human population. Anzai, her savior, is a half-devil who exploits his supernatural gifts as a member of a shadowy police task force that specializes in devil-related crime in Tokyo. As Anzai continues to keep guard over Tsukasa, the two quickly forge a tentative bond—one that Anzai fears will test his iron-clad rule of never drinking human blood.
(Summary Courtesy of Anime News Network)


Series premiered on April 7, 2018.
Animated by Platinum Vision.

12 episodes
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 7 7 7 4 4 4 Ggultra2764 [series:3501#1552]
(Watch-/ Avoid+)

Angsty vampire stories about them being angsty and self-loathing of their nature and being in love with a human are nothing new for me to see within media, even in some instances within anime. This recent example of the premise involves said vampire being a member of a secret police division tasked with halting vampiric threats and preventing their existence from becoming publicly known, and finding himself become drawn to a young woman in college who encounters him apprehending a close friend of hers who she wasn't aware of being a vampire. The anime mainly involves the two attempt to start up a relationship complicated by Anzai's loathing of his vampiric nature, and complicated by anti-vampire terrorist groups attempting to wipe his kind out.

The major shortcoming to Devils Line would involve the execution of its storytelling. It's largely pretty clumsy in the handling of elements to its story with many of the characters too immersed into the archetypes they personify and there isn't much dimension to them to a large degree as a result. Anzai largely angsts about his vampiric nature and continually has internal conflicts on whether or not he wants to be with Taira. Taira is largely defined by her persistence at trying to get Anzai to not be overly protective of her and being sympathetic toward vampires as she learns more about them. Maybe the only character I gave some hoot about was the other major vampire of the story, Johannes Kleeman, who seemed content with his vampiric nature as such to have control over his bloodlust, knowledge on their capabilities, and still be rather sensible in his interactions with other characters. Other characters are largely unremarkable, mostly settling into whatever archetypes and roles they have within the anime.

The plot's no different in this regard in regards of awkwardness. Devils' Line tries painting the vampire phoenomena as a rather grey area since they are attempting to overcome their bloodlust to attempt coexisting with humans. But while a decent amount of fleshing out is provided to those supporting of coexistence, the same isn't given to those opposed to them because of the anime's rather shallow characterization, thus making the conflict feel more black-and-white as a result. Adding to the plot's issues, events in the series breeze by at a pretty brisk pace and give the audience little breathing room to take in things with major plot developments. This likely has to do with this adaptation trying to cram 40 chapters of manga material into a 12-episode anime and ending inconclusively due to the manga still ongoing during the time of its airing.

The presentation also has its fair share of awkwardness to it as well. Visuals are largely pretty subpar with generic looking character designs, a city landscape that's been done plenty of times for anime trying to be suspenseful, and nothing too engaging for animation despite the title's presence of vampires in it. In terms of music, I have to wonder what the creators of this series were thinking with the choices for it as the light, slow scores clash badly with the dark and serious aesthetic Devils' Line was trying to push for with its focus on vampires in modern Japanese society.

In short, Devils' Line is a rather shoddy and clumsily executed anime due to its brisk pacing, shallow characters, and sloppy handling of the title's story. I'd be hard pressed to give this more than a single watch.

Last updated Thursday, October 14 2021. Created Thursday, October 14 2021.
Watch Stretch [series:3501#628]
(Watch+ or Rent-)

(All episodes watched):

Episode one sets up the usual vampire plot: vampires are running wild and a secret branch of the police is dealing with them, using the strategy that it takes a vampire (actually, a half-vampire) to catch a vampire. Not bad, but not all that original either. Medium quality artwork, character designs and animation seem to match what has so far been medium overall quality. The basic question is whether a healthy romance can develop between the two main characters, half-devil Anzai and ordinary girl Tsukasa, while prejudice and conspiracy against Devils runs wild. This doesn't seem to be just a white-versus-black, good-versus-evil sort of show, instead characters can have both good and bad attributes, like the woman who main character Anzai knew as a child in an orphanage. That's infinitely more interesting than a simplistic plot would be. Anzai himself struggles to keep his vampiric urges under control. These are somewhat awkward, to say the least, as a romance starts to develop between him and Tsukasa. I felt fairly intrigued, no doubt largely because the characters have 3D personalities and a unique problem that they must work around. Over time, however, the excitement wore off as the romance between them seems to move at a snail's pace, in part because action interupts; this vampire or that vampire freaks out at the sight of blood. People who hate Devils conspire to kill them, even though as we have seen they are not always evil. Anzai's status as a half-vampire is thrown into question, although it was not clear to me why that mattered all that much. The show seems unfocused, as if it can't make up it's mind whether to be a romance or action series. Perhaps part of the problem is that I don't see any answer ever coming about to the basic problem of how do you treat 'good' vampires decently. If even Anzai can go berserk at the sight of blood, then it's almost like vampires have an incurable disease which will kill them sooner or later. There have been hints that it might be possible to ween them off of their obsession with blood through a sort of exposure therapy, but that didn't exactly excite me. As a result, I found it hard to remember what had happened in the last episode as I watched a new one, which is never a good sign.

Still, Anzai and Tsukasa have enough personality that I wondered how things would work out for them. Their romance gets somewhat more serious in episode eight. Anzai is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde character, sometimes normal, sometimes little more than a frightening, rabid animal. I wish the secret, vampire-hating CCC organization made more sense; it seems that it is a merciless outfit that will gladly kill it's own members if they fail at a task or just need to be silenced. Why would anybody risk their life for such an group? I have a problem in that I don't remember names very well, especially not foreign ones, so I often identify characters by what they look like rather than by their names. So, when a character is being talked about in absentia I may be capable of nothing more than guessing who the person is. That's one reason why I was confused about exactly what was going on. Apparently at least one fairly high ranking police department person is also a CCC member. Who can you trust, when your own superiors might be secret conspirators working against you? Devils' Line does a decent job of cultivating this sense of mystery and suspicion. Still, as late as episode ten I didn't really get a feeling that events were nearing a climax; there's a high ranking traitor somewhere within the police, public hatred of Devils is being whipped up, and Anzai is making some progress towards controlling his devilsh urges, but exactly what must be accomplished by the protagonists remained unclear. I wondered if this would be a two-season show. It didn't exactly feel like there was enough to it to go that long either. I guess the climax will be exposing the high ranking traitor before he can frame the heroes. I didn't really get much of a sense of climax in the final episode; it felt more like one more fight of the sort that we have seen several times already. Anzai and his colleagues dodge what might have been a very bad outcome, but they don't exactly seem to have won hands down. Public hatred of Devils is as high as ever, if not higher; and Anzai himself hardly gets off scot-free. The main villain gets what he deserves, although it isn't clear who was responsible (the sniper woman?) Maybe the anime is based on an incomplete manga; but after the credits we get a sort of wrap-up which seems to take place a good while later. Still, it reassures us that the story eventually comes to a happy ending, which was definitely a good idea. This show definitely has a raw, confusing, unpolished feel to it, but manages to remain modestly fun nevertheless.



Last updated Saturday, November 14 2020. Created Monday, April 16 2018.

Other Sites
NameURL
Official Japanese Series Web Site http://devilsline.jp/

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org