Summary
Fans flocking to Netflix’sDevil May Cryseries are primarily there for one thing: Dante. He’s the star of the show and the video game series that fans fell in love with when it hit the PS2 in 2001. Between sequels, spinoffs, cameos, other adaptations, and more,Dante has been around the blockmore than once.
Netflix’sDevil May Crywas an opportunity to start fresh with the lore by focusing on two members from the past, Dante and Lady, and introducing mostly new characters or characters only in the manga to help flesh them out. Between Dante, Lady, and the rest of the cast, who stands out?There will be spoilers in this rankingof who is the coolest or best developed.
7Anders
Anders doesn’t get to be the hero that he wants to be in season one. He is introduced as a survivor of an earlier demon attack. In episode three, it’s revealed that Anders was secretly working for the White Rabbit because he had his kids in captivity. Anders is just a father who wants to do what’s right for his girls.
Eventually, Anders gets caught by the Vice President and thrown out of a helicopter. It seems like he dies, but this could be a red herring. Anders could return in season two and have some sort of redemption arc for betrayingDante and the others.
6Agni & Rudra
A Double Dose Of Comedy
Agni and Rudra appeared asbosses inDevil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening. They are twin demons who have the power of wind and fire, and in the game, Dante is able to get their weapons after defeating them.
In the anime, they are presented as two of the loser demons. They have a lot of respect for Dante and talk about how cool he is, like in episode three when he chases them down the highway on a motorcycle and proceeds to hit them with said motorcycle. In the end, Dante kills both of them because, after all, they are evil demons who were willing to hurt a bunch of people, including the Vice President. They were the type of bad guys that are fun to root against, just like in a good Saturday morning cartoon.
5Vice President Baines
Go With God
William Baines may be the Vice President of the United States, but for all intents and purposes, he’s more like the President of the United States. The real President, Hopper, isn’t much of a leader. At first, it seems like Baines is a good guy. He’s the head of Darkcom, the organization Lady belongs to. While he goes about capturing Dante the wrong way, it seems like Baines has the right intentions.
The more he is shown onscreen though, the more it seems like he’s hiding something behind those peaceful God-fearing eyes of his. His true colors are finally shown when he kills Anders and throws Lady under the bus along with invading the underworld. Mostlyportrayed by Kevin Conroybefore his untimely death in 2022, Baines will go down in history thanks to Conroy’s performance.
4Enzo
A Broker With A Heart
Enzo is Dante’s broker in the anime, but fans of the games may be confused, as he never appeared in them beyond a mention in the player manual. Enzo would take on another life when he appeared as a main supporting character in theBayonettafranchise as the titular Witch’s broker. BothDevil May CryandBayonettaweredirected by Hideki Kamiya, so Enzo was like his Cid fromFinal Fantasy,who appeared in multiple worlds.
In Netflix’s series, Enzo begins as a heavy man only out for himself, as the anime’s comic relief. He does get his redemption in episode eight when he sacrifices himself to save Dante, proving that Enzo wasn’t just some lowlife after all.
3Mary Ann Arkham / Lady
A Major Attitude Problem
Along with Agni and Rudra, Lady first appeared inDevil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening. She wasn’t given much of a backstory, since those PS2 entries didn’t have much story to begin with compared to the action gameplay. Lady got a bit more inDevil May Cry5, but she was still a backseat character to the main playable heroes like Nero, Dante, and V.
Netflix’s anime adaptationgives her more lore, as she despises demons based on her mother’s death. Eventually, Lady comes around to see that the world is not strictly black and white. Suffice it to say she will definitely have a redemption arc in season two if that ever gets made. Overall it’s great Lady was given more time to shine, perhaps even more so than Dante in terms of screen time.
2White Rabbit
A Villain With A Cause
Ananime is only as good as its central villain, and the White Rabbit, who is never specifically given a name, is one heck of a villain, not just for theDevil May Cryseries but for anime overall. At first, he is presented as some kind of demonic rabbit, but in episode six it is revealed how he came to be a villain. He was an orphan boy who was bullied in foster care. One day, he went outside and found a portal to the underworld, where he befriended demons.
He’s able to create a portal gun and makes a refugee camp in New York City for demons to escape the evil Lord Mundus in the underworld. But in a chance encounter with Lady years later, she mistakenly has her troops shoot all of these innocent demons, creating the White Rabbit in the process. He goes about it the wrong way, but the White Rabbit did have good intentions, like Baines.
1Dante
Can’t Mess With The Devil In Red
No matter what version of Dante appears in an anime or a video game, he is automatically going to be the coolest character. He oozes charisma, and yes, he does have a lot of cheesy lines, like Spider-Man and perhaps even Deadpool, who shares Dante’s love of red.
He’s able to talk his way through life, but unlike Deadpool, Dante has a lot of heart. He puts his neck on the line to save people time and time again, even if it leads to him getting hurt. Johnny Yong Bosch, the voice actor, does a good job of portraying Dante in the anime with a fresh new tone. Dante is one of the coolest characters of all time and this anime is another example.
