Devilman Lady

Devilman Lady (also called The Devil Lady in the United States) is an anime and manga about a woman named Jun Fudo. She lives in a city terrorized with beastlike humans and is secretly recruited by a mysterious woman named Lan Asuka to rid the city of them. It is a creation of Go Nagai's and is a reimagining of the Devilman manga and anime, but features a female protagonist, rather than a male one.

The series is known within the yuri fandom for the heavily subtexted relationships between the protagonist and several female characters. Of course, the only openly lesbian character in the whole series turns out to be a psychotic monster.

The series is distributed by ADV Films, and was directed by Toshiki Hirano.

Tropes used in Devilman Lady include:

• The Alliance: The Human Alliance
• All Myths Are True: Stories of demons, monsters, ogres, and the like were probably Devil Men or Beasts who existed in the past.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: In one arc, an entire village is made of Devil Beasts who are all descended from the same couple. Though these D.B. resemble insects with their compound eyes and armored bodies. The entire village is wiped out (women and children included) when an investigative trip by Jun and Asuka reveals the villagers want to expand out and give into their needs more.
  • According to Vlava, Devil Beasts eventually turn into demons. Human to Beast to Demon is apparently a cycle that repeats itself throughout history. The cycle is supposedly starting up again when the story begins.
  • The characters borrowed from Greek myth in Dante's Inferno appear in Hell. From Cerberus to Titans, Centaurs, Geryon, and even King Minos to judge the dead. Well, some do appear in the Divine Comedy, others may have been simply thrown in to stir the pot.
• Anyone Can Die: If you're a part of the main cast but aren't Jun, chances are you're dead.
• Asshole Victim: When Vlava's followers fall to Hell with him, they are eaten by Cerberus or have some other cruel fate awaiting them. All the prominent members, who either lured the sacrifices or prepared them for Vlava, get it the worst.
  • Any of the evil Devil Beasts or humans who get killed off or meet their end at the conclusion of their arc.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Kind of. Women have nipples in the manga, but their crotches are either covered in hair or shadowed. Devil Beast woman will have nipples as well, but again, only their upper body is shown nude. Male genitals are shown shadowed or whited out, but won't necessarily be shown attached to the character, for censorship reasons. This is usually done to show the men are about to 'get down to business'. The anime plays this trope straight though.
  • The anime is actually somewhat odd about this. Humans and Asuka tend to be shown accurately whilst nude. But Devil Beasts like Jun, Aoi, Hitomi and Kazumi are drawn with primary and secondary sexual characteristics missing, whether transformed or not.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: What Vlava's followers do to his sacrifices before presenting them to him.
• Bittersweet Ending: Jun defeats the Child of God at the expense of the lives of all of her friends, including her love interest Kazumi, whose gruesome death as she was absorbed into Jun she was forced to watch; and she lost both her arms. However, the last scene is a human child playing with a Devil Beast child, suggesting that humanity is accepting their successors without any more violence.
• Beneath the Mask: Devil Beasts may continue to act like they did before their transformation, but they now secretly enjoy killing, eating, and raping people.
  • One of Jun's fellow teachers uses his students as part of a prostitute ring and helps himself to the girls when he is in the mood. When he is revealed to be a Devil Beast, Jun is shocked that such a 'nice' teacher could be one. Asuka knows better thanks to her mind reading ability and points out he has always been evil. He rapes Asuka while Jun is in shock over his reveal, though she does eventually drive him away. He ends up stabbed and killed by one of his students while he is in human form and off guard.
• Break the Cutie: Life really sucks for Kazumi.
  • In the manga? Jun being raped and sent to hell by a cult comes to mind.
• Bring Out Your Gay Dead: Kazumi
• Brother-Sister Incest: Or is that Sister-Sister Incest? In the manga, Jun and Asuka are sisters, and have sex in volume 16.
• But Not Too Foreign: Jun is half Japanese and half American. Asuka is American, but takes a Japanese name while in Japan. She's also Jun's half-sister.
  • Ryo Utsugi is the reincarnation of Dante Alighieri.
• Cartwright Curse
• Cannibalism Superpower: Jinmen devours people whole and gains power from how many people are in his body. When they are freed, he loses his accumulated power and shrinks to the size of a regular snapping turtle.
• Chickification: In the manga, Jun is a former Olympic athlete who regularly lifts weights and swims. While she is at first horrified at the reveal of Devil Beasts and that she is a Devil Man, she quickly becomes accustomed to her role as a monster killer. She reacts like a regular person would in her situation. In the anime, Jun is a shy, timid model who has a hard time adjusting to being a Devil Man and doesn't want anything to do with hunting the Devil Beasts. She is a push-over compared to her manga counterpart and only displays a strong will and ferocity as Devilman Lady.
  • Tropes Are Not Bad in this case as the anime has a vastly different tone and storyline than the manga, and the duality between Jun and her Devil Beast self is a major plot element.
• Clothing Damage: Jun's clothes do not agree with her transformations into Lady - pretty much every change leaves her in the nude and her clothing in shreds. Though the manga tries to avert this concept later by having the Human Alliance give their Devil Men soldiers special suits that stretch or grow with their transformation, though the suit only appears in two story arcs. And then this trope is played straight in the second arc by having Jun grow larger than the suit can handle.
• Contagious Powers: Quite literally!
• Creepy Child: Satoru in the anime and a few in the manga. One in particular is a student at Jun's school who uses her hypnosis to control the men in the school and have them ravish her nude body until she starts stanggling them with her tentacles. Jun, and the readers, find out about this when the girl greets Jun nude in the pool room and engages in her usual 'fun'.
• Cursed with Awesome: Jun is horrified of her badass Devil Beast form.
• Cyborg: The Human Alliance turns captured and killed Devil Beasts into cyborgs to act as protectors for the remaining humans.
• Demonic Possession: The demon Vlava possesses the ambassador and other members of his cult allowing him to rape and devour women regularly, so he can create a portal to Hell. Later this happens to the surviving human sacrifices once the portal to Hell reopens in Japan. They are most likely the first of many. This trope is a throw back to the original series.
• Distaff Counterpart: Jun is this for the original Devilman Akira.
• Does Not Like Men: Aoi Kurosaki. After being raped for years by her step-father, she only finds woman attractive.
• The Dog Bites Back: Ogawa's student Kimishima stabs him in revenge for his sexual abuse of her.
• Enemy Within:
• Enemy Without: In the manga Aoi Kurosaki separates into a human and a shark Devil Beast. Though Aoi is rendered unconscious and is taken away after Jun kills the shark, so the 'two Aois' never battle.
  • They separated because the Beast kept wanting to kill people and Aoi was against it. Jun was the final straw, so they split.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: The hunter mentioned below owns one. It helps him find disguised Devil Beasts, observes fights, and shows him he is a Devil Beast himself.
• Evilutionary Biologist
• Evolutionary Levels
• Eye Scream: One of the monsters of the week is made of them.
• Extreme Doormat: Jun, through most of the series, due to her horrible self-esteem.
• Eyes of Gold: Jun, in her Devil Beast form
• Face Heel Turn: Any Devil Beast could be considered as making one, due to their beliefs and actions.
  • When the Human Alliance confronts the Dante Cult, several Devil Men do this due to the incredible power of the cult leaders.
• Facial Markings
• Fantastic Drug: Two unrelated arcs in the manga deal with this trope. One is about a man producing a drug to trigger Devil Beast transformations. It is for people who can't consciously transform yet. He sells it to rival gangs and watches the results from the sidelines. Turns out not everyone who ingests the pills will transform. The other arc deals with jewel thieves who trigger a transformation in a school girl so she can break into buildings and steal for them. She gets her drug via injection.
• Fantastic Racism: Devil Beasts (and some Devil Men) think they are superior to humans, are the next inheritors of the Earth, and have a right to eat humans freely as well as engage in their hedonistic lifestyle. The humans who are aware of the Devil Beasts , like the Human Alliance, aren't as out spoken about it. They employ Devil Men as operatives use defeated Devil Beasts as cyborg soldiers, and are genetically creating Devil Men as young children. They will however deem Devil Beasts who eat humans as evil and brand them for death.
• Genre Savvy: The Human Alliance (in cooperation with world governments) keeps the general public in the dark about the Devil Beasts. This is because the Alliance fears that the resulting chaos and panic would be far more devastating than the Beasts themselves. Considering what happened in Devilman, their fear is justified.
• A God Am I: Asuka
• Hide Your Lesbians
• Hot Amazon: Both Jason and Asuka are attracted to Jun because of her badass demon side. Jun is also a former athlete and regularly works out in the manga. In fact, she is probably the opposite of her character in the anime. Aoi Kurosaki could be considered one as well. Go Nagai uses this trope frequently.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Jun seems to avert this trope. She is picky about who she faces and wants to be certain that the Devil Beasts she fights are in fact evil or beyond redemption. Other Devil Men the Human Alliance employ are eager to fight and kill their opponents. They have no second thoughts like Jun and just kill anyone deemed an enemy. Jun and Aoi get into argument about this issue at one point. Jun let a Merman beast escape because they weren't sure it was a threat yet. Aoi killed it in front of Jun and tells her that they have to follow orders.
• Horny Devils: The devilbeasts in the manga are noted as having particularly active sex drives, and a number of them take to raping their victims in addition to the usual killing and eating.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: The Devil Man who work for the Human Alliance. Jun gets called out on this fact to her face a few times. Though Devil Beasts retain their memories and form as humans, so the argument can go both ways if you think about it. I think Jun actually makes latter point to Devil Beasts as a counter argument.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Devil Beasts, who were human, eat humans. They are alternately called a new species or the next stage in human evolution.
• I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: Taken literally. One of the Devil Beasts Jun fights in the manga has her breasts 'open' to reveal eyes that generate a hypnotic light. The girl uses it to have 'fun' with the boys in school and later to get Jun to reveal her secret before she resigns, though the latter plan fails.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Jun
• Important Haircut: Jun gets one before the climax
• Infant Immortality: Subverted
• Irony: In the anime, there a is a chameleon Devil Beast. However, a different Devil Beast lizard is the one who is a true shape-shifter.
  • Though the chameleon can really only blend into backgrounds, like the animal.
  • One of the Devil Beasts is a school girl who turns into an octopus monster. She is the one who has the naughty tentacles!
  • Aoi's new powers give her a penis due to her desire for a physical relationship with Jun. Seems like Body Horror, but she doesn't seem to mind, even though she hates men.
• Lady Macbeth: The ambassador's wife in the Cult of Vlava. She even finds her husband's possessed form more appealing than his weak, human form. However, she simply wanted to revive their god. She ends up falling to Hell with her 'husband' and things do not end well for her.
• Light Is Not Good: Lan Asuka
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Jun Her father studies and researches the Devil Beasts.
• Magic Pants: Totally averted. Jun needs new clothes every time she turns back to human; Asuka remarks that she's going to have to remember to pack some in future missions.
  • In the manga, Jun once wears a cape during a mission. She is naked underneath it, but it doesn't get torn apart like everything else she wears. She opens it when she transforms and covers herself again once she changes back to a human after defeating the enemy.
  • Jun will undress herself before a mission or a fight that is about to happen to have clothes to change into later. Though Jun isn't caught off guard or in the middle of fighting at these moments. She also does have clothes handy at school since there are locker rooms.
  • Played straight in Hell. People are nude there. They can avert that though, if they have can concentrate hard enough, they can form anything from swim suits to plain clothes. Jun is the poster girl for this trope while in Hell, as her clothes disappear a few times when she forgets to focus on them.
• Monster of the Week
• Mythology Gag: An Expy of Devilman proper appears late into the series.
• Naked on Revival: In Hell, since you are dead already, if your body is destroyed, it will regenerate. When the Vlava Cult members fall to Hell, they have their robes on. If they are eaten or killed, they will regenerate from the corpse or the 'mud' they turn into within a monster's body. In Hell, your punishment is to be brutally killed and revived, over and over (unless you get assimilated, frozen, or turn into a demon).
• Naughty Tentacles: All over the place, more so in the manga.
• Noodle Incident: In the manga, Jun and Aoi only discuss the event that made them rivals, how Aoi surpassed the older Jun in swimming ability on their team. Aoi wasn't forced to quit from an injury (like in the anime) and is most likely retired or just working at the pool as a side job. We see flashbacks from Aoi's perspective on they first met, how she developed her attraction to Jun, and their friendly introductions to each other but that's it.
• Older Alter Ego: One Devil Beast is a high school girl. She's easily Devilman Lady's size as a beast, but as a human, she's very small. Any Devil Beast really that is a child or teenager doesn't look their age while they are transformed.
• Ominous Latin Chanting
• One-Winged Angel: It would be easier to list the characters who don't go through this!
• Our Centaurs Are Different: The two leaders of the Cult of Dante both transform into giant centaurs. The man has the horse lower body, but has a demonic upper body. The woman's lower body is a giant panther and her torso sits behind the panther's head. In Hell, a more traditional looking centaur appears in one of the lower layers.
• People Puppets:
• Psycho Lesbian: Aoi and Lan Asuka
• Rage Against the Mentor: A few Devil Beasts have turned out to be students in Jun's school. One is a boy in her class and another is a girl on the swim team. The latter plays this straight, as she feels Jun should be self-loathing like herself and should act like a Beast since she looks like one.
• Rape as Drama: Asuka, in her "angel" form, rapes Jun.
  • All the frigging time in the manga.
• Rape Is OK When It Is Female On Male: Played out interestingly in the manga. Jun is feeling tense, she can't relieve the built up stress at a gym, is snappy at work, and Asuka is away so she has no one to talk to about it. So she takes a walk at night, looking for trouble. She finds it in the form of a Devil Beast who has been stalking her. Getting what she was looking for, she fights him and knocks him out on his back. Jun looks over at his still form and notices something. Upon a closer look, she sees he has a noticeable erection. Jun's face changes from being red due to anger and pent up aggression to lust. She walks over and, ahem, helps herself so to speak. Jun doesn't seem to enjoy the experience and the guy wakes back up (who wouldn't?) while she is still on top of him. She kills him before he can do anything to her. He was probably going to rape and eat her if he could, most Devil Beasts outright admit this, but she is not proud of herself and doesn't do this again in the story.
• Really 700 Years Old: The leader of the aforementioned village is a nun who was the woman from legend of how the vampires came to be in the area.
• Regularly-Scheduled Evil: According to Vlava, Devil Beasts and Demons are part of cycle that reoccurs throughout history.
• Red Herring: One of the teachers at Jun's school is always hitting on her or making creepy faces at her or other woman. A few times it has been hinted at him being a Devil Beast. So far it was either a different teacher or a Devil Beast shape-shifter using him as a disguise to get into the school.
• Religion of Evil: The Cult/Religion of Vlava for the Republic of Grumech and the Cult of Dante in Japan.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: In the manga there is at least a snake, a turtle, a crocodilian, and an amphibian (yes, that's not really a reptile, but he never transforms all the way and has traits of both animals). The anime has a few generic reptiles and then specifically a chameleon, a DIFFERENT snake beast (cobra to be specific), and a lizard that can shape shift.

Jinmen is a bastard who likes to taunt opponents if they have loved ones trapped in his shell. He has no problems using them as a shield (obviously) or manipulating his victims into saying hateful words at his foes/their loved ones. The crocodilian is a girl who needs to constantly eat fresh meat, be it human or animal. She decides to eat her mother (who was sheltering her, making excuses for her change, and new eating habits) because she can't wait between meals. She shows no remorse to her father when he comes home.

• Re-Power: Aoi Kurosaki returns as Devilman Noir. Her form is similar to Jun's, though hairier, with bull horns and armor on some parts of her body. Considering Aoi's feelings towards Jun, this may not be a coincidence. Imitation is a form of flattery after all and Aoi adores Jun A LOT.
• The Rival: Aoi Kurosaki for Jun in the manga and anime. In the manga Jun even dreams about Aoi besting her and outright refers to Aoi as her rival when discussing their relationship to Asuka. Though Aoi is the rival that Jun wants to surpass. Aoi returns the animosity that Jun gives her, but she would like to change their relationship from rivals to lovers.
• Rival Turned Evil: Aoi Kurosaki could be considered a member of this trope. She is Jun's swim rival from her Olympic training days. She comes off as arrogant due to being triumphant the last time they met. She is revealed to be a Devil Beast who eats other swimmers.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: So many...
• Senseless Sacrifice: Kazumi's death
• Self-Made Orphan: Asuka kills her mother because she knows too much (that Jun and Asuka are half-sisters). It seemed like she was going to avert this when she teleported her mother on a plane, but then her mother tried calling Jun, with Devil Beasts on the plane...
• Sirens Are Mermaids: Discussed and averted. In the manga, there is a discussion between a home-schooled idol and her teacher on The Odyssey. They are talking about the sirens in the epic poem and how sirens were originally bird themed and then became popularized as fish themed, becoming related to mermaids in modern fiction. The idol expresses her like for the bird themed sirens more, as she adores birds. She later becomes a bird themed Devil Beast.
• Sizeshifter: For the manga, in Hell, if you possess a strong will power, you can use it for a variety of abilities, like force fields or growing in size. Later in the manga, witnessing/travelling to Hell is a requirement to gain the size shifting power on Earth, at least according to Dante's Cult leaders. In the anime, most Devil Beasts will grow in size as a last resort or as a super form.
• Slap Slap Kiss: Jun and Jason Langer are at each other's throats after Langer kills a teenager Devil Beast. At a later meeting, Jun and Jason are in human form, with Jason saying he is not himself as Liger. He helps himself to an abrupt kiss to Jun before leaving the room.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The Devil Beasts start out as humans who transform into mindless monsters. While some are intelligent in both forms, it's out right stated that instincts and high emotions can dominate their monster form, limiting or removing their reasoning.
  • After a while, some Devil Beasts appear who can maintain control in both forms, though there are still plenty of mindless ones. Then Jun ends up in Hell, thanks to Vlava, who was thought to be a Devil Beast, but is actually a Demon (there's a difference). Jun goes from one Curb Stomp Battle after another in Hell, Akira does most of the fighting there. Though to be fair to Jun, all the foes in Hell are demons AND old foes of Akira. She's more unprepared than useless in this arc.
  • When Jun returns, we learn that all the mindless and instinct controlled Devil Beasts have dwindled to a small number. The Human Alliance has redefined 'Devil Beast' to mean a Devil Man who opposes humanity or is seen as outright evil. Therefore, the only difference between D.B. and D.M is whether that person is evil, whats to rule the world, etc. or if they retain a conscious, wanting to protect the weak and defense, not living on instincts.
  • Which brings us to the Cult of Dante, the newly defined Devil Beasts. They are organized and have a goal: open a portal to Hell and allow the Demon Lord to return. In the latest arc, the portal has been opened, everyone trapped in Hell has been freed, and the Demon Lord is leading EVERYONE who can leave out to the real world. The worse part? Apart from the Demon Lord, everyone else is probably INVISIBLE until they possess someone. It Got Worse? INDEED.
• Split Personality: Some Devil Beasts and Devil Men seem to act like this, acting almost like a different person in human or D.B. form. Aoi Kurosaki plays this trope straight in the manga.
• Stealth Pun: The female centaur in the Cult of Dante looks like a woman's torso sitting on a panther's body. The cat's face is located right where her crotch should be...
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In the manga, there is an American Devil Man named Jason Langer/Devilman Liger. In the anime, there is an American Scientist, and DM, Dr. Jason Bateman.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Aoi Kurosaki and her Devil Beast are separate personalities.
• Taken for Granite: Silene asks Medusa to turn her to stone. In Hell, as long as you have a strong will power, you will be constantly revived unless assimilated by another being. By turning to stone, she won't revive anymore. She gets better later.
• Talking to Themself: Aoi Kurosaki in the manga, with her shark devil beast. They talk via the mouth that forms on her upper chest. Jun walks in on their last conversation, just before Enemy Without.
• Temporary Love Interest: Occasionally combined with Monster of the Week.
• Tomato in the Mirror: In one manga arc, a hunter begins hunting Devil Beasts after killing one, thinking she is a wild animal. He soon gains the ability to detect Devil Beasts and is revealed to be one as well. His actions soon attract the attention of the Human Alliance. They set a trap for him, but he sees through it and battles Jun after eliminating everyone else. As they battle, he transforms into his D.B. form, but doesn't understand why he is suddenly stronger or faster in the fight. When H.A. soldiers arrive and start shooting at him, he is surprised at how he is also bulletproof. At most, he thinks he's psychic or has been 'chosen' to hunt the D.B. After getting Jun on the ropes, they fight outside a shop and break its window. His dog, who has been barking at him since his transformation, finally gets him to look at his reflection in the broken glass. Horrified, he places his gun in his mouth and commits suicide at the revelation that he is also a Devil Beast.
• Too Dumb to Live
• Transsexualism: Asuka as male to female and Aoi Kurosaki in the manga after her return.
• Unwanted Harem: Jun is very popular with both men and women
• Vagina Dentata:
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Asuka remarks that it's the spark in Jun's eyes when she's being photographed that hints at her having the devil gene.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Aoi Kurosaki She survives in the manga, one of the few Devil Beasts to do so early in the story. She is seen being literally Put on a Bus when she is taken away.
  • The Bus Came Back: She returns as Devilman Noir, a member of the Human Alliance
• When Trees Attack: Gender Flip from manga to anime. A male Devil Beast gives women plants he produces from his body so he can paralyze them and use them to create a race of tree people. In the anime, a woman Devil Beast is obsessed with getting pregnant and she begins absorbing people into her body in the hope of producing children.
• Winged Humanoid
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity
• Would Hurt a Child: Jun doesn't like it, but she has been forced to attack and even kill teenage Devil Beasts. As mentioned earlier, a few turn out to be students at her school. While she feels horrible about it and may apologize to her opponent, she knows she has to do the deed to protect others and stop the rampaging Beast. The other Devil Men aren't as nice as Jun and have no qualms against killing any target they have, including children or teenagers, like Devilman Noir and Devilman Kids. Jason Langer/ Devilman Liger kills a young girl Devil Beast that Jun was hoping she could save or reason with.
• Word Salad Title
• Yamato Nadeshiko: What Jun wants to be and look like. Unfortunately, she never gets her wish.
• You Are What You Hate: Aoi Kurosaki, once she returns in the manga, aggressively chases Jun and tries to have a physical relationship with her. These actions mirror how her step-father treated her, making unwanted sexual passes and eventually raping her. Aoi developed both her split personality and powers shortly before she killed him.
  • Aoi later finds she now has/can now grow a penis, "to make Jun [her's.]" Aoi swore off men after what her step-father did to her. Now she aggressively pursues Jun to be her lover, ironic.
• You Need to Get Laid: In the manga, Jun goes through this trope twice. Once to relieve some stress, so to speak. The other is during Hell. She asks Akira to help her forget the rape and torture she suffered from Vlava and his cult, by making love to her as they fly down into a deeper layer of Hell. She says she feels better afterwards.
  • Jun doesn't seem attracted to anyone in particular and she refuses most people's advances. Part of her issues is not giving into her Beast desires/instincts and that competitive sports can only satisfy some of her urges. This reasoning does make her one of the more moral Devil Men, but she ends up bottling her instincts to the point that she appears as a different person when she becomes Devilman Lady: enjoying battle, calling foes 'her prey', and becoming one a Horny Devil, excuse the pun.
• Yuri Genre: Moves into this genre in the later episodes