Capcom’s ultra-stylish demon blaster Devil May Cry is back again, but in anime form. As part of Netflix’s Drop 01 animation event, the streaming behemoth dropped a teaser for its upcoming DMC anime series—the one announced back in 2018—courtesy of Adi Shankar, a name you’ll recognise from his work as showrunner and executive producer on another animated Netflix series based on a videogame: Castlevania. DMC is being produced by Studio Mir, of Legend of Korra fame.
There’s not much to say about the series based on the trailer, which is a brief 44 seconds long and doesn’t showcase much beyond about four seconds of Dante dodging blades, firing guns akimbo, and doing some agile backflips that I bet will absolutely kill at the Paris Olympics.
Still, at least we can say that this looks to be DMC with a capital ‘M’. That is, it’s a series based on the longer-running, Capcom-developed version of the games rather than the controversial Ninja Theory reboot from 2013. That’s not much of a surprise, mind you: the videogames have stuck with the original, white-haired Dante continuity in recent games.
And, well, that’s pretty much your lot for now, besides a statement from Shankar saying how excited he is to be working on DMC: “I’m honored that Netflix and Capcom have entrusted me to shepherd the Devil May Cry franchise,” said the showrunner, continuing that “Alex Larsen and I love these characters, we are part of the fandom, and vow to surpass the exceptionally high bar we set for ourselves.”
There will, presumably, be some crossover between Netflix’s Castlevania series and this. Shankar has said in the past that his DMC anime will “join Castlevania in what we’re now calling the bootleg universe.” There’s no evidence of that in this incredibly short teaser, though, so your guess is as good as mine about what that means.
To be fair, I’m taking Shankar seriously when he says he’s a fan. Back when he revealed to IGN that he was working on a DMC series all those years ago, he remarked that he had “acquired these rights myself so the jabronis in Hollywood don’t fuck this one up too.” Fair play, the man seems to genuinely love his Dante.
Correction: This piece originally referred to DMC 4 releasing in 2015. Although a version of DMC came out in that year, it was a special edition re-release of the 2008 game. This has now been amended.