Demon Lord Dante

Overview

Disturbed by nightmares of demons and destruction, Ryo Utsugi hallucinates that a devil in an icy cave is calling out to him each night. He eventually discovers that Dante, the most powerful demon lord ever created, may soon walk the Earth once more, destroying human civilization in the process. All that is required is the sacrifice of a particular human girl. One Professor Veil turns out to be the reincarnation of Beelzebub who believes that the chosen victim is Ryo's virginal sister Saori. Ryo confronts Dante in the Himalayas, where he is tricked into releasing the demon himself. In a last-minute accident, he instead combines with Dante, creating a schizophrenic, unpredictable gestalt that is part-superhero and part-demon.

Attacked by the massed forces of the Japanese army, Ryo causes death and destruction throughout Japan before confronting four other Demon Kings that have recently been awakened from the sleep of ages by Russian soldiers in Siberia. Meanwhile, the forces of righteousness have decided that the only way to fight the demons is to create mass panic in order to encourage humanity to make a stand-they achieve this by orchestrating a series of vicious murders across Japan and pinning the blame on the demons. The conflict escalates until a final confrontation that pits Dante and his sometime allies against Satan himself.

Theme Music

Opening

Release Your Mind by Tomokazu Seki

Ending

Heal by Asuka Kuroki

Synopsis

Based on a 1971 manga in Bokura weekly by Go Nagai, DLD was forever eclipsed by the artist's decision not to sell it to a TV company for adaptation, but to instead offer them his similar Devilman. DLD is undoubtedly a prototype, not just for Devilman but for all the apocalyptic tales that followed, particularly Nagai's later Shutendoji. However, in only being made into an anime 30 years after its first publication, DLD appears to all intents and purposes more like a poor man's Urotsukidoji than the ground-breaking work it undoubtedly would have been. LNV