Nocturne/Shin Megami Tensei V

[berto]

@Morgan Yo. Chill. Honest mistake.

Actually. I agree with you on this, that Ruben Langdon's voice just seems off in that design. Langdon's performance has become synonymous with the woohoo wacky pizza man rendition of Dante in 3, 4, 5 and any subsequent cameos in those designs. DMC2's was stoic, bland even, but his SMT3 take was stern and slick. The best way I can describe it is that he stands up straight and says what he means. Langdon's walks around and uses his hands a lot when he talks, always says things dismissively and has a very laid back posture. While one is very 'hmph' with a smirk the other is very 'meh' or 'oh, well' and it does not fit.
I hate that I have to premise this every time but I don't dislike Langdon in any way shape or form, but his Dante is not the one in this game and it's evident in the Japanese trailers and in the game itself.
The more I listen the more the Japanese voices appeal to me.

can't really say if he'd be good or bad for a whole remake for 1

I would riot. If these lines already seem unfitting with Langdon's interpretation thinking about him delivering the lines from 1 sends me on a tirade. He has the wrong attitude for 1's Dante and this is a great piece of evidence to support that statement.

 

[Morgan]

I was being facetious. I can't actually enchant someone's fandom card like Odin.

---

Anyway yeah. The VA had to re-audition because they didn't think he could pull off the voice for a man that age? Then he probably shouldn't be voicing a man that age without proper direction. This whole "sighing every line" thing he does now is distracting. He didn't (or doesn't) sound like that as Ken (SF), Dave (RE5), or even Radburn (Clandestine). Was this something he adopted during the DMC Anime when he was forcing more than one take and it just stuck, or something? Or is his age getting to his voice? Is it bad voice direction? It's baffling this is even happening when other people who record their voices for a living are out there flipping their wigs at sound quality because the mic picked up their inhale in a pause between one sentence and another, let alone mid-phrase.

This whole "Reuben has to reprise his role" thing is such a non-issue in that if it turned out DMC4 had a different man voice that older Dante, even if it wasn't Coombs or Kaminsky, no one would really give a damn if the game played decent otherwise, because no one else reprised the role of Dante through the mainline series either. Of all the things to criticize in that game, "Dante doesn't sound like he did when he was 19" wouldn't be one of them. Trish doesn't sound like Sarah Lafleur anymore and Lady is voiced by Kate Higgins now, and the both of them had different actresses in the anime too. Reuben doesn't need to be there except to satisfy the desire of revisionists to pretend they're "true fans" and were always supportive of his casting even when they sent hate mail to him for not being Coombs (allegedly).

The best way I can describe it is that he stands up straight and says what he means. Langdon's walks around and uses his hands a lot when he talks, always says things dismissively and has a very laid back posture. While one is very 'hmph' with a smirk the other is very 'meh' or 'oh, well' and it does not fit.

Something I read in passing from a study of body language between Nero and Dante, one of the things the studier noticed about Dante is that he leads with his hips. Can't remember the exact words they used or the example footage, but the gist is there, Dante has some attempted "nonchalant swagger" going on when he moves, to come across that he doesn't care about things, but here's the problem:

It looks like his movements and voicework is coming from (or being directed by) someone who's never observed or talked to a person who truly doesn't give a damn about anything around them. Otherwise they'd know that the natural state of not caring for things is not expending excessive energy on it. The way Dante moves and talks is try-hard in comparison; bored people don't sigh every other line, and if they do move, it's minimal. No excessive flashy theatrics to it, and they're to the point. That is the point. Whatever is going on with Dante with his voice and body language now comes off specifically as Performative For Other People like he's trying hard to sell that he's Too Cool For Everything and nothing gets to him, in a way that triggers rampant 4+ paragraph Tumblr or Reddit meta on how psychologically deep it is that he's traumatized/depressed and faking his attitude/still has style (as if people aren't doing that every day right now with less fanfare and support), but this isn't Tumblr or Reddit and that doesn't stop the execution being dumb, because with another actor behind him expressing the "stern and slick" take on the dialogue, he would actually be cool and nonchalant with a sense of authority, without exaggeratedly proving it to others by sacrificing his posture.

It's like putting up Newsies and Equilibrium in the same universe and future movies after the latter were still basing its continuity off the former.

Like, imagine DMC1 when Trish is lying dead on the floor and Dante's all, "How long are you going to keep zapping? Come out and show yourself, Mundus!" but Dante has DMC3-5 Dante's meandering and sweeping arm movements. Pitiful AF.

Dante's not Alpha is what I'm saying here.

I hate that I have to premise this every time but I don't dislike Langdon in any way shape or form, but his Dante is not the one in this game and it's evident in the Japanese trailers and in the game itself.
The more I listen the more the Japanese voices appeal to me.

*preface

You shouldn't have to preface that with a disclaimer because disliking the voice work or how well it'd fit into previous interpretations isn't a statement on disliking him as a person or whatever. Like, if you're slipping down a slope of making attacks on him like a Snyder-Hate-Cultist around any mention of MoS/BvS/DCEU then yeah you should check yourself, but "I Hate Reuben Langdon Everywhere All The Time" is a hell of a reach from "I don't think his voice fits this version of Dante". You're fine.

Edit: I just remembered the dude supported QAnon and conspiracy nonsense on his Twitter and namedropped 8chan unprompted. Dude's a weirdo.
Edit 2: Went and looked up what 8chan is involved in and it's.... NSFL, to say the least.

 

[Lain]

Ye, I'll second not digging Langdon's voice in Nocturne.

If it were just the "out of breath-ness" I could tolerate it but he also sounds kinda bored in his attempts to act stoic.

 

[Demi-fiend]

The more you all deny the Langdon, the more I -- and other like-minded fans -- will ask for him in the inevitable DMC2 Remake.

 

[berto]

Something I read in passing from a study of body language between Nero and Dante, one of the things the studier noticed about Dante is that he leads with his hips.

Fascinating. And accurate. The most recent example I can think of is in 5, where he's talking to Urizen for the first time. I studied art in college, animation, actually, so these things ring bells with me. In order for him to lead with his hips his back has to lean back. Walking, scientifically speaking, is controlled falling. You lean forward to 'fall' and use your feet to stay up and in motion. To lean back, to walk with your feet, creates no momentum. You have to basically drag yourself and it creates a sort of lazy stance. Leading with your hips might sound like you're letting your d*** lead you but it's not. In actuality it's like you're dragging your upper body, like you are about to, and want to, fall back.

Dante has some attempted "nonchalant swagger" going on when he moves, to come across that he doesn't care about things

This has been a common theme with all interpretations of Dante. Kamiya himself said that this was a very Japanese character trait. In fact, he called it a very beautifully Japanese approach. However, he also said he didn't want an always calm or angry character. He wanted someone lively. With their interpretation they've pretty much stuck with the 'nothing bothers me' approach and, while we know it's all on the surface, it really doesn't help the presence of the character.

It looks like his movements and voicework is coming from (or being directed by) someone who's never observed or talked to a person who truly doesn't give a damn about anything around them.

Even if that's not the case since, as we know, he does, in fact, care, the issue that comes from taking this approach is that he comes off as juvenile. He doesn't just mean one thing but says another, he is really obviously acting up, and not in knowing, wink wink, kind of way. It's not intentional overacting, which is kinda telling in its own way, and it's a bad look. I mean, if your pokerface to super obvious...

It looks like his movements and voicework is coming from (or being directed by) someone who's never observed or talked to a person who truly doesn't give a damn about anything around them.

Yeah. Faking it, and badly. I never really thought about it like that. Still. I don't know. Fits, that's for sure.

Otherwise they'd know that the natural state of not caring for things is not expending excessive energy on it.

That's it. That's what it is. It's not just that he pretends he doesn't care. He also has to come off as cool. One is the means to the other. To an extent pretending you don't care equates to cool in this context. If you lose your head every few minutes you come off as temperamental or impulsive and that doesn't really scream 'cool.' That much I agree with. Unfortunately, it doesn't land. I think you've seen my video, you know what I think of this. Probably repeating myself, here, but Dante has become apathetic and that's not cool, it's cold. So, not only does his 'I don't care approach' not seem convincing, it also makes out to be kind of an ***hole.

how psychologically deep it is that he's traumatized/depressed and faking his attitude/still has style

If I thought Dante was depressed of traumatized I wouldn't bother with the character. I don't mind those kinds of characters. In fact, I think they can some of the best fictional characters around. Dante, however, is not that. He's the one with the tragic past who isn't defined by it and while bringing it up every so often is fine, that you also don't ignore it, being defined by it would ruin that thing he's got going on with him. I understand fan interpretations and the impulse to make the character better with your own intake, I've done it repeatedly, but to try to pass your fan theories as the truth with such aggressive, floor stumping, certitude is what turns people off from things. Also shows why they wouldn't make good writers.

with a sense of authority

You know, that's good way to phrase it. I like that. Don't know if it completely accurate but it certainly has some truth to it. I mean, think about it. Really think about it. If this Dante needed for someone uncooperative to do something would they listen? Or, even more basic than that, could he even give an order? Not a pretty please, if you could, with sugar on top, when you have the time. An order. He doesn't project an air of strength. You can't be relaxed and commanding at the same time. 1, yeah. I think so. 2, maybe. Stoic but stern. Even more so in Nocturne. Actually, even DmC might have a more arguably commanding presence. With 3 it's a big maybe with a small question mark at the end. I mean, he has an attitude but authoritative is not a word that'd fit. 4 & 5, though? Nah. That is a definitive negatory, Maverik. Especially in 4 when he gets small at Lady and Trish glaring at him.

Like, imagine DMC1 when Trish is lying dead on the floor and Dante's all, "How long are you going to keep zapping? Come out and show yourself, Mundus!" but Dante has DMC3-5 Dante's meandering and sweeping arm movements.

Oh, believe you me, I have. Not with that line, specifically, but with others in 1. 'Flock off' is the one I go to since it's short and to the point, but his entire dialogue in the opening with Trish is a solid place to imagine the difference in deliveries, especially from 'Even as a child I had powers' to the end.

Dante's not Alpha is what I'm saying here.

Like I said, that scene where Trish and Lady glare him down in 4 is proof enough. Definitely don't get the impression that he wears the pants.

preface

I did say premice, didn't I. Even so, the point stands. I've had to make this clarifications so often it feels like prerequisites for station your opinion. People twist your words, though I know it's not intentional, to add intent and meaning where none exists. It's better to clarify.

Anyway, as I said before, a lot of this also has to do with who Dante's become. I stand by what I said before, that modern DMC has its roots in 3. That every game after is a sequel or reboot of that and not of 1. The thing is, even if they try to keep this to Dante they don't know how to approach the character, so who or how he was in 3 was given to Nero. With Nero being that it's hard to pinpoint Dante.

There's this idea, don't know if it's a principle or just a thing that gets said around, but when it comes to television or long running fiction in general, it's said that, eventually, everything becomes a parody of itself. Well, Dante became one much quicker than most, and people applauded it. Anyway, I think they don't know what to do with Dante, how to portray him. They already wanted to replace him with Nero in 4 so he could take over and be Dante from 3. The persona of who Dante has become is the best approach of him they can get. I know they aren't trying to belittle him or knock him down, but this interpretation does not have the appeal they think he does.

In the manga there is a line where Griffon tells V that he should grow a beard do he can look as dignified as Dante does

Spoiler: V

and I just thought to myself 'wait. What? Is that really what they think he looks like? That he walks, acts, talks or dresses in a dignified manner?' And I think they do. That's why I think they might not realize that Dante's not coming off as they intended him.

Anyway. Listening to Langdon in a different Dante really gives me pause. DMC1 is not popular enough for it but if they decided to do a RE2+3 style remake and they gave Langdon the role it would end up being something entirely different and unrecognizable. As it is, 2's image with his voice is off putting enough. Doing that to one would drive me off the edge.

I'm not big on star wars but I now, more than ever, realize what they're going through. You'll get to see everything you love transform into something unrecognizable for its own good.

 

[Morgan]

Fascinating. And accurate. The most recent example I can think of is in 5, where he's talking to Urizen for the first time. I studied art in college, animation, actually, so these things ring bells with me. In order for him to lead with his hips his back has to lean back. Walking, scientifically speaking, is controlled falling. You lean forward to 'fall' and use your feet to stay up and in motion. To lean back, to walk with your feet, creates no momentum. You have to basically drag yourself and it creates a sort of lazy stance. Leading with your hips might sound like you're letting your d*** lead you but it's not. In actuality it's like you're dragging your upper body, like you are about to, and want to, fall back.

Given fandom interpretation of Dante, that bolded part wouldn't be too surprising for them if it were true.

As for the rest, JFC, is that what Gloria was doing, then? She definitely has that "hips first" approach with her upper body leaned back, which could be in part to emphasize her "assets" as the camera pans up on her, but that walking style looks like she's trying overly hard to be "sexy" but instead conveys more like she had her pelvis mule-kicked out from under her. And she still walks like that as Trish. Dante and Trish come from the same school of terrible walk cycles that don't land with the audience.

If I thought Dante was depressed of traumatized I wouldn't bother with the character. I don't mind those kinds of characters. In fact, I think they can some of the best fictional characters around. Dante, however, is not that. He's the one with the tragic past who isn't defined by it and while bringing it up every so often is fine, being defined by it would ruin him. I understand fan interpretations and the impulse to make the character better with your own intake, I've done it repeatedly, but to try to pass your fan theories as the truth with such aggressive, floor stumping, certitude is what turns people off from things.

Too late for that. The canon itself is leaning into that incredibly hard post-3, with tying Dante's story (and his liveliness) inexorably to Vergil and vice versa, thus their characterizations in relation to other people and even themselves are getting choked out by the tendrils of a sibling rivalry and Dante's resulting depression from not having it as a fixture in his life even though it was toxic. Also, the games post-3 (especially the Special Editions, because Vergil is in them) doubled down on overt fanservice preventing the characters from evolving very much or from the gameplay being an effective medium for the plot.

Despite Vergil and Dante having "fought constantly" in their youth (according to both of them) to where it's the only memory Dante has (even though they both agreed on Jackpot being their catchphrase at one point, meaning they should've worked together or been partners-in-crime more often), the fact that that stopped when they were eight and Vergil has chronologically spent more time presumed dead than Dante's ever known him literally does not matter to Dante or Vergil or the writing, because they're still hanging onto the rivalry part over petty nonsense. They should've moved on from that; Vergil left Dante in 3 with some modicum of respect for him, enough to urge he stay in the Human World instead of being trapped. Except no, not really. It turns out Vergil was still so pressed about being defeated by Dante that he ostensibly(?) let Mundus transform him into Nero Angelo for a power boost even before he split his humanity from himself to produce Urizen, meaning he Majin Vegeta'd twice, a regression to character that should've been left in the 90s where it belonged.

Gameplay-wise, nothing about Vergil's plot in 5 reflects in his moveset outside of the fact that he split himself into V. That split and reintegration did F all to his fighting style or mentality, since he doesn't implement V's familiars as Devil Arms in their own right. Instead of literally reshaping his traumas into something that gives him power and as a result have no power over him, they're killed off in the story so that they can't merge back into him anymore, and his moveset is more or less a copypaste of 4SE which copied from 3SE, except stronger. Those familiars supposedly belong to Vergil because they're his memories/trauma, but they don't exist outside of V and they refused to go back to Vergil. How convenient!

You can rip V right out of the story and World of V right out of the moveset, and Vergil's the same dude that he was 20 years ago, but transplanted into the future and given more power, and knowledge of Nero. Why is he like this? Because who he is in 3 is the definitive version of him now and he can't deviate too far from it, lest he "stop being Vergil", except for the fact that most people aren't the exact same in their 40s as they were in their late teens, but DMC3 sells, and that's the game that symbolically rendered Dante and Vergil's rivalry as "two bulls with their horns locked in eternal struggle" in the Bullseye Bar. Did you get that they would never ever stop fighting each other, from the relationship they had in the first game? No, because it didn't exist that way.

On that same token, Dante shouldn't be the same guy in his 40s as he was in his late teens either. He was supposed to develop empathy to others' plights. He'd inherit his father's righteous spirit to the point where the Trinity of Fates book says he gave Trish a soul through his own humanity and caring about her, where she would otherwise be a soulless container no different than a Marionette. We read him described as excited for jobs that involved demons, where he'd take them no matter the pay. He now doesn't care about anything. Dante instead now feels so strongly about Vergil's presence as his other half and empty/boring/personality-less outside of that, that his enthusiasm for demon hunting only extends as far as it relates to his personal drama with his family (particularly Vergil) which is how V lured him to fight Urizen, and the concept of found family and empathy for others is about as solid as smoke because Dante also doesn't connect with anyone even remotely similar to him because they're not him, and Sparda's righteousness means F-all to the dude.

By the time of 5, Eva having spoken to him from beyond the grave in 1 doesn't phase him. Trish becoming his ally doesn't phase him. Lady retroactively becoming his ally doesn't phase him. Meeting Nero and entrusting him with the Yamato doesn't phase him. Patty losing her mother doesn't phase him. Patty finding her mother again doesn't phase him. The biker brother wanting to avenge the other's death doesn't phase him. Bradley falling in love with Angelina and refusing to serve his demon lord doesn't phase him. The ghost woman acting from beyond the grave to save her brother from unjust imprisonment doesn't phase him. Modeus wanting to avenge Baul and them being Sparda's apprentices doesn't phase him. That rock star inadvertently selling her soul/body to remain young and relevant forever doesn't phase him. Him not knowing any of his own father's history to where Lady gives him lore-dumps doesn't phase him. DMC2 and Lucia's presence doesn't phase him. Her feelings for him don't phase him.

None of that matters, because it's not about him and his sibling rivalry, therefore he doesn't care. His enthusiasm for hunting demons only extended as far as it needed for him to avenge the loss of his family, then it stopped. Him keeping tabs on his enemies by way of the Enemy Files in 1 was only important then, and now he doesn't care about remembering demons' names or the women he meets with. But he sure does love remembering sh#t that happened when he was eight, huh? Thaaaaat's right. Because Vergil was involved. Dante's characterization was a "return to form" in 3? Vergil was there. He had a decent character in 1? Vergil was there. His personality persisted in 4? Vergil was there in spirit. 5? Vergil was there. 5 could legit be titled "Devil May Cry: Vergil", "Devil May Cry 5: Vergil Returns", "DMC5: Vergil's Awakening" or " DMC5: Vergil Is Here" and nothing about it would be wrong or out of place, because the fact that he came back is the main draw for the fandom even more than Nero becoming the hero of the story going forward.

Dante lost Vergil two times, once because the dude was too proud and two because he was brainwashed, but now every appearance Dante has had across the timeline and the ups and downs in his mood can be written off as "He's been depressed since losing Vergil, Vergil was his other half and reason for being", especially when V is right there saying Urizen/Vergil is "[Dante's] reason for fighting". Really? Not protecting humans? Honoring his mother? Honoring his father? Preventing others from experiencing his same tragedy? Spending time with the two women in his life that pulled him out of dark situations emotionally and physically? Spending time with his nephew who's living proof that the Blood of Sparda isn't a dead end and seeing Sparda's spirit/honor/intent live on in Nero? Not even for his own sake?

No?

It's Vergil?

Effing Vergil?

Dante is more or less "existing out of obligation" in every material he's in post-1, because making Nero the sudden sole protagonist and explaining Dante's absence as him toasterbathing offscreen would be an insult to the fans, but what else can he do?

They didn't have to make Anime Dante so boring and depressive, but they did.

They didn't have to move DMC2 to before 4 and leaving the fandom no reasonable explanation for his low-key mood that wasn't already justified by "everyone he loves died", but they did.

So Dante hits some downs except for when Vergil appears at which point he gets back up. Dante's livelier and ditches the human world to stay with him, because he would otherwise be Depressed in the Human World instead of Not Depressed in Hell, and he'll take Not Being Depressed In Hell as long as his brother is there.

DMC1 Dante doesn't do this. DMC1 Dante defeated Mundus and still went out on a call to kill some random demons in ten-- no, five minutes. Why? Because he's a devil hunter and that's what he does. His mother may be dead, but he could still save Trish. His brother may be dead, but he's resting in peace. Dante abandoning devil hunting in the human world because Nero is there to take up the mantle would be like if Sparda went back to Hell just because he met the clansmen of Vie Du Marli or because he went to Fortuna and created the Order and thought they could handle future invasions.

This is exactly why I called the sibling bond a borderline-romantic plot tumor in that other thread; DMCs 3 to 5 really bludgeoned the fanbase with the idea that the twins (who they are, and the best and most compelling versions of themselves) are so bound to each other that they drop every other commitment they have, like a woman pining for a husband she lost in a war or something to where she never marries again, but then also descends into alcoholism and neglects her children and/or dies of heartbreak.

Dante doesn't have love interests? Because he's depressed and misses Vergil.
Dante was lower and less talkative in the Anime and 2? Because he's depressed from missing Vergil.
Dante lets Nero have Yamato? Because he was depressed and still misses Vergil.
Dante is willing to fight Vergil to the death? Because he's depressed and Vergil is his reason for being and he's only held onto the bare minimum of his life by a thread--

but also there's no answer as to what he would do with his life if he actually truly killed Vergil because the writer didn't think that far, hence Nero bails him out of that decision by saving them both so they could live, fight, and die another day.

I mean, they don't even have to think very hard about what Dante's decisions and moral values for him mean post-5. If Dante's shtick is he has to be the one to face Vergil to spare Nero the trauma of killing his own father, and because putting Vergil down is his job (they're twins = their bond is more important/valid = he has more right to do it), what would he do in a hypothetical DMC6 if Sparda came back as a genocidal tyrant? By his own logic, he wouldn't be able to kill his own father because patricide is a sin here. He'd have to wait for Sparda's hypothetical twin to show up and do the job, because they're twins/equals/bloodbound/soulbound/they understand each other/etc. The easiest out for that is for Vergil and Dante to team up and put Sparda down, because Dante values Vergil more than he does Sparda, or Sparda "sees the light" and sacrifices himself against some other stronger devil.

On a less hypothetical note, that's why it's both supposed to be laugh-out-loud funny but in execution is distressing that Dante doesn't pay his bills on time and his business doesn't thrive, even though his business is contingent on his utilities functioning so he can get those calls instead of waiting for people to come to him after the fact. He's supposedly too cool to care about that kind of thing because stressing about money and living in society is a Human Thing, but really the way it comes off reinforces the point: He Doesn't Care About Anything, unless Vergil Is Involved, then he Cares A Lot.

Regardless of the dev team's misbegotten idea of what constitutes proper coolness and the execution of such, nothing in these games after 3 makes sense in a Watsonian way if he's not depressed and harboring trauma that's informed his entire being, making him unable to maintain and progress his relationships with other people because the trauma still lingers and stagnates him and he uses it as a reference point to not be so close to others, while they try in their own way to help him keep his lights on and his place in some form of order and he seeks to recapture his past by any means.

TLDR; Dante being depressed isn't explicitly canon but his character has stagnated so hard that it might as well be, JFC.

You know, that's good way to phrase it. I like that. Don't know if it completely accurate but it certainly has some truth to it. I mean, think about it. Really think about it. If this Dante needed for someone uncooperative to do something would they listen? Or, even more basic than that, could he even give an order? Not a pretty please, if you could, with sugar on top, when you have the time. An order. He doesn't project an air of strength. You can't be relaxed and commanding at the same time. 1, yeah. I think so. 2, maybe. Stoic but stern. Even more so in Nocturne. Actually, even DmC might have a more arguably commanding presence. With 3 it's a big maybe with a small question mark at the end. I mean, he has an attitude but authoritative is not a word that'd fit. 4 & 5, though? Nah. That is a definitive negatory, Mavrik. Especially in 4 when he gets small at Lady and Trish glaring at him.

You just had to remember that fight with Berial.

"You can stay and die or you can walk your ugly ass back through that gate. It's your call, pal."

"I've retreated once and will not do so again."

Berial goes for a Self-Destruct! It's not very effective....

I mean, to be fair, Dante had a similar situation in DMC1 with telling Griffon not to fight with a mortal wound, where Griffon similarly disregarded him, but at least that Dante treated Griffon with some respect. DMC4 Dante called Berial's move pathetic and just a bunch of sparks.

Oh, believe you me, I have. Not with that line, specifically, but with others in 1. 'Flock off' is the one I go to since it's short and to the point, but his entire dialogue in the opening with Trish is a solid place to imagine the difference in deliveries, especially from 'Even as a child I had powers' to the end.

Like I said, that scene where Trish and Lady glare him down in 4 is proof enough. Definitely don't get the impression that he wears the pants.

I mean, it's not even like Dante has to be overly domineering to have authority. In fact, he should have authority, but he's not an authoritarian. Outside of the memetic corruption of the term "Alpha" and wrapping it around whether a man is in a relationship or uses women like socks or whether or not he's violent or whatever, it's about self-actualization and meeting certain needs to thrive in life.

DMC1 Dante? Is in good health, has shelter, pays his bills and has decent employment, has allies and confidants, has the respect of others, and a firm sense of morality and ability to see others with mercy where needed. He's top tier.

DMC3+ Dante? Can't even pay his damn bills and is in constant debt, looks progressively rougher every game he's in, is used by his "friends", doesn't maintain his relationships, and his morality and sense of responsibility is clearly malleable seeing how a lot of his modern characterization is "he causes collateral damage and doesn't care, also he can't be arsed to save people from demons unless he's pushed to do it", while his body language tries really hard to make that all sound like a thing we should accept. He barely escapes the bottom tier.

---

How appropriate would it be right here to say that "being cowed by sassy/bad women" is literally Itsuno's fetish as stated in TGS 2018? He somehow forgot that that's what he did in 4, and reinvented the wheel with Nico's relationship with Nero, saying "it’d be cool to hang out with a girl who is that sassy, smokes all the time, points out your flaws, and gives you crap when you need it. There is something cool about being around that kind of person. That’s where Nico comes from." even though the intial concept for Lady was a "cigarette-smoking demon hunter who could act like a mentor to Dante" according to Bingo, and Itsuno turned it down because "the only way she’ll be popular with the Japanese audience is if she looks like a high-schooler.” The team decided that "what the Japanese audience definitely didn’t want was more blondes or swarthy girls."

So...

I mean...

F Itsuno. Does he think Nico doesn't fit the definition of swarthy? What makes the Japanese audience care more about Nico now that they didn't have 14-15 years ago? Why does the Trish-Gloria thing in 4 even exist if it's the case that the Japanese don't care about having more blondes or swarthy girls? Gloria is legit a two-in-one package for that nonsense. Every other notable woman in the anime was a blonde! (Elena, Nina, Older Patty...)

/deep breath

I did say premice, didn't I. Even so, the point stands. I've had to make this clarifications so often it feels like prerequisites for station your opinion. People twist your words, though I know it's not intentional, to add intent and meaning where none exists. It's better to clarify.

Okay, I'll accept premise, because I didn't realize that was a synonym for preface until literally right now.

Anyway, as I said before, a lot of this also has to do with who Dante's become. I stand by what I said before, that modern DMC has its roots in 3. That every game after is a sequel or reboot of that and not of 1. The thing is, even if they try to keep this to Dante they don't know how to approach the character, so who or how he was in 3 was given to Nero. With Nero being that it's hard to pinpoint Dante.

There's this idea, don't know if it's a principle or just a thing that gets said around, but when it comes to television or long running fiction in general, it's said that, eventually, everything becomes a parody of itself. Well, Dante became one much quicker than most, and people applauded it. Anyway, I think they don't know what to do with Dante, how to portray him. They already wanted to replace him with Nero in 4 so he could take over and be Dante from 3. The persona of who Dante has become is the best approach of him they can get. I know they aren't trying to belittle him or knock him down, but this interpretation does not have the appeal they think he does.

In the manga there is a line where Griffon tells V that he should grow a beard do he can look as dignified as Dante does

and I just thought to myself 'wait. What? Is that really what they think he looks like? That he walks, acts, talks or dresses in a dignified manner?' And I think they do. That's why I think they might not realize that Dante's not coming off as they intended him.

I'll be charitable and say Griffon doesn't actually mean that, and he's just making fun of V as he usually does, given V's whole design is the definition of "twunk" and appealing to fangirls who similarly gravitated towards Kylo Ren/Adam Driver and Loki/Tom Hiddleston.

I don't have anything else to say about the rest of this piece except, agreed,

Anyway. Listening to Langdon in a different Dante really gives me pause. DMC1 is not popular enough for it but if they decided to do a RE2+3 style remake and they gave Langdon the role it would end up being something entirely different and unrecognizable. As it is, 2's image with his voice is off putting enough. Doing that to one would drive me off the edge.

I'm not big on star wars but I now, more than ever, realize what they're going through. You'll get to see everything you love transform into something unrecognizable for its own good.

Capcom might actually do this just because they're remaking everything else. They're even remaking RE4, supposedly. Except they know DMC is a niche title in comparison and won't make the same numbers a RE game gets on its worst outing, so they simply won't put any more money into it than they have to.

In fact, they'd probably remake DMC1 to have Reuben do his interpretation of Dante and erase all trace of Drew's performance, but they still won't try to touch DMC2 and will leave it exactly where it is and in the state it's in, forever.

Oh, but then they'll release DMC1 Special Edition, half-a-year to a year later.

And Vergil is there.

 

[V's patron]

@berto

Flanderization - TV Tropes

The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it …

tvtropes.org

I believe this is what you're describing.

 

[berto]

@berto

Flanderization - TV Tropes

The act of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Most always, the trait/action becomes completely outlandish and it …

tvtropes.org

I believe this is what you are describing.

I suppose. I did a critique on modern Star Trek a while ago and this popped up when I was trying to explain the portrayal of the classic characters in the new films, so I have heard it before. Flanderization is when you take a character and take what once was a normal trait and make it more and more prominent until it becomes a defining trait. Legally, it does qualify. Focusing on one trait to exaggerated levels is the most common way to be a parody. Not sure if it's encompassing enough, though.

is that what Gloria was doing, then?

To an extent. Think about walking animations as a subtle hint of intention. In the case of men the further forward the upper body is the more intent or 'drive' there seems to be. Imagine these in an exaggerated fashion. A running animation, for example, has the characters leaning real forward. Lean them more and you might be doing a leap or dive. Even more and they might be going for a slide. Now the opposite. Slightly back is relaxed. Further is maybe for stretching. Even further and you have an exaggerated lean. The kind you might find in cartoons where the character is trying to do a chill walk. You might even exaggerate the swing of the arms as he moves. Even further back and that's a fall backwards. The lean forward for a walk, just a walk, is actually pretty subtle, so if it looks neutral it looks natural. The further you lean the faster you go, the more purpose your character projects (Yes, you can lean back and walk fast but that projects a different attitude and intent).

With women it's a bit different. All of these thing still apply but you have to add more movement to their hips. Women have wider hips so that exaggerated sexy sway thing is actually based on real anatomical movement. The more you add to it the more sexual the nature of the woman's purpose you project. It's why runway models have 'the walk.' It's why Bayonetta does her just exaggerated enough to try to go for both sexy and cartoonishly overthetop. There are plenty of other signifiers but when it comes to walking, for women their hips drive a lot of their intention.

However, what differentiates Trish/Gloria from Dante, what makes him come off as lazy and her as relaxed, is the rest of the body language. Specially the use of their arms. Look at some different examples of Dante in different iterations. First, in 1, when the Phantom shows up he taps on his leg to tease him. This feels natural because every other time we see him he uses his arms with equal frequency. In 3, when he fights Cerberious and does that Bruce Lee hop and punches in the air. Again, it seems natural because he shows equal amounts of energy through out. Uses his arms constantly, often walks at a high pace. That kinda thing. In 4 is where things start to slow down. His walking speed is gentle more often, he uses his arms less, he is stationary or standing in place more often and he's more relaxed so when he is being more kinetic he feels like his exerting himself since after big motions he tends to slow down faster or even downright stops moving. Even in game, his movements are slower compared to Nero. Even when he runs he feels tankish (thank god for turbo mode). Not slow, but slower, and it makes a difference. Then, of course, there's 5. While in 4 you could say that it looks like he's wearing something heavy, in 5 he's become lethargic. Yeah, he has action scenes, but what happens outside of those is just as telling, if not, more so, than what happens in them, and it's more of 4, and with that being two in a row it now it only cements this. Trish, on the other hand, has more of a sense of perpetual motion. She uses her hands, walks at a notable pace and even does one or two turns. When she does stand still she gives off an air of impatience, making her feel like she doesn't like to be in that position.

Despite Vergil and Dante having "fought constantly" in their youth (according to both of them) to where it's the only memory Dante has (even though they both agreed on Jackpot being their catchphrase at one point, meaning they should've worked together or been partners-in-crime more often)

I honestly think that this is something made for fans more than any consideration to the characters' journey or actual history. A lot of what 5 did it did for fan service more than for what would've been the natural progression of events.

By the time of 5, Eva having spoken to him... ...for him don't phase him.

For the examples you bring up from the anime I'm going say that those particular instances where he should have some kind of reaction, such as the scenarios with Patty or any brother related thing, that whoever wrote those didn't actually know DMC lore. At least I'm giving the benefit of the doubt, because otherwise Dante veers too close to dramatically pointless. I don't know if there's something more severe than apathy but in terms of a dramatic presence, he's pointless. If your hero doesn't care, and, let's face it, he needs to show at least once that he does, which he doesn't, it makes it hard to defend his stand as the hero.

To encompass a response to the entire Vergil argument, this was a matter of Vergil being a fan favorite, and since 5 was a fan service game he had to he there, of Dante being too powerful and needing a challenge, and the rest are all excuses. Reading all of that I can tell that you definitely saw my video, then. Specifically, the point I made about how Dante has become so powerful that nothing challenges him. The only thing that can but, not really, is Vergil.

DMC3+ Dante? Can't even pay his damn bills

I'm willing to bet money that this is something they took from Cowboy Bebop. It's the closest thing they can draw from and the only other example of cool character that can be a close fit. The thing is, Spike is not Dante. Their swagger is superficially similar but completely different upon any kind of close inspection. You can argue the similarities for days but it's the differences that make them incompatible. Worse yet, is that they didn't even get it right. I see the concept but the execution completely missed the point. Spike did sleep a lot but he was also very proactive. They were broke and Fey was in debt but that wasn't what made them cool, it made them outsiders, bohemians. Dante isn't any of that. Yeah, they were always going at each other but the sense of comradery was very evident. Not with the DMC anime, at all.

while his body language tries really hard to make that all sound like a thing we should accept

Not just accept but take as a reason to admire him. A cool trait. Something appealing. It's not uncommon for characters in action to break stuff and for it to never be addressed. It kinda comes with the action genre. What isn't, though, is a disinterest in well being of others. That is the opposite of heroic and he really dances on that line a lot. Yeah, in the end he does the right thing but he takes the concept or the reluctant hero to a place where his good hearted nature is constantly put into question. In fact, we see this outright unwillingness far more than any heroic behaviour.

but his character has stagnated so hard that it might as well be

It's pretty evident, isn't it? With 4 it was so little you wouldn't think anything of it, but as we progress we have the reboot, which he looks dirty for some reason. That wife beater looks unwashed. I'm sure it's supposed to be gray but it looks like it was white but never cleaned. Then you have 5 and the memes just write themselves. Even funnier is how some people try to deny it. Yeah, cause this wasn't the first one that popped up well before they announced the capture models.

JFC

Sin pecado concebido.
See, if you were Mexican that'd be hilarious.

Okay, I'll accept premise, because I didn't realize that was a synonym for preface until literally right now.

Yes, but preface was likely the more appropriate of the two.

I mean, it's not even like Dante has to be overly domineering to have authority. In fact, he should have authority, but he's not an authoritarian. Outside of the memetic corruption of the term "Alpha" and wrapping it around whether a man is in a relationship or uses women like socks or whether or not he's violent or whatever, it's about self-actualization and meeting certain needs to thrive in life.

I didn't mean to imply this. It doesn't have to be a defining trait to be a notable one. There's a difference between giving an order and demanding obedience and my point was that if he needed to be he wouldn't be able to pull it off.

Capcom might actually do this just because they're remaking everything else.

Yeah, and of they're willing to throw away what they had with RE and their long established actors, their most popular franchise, they wouldn't think twice about doing it to DMC1 and an actor they've ignored for 20 years, now.
The RE4 project is different from what I've heard. They even reached out to Shinji Mikami but he turned them down. He's still consulting but I think they know that the game's appeal is not so easy to pin down. That the REmake2 approach won't necessarily work.

 

[Morgan]

To an extent. Think about walking animations as a subtle hint of intention. In the case of men the further forward the upper body is the more intent or 'drive' there seems to be. Imagine these in an exaggerated fashion. A running animation, for example, has the characters leaning real forward. Lean them more and you might be doing a leap or dive. Even more and they might be going for a slide. Now the opposite. Slightly back is relaxed. Further is maybe for stretching. Even further and you have an exaggerated lean. The kind you might find in cartoons where the character is trying to do a chill walk. You might even exaggerate the swing of the arms as he moves. Even further back and that's a fall backwards. The lean forward for a walk, just a walk, is actually pretty subtle, so if it looks neutral it looks natural. The further you lean the faster you go, the more purpose your character projects (Yes, you can lean back and walk fast but that projects a different attitude and intent).

I get all that -- I like looking up A.B.I.torial/Sugar Punch Design Works on YouTube and watching their videos dissecting video game animations. So, not that I don't like your additional explanations, but I'm processing it in visual form.

TLDR; Running and walking IRL involves the limbs moving in concert to keep balance while putting one foot in front of the other to avoid a faceplant. A well-animated walk/run cycle in fiction shows the character's personality in however many frames needed to do so, while conveying weight and speed as it should.

Next!

For the examples you bring up from the anime I'm going say that those particular instances where he should have some kind of reaction, such as the scenarios with Patty or any brother related thing, that whoever wrote those didn't actually know DMC lore.

.... It's Bingo Morihashi.

It's always been Bingo Morihashi. He wrote for the third, fourth, and fifth game, the anime, and the two supplementary novels Deadly Fortune and Before the Nightmare. The guy even hit up Kamiya concerning the scenario for 3 given that Kamiya Canon establishes Dante and Vergil as separated for 20 years, not 10 or 11.

And Bingo still sucks. Bingo's writing for the series is like if you sat down to play bingo the game, but the numbers on your card are written in Wingdings.

I'm willing to bet money that this is something they took from Cowboy Bebop. It's the closest thing they can draw from and the only other example of cool character that can be a close fit. The thing is, Spike is not Dante. Their swagger is superficially similar but completely different upon any kind of close inspection. You can argue the similarities for days but it's the differences that make them incompatible. Worse yet, is that they didn't even get it right. I see the concept but the execution completely missed the point. Spike did sleep a lot but he was also very proactive. They were broke and Fey was in debt but that wasn't what made them cool, it made them outsiders, bohemians. Dante isn't any of that. Yeah, they were always going at each other but the sense of comradery was very evident. Not with the DMC anime, at all.

What Bingo and whoever is with him on the team (even Itsuno and Kobayashi) fail to take into account is that aping other works doesn't automatically elevate what they're using it towards by association. They may have thought it worked well in isolation but it needs to work as a copy and needs to work with whatever new context surrounds it that it's being applied to.

Since you mentioned Cowboy Bebop, here's an also superficially similar visual for different characters:

AFAIK, this animation is from the same Sakuga animator and both pieces are an homage to a Bruce Lee film. In that sense, it's efficient to reuse animation or homages whenever the alternative (create one's own unique reference imagery for single-use each instance) is more costly. A human only has so many limbs, and a body so many ways to move. No one minds that. Even Disney reuses their own stuff. Whatever. That's beside the point for now.

The point is that even with these identical animations, Spike vs Vincent and Naruto vs Neji both work in their separate contexts, though it isn't a 1:1 reproduction because

a) Spike straight-up practices Jeet Kune Do and quotes Bruce Lee, so of course he's going to fight like Bruce Lee. He's also a skilled fighter, while Vincent is less so. It's right to show Spike beating Vincent like that, and the other way around wouldn't make sense. At best, if both fighters practiced JKD it'd be a more even match and they'd be trading blows, and we'd be seeing that fight instead of this one.

b) Neji's fighting style is based on Bāguà zhǎng (eight trigram palm), not JKD, and he's the antagonist in this fight, but the scene serves to portray Neji as a skilled hand-to-hand combatant where Naruto isn't, still maintains Neji's disposition as a precise fighter who aims for certain points in the body when he deals out hits, but on top of that, just shows him beating Naruto or whichever one of his clones is stepping up to the plate. Also, because this is before Neji goes full Eight Trigrams and starts sealing Naruto's chakra points for real, Neji's specifically doing this to deal pain and not necessarily end the fight fast, because his characterization is overly haughty and he spent his dialogue time calling Naruto a Failure, so he's beating the point home the long way. All in all, massive flex. I mean, Naruto wins the match anyway, but still a flex on Neji's part.

In the case of copying characterization tropes and lifting them wholesale from one character to another, pretty much yeah, what you said. They don't fit Dante where they would otherwise fit Spike because the contexts around them are different.

---

This is also how we get Itsuno wanting to copy a mecha anime he saw when he was four, where "the missing father of a character makes a triumphant comeback with a new robot that no one has seen before", except it works against DMC5 on every level when applied to Nero taking the "missing father" role and arriving with a new DT.

First, Nero doesn't need to be there (but the game was built around that one scene to present Nero like he's the only adult in the room, so of course it's contrived). Every single time Dante's "killed" Vergil, it needs to be accompanied with scare quotes and a giant asterisk with his reappearance dates in the footnotes, because Vergil never stays dead for long, so even if Dante did do it in 5, Vergil's return would merely be a matter of when and not if, because not even calling Vergil "Dante's departed brother" in the History of DMC screen or mentioning in 4's flavor text that the Order was harvesting Nero Angelo's corpse was enough to make Vergil's death canon. Plus, at no point was it established that Dante had a way of killing Vergil for good, so I mean, what else was he gonna do, stab Vergil super hard this time? It's not like either of them consider decapitating the other for a sure thing. That's not even taking into account that Vergil and Dante have been shown as equals and a reasonable challenge to each other, where the mecha anime referenced had the hero being overpowered by multiple enemies and made it a dire situation.

In short, there are no stakes in 5 between Dante and Vergil's death match except for the part that they're wasting time doing that instead of saving innocent people below from the Qliphoth.

Second, Nero's motivation to jump in was because he got into his feelings about his inability to save Credo-- the feelings he isn't shown having in DMC4, because he cared so little about Credo as a brother in the damn game that his reason for not wanting to fight his own family (and his commanding officer) at the time was "I don't want to hurt Kyrie,". Nero behaved exactly as he was created to do in 4; a man who loves only one person and loves the things she loves solely by association. Credo has no meaning to him as his brother, that's Kyrie's brother, and Nero loves Kyrie and no one else. Nero doesn't even mention Credo to Sanctus; his speech about Sparda and worthiness to wield his power was about how Sparda had the heart to love a human romantically even though Sparda woke up to justice and wielded full powers at a point he was 1900+ years removed from being in love with Eva. That's like basing Mjolnir's enchantment on whether Thor fell in love with Jane, not whether he carried a purity of purpose and unwavering conviction when it came to protecting his friends from the Destroyer, and a willingness to do good for others and not for one's own gain. To say he always had his sibling affinity for Credo and remorse over not saving him is disingenuous, where that mecha anime focuses on the relationships between the characters and their familial bond, and that's why people understand and accept the heroic moment of the new mecha and its pilot saving the younger pilot from certain doom.

Third, these feelings about Credo magically surface when Nero's absentee father came back into his life to mutilate him and use the stolen arm as a weapon of mass destruction. One half of the dude commits an act of mass-murder, and the other half was a duplicitous little sh#t. Nero develops enough transitive loyalty towards not just V and Vergil when he has no reason to, but towards Dante, who withheld the parentage information from Nero, and then called him a "deadweight" once and it triggered Nero so bad that he brought it up four separate times. Which prompts Nero to feel some type of way about it, including anger at Dante, and apathy for whether Dante lived or died inside the Qliphoth in a way that suggests Dante dying and Nero saving the day afterward would be perfect comeuppance for Dante saying a no-no word at him. Nero and Dante and Vergil's ambivalence at any moment about each other's well being removes the impact evident in the scene being paid homage to, because I guarantee none of the characters in the mecha anime Itsuno watched were massive a-holes to one another to that level.

Fourth, why is Nero taking the "missing father" role in the "father saves son" sequence when Vergil is right there? Because of the new DT? Nero is not alone with a new DT. The Sin Devil Trigger concept made its debut here-- it was new for everybody. Any one of the Spardas could have been in the missing father role to make a comeback and rescue the other from certain death. It wasn't that hard to show Nero being overpowered and Vergil going to save him as an overt show of acknowledgment.

Fifth, Itsuno was born in 1971 and the closest popular mecha anime at the time was Mazinger Z. A bit on-the-nose there, considering the Mazinger was entrusted to the main character with the warning "you can become a God or a Devil" while using its power. The scene he was referring to as inspiration was in that anime near the finale, but it was Tetsuya in the Great Mazinger saving his adoptive brother Koji, pilot of the older Mazinger Z model. It was a brother saving another even though they had no blood relation, not a father saving his son.

So Itsuno couldn't even get that right.

TLDR; blatant fails in execution. @ Itsuno and everyone else: don't just copy someone's homework, study why the answers work and how they address the problem presented.

Not just accept but take as a reason to admire him. A cool trait. Something appealing. It's not uncommon for characters in action to break stuff and for it to never be addressed. It kinda comes with the action genre. What isn't, though, is a disinterest in well being of others. That is the opposite of heroic and he really dances on that line a lot. Yeah, in the end he does the right thing but he takes the concept or the reluctant hero to a place where his good hearted nature is constantly put into question. In fact, we see this outright unwillingness far more than any heroic behaviour.

Dante's characterization got us like:

It's not even the convention of being an anti-hero. Like, we all know what anti-heroes are, and how well they work in their genre. Action in particular gets away with people who aren't 100% upstanding or who get things done in "unclean ways" with regards to the law or preservation of life. How many dudes does Nathan Drake mow down in any Uncharted game while throwing a funny quip or bantering with Sully, for instance? A lot. We don't get on his case for not being a pacifist.

Post-3 Dante takes it to a whole other level because this is paired with him being Too Cool to Care For Anything even though he should've developed beyond the "don't give a damn" phase, so instead of us admiring this trait and thinking it's So Cool, the real reaction is Dude, why are you even here? Why are you doing this at all if you're going to suck so hard at it? We have no reason to care if the protagonist doesn't, and if he doesn't care, then the time used to portray this scenario is an utter waste because it could go to something else more engaging.

Remember the Death Poker episode of the anime where he was hired to save a woman's husband, and instead he participates in the tournament anyway and everyone involved dies including the man he was hired to save, just for the reveal to be that King was the woman that hired him? Yeah.

Why was Dante there? Why did we waste an entire episode of him being complicit in other people's deaths? Yes, given that this involved King, they would have died anyway from playing the game and putting their lives on the line for the thrill, but just because someone is bedridden from poison doesn't mean you have a right to smother them with a pillow. Dante legit could've saved 20 minutes of our time if he walked into the tournament and opened fire on everyone, and saved us a full 25 if he gunned the woman down as soon as she walked through his door. In fact, if he tried to kill everyone on purpose, with his rotten luck, those people would've come out unscathed in the encounter and been better off.

It's to the point where if Dante were in It's a Wonderful Life, the parallel world where he never existed would involve everyone being happier, including Arkham no longer being evil and Vergil being a well-adjusted person because he's not fighting for Eva's affection.

It's pretty evident, isn't it? With 4 it was so little you wouldn't think anything of it, but as we progress we have the reboot, which he looks dirty for some reason. That wife beater looks unwashed. I'm sure it's supposed to be gray but it looks like it was white but never cleaned.

I mean.... DmC Dante starts off as a sorta-amnesiac young adult that lives in a trailer home, has no longstanding friendships, drinks and f#cks in his leisure time, doesn't run his own business, and is put in an underdog position from demons being in control of everything. Is there a higher living standard for trailer trash that I'm not aware of? Him having an unwashed wifebeater isn't remotely a concern. Regular people reuse dirty shirts as-is.

The issue is that it's less excusable for classic Dante to live the way he lives as a grown man old enough to be someone's dad, without trauma and maladjustment informing it. In his world, people forget about world-ending scenarios even though they're happening every other decade. He's the most powerful person in any room and knows it. He isn't in active danger that takes away from his office getting some maintenance. Yet his sense of intrinsic value is absent now when it used to exist a decade+ prior, he has a near-pathological disregard for himself and others, his empathy is absent, and his mood is wholly contingent on whether or not his murderous evil twin is around, with every instance of him being "boring"/"depressed"/"not thriving" tied to Vergil not being around. We don't see DmC's Dante descend to a worse condition than he started with less morals; Kat is there and has his back. We can just assume his trajectory is upwards.

Anyway, Dante's DMC5 model got done dirty. It's actually a technical marvel that they managed to make him look ugly.

I didn't mean to imply this. It doesn't have to be a defining trait to be a notable one. There's a difference between giving an order and demanding obedience and my point was that if he needed to be, he wouldn't be able to pull it off.

Yeah, and I agree with you. Reuben's Dante doesn't pull it off in any appearance he's in. 3Dante told Agni and Rudra to let him through, they refused and fought. 4Dante told Berial to retreat, he refused and fought. Something something 5Dante, something something deadweight, Nero big mad. No, really, Dante spends a bunch of his dialogue time with Nero trying to convince him not to confront Urizen/Vergil, Nero bitchslaps Dante with a ghost arm one time and Dante is all, "Whatever. I don't really care. I'm just gonna sit this one out". You can legit bitchslap him and get him off your back about something.

Drew's Dante is Alpha according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; his presence and style says what it needs to, his voice is stern when it needs to be even with banter moments, his character is self-actualized and stable.

Reuben's Dante is the guy that gets his definition of Alpha from 4chan boards and it shows; he's tall and bulky, a superficial sign of "dominant alpha", way bigger in 4 and 5 than he ever was in 1, yet he acts like an idiot with situations going out of his control, and displays little sense of self-mastery or self-respect. His body movements and voice come off as he's expending more effort than he ought to for a basic function just to project an aura that he can compete with a younger man who's otherwise going to replace him. Not a coincidence, he's sharing his screentime with Nero, the guy designed to "attract women" and be the "sensitive type that girls like", and Nero's smaller in comparison. So Dante "performs" to project an aura that his approaching-40s self is just as capable as he was at 19, but he sounds and looks like he gets winded in seconds but y'know, it's all good, he doesn't care, which doesn't even fit with the idea that he's a human-demon hybrid and thus has more power/speed/longer life than everyone around him and can stay in his prime for longer.

Compare: Lady is close to his age. She's a normal human who carries a rocket launcher as her main weapon. She started her demon-hunting career as a high-schooler with the scars to show for it. If anyone should move like they can't keep up anymore and they're lugging something heavy, it's her, but she looks like she has an extended lifespan owed to demon blood. She just needs to be voiced by Kari Wahlgren again and she's good.

 

[berto]

Ok. I'm going to retort really quickly but we should really stick to the topic at hand.

.... It's Bingo Morihashi.

Yes, but not just him. The director for the series wasn't exactly known for action shows and after he became infamous for f***ing up Berserk with his show. I didn't watch it but it's safe to say that it wasn't well received. Yes, Morihashi's involvement should've cemented a sense of consistency, but, looking at his interpretations of Trish and Dante in the DMC4 novel it looks like that's what we got but not the way we hoped. Not only that, but the story goes that the anime was a huge mess behind the scenes. It went through several outlines and it ended up being completely different from what the original idea was. I'm saying, yeah, but it wasn't just him. There's plenty of blame to go around. You're right, though. As much as I want to give the benefit of the doubt, his presence states that they know Dante's backstory and chose for him to not react to things that he has had personal experience with. Child who lost her family to demons? Why would he bother to relate to her just because it's what happened to him? Brothers in conflict? Sorry, can't really relate. Still going to mock you for it, though. And so on.

See, this is the Dante I've come to associate with Langdon's voice. As much as I like what I've heard from the english cast for Nocturne I no longer associate that portrayal of Dante with anything positive. I think I said that in my video, too.

The guy even hit up Kamiya concerning the scenario for 3

A lot of people did. I remember a lot of the staff talking about Kamiya's involvement in 3 behind the scenes in the 3142 book. It's odd because Kamiya was famous for saying he knew nothing about 3. He never said he had nothing to do with it but he never mentioned being an unofficial advisor, either. I don't think they're lying. More that I find it telling that Kamiya omits his involvement do to his history with the series and his personal feelings about it.

Anyway. Is it odd that I only like the 2 was that he had a hand in? I've always credited a lot of what I like about 1 to Shinji Mikami but I also love most Kamiya games. Haven't played them all, yet. Not only that but Morihashi also worked on Bayo 2 along with Kamiya.

He's also a skilled fighter, while Vincent is less so.

That's not true, at all. Vincent is simply very nonchalant. He is like a stone wall, in all these aspects. He's taking the hits on purpose and even when he hits his head against the metal rail it doesn't phase him. He takes all the beatings and still stands up like nothing at all. He's never out of breath and he's never angry or agitated. He's not an incompetent fighter, but, and this is one of the things I love about Bebop, the animation reflects their very different fighting styles. Vincent fights like a soldier and his choreography shows it. Not here but in the fight at the end.

Anyway.

It's always been Bingo Morihashi.

Yeah, but, it's him because he's produced the most successful entrees to DMC. 3, 4 and 5 are financially and in terms of overall reception, the most successful in the franchise. They got no reason to doubt the man. We might have a gripe with his interpretations of the the character but most people seem perfectly happy with the results and Capcom will definitely go with the mass appeal, irrelevant of what the lasting impact is. What I mean is that if 5 had come out instead of the reboot I don't think it would've been as well received. I think that franchise fatigue that they were worried about when they made the reboot would've definitely happened had they not gone with the reboot, and I also honestly believe that 5 owes the blind and absolute devotion it gets from its fans from the reboot, too. Hell, they could just wait another 10 years to keep the fanbase from catching on or growing numb to it.

They don't fit Dante where they would otherwise fit Spike because the contexts around them are different.

Well, more than that. If they were to do take on Spike they'd still miss the point. I don't think they get the character. Just the shallow superficial stuff. They wouldn't be able to nail the aspects that make Spike so likable, either, because they'd be too focus on the obvious traits while missing the more subtle. They'd flanderize him.

the missing father of a character makes a triumphant comeback with a new robot that no one has seen before

Expect we have. Dante did it first. If anything, Vergil comes off as the one copying Dante.

Every single time Dante's "killed" Vergil, it needs to be accompanied with scare quotes and a giant asterisk with his reappearance dates in the footnotes, because Vergil never stays dead for long

In fairness, this is the first time this happens. Vergil left in 3 and died in 1. I agree that it has become rather contrived but it's not something that's happened over and over again.

Second, Nero's motivation to jump in was because he got into his feelings about his inability to save Credo

I think this is probably more fanservice. There's been a lot of complaining that Nero was so Kyrie-centric it was obsessive, bordering on ridiculous, and that scene was one of the prime examples. So, to make him less so, let's add a one time mention. First and last. Really let us know it kept him up at night.

Mazinger Z

Danm... That's a name I haven't heard in a while. That show was super popular in Mexico when I was but a wee lad. Ran around the same time as Ninja Turtles in Mexico.

episode of the anime where he was hired to save a woman's husband, and instead he participates in the tournament anyway and everyone involved dies including the man he was hired to save, just for the reveal to be that King was the woman that hired him?

He he... Maybe we're asking too much of the show. Maybe saving the lives of characters they don't focus on shouldn't be a priority for the 'hero.' I mean, they went out of their way to make them unlikable enough that Dante didn't even flinch when each died. You can't be dramatic if people aren't dying and you can't be cool if you're reacting to things like that in any other way that isn't complete and utter indifference. What did you expect them to do? Give him emotional investment in the lives of others? Then he's not cool. It's better to make them cannon fodder.

Anyway, Dante's DMC5 model got done dirty. It's actually a technical marvel that they managed to make him look ugly.

Dude... This was me when I saw who they got to do Dante:

Remember what I said in the video about this? Dante is an allusion of the Devil. The guy at the bottom could definitely pass as the devil. Dante? Not even a little. He doesn't even wear red anymore. It's some dark burgundy or maroon. It's not vibrant. It doesn't look like a flame.

The issue is that it's less excusable for classic Dante

Remember when there was this tremendous vagueness as to who the LDK was? Not only was it said around that it was Sparda but it also happened that Kamiya said it was what Dante would look like in the future. Welp, they certainly took that in the exact opposite direction, didn't they?

his character is self-actualized and stable.

Well, not entirely. He is after the game engs. It's Trish that gives him that missing last part. As it said in the book: She had given him back the most important thing: the joy of living that he had long forgotten. His completion came from her, which he notes might've been how it happened with his father.

Reuben's Dante is the guy that gets his definition of Alpha from 4chan boards and it shows

So... he's a meme... well, s***, I think he is.

Yet his sense of intrinsic value is absent now when it used to exist a decade+ prior, he has a near-pathological disregard for himself and others, his empathy is absent

Compare: Lady is close to his age. She's a normal human who carries a rocket launcher as her main weapon. She started her demon-hunting career as a high-schooler with the scars to show for it.

Dude. If you don't stop quoting me I might have to charge you.

and his mood is wholly contingent on whether or not his murderous evil twin is around, with every instance of him being "boring"/"depressed"/"not thriving" tied to Vergil not being around

Well, even then, he doesn't seem that attached to any form of concern for that relationship. From the time he tells Nero who Vergil is to the reunion on top of the tree, I didn't know he actually had the intention to go kill him. He certainly showed nothing resembling the behaviour of a man who had the intent of killing his brother. Off he goes with the full intent to end his brother's life and he treats it more like an annoyance. 'My dumbass brother is back and I'm going to rip him a new one' and 'I'm gonna go take care of old douchebag'? These things carry no weight as to what he intents to do. He talks about it like it's an annoyance rather than one of the gravest of sins you can commit. And if Nero has enough of a reaction then the 'that's just how this world is' does not get a pass. I said it before, I'll say it again. This whole thing has become dramatically stunted.

but she looks like she has an extended lifespan owed to demon blood.

It's divine blood, actually. Arkham is a descendant of the priestess Sparda sacrificed to seal the gate and, by extension, so is Lady. Arkham didn't start to alter himself till after she was born. That's in the manga and this other game, I think it was Project X Zone 1.

Not a coincidence, he's sharing his screentime with Nero, the guy designed to "attract women" and be the "sensitive type that girls like", and Nero's smaller in comparison. So Dante "performs" to project an aura that his approaching-40s self is just as capable as he was at 19, but he sounds and looks like he gets winded in seconds but y'know, it's all good, he doesn't care, which doesn't even fit with the idea that he's a human-demon hybrid and thus has more power/speed/longer life than everyone around him and can stay in his prime for longer.

You know, this might not be a conscious thing. They definitely try give Dante his times to shine and, while in reality it doesn't come off as such, in world he has a large degree of reverence. People recognize him, he has fame, he wins every fight. I mean, it doesn't match. His behaviour and the way people treat him are in complete contradiction to this sense of reverence. All that stuff is superficial. Yeah, he wins every fight but he's loser at everything else and in every other respect. Only strangers treat him well, but everyone he knows can, and have, acted like they're disgusted with him. The only exceptions are V and Nero, but that's just because they don't treat him like gum in their shoe. Nico does fangirl on him. Maybe consciously they try to elevate him but unconsciously they're just tired of him (and his appearance shows), because as much as they say he's great his actual interpretation is lacking in every respect. There is something to be said about treating your lead too well so maybe that's where they're coming from(?). Because it's either one of those or it's all for show. Just so they can say they're doing it because if it weren't for the action scenes people would think this guy was a joke character.

Anyway.

For my video I had to play everyone of the games to capture the footage, watch the anime (tried to, at least), read the materials as well as I could and, believe you me, I became far more aware of which experiences were the heaviest for me to get through. And I didn't skip the cutscenes. Everything is still very fresh in my mind so I can say with a degree of certainty that after 3, that style of storytelling and that interpretation of Dante really feel eye rollingly lacking. For the Dante I know, for the traits and qualities that make the character I hoped to see more of, I have to go play VJ, because that guy just isn't him. He has no interesting anything. He's not admirable. I'd have nobody replace Langdon in 3 but for him to replace the others with that iteration just irks me.

 

[Morgan]

It's odd because Kamiya was famous for saying he knew nothing about 3. He never said he had nothing to do with it but he never mentioned being an unofficial advisor, either. I don't think they're lying. More that I find it telling that Kamiya omits his involvement do to his history with the series and his personal feelings about it.

Yeah, when people aren't being blocked by him on Twitter, they're asking him about things to do with DMC3 and the answers he gives are contrary to the explanation in the games that are owed to new characterization, but I've only read of two occasions outside of one thread where it was nothing but Kamiya giving annoyed responses like "Use your brain".

Someone asked him why Dante hates his father, he said something like What? Dante doesn't hate his father. Except DMC3 is all about Dante's refusal to accept his demon heritage and he even says "I don't have a father" so on some level, yes, he does not like Sparda at that moment in time and rejects him. Then DMC5 leans in on him being a Momma's Boy and that his dad being angry made him cry or whatever.

Someone asked him if Dante is afraid of his own Devil Trigger, he said something like What? No, that's supposed to feel like an adrenaline shot. Except DMCs 3 and 4 give the impression that he doesn't ever Devil Trigger unless he has no other choice in a boss battle, or otherwise against his will (involuntary response to a "similar devil soul" i.e. Nero punching him in the face, or holding a cursed item, etc). 5 presents his character arc as him truly reconciling his disparate halves with Sin Devil Trigger -- when he should've done that all the way back in 1 when he Triggered to look exactly like Sparda.

No one on the team asked themselves how it was that the Sparda would give power to someone that (until then) hadn't come to terms with himself. If it forbids anyone from accessing its abilities after they abandon their human heart, then it shouldn't give it to people that don't acknowledge demon power. What, did anyone think Sparda won the war against Mundus and other devils with love and peace diplomacy and pacifism?

Expect we have. Dante did it first. If anything, Vergil comes off as the one copying Dante.

Yeah, mark that under "Itsuno has no idea what he's talking about" then, because his entire point was that what he wanted to portray was going to be shown with Nero as the shiny new robot saving Dante in danger. I could give two damns less who's copying who, except for when it's shallow and not even done correctly.

In fairness, this is the first time this happens. Vergil left in 3 and died in 1. I agree that it has become rather contrived but it's not something that's happened over and over again.

That's a rather reductive view on it.
He "died" in the attack that killed Eva -> "He's fine in DMC3"
He's "lost forever" in DMC3 -> "He comes back as Nero Angelo in 1"
He's "put down" for good in DMC1, he exploded, then the island exploded, DMC4 tells us they're harvesting his corpse -> "No, he survived and escaped and freed himself of Mundus's control, and reappears in 5 and only then was his body stated to be breaking down". What was he doing the entire time between 1 and 5, then?

Don't answer that.

How many times does this need to happen when the pattern is already there? People already noticed this story in 5 was "discount DMC3" with all the nuance stripped, and Nero repeats his character arc from 4. "In fairness" nothing. They immediately walked back the plain text of DMC4 to where the only actual death Vergil suffered was by his own hand with the V/Urizen split. It's a joke.

No one told them to put DMC3 as a canon event before 1, and no one told them to write as if Vergil were permanently dead by 4 only to retcon it in 5, but they did it anyway and that's on them.

Remember when there was this tremendous vagueness as to who the LDK was? Not only was it said around that it was Sparda but it also happened that Kamiya said it was what Dante would look like in the future. Welp, they certainly took that in the exact opposite direction, didn't they?

How vague was it? The Graphic File says they intended that to be Future Dante when the game was three scenarios of Younger - Adult - Older Dante to show he "calmed down and dressed up", then they stuck with it being Sparda because it was "the perfect image of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, so it was adopted as Sparda's costume", then Sacred Heart says "Yeah, the guy with the slick hair and two guns titled 'Legendary Dark Knight'? That is Sparda. His gameplay mode is Sparda Mode. The Yamato is described as a legendary sword wielded by Sparda, not Future Dante".

At the same time, their concept arts for The Count who lived in Mallet and was the mastermind behind the plot turned out to be a prototype for Mundus. Because of the concept art of The Count with a blonde and twin babies existed as a "secret to Dante's birth" but was never used in the game, people kept saying that it meant the Count was originally Sparda. Except the artist(s) involved said it was a prototype for Mundus. And Sparda is officially the LDK through "Sparda Mode" and the description for his weapons.

Then 5 gave Sparda long hair in his portrait and reused the Count image. That was rejected. That was a prototype for Mundus.

My god, they're dumb.

Well, not entirely. He is after the game engs. It's Trish that gives him that missing last part. As it said in the book: She had given him back the most important thing: the joy of living that he had long forgotten. His completion came from her, which he notes might've been how it happened with his father.

Do you want to give that book a name, or am I supposed to guess what it is? Because I quoted Trinity of Fates with the bit about her being a soulless container like a Marionette until Dante's love for her gave her a soul. If I read anywhere that he lost "the joy of living" and she gave it back, I would've remembered it.

Not that he acts very happy to be alive afterward, anyway.

Well, even then, he doesn't seem that attached to any form of concern for that relationship. From the time he tells Nero who Vergil is to the reunion on top of the tree, I didn't know he actually had the intention to go kill him. He certainly showed nothing resembling the behaviour of a man who had the intent of killing his brother. Off he goes with the full intent to end his brother's life and he treats it more like an annoyance.

I mean... yeah? What else has this conversation been about? He treats things like an inconvenience to him than with the gravitas it's owed, but he only gives more of a damn when it's about Vergil, enough for him to discount others' plights and dissuade them from what they desire to do for no other reason than contrivance and whatever just happens to pad the time out for the game.

He did it in 3 with Lady, even though she had more at stake with Arkham being her father, and she definitely had enough drive to do so through the whole game while Dante's IDGAF attitude dominates a literal 4/5ths of the mission count. Dante pretty much goes "Lol, noep!" defeats her in a boss fight, goes on a speech about how she taught him how to care about things and that this is his matter because Sparda Did A Thing 2000 Years Ago, and somehow this means she can't be there with him to assist in taking down her dad. We know it's because he's owed a final boss fight with Vergil, but it's not like Dante knew that. Vergil only crosses paths with Lady in Mission 19 to ascend to the Hellgate and steal the narrative back. And then Lady kills her dad anyway.

Then he contradicts himself when he's much older, more powerful, and more experienced, by allowing Nero to go save Kyrie. We're supposed to believe him when he said he'd kick Nero's ass if he screwed up rescuing Kyrie, Nero most assuredly screws up because he's inexperienced, Dante says something like "If you die and don't give me my sword back, I'm gonna be p***ed!" when Nero doesn't have the sword Dante's talking about to begin with, and then Dante doesn't kick his ass for screwing up, and gets the sword back himself because Nero didn't have it on him, only to give it to Nero, then he lets Nero keep it. We know all this nonsense is happening so that Nero's put into a position to rescue Kyrie from the inside, and because it's supposed to be a "passing the torch" moment to establish Nero as protagonist going forward, but it's not like Dante knew that. Again, he talked as if Nero was in possession of the Yamato when a) Sanctus had it, and b) somehow, offscreen, Sanctus gives it to Agnus to open up the True Hellgate, when Agnus has been nowhere for four whole missions between the boss fight with Nero and the True Hellgate being unsealed, and c) Dante magically knows that Agnus has it, and goes to kill him and get the sword. Consider how much time gets wasted on bs dialogue that could be better spent with characters communicating relevant information. We shouldn't have to headcanon how this happens.

So in 5, Dante straight up warns Urizen not to eat the Qliphoth under the impression that Urizen is 100% Vergil, and when he does it anyway Dante's all, "you lost your last bit of humanity you had left!" only to duel Vergil later and tell him about Nero as if Vergil gives a sh#t (he ate the fruit so he's totally inhuman now, remember?), and after the fight Dante's back to jokey-tired "Oh man, I can't believe you banged a woman once! Boys will be boys, eh?" like that's supposed to mean anything as proof Vergil has a heart when neither he nor V nor Urizen even remember who the F she was. Somehow Nero's existence redeems Vergil in some manner when Arkham and Agnus exist to prove that crotch-spawning a kid doesn't mean sh#t in this series, and he lets Nero fight his own father when he didn't let Lady fight her own father two decades ago or whatever.

None of these characters seem to exist in the same series that they clearly exist in, and they vacillate between "being total dumbasses" and "having 0 concept of Theory of Mind", so they proceed with their dumb actions and dialogue as if with foreknowledge of events and details in the future that weren't delivered to them naturally that then retroactively justifies their dumb decisions and dialogues because "everything works out in the end".

If I wanted contrived plot BS in a videogame fans waited ten years to get, only to find that events in the game are a cheap ripoff of tropes in entries that came before but with none of the nuance and double the dumbassery, with its only saving grace being it looks cool to press buttons, I would replay FFXV.

It's divine blood, actually. Arkham is a descendant of the priestess Sparda sacrificed to seal the gate and, by extension, so is Lady. Arkham didn't start to alter himself till after she was born. That's in the manga and this other game, I think it was Project X Zone 1.

1) I already know that,
2) I don't care.

And why should I? The game itself doesn't care about her "divine blood" aside from it being the final seal to the Temen-ni-Gru, because beyond that, her presence is blatantly downplayed as she's a being of "weak flesh and blood", "with little training and even less power" whose limit is "Peak Human" attributes anyway and no real superhuman feats that are owed to her blood and not her "psychotic" drive to be a huntress and other pesky details the game skips over to get to the next scene.

So she has this "divine blood", but she has scars on her legs and arms that don't heal except with time? Scratch that, she has scars to begin with? When Dante and Vergil are right there surviving fist-splitting sword punches, bisection at the waist, impalement, and Nero regrows an entire limb just because he got in his feelings?
They rejected a scene where she actively fought Dante and Vergil to a standstill because "a human shouldn't be that strong", totally ignoring her priestess blood?
No one mentions her blood having any effect on Urizen, and there's even less mention for how she's able to power Artemis even though Artemis is a demon made out of the same material as Angelos, and her blood is supposed to be anti-demon?

word?

You're talking about plot device blood that stopped its relevance so quickly that the Temen-ni-Gru isn't even re-sealed with said blood at the end of the game it was even used in so the tower stops being an eyesore. I'm talking about the blood that actually matters in this series.

I'd have nobody replace Langdon in 3 but for him to replace the others with that iteration just irks me.

I mean, there's this other dude that's voiced a red-coated handgun-wielding character before, as well as other characters with different dispositions, you may have heard of him:

He's a relative unknown, though, so it's totally understandable why his name didn't come up.

 

[berto]

Someone asked him if Dante is afraid of his own Devil Trigger, he said something like What? No, that's supposed to feel like an adrenaline shot.

That was part of the development staff. They weren't sure how to approach the animations for the character. They asked Kamiya what Dante goes through when DT'ing. Like, is it painful? To which Kamiya responded 'no, he's excited for it.' I think that's from the 3142 book.

5 presents his character arc as him truly reconciling his disparate halves with Sin Devil Trigger

Yeah. That has been the interpretation most derive from the story. There's a guy on YouTube, Atrophy of Soul, who did a very analytical review on the gameplay and the themes of the story. He makes a great case for this statement. The issue is, it's very contradicting to the nature of the character that was established in 1.

I'm going to get a bit pretentious for a moment. Bare with me.

The implications of his attitude towards his DT are the perfect archetypical differences between the philosophies that drive his character. They might seem minute but they are, in fact, based examples of how different the people writing the character approach the themes. The most obvious and, now, contrived approach to this set up, man with the blood of (insert evil thing here), is for him to be torn and tormented by his power. To be angsty and alone and angry and self hating, to any degree, even if they don't show it often. That's how everyone approaches this. The 'oh, with this dark power I will turn on humans, someday.' That's the norm and, yeah, it can work, but that's just not who Dante is. Kamiya's approach to the character very much sudgests that he's someone who is not just in full control but isn't angst about taking advantage of it. Hell, it suggests he's down right happy to do so. Everyone wants to go the angsty route and that's what made Dante so unique, but, if the analytical interpretations of the premise of 5 are correct, and they certainly make a case for it, it turns out that, no, in fact, he is no different from the legion of other characters who are tortured inside and say 'f*** you, dad' and act tough are actually depressed.

Yeah, mark that under "Itsuno has no idea what he's talking about"

I think that might've been budget things. In an interview for Visions of V Itsuno was asked what his favorite part of the manga was and he said that it was the separation of Vergil to V and Urizen because that's far closer to what they actually wanted to put on screen but the budget just wasn't there. It might be that their intentions were this but the end result was that.

That's a rather reductive view on it.
He "died" in the attack that killed Eva -> "He's fine in DMC3"
He's "lost forever" in DMC3 -> "He comes back as Nero Angelo in 1"
He's "put down" for good in DMC1, he exploded, then the island exploded, DMC4 tells us they're harvesting his corpse -> "No, he survived and escaped and freed himself of Mundus's control, and reappears in 5 and only then was his body stated to be breaking down"

Point taken.

How vague was it?

Pretty damn so. Remember that all this information was not available to the west for a long time. Hell, most didn't become so till a few years ago.

That was a prototype for Mundus.

Spencer. Even this was still Spencer when they made it:

Then 5 gave Sparda long hair in his portrait and reused the Count image. That was rejected.

Dude, he looks like Beethoven and I hate it.

They really know how to degrade characters in 5. The only one who they kept elevated was Nero. I'd bet money that this was NT's influence on Itsuno. This need to look 'realistic,' which, honestly(!), is just them looking dirtier and more raggedy and, in general, less and less impressive, can be traced back to them. They've, basically, visually tainted things.

Do you want to give that book a name

I'd love to, but it's already got one. It's called The Sacred Heart DVD Soundbook. Here's the transcript. Here's the page.

Not that he acts very happy to be alive afterward, anyway.

That's because they don't want to too much focus on Trish. The romantic implications would make the general audience start to get really obnoxious about it so they really want to downplay her importance as much as possible.

That and, let's not forget, that's all gone, now. This is a very different canon to the one we're discussing.

He did it in 3 with Lady

The situation in 3 was very different. In 3 Dante's journey was one of learning where his priorities lie. Yeah, he acts like a prick, but when he confronts Lady it's also the most sincere we ever get to see him, outside of his fight with Vergil. Especially when she tells him to wait, that moment where he pauses because he thinks she's still trying to stop him. The reason he tells her she can't go is because she can't win. That she's only human, and before you say it, yeah, but that's because she's now popular and, as we've pretty much been stating, there's no cohesion beyond this point. Things aren't because they should be, based on a sense of progression, but rather, based projected fan reaction. 3 Was a solid entree but it's done too well. Now they're scared to variate from that formula possibly thinking that doing so will only get them DmC reactions.

he ate the fruit so he's totally inhuman now, remember?

No, he isn't. V is his human side. He merged back with it so that makes him half human again. With Urizen Dante's being theatrical. He didn't physically lose his last shred of humanity, he did it metaphorically. To Dante, eating the apple was an inhuman act, not one that would purge him of his humanity.

Oh man, I can't believe you banged a woman once!

Yeah, what is it with people? Why is the internet so full of illogically forceful idiots? 'Duh. Dante's a virgin. The one in the reboot got laid so that means that the old one never did. Duh.' Yeah. A guy who looks like a male model, has no shame, and is overconfident can't get laid. 'Of Course Vergil wouldn't have sex. He's not that kind of person.' Well, clearly he is, which, by the way, is the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. If you have no interest in sex then you're not the normal one. Reproduction is as base an instinct as it gets. ALL living beings have it. It's how we got here. Even your stupid shonen anime characters that act like they're not interested, well, wait till the end when they have kids. Then, just to show that the internet doesn't actually have intelligent life, they push the idea that that woman was a prostitute. It clearly says that the people of the orphanage ASSUMED that she was but there was no basis for it. Otherwise he could've gone to find her, but because, like a bunch of old gossipy neighborhood women who only hear the scandalous parts to make it more juicy, you gotta turn those memes into truth and, damn it all, if you won't stick with it and defend your jokes as truth like any self indignant fan who's wrong would. Truth and written proof be damned. Never a sensible approach. Always one extreme or the other.

1) I already know that,
2) I don't care.

Well, then.

Scratch that, she has scars to begin with?

I have a theory about that. I think that those were not made by normal means. I think whatever caused those injuries isn't the kind of thing that can ever really fade. It's pretty safe to say that she got them all on the day her mother died and whatever caused those scars left a permanent 'stain.'

I mean, there's this other dude

Definitely not. He might've voiced Alucard but he doesn't have the traits that make Dante in 3 Dante from 3. He can replace Arkham, maybe, but there's nothing Dante about his general tone or delivery.

 

[Morgan]

That was part of the development staff. They weren't sure how to approach the animations for the character. They asked Kamiya what Dante goes through when DT'ing. Like, is it painful? To which Kamiya responded 'no, he's excited for it.' I think that's from the 3142 book.

Oh okay. Good on them for asking, because he'd have blocked whoever threw that at him on Twitter. /s

[Big ol analysis]

'oh, with this dark power I will turn on humans, someday.'

That's pretty much exactly what they did to Sparda, on top of Dante.

During 1 and 2, there was no impression he nerfed himself. He fought Mundus at full strength and later fought Argosax at full strength, then Dante surpassed his feat by blowing the Despair away with a hit. Until 3 said "Sparda feared his own strength so he sealed his power away on the other side so he would never turn against humans with it."

The insult is they refuse to go anywhere with this idea that justifies its existence. The Sparda Sword apparently has a Morality Check built into it so it never gives villains its full power, or it overwhelms them and becomes a detriment. Humans that seek demonic power must be corrupt because demon power is evil, except being born demonic or hybrid apparently is no real trouble because they didn't choose to have that power instilled in them, so they can just be good. So there is no real moral issue here for Dante or Sparda to be concerned with or angsty about, they're both just little bitches.

I think that might've been budget things.

Budget things made him misinterpret a Mazinger Z thing that inspired him?

Pretty damn so. Remember that all this information was not available to the west for a long time. Hell, most didn't become so till a few years ago.

We somehow still knew that that costume was intended as Future Dante and that The Count had a portrait with twins and a blonde woman for over a decade. All of those details came from the same source. One thing is availability and another is people simply not bothering to look where they can for information. The bit about Yamato being Sparda's sword (and the game calling him that explicitly) is right in the first game. No one thought of running "Sparda" through Google Translate and finding the mode was called "Sparda Mode" in the JP version of the game?

Not even gonna dignify that Itsuno DmC thing. Try sounding less like a crazy person on Reddit.

The situation in 3 was very different. In 3 Dante's journey was one of learning where his priorities lie.

Haha, wtf kinda logic is that? If the new games are all copying 3 because it's "so successful" then the situations are the same because that's their purpose and the source of the appeal. So it makes less sense that Dante the impulsive carefree teen who only got a shred of seriousness and sincerity just a few minutes ago is less lax about what Lady does with their righteous anger than a more experienced and powerful Dante who just lets Nero's hotheaded self go and fight the Pope who has a hostage, especially when he's already had success convincing Lady to take a ten minute retirement while he handled important business. He should've had no problem putting Nero out and taking down Sanctus himself except for author fiat saying he can't Because Reasons (reason being Nero is the New Kid on the Block).

No, he isn't. [Blah blah]

So was Dante supposed to be splitting hairs about that at that very second and running the numbers in his brain to justify his massive change in opinion on whether his brother was a massive f#ck up that needed to be put down, yes or no?

You know you're playing a series where the worst villains had human blood coursing in their veins, right? The distinctions necessary to spare Vergil any negative moral judgment while he reaps benefits from immoral actions comes across as needlessly masturbatory.

[Big wall of text about sex]

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

And try reading what I said again in the context I said it in. Dante was the one bantering about how Vergil had a kid as if that somehow makes him more human than he was before when it doesn't.

You really should have paused at any point in that tirade and realized I wasn't asking for your opinion on whatever fandom thinks about Vergil having sex.

Definitely not. He might've voiced Alucard but he doesn't have the traits that make Dante in 3 Dante from 3. He can replace Arkham, maybe, but there's nothing Dante about his general tone or delivery.

Curious; did you actually hear about Reuben Langdon before he voiced Dante in 3, and did you know anything about what made Dante in 3 Dante from 3 before you actually saw a trailer or played the game? Did you really genuinely want "Wacky Woohoo Pizza Dude" Dante and have no perception of him not being that way at age 19 as opposed to someone that more cohesively develops into the guy from DMC1?

What's the Quantum Ranger got in common with a Son of Sparda that makes that guy fit to play Dante's twin?

I'm just saying, I'm real sure Crispin Freeman has very little traits in common with a genius talking gorilla but that didn't stop him from playing one, because as he says in the first video, changing the voice to something crazy doesn't matter and it's about actually understanding the character and conveying that in the performance instead of a voice change doing all the work. If you want to say he would be incapable of understanding Dante's character at all then I don't know what to tell you. A 19 year old version of a guy we were introduced to when he was 28 or so isn't so inscrutable that only one person can voice him.

 

[V's patron]

So after reading these posts, I'm more skeptical of Langdon's ability to pull of DMC1 Dante. I'm still open to giving him a chance because I'm more concerned about Bingo and Itsuno. DMC5 has a lot of problems storywise but bad performances aren't one of them.

We might get a new voice cast and a new take when the animated series comes out. So we'll have to see how the new VAs stack up.

 

[Morgan]

I agree. Stephanie Sheh knocked it out of the park for all 3 minutes she had in the game.

 

[berto]

Oh okay. Good on them for asking, because he'd have blocked whoever threw that at him on Twitter. /s

Um. We are on the same page that this was the development of DMC1, right?

Budget things made him misinterpret a Mazinger Z thing that inspired him?

Budget things keep him from going all on them and possibly having to resort to doing something else. That's always a possibility.

No one thought of running "Sparda" through Google Translate and finding the mode was called "Sparda Mode" in the JP version of the game?

Just how long do you think Google Translate's been around? Anyway, yeah, the sources haven't always been as readily available. Even if the knowledge was you're always going to get people who spread different theories around and if you happen to have read the piece of information but didn't save a link you're not going to be believed. It happens. Here almost as much as with the Zelda and Sonic fans.

Not even gonna dignify that Itsuno DmC thing.

So you don't see a resemblance, at all? 5, in no way shape or form, looks like it took any concepts, designs or inspiration from DmC? Doesn't remind you of that game in any way? Itsuno didn't take anything from that game to add to 5 so it's completely ridiculous to think that he'd want to take any approach or have similar ideas as to how to go about making the characters. Reddit levels of indignant ludicracy, that is!

Now, please take a look at the 1:50 mark:

And, now, if you'll please turn your attention at the 5:55 mark:

Haha, wtf kinda logic is that? If the new games are all copying 3 because it's "so successful" then the situations are the same because that's their purpose and the source of the appeal.

First, you're misunderstanding. I'm not saying that they're different because of plot reasons. I'm saying they're different in terms of presentation, in how the characters are presented has more depth in 3 and why. The rest I didn't address because I had no particularly strong feelings about.

So was Dante supposed to be splitting hairs about blah blah blah...

I am seriously starting to think we are not on the same page here. I'm simply pointing that Vergil didn't lose his humanity from eating the apple. Dante just said that as a kind of insult. To Dante humanity is this thing he puts on a pedestal so telling him he lost his humanity is a short way of telling him he's taken a step that is beyond salvation. The rest of that, I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.

You know you're playing a series where the worst villains had human blood coursing in their veins, right?

So, you think I brought that up because I was making some case to defend Vergil? That 'oh, ho, he's still human so he's not that bad?' Welp, no. No I wasn't. I was simply clearing the record.

did you actually hear about Reuben Langdon before he voiced Dante in 3, and did you know anything about what made Dante in 3 Dante from 3 before you actually saw a trailer or played the game?

No. That's all irrelevant. Before I played 3 I didn't care enough about voice actors to put any consideration to the topic. He's established as the voice of that character in my mind. His mannerisms, his infractions, his deliveries. Like I said, the same way I'd never want Drew Coombs replaced in 1 is the same way I wouldn't want Reuben Langdon replaced in 3. Not sure where that whole talking Gorilla thing came from but this is not some millennial nag about how only those who actual are that one thing can play the roles of that thing. It has to do with the actor and how they perform and the associations I've made with each iteration to those performances. Remember how I said that I find Langdon's voice in DMC2 Dante's appearance unfitting? Same thing. I don't find this gentleman's voice fitting for the role. For one, it's too deep. That's part of why I thought Langdon was a good pick for the role. He has a higher pitch than Coombs, making him sound younger.

You really should have paused at any point in that tirade and realized I wasn't asking for your opinion on whatever fandom thinks about Vergil having sex.

So, I like to tirade about related things. Seeing how the rest of these posts went I didn't think that was going to be an issue. Which leads me to the next thing. What's with the attitude? We were having a perfectly normal, though a bit long winded and opinionated, conversation and suddenly it goes to a 'I wasn't asking for your opinion on that.' So, what's the deal?

 

[V's patron]

@berto Crispin Freeman is famous for playing Winston from Overwatch. Who is a talking gorilla.

 

[Morgan]

Um. We are on the same page that this was the development of DMC1, right?

Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure.

Just how long do you think Google Translate's been around?

Since 2006, since you asked.

So you don't see a resemblance, at all? 5, in no way shape or form, looks like it took any concepts, designs or inspiration from DmC?

Yeah, but you were in the other thread about Itsuno wanting to do DmC2 and said

I find it funny that so many people online, mostly in 4chan, who adore 5 can't take this concept well. The idea that Itsuno loves DmC, that he was proud of the work he did in that game, enrages them. To them, the reboot is all that is bad and ugly and 5 is sacrosanct, so for the director of 5 to have any positive views on, specially to say that he loved it, is one of those does not compute scenarios that would cause a computer to crash and fail, which is what happens, every time, and it is ugly. Those wankers get vicious.

and now you're here ranting and raving about how Itsuno's love for DmC ruined DMC5 with its aesthetics, like you can't believe he has anything good to say or concepts he wanted to apply to the games going forward, and 5 would otherwise be perfect if only DmC hadn't sullied the classic series' animetastic purity with its dirty, grubby little realism hands. The horror.... the horror....!!

I have reasons for not liking DMC5. DmC isn't one of them. I think it's silly that Vergil now has Doppelganger and that the Yamato opens portals, because not only does it fuel inane conversations from people who think the reboot is now firmly in classic canon, but that Yamato ability also needs to be applied retroactively as it's something even a dying Vergil knows how to do (suggesting he's done that before), and there's no explanation to why Vergil didn't just portal his way into Mission 19 of DMC3 instead of taking the long way and crossing paths with Lady then leaving the clearly visible gash in Hell with his entrance, plus that whole show of throwing himself into Hell so that Dante has time to leave and save himself where a portal-opening Yamato would have made that issue a cinch... but you just sound like you have a split personality.

I am seriously starting to think we are not on the same page here. I'm simply pointing that Vergil didn't lose his humanity from eating the apple. Dante just said that as a kind of insult. To Dante humanity is this thing he puts on a pedestal so telling him he lost his humanity is a short way of telling him he's taken a step that is beyond salvation.

Okay, so what else would he have to do to prove it? Urizen ate a fruit made from the blood of murdered humans and Vergil's intention was to raise the Qliphoth to get that fruit. That's not inhuman enough? He also murdered a subordinate, like Mundus and Sanctus before him. He forsook humanity for power, like Sanctus, Arius, and Arkham before him. He betrayed his family, like Arkham before him. Even after multiple defeats, he totally discounted the value of humanity, like Mundus before him. He even berated Arkham for sparing his family, and called it "pesky fatherly love" that "got in the way".

And then Vergil gets saved. The point I'm making is that Vergil by far has committed every single atrocity the other villains in this series have been put to pasture for, but he gets away with it because he's pretty and he's fanservice. If him eating the Qliphoth didn't make him inhuman, the other villains who weren't even within staring distance of a Qliphoth aren't inhuman either, but this double standard just makes Dante look more full of b.s. than he already is. Just because I know it's fanservice doesn't make it smart or good.

Defending Vergil is exactly what your splitting hairs sounded like.

He's established as the voice of that character in my mind. His mannerisms, his infractions, his deliveries.

Yes. And this only happened after the game came out and you played it. If they somehow managed to tap Crispin to voice Dante since 3, you'd just have to accept it, the same way all those people who allegedly sent Reuben hate mail for not sounding remotely like Coombs turned around to love him. You know that thing I said about revisionists overcompensating and trying to play themselves off as "true fans" that supported his casting the whole time? Yeah. That.

Crispin has a variety of roles under his belt that aren't anything like each other (much less like Alucard) and that's the point. He's not any less capable of hypothetically voicing a young Dante, just like he wasn't less capable of voicing Tony Stark in a Marvel game even when RDJ is so iconic as his live-action portrayal. JYB and Stephanie Sheh voiced Ichigo and Orihime, and now they're Nero and Kyrie. Are these characters a 1:1 copy of each other? No, they don't have to be; the voice acting is still good. All it is is a funny "hey, similar characters!" gag to their fandom, see also: Mamoru Miyano voicing Light Yagami and Ignis Scientia but also all these other guys.

Let me put it to you this way: Mark Hamill is iconic as the voice for the Joker, and Troy Baker does a good impression of that for continuity in the Batman: Arkham series, but John DiMaggio still played him well in Under the Red Hood, as did Anthony Ingruber for Batman: The Telltale Series (and he could've been a good Han Solo if they let him be). There's 0 reason for this level of inflexibility towards voice actors, given that "playing something they're not" is the whole point of their job, and it's a job, not a lifelong inheritance like being crowned royalty. David Hayter isn't losing sleep over Keifer Sutherland voicing Snake.

Not sure where that whole talking Gorilla thing came from but this is not some millennial nag about how only those who actual are that one thing can play the roles of that thing.

1. What V's Patron said. You could at least respect my post enough to watch the videos in it. Or respect their post. Or at least Google what I meant. "Crispin Freeman talking gorilla". It's not that hard.
2. Well it sure sounds exactly like that millenial nag, doesn't it? That's a You problem.

I don't find this gentleman's voice fitting for the role. For one, it's too deep. That's part of why I thought Langdon was a good pick for the role. He has a higher pitch than Coombs, making him sound younger.

Do you not know any deep-voiced 19 year olds? Like, I dunno if you've noticed, but a 19 year old and a 28 year old are both adults, and older people exist who straight-up do not sound any different than they did a decade-plus prior, not withstanding the quality of their voice becoming thinner/shakier/scratchier from presbyphonia. Vocal pitch, though? Dante's balls already dropped by the time of DMC3; he's not going to hit puberty twice. And you're talking about pitch accurately portraying age beyond adulthood in the same series in which Capcom saw fit to replace Kari Wahlgren with Kate Higgins and Kate makes Lady sound like a high-schooler when she's past her 30s. If I had to pick literally any other VA for Lady that wasn't either of those two, I'd go for Erica Lindbeck.

You know they could just use software to pitch Crispin's voice up, right? Or they could just make him do a slightly-higher register than normal that still sounds like it could turn into Drew Coombs's voice in a few years? Again, dude voiced a talking scientist gorilla. He has range. And again, you could at least respect my post enough to watch those videos. There's a reason they're "Crispin voicing a variety of roles" and not "Alucard highlights".

We were having a perfectly normal, though a bit long winded and opinionated, conversation and suddenly it goes to a 'I wasn't asking for your opinion on that.' So, what's the deal?

The deal is I wasn't asking for your opinion on that. It's not that deep.

Dante didn't not tell Vergil a "boys will be boys"-style jokey line right after their fight; it's in the script, and it's in reference to Vergil having sex with a woman and just forgetting about it to the point where he didn't even know he had a son, because it was a one-night stand or whatever, as if he was having casual sex that often to just forget the only person he may have ever done it with in his lifetime. So he's "normal enough" to get his dick wet, but not enough to remember his first (or only) sexual experience?

I'm not gonna waste my time reading a tirade on how fandom interpretation of Vergil as asexual (or celibate) is wrrroooonnggg and people are iiiiiddiiiioottttssss when Capcom itself presented Vergil as having no interest in being seen as "normal" ever, caring little for humanity or companionship, and having a propensity for using humans as tools and murdering them when they're not useful to him anymore, or even murdering them for having the audacity to be within arm's length of him. The manga volumes where Vergil kills some relatively harmless muggers, slashes a librarian to pieces for holding a book near him, and the nicest thing he does is call Alice a "painted whore" and "men will tire of you, and all too soon"? Those volumes have Capcom's logo on the corner. They made their bed, they can lie in it.

So you're mad people didn't believe Vergil had any form of a sex life. What do you want, a cookie? The fervor about Vergil's personal life isn't even that new: check a look at the K-pop industry sometime. Maintaining an untarnished image of "availability" to fandom and not having a sniff of a committed relationship to anyone outside of the performance fans pay to see is the poorly-hidden secret that's over 60% of their career, and all they do is sing and dance on a stage. Fandom for real-life people is already that wild, and you're surprised at how fans get about fictional characters they pay for access to and direct control of? Games are a product, not a charity. Their continued existence comes from whether fans pay enough for what's already there to make them worth making more of. Fans can stop paying artists for their music en masse right now, and the artist doesn't suddenly die. They can get a career as an actor or something more low-key, or catch up on their personal life while the paparazzi drops off because the idols are no longer relevant as they are. DMC fans not buying DMC games means the characters do effectively die from no more DMC games short of Capcom selling those IP rights so someone new can take a crack at it. Yeah, fans are going to feel entitled about it; people liking Vergil in 3 is the exact reason he's in 5, otherwise he wouldn't be in it.

Go back a decade ago: fans were exactly that inflexible if anyone posited that Sparda had a lover and children prior to meeting Eva. Nero being Sparda's distant descendant from an earlier child he had was still a viable option for Nero's parentage that would have skipped a bunch of dumb internet arguments about how IC that is for either of the twins we know, but somehow that was less acceptable despite the fact that Sparda was in the Human World for much longer, didn't take a vow of celibacy as far as we're aware, and actually loved humanity enough to save it and didn't commit acts of mass murder after his redemption. Or he could've just had a one-night stand, too! But nah. "Implausible". So he just held his urges in for a straight 1900+ years, as if he had foreknowledge that Eva would exist one day to be The One that he would settle down and have only two children with, and they'd die at the same time as each other. He was perfectly confident that he would never, ever die before that point, and that he'd live long enough to have offspring to inherit his power/swords/whatever. And Eva was Just That Special. Sure. I mean, the problems raised for Sparda being Nero's ancient ancestor (not being involved in the lives of the resulting child or children, "this wasn't mentioned before", "we don't know who the mother is", "we would've heard about this already," etc), are the ones that exist now for Vergil being Nero's direct father, except Sparda doesn't have an established character to go against, and having more than one lover in one's lifetime isn't a sin nor is monogamy a personality trait.

That's about it. See ya.
/Cr1TiKaL voice

 

[berto]

@berto Crispin Freeman is famous for playing Winston from Overwatch. Who is a talking gorilla.

Well, I certainly don't remember Humanite or Grodd having that voice.

@Morgan Yeah, well, I don't appreciate it. Since I'm very much involved I've asked for a neutral party to intervene. If I'm in the wrong, so be it, but I sure as hell don't have to take it.

 

[Angel]

What the heck, guys?

This went from a chill Sunday drive to a manic "late for work" speed run. I've read the whole thing and I just cannot fathom why the sudden flip from discussion to, essentially, "no u" happened.

I'm not issuing warnings right now as I'm hoping the two day break has given you a chance to calm down. But rest assured, if this gets picked back up in the same vein, I'm not going to just let it slide.

I completely understand that for some of you, this topic is something of a hot one and there are some very detailed and knowledgeable discussions surrounding it. Which is great, and I wholeheartedly encourage it. But, once again, the beauty of the internet is the ability to stop before hitting post and checking that we're not getting too personal or riled up about the wrong things.

By all means, carry on the discussion...but perhaps with a more level head.

Thanks.