Since debuting in 2001, Devil May Cry has become an incredibly popular video game franchise. The original game spawned numerous sequels, comic books, novelizations, and even an animated series in 2007. Now, an animated spinoff series is set to launch on Netflix, starring Jonny Yong Bosch, the veteran actor who played Nero in Devil May Cry 4 and 5, as Dante, and Scout Taylor-Compton as Lady.

The Best War Games spoke with Devil May Cry's creator, Adi Shankar, about how he tried to make the show appeal to new fans while honoring the franchise's traditions. The visionary producer and director already has a successful Castlevania anime on his CV, but he's looking to go one further with his flashy new adaptation of Devil May Cry.

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By Kanishma Ray

Devil May Cry Attempts to Appeal to All Fans

Over the years, Devil May Cry's fan base has grown exponentially with each new entry. As the series expanded into other media, it attracted new and different types of fans. This meant that when it came to the new Netflix anime, Shankar knew he had to find a way to appease as much of this fan base as possible, while also attempting to draw in new fans. On how he went about trying to make this happen, Shankar said,

''It was an exercise in alchemy. Devil May Cry does have a very core, very dedicated fan base. I'm part of the fan base! But if you really get into it, the fan base is fractured. Because of all the different games, different outfits etc. It's not a cohesive group. So this was an exercise in alchemy in the sense of just kind of bringing it all together.''

Adi Shankar Used 24 Years' Worth of Hindsight When Making Devil May Cry

One of the benefits of adapting a show from a long-running video game series is the amount of lore already available to pull from. When creating Devil May Cry, Shankar felt it was important to tap into as much of this lore as possible, without fundamentally changing anything about the characters or the world. He coined the phrase 'cosmic editing' when describing this process. Shankar continued,

''I use the phrase cosmic editing when describing it. It's like using the hindsight of 24 years’ worth of material that was designed through retconning. Then cosmically editing it and not changing it again. That's the key. Sometimes I go into things like Captain Laserhawk, and I'm like, alright, we're gonna flip everything on its head. I did not do that here. That was not my goal. The goal was to reveal the architecture that was always there.''

Clearly, Shankar felt that striking the right balance with the source material was key to making Devil May Cry as good as it could possibly be. Younger versions of Dante and Lady help to give the show a fresh feel. However, its use of early 2000s Nu-Metal, with Limp Bizkit's Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle) as the show's main theme, adds some nostalgia into the mix for fans who may well have been listening to this music when the first game was originally released.

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