Welcome to the ink, paint, and pixel corner of Paste TV, where we’re highlighting some of the best premium animation projects on streaming or direct-to-video aimed for teens and adults. This monthly column not only provides an overview of the new animated series to check out, but we’ve also collected some of the finest creators and voice talents in the medium to give updates, or introductions, to their series.
Devil May Cry Post Mortem (Premiered April 3)
Almost 25 years since Capcom debuted the Devil May Cry videogame series centered on an incredibly powerful demon hunter named Dante, the franchise is finally getting its own adult animated series on Netflix. The latest game-to-animated series adaptation from Adi Shankar (Castlevania) for Netflix, Devil May Cry is an engrossing (and gory) reimagining of the canon that pulls from all areas of the mythology.
However, Shankar is quick to clarify to Paste that Devil May Cry is not part of his Adi Shankar Animation “bootleg universe” wing of storytelling. “That is when I deeply subvert things, rearrange it and make it something new, or point out some sort of new lens through the IP,” he explains. “This show is not that.”
Shankar says he’s been a dedicated fan of the DMC gameverse since the original came out in 2001, and that expanded his interests into the manga, the 2007 anime series and every iteration of the game. “My biggest issue with Devil May Cry was just that I didn’t feel like there was enough of it and I wanted to actually do Devil May Cry. So, this is a ‘by-a-fan-for fans’ adaptation of the intellectual property from Capcom.”
Shankar’s series places Dante (voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch), Mary/Lady (Scout Taylor-Compton) and the White Rabbit (Hoon Lee) as the central characters of the narrative. Set in contemporary times, the three eventually come together when a violent break in and burglary of the Vatican tips off a demon’s plan to open a portal to Hell that will allow the two planes of existence to merge.
Pulling from all corners of the universe to set up this story, Shankar says this show was an opportunity to appeal to hard core fans like him, and also appeal to new viewers. “It was an opportunity to really take the entire media franchise, known as Devil May Cry, and arrange it into a coherent timeline.”
While the details may be different, Shankar says existing fans will easily recognize the beloved characters. “I was personally very drawn to the characters and I had to preserve the characters. While the tone changes, the setting, the costumes, the lighting, package, the music shifts with every game, the characters, for the most part, do tend to stay the same.
“The one deviation I did make from the game, and this was a choice, was to set it in the real world,” he continues. “The games exist in the game world and here I made the choice, inspired by the Christopher Nolan Batman movies,” which he says was his benchmark example for how to reimagine classic characters. “My show is the most ungrounded possible thing, but I set it in the real world and that gives it a tinge of grounding that will bring it down to reality, even though Dante is essentially Superman.”
[Spoilers below!] The first season establishes the demon vs. human world, a strong ensemble of characters and introduces fight sequences well-influenced by game combat. Devil May Cry also creates great stakes around its core trio, the White Rabbit, Dante and Lady.
“They are all born of tragedy and that was a discovery that happened in draft 10 of the outline,” Shankar says. “They all lost their family, so it was a core tenant of the brand. But it was also a discovery thing that was happening during the outlining and the scripting phase.”
Shankar says this younger Dante is still learning who is worth trusting or not. “One of the things that’s so beautiful about the character of Dante is we have this whole universe where everyone’s just dealing with so much loss but he finds a way to let it not destroy him. It’s the beauty of this character. He finds a way to not let the loss completely destroy him, or completely define him.”
And Mary represents someone who has to come to understand that a black and white view of the world isn’t going to make her killing mission any easier. “These characters now have to make choices,” he says of where the season finale leaves them in “A River of Blood and Fire.” “Just like in real life, when you level up, you reach forks in the road. People who are deeply ungrounded because they lost a parent figure and are trying to regain that through other means. The thing about Mary is — and this is from the games — she’s super anti-demons. They’re all evil. The game makes it clear in the lore, also the mangas make it clear and in Episode 3 of the original 2007 anime, they all make it clear that not all demons are bad. And now we are now going to make you challenge your beliefs,” he says of Mary’s formerly trusted superior, VP Baines (Kevin Conroy), who enters Hell to bring it to its knees.
With the passing of Conroy in 2022, Shankar is thrilled they got to feature one of his last performances. “Kevin gave a deeply nuanced performance. You know, he originally came in for the White Rabbit,” he shares. “Netflix sent me the auditions and I was like, ‘Kevin Conroy auditioned!’ I would think I’d have to trek to a mountain…to even have the opportunity for him. So, I was like, ‘We have to give him White Rabbit.’ But then you listen to it and you’re like, ‘This doesn’t like work at all,’ because he’s too seasoned. The White Rabbit is a little little more maniacal. But literally, five seconds into the audition, I’m like, ‘That’s Baines. That is Baines mocking the White Rabbit.’”
Jurassic World Chaos Theory Post Mortem (Premiered April 3)
[Spoilers Below!] If you’ve watched the ongoing saga of the “Nublar Six” on Netflix, going back to Camp Cretaceous and now continuing with Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, then you know that both series have always existed within the canon of the Jurassic World films. While there’s been a generous use of some shared locales, props, and certainly dinosaur species, Season 3 of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory does something the animated series has never done before – merge their story into actual scenes from Jurassic World Dominion.
Scott Kreamer, the co-showrunner/executive producer of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, tells Paste, “I guess this was sort of our blockbuster season.” Taking place in Senegal, Italy and Malta, not only is the globetrotting amped up, but three important characters from the films are featured:Barry Sembène (voiced by Evan Michael Lee), Lewis Dodgson (Adam Harrington) and Soyona Santos / The Broker (voiced by Dichen Lachman).
“All I can tell you is, there’s a lot of communication to pull off,” Kreamer chuckles about backwards engineering this season to integrate Brooklynn (Kiersten Kelly) and Santos’ silent Atrociraptor trainer, The Handler, into the happenings at Malta.
“We’ve all worked on shows where the writers are writing stuff that is unachievable, and the board artists are drawing stuff that we don’t have,” Kreamer says of how ambition often gets axed for budget or time on animated series. “But about midway through Season 1, we started these things called ‘do-ability’ meetings, so we’re not writing and drawing stuff we can’t do. We took that to a whole new level on this show, where we had meetings after premise, after every draft. We all had to be in sync. Bethany Armstrong Johnson, our head writer, really kept the coordination going with the production department, the story department, the writing, the design, even lighting. Everybody in every department always answered the call, And everyone always took ownership over what they’re doing. For something this unwieldy on a TV animation schedule and budget, it’s all credit to the team.”
In “No Escape” and “Active Pursuit,” the writers literally place Brooklynn and The Handler in the back of the truck that Santos stands in front of in the film when she’s surrounded by Barry and Owen.
“We pressure test everything, and we’re like, ‘Okay, could The Handler and Brooklyn be in the back of that truck?” Kreamer says about how they worked through Dominion’s potential joining points. “And we said, ‘You know, they could.’ We cut away after Barry’s guys tell Santos to put her hands up. We don’t see her again [in the film], so that gave us a lot of room to play with. It’s tricky but it’s part of the whole puzzle of telling these stories by telling our own story, enhancing what’s in the movie, but not breaking the reality of what’s going on in the movie.”
A different kind of surprise this season was hearing Beatrice Grannò (The White Lotus) voice Gia, Ben’s girlfriend in Italy, and Isabella Rossalini (Conclave) as her Nonna. “We were talking about an Italian grandmother and I said that I want no subtitles and I just want the performance,” Kreamer says of their early cast conversations. “Then Bethany goes, ‘What about Isabella Rossellini?’ I said, ‘We’re obviously not going to get Isabella Rossellini, but let’s run it by the team.’ And you know what…we got Isabella Rossellini. It’s crazy! She was so delightful. It’s definitely a career highlight.”
In a season full of high notes, the climactic face-off in the finale, “Morituri Te Salutant,” amongst Santos, The Handler, Brooklynn, a Carnotaurus and the pack of Atrociraptors was one of the show’s best moments in how it closed the arc of The Handler…with a brutal chomp.
“Ideally, I would have shown a little more, but technically, it’s a kid show,” Kreamer admits of the Carnotaurus eating her whole. “We had a scene where you saw the leg and more blood on the whistle, and they said you can’t do any of that. Hopefully, people get it. I can’t remember exactly when that idea came to us, but as we’re heading deeper and deeper into Dominion, and there’s no Handler…. And I just love the idea that that’s the only time you hear her speak in this series.”
The season ends with Brooklynn, Ben, Darius and Yaz on the Biosyn drone copter heading towards Dodgson’s Biosyn Valley, while Kenji and Sammy head towards the same place via land. Kreamer says, “We always wanted them to come back together. But just because they’re back together; this isn’t one of those shows where it’s like, ‘Welp, we’re all back together and everything is alright!’ We definitely want it to feel messy and real and complicated, like people really are. So, if we get to do more, I wouldn’t say it’s going to be easy. We had a lot of plates spinning and a lot of balls in the air for this one, so we’ll just have to see what the future holds.”
Mention to anime lovers Cowboy BeBop or The Wachowskis’ The Animatrix, and immediately the legendary director/animator Shinichirō Watanabe comes to mind. An innovator of the medium, Watanabe’s work is known for his integrations of music, his blending of genres and his clever use of camera. And he’s back on Adult Swim with his new original series, Lazarus, a futuristic, doomsday countdown thriller. It’s set in the near future 2052, in an alternate world where humans have become dependent on the painkiller drug “Hapna” which is suddenly revealed by its creator to kill those taking it after three years of ingestion.
Watanabe told Paste that watching in Japan how the American news covered the opioid crisis, and the subsequent death by opiods of one of his musical heroes, Prince, inspired the idea for the series.
“I really think it’s a little absurd that Prince passed away after taking the medication that he received from his doctor; it’s a little bit crazy,” Watanabe offers. “And while your President is putting it on China right now, I really believe it’s the pharmaceutical companies that are to blame.”
That dynamic inspired him to create Lazarus’ neuroscientist character Dr. Skinner as the creator of Hapna, a drug for which he is initially lauded, and then is condemned as essentially the Angel of Death for humanity because of the drug’s mortality impact.
The death clock aspect prompts a dire race to find Skinner by high powered groups, one that puts together an unconventional task force of five agents, including a wiley and rebellious prison escapee, Axel Gilberto.
Coming into the series, Watanabe says he wanted to try some new ways at bringing a series to life. “For the story, it is more of an American style approach,” he says. “We had four different writers, and they all collaborated together to write the story, which is not usually the case. But four people were definitely very helpful. The people involved in the writing room had a lot of ideas and I believe that they did come up with new ideas that I couldn’t have come up with.”
There’s also a shift in tone that comes deeper into the series. “The Lazarus team, their first acquaintance, occurs in Episode 1 where they’re complete strangers,” Watanabe details. “Then throughout the series, their relationship to each other does change. They’re a big mess when they first get together. They’re all kind of on their own, but a big event does occur in Episode 8 and they come together as a team. And Episode 9 does change the tone, and from there to Episode 13 it’s more of a piece.”
Watanabe also sought new collaborators like director Chad Stahelski (John Wick) to help design action sequences from Episode 2 onwards. “His team is able to do very serious and very heavy action, as well as light and very fun action,” Watanabe says. “So the first part of the series is where all the fun, light action is. But once we get further into the series, definitely more heavy action happens.”
Music collaborators include original creations by musicians Bonobo and Floating Points, and a jazz score by Kamasi Washington that adds a funky vibe to the action. “We reached out to Kamasi after we completed a good portion of the animation,” Watanabe says. “We had meetings to convey what the series was and the imagery for it, so he was able to make a lot of heavy and a lot of light song tracks. We had him basically create what he thought the series would be like. And a lot of our initial songs that we use from him are lighter. As we go further, they do start getting heavier.”
Iyanu (April 6)
In 2021 Dark Horse Books released writer/filmmaker Roye Okupe’s original graphic novel series Iyanu: Child of Wonder. Seeped in the culture, music, and mythology of Okupe’s home, Nigeria, it followed the origin story of Iyanu, an orphan in the magical kingdom of Yorubaland. Raised and trained by the wise and last of her kind witch, Olori, Iyanu comes to understand that she is a child of prophecy with divine powers that will unlock a destiny that will impact the destiny of her land and people.
Okupe was then able to adapt his book into a Cartoon Network series of the same name that expands upon the lore in his books. Iyanu features an all Nigerian voice cast and will premiere in 44 countries around the world.
“It’s not every time you get a creator and a writer of a graphic novel who becomes an executive producer,” Okupe acknowledges to Paste. “And this is a very faithful adaptation. From when this was greenlit as an animated series, for me, the whole thing was about doing it organically. It wasn’t about forcing anything from the comic books into the animated series but about staying true to what everybody loved. Because there’s a reason why people saw the graphic novel and wanted to adapt it as an animated series. So it was taking those pillars and making sure those things were never ignored. At the same time, understanding that animation is a different medium, and respecting that medium and allowing it to bring different things out of the story in a way that you couldn’t do in the comic books.”
Having hoped for this opportunity since 2008, Okupe says he was paired with Brandon Easton, an animator and story editor working in TV for over a decade, to help him as a showrunner on Iyanu. “That was one of the first pillars of education for me into what it takes to actually create a world for the TV screen,” he explains. “He’s touched so many big franchises, and to be able to have somebody like that come in as a story editor and to lead us in the writers’ room was just big for me.”
And then Lion Forge Entertainment hired the book illustrator, Godwin Akpan, as the art director for Iyanu. “Having him as somebody that I could work with, as the art director, that already took away half of the job for me. I knew he was going to handle it from the perspective that he knew the books, cover to cover, and he knew exactly what the story was about. And he actually lives in Nigeria so he brings the culture. But he had never been an art director before. I had never been a showrunner, but Lion Forge risked it all based on the mission of the company, which is to have diverse voices, tell stories authentically.”
Asked what makes Iyanu stand out as a teen heroine in this story, Okupe says, “Iyanu is going on this journey, where the only way she can save the people of Yorubaland is to finally express herself in her full power. Where the story gets really serious is that Iyanu is in exile because of her powers, and now she has to make this decision as a hero, where it’s like, ‘I need to see people that don’t necessarily like me.’ And to me, that’s really the mark of a true hero, which is empathy. Because I feel like someone you can truly call a hero doesn’t necessarily get to pick and choose who they want to save. It really poses the question of, what does it really mean to be a hero, and what does it really mean to have empathy for people that don’t necessarily agree with you, or like you, for that matter. I think it’s a huge message for not just kids, but even adults in this day and age.”
In the process of adapting the book, Easton and Okupe were able to find seminal sequences on the page and expand them for the series, especially when it came to showing Iyanu’s fighting skills which are based on Capoeira and Dambe boxing from Northern Nigeria. “A lot of people don’t know that Capoeira started off in Africa, specifically Angola,” he explains. “And then it was obviously, unfortunately transported with the slaves to South America and Brazil, where it’s very popular right now. So for us, it was really about taking the roots from something like that, and not necessarily going with traditional martial arts that you would see in typical action adventure shows, whether it be karate or kung fu. It was very important for us to really stick as close as possible to home as we could.”
With Iyanu getting a first season pick up, Okupe hopes that audiences give this show a try so new stories get a chance to be told. “I want to clarify that as specific to cultural authenticity Iyanu is, it’s for everybody,” he says. “You can be a kid from Norway, you can be an adult in China, or a teenager in Australia or South America, everybody can find themselves in Iyanu. A lot of people have asked for this type of storytelling to be put on these big platforms like Cartoon Network [next day on Max], and it’s finally coming out. Unfortunately, ratings are what decide how long a show is going to stay on the air. So if you don’t watch it, that’s going to count negatively towards us. And we’re not even saying that you have to watch it because it’s a black character, or an African character. This is a show that’s great for kids and family. You’re not only going to be entertained, but you’re going to be inspired as well. So, I would urge people to definitely check it out because your eyeballs are essentially what’s going to determine how far we go with this.”
Gremlins: The Wild Batch Season 2 Part 2 (April 10)
The wild west adventure of Gizmo, Sam, and Elle continues with five more episodes available on Max. It puts the tiny Mogwai in the earliest era of the city that will eventually become the place that in the future Mr. Peltzer will discover in Mr. Wing’s shop in Chinatown. But for now the show will continue to explore the Chinese immigrant culture of the time and where it influences the personalities who will help build American folklore. Look for Johnny Appleseed (Timothy Olyphant) and Calamity Jane (Robin Weigert, reprising her Deadwood role) to show up as this arc continues.
#1 Happy Family USA (April 17)
Multi-hyphenate Ramy Youssef joins veteran adult animation writer/creator Pam Brady (South Park, Neighbors from Hell) for their first adult animated series, #1 Happy Family USA for Prime Video. Inspired by the Ramy episode “Strawberries,” with this series Youssef wanted to dig into his experience as a Muslim kid from an Egyptian family growing up in North Jersey in the wake of 9/11.
Brady tells Paste that she was a long-time fan of Youssef’s work and when they met for a general meeting they just clicked. “Though we couldn’t be more different in our creative expression,” she laughs. “My joke is that Ramy’s a real writer. Then, I’ll come in with the most offensive joke.”
Mining his own life and childhood, #1 Happy Family USA revolves around 10-year old Rumi Hussein, his immediate family and his diverse neighborhood. Brady says the show is specific to his experience. “And this really did happen to him in New Jersey,” she confirms. “One day, yes, an FBI agent did move across the street after 9/11 and then the whole family’s like, ‘That’s weird.’ We always thought that the more specific we made the show about his experiences, like feeling awkward, going to school, being in love with his teacher, and just feeling like an outsider, which everybody feels at this age, everybody could relate to it. And we really did zero in on making sure these characters were not like cookie cutter characters, which they’re not. Just making sure that they all had flaws, just making sure that we knew these people.”
She says they were both aware that in the current political climate, where hostility towards immigrants is running high, the show would be “controversial” for just showing a mosque or for positive depictions of Islam. However, not much has changed going back to 2001, and that helped them figure out how to talk about where we are today without being ham fisted. “It was to go back there with our current lens, and let’s look at 2000-2001. The thing that we wanted to show — and South Park does this — is like, ‘Oh, the world’s crazy.’ Through the lens of a kid, let’s look at how crazy the world is. And I think that’s the best lens to look at international relations, the war on terror, and the big stuff. Because I think if you treat it like an adult, then it’s not very funny.”
The show’s distinctive throwback look comes from the illustrative style of Pulitzer Prize winner Mona Chalabi. “Ramy was always a huge fan of hers, so he reached out and said, ‘Let’s make our show feel like that.’ It’s almost like a DIY, homemade style,” Brady says of Chalabi’s unique aesthetics for their world and character design. “We didn’t want it to feel bubbly, like Rick & Morty. We’re focusing on 2001, so this should feel like a ’90s animated show. We loved Doug and Rugrats, like the old Nickelodeon. And we wanted it to feel rough, and they even move a little rough, so it feels like a throwback.”
With a two-season order, Brady says the first season is focused on the theme of fear. “We said, ‘All right, this is where we are. And what does it do to people? What does it do to a family?’” she says of presenting that as subtext to Rumi’s everyday life. “It made Hussein, the father, go, ‘Oh, we’re going to throw out everything we believe in, and we’re going to be the most American family ever!’ And we really hit the idea of code switching. We wanted to bring it through with the art too, so Mona created this template where, the second the [family] walks through a doorway, or they go out of the doorway, they sort of judder, almost like a VHS tape. When they walk outside, they become who they think the world wants them to be.”
Brady says the show has been created without courting controversy in mind, but it’s about representing a full spectrum of relatable experiences in America. “I just hope that people love the characters and that’s all you can hope for. Ramy, as a performer, is such a lovable person. I do think he’s pretty deep, so I think this is an unusual animated show, because it goes deep and spiritual. Even though he’s really trying to sleep with his teacher, when he goes home he actually reads Rumi. So we’ll have episodes where you just have a little passage from Rumi; little grace notes which is not normal for a show like this. But I love stuff like that, and that’s what Ramy is so amazing at.”
Tara Bennett is a Los Angeles-based writer covering film, television and pop culture for publications such as SFX Magazine, NBC Insider, IGN and more. She’s also written official books on Sons of Anarchy, Outlander, Fringe, The Story of Marvel Studios, Avatar: The Way of Water and the latest, The Art of Ryan Meinerding. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraDBennett or Instagram @TaraDBen.
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