Amon vol. 4
Rest in piece, Silene
The story was still very much focused on the past, with Satan being absent after his battle with Amon and another demon Asura (who might as well be Ashura since it's two people split down the middle and merged) is manipulating demon kind to his will so he can kill Satan. Because hey guess what, Satan's got someone else that holds a huge grudge against him, though compared to Amon which is just "don't know, don't care, I just hate you," Asura's has a bit more reason behind it as he blames Satan and his fall from heaven to lead to demons in general being rejected by God, and how Asura became what it is now.
Speaking of falling from heaven, this volume all but confirmed in a few pages that Michael gave Satan the most lop sided curb stomping battle against him back when he was called Lucifer and first fell from grace. And he looks very human unlike all the other creepy angels. Never fuck with the Archangels.
Anyway, Asura's plans by fusing every demon into one monstrosity powerful enough to be as strong as Amon falls apart when what appear to be angels brutally torture Asura to near death, Satan's three body guards combine into the Hell General Zenon, Amon crashes the party with Silene and Kaim in tow, and the result is space time getting warped because that's Zenon shtick and Silene and Kaim are sent to the era when the ice age is happening, mortally wounded.
The final chapter in this volume is especially tragic and heartfelt, and is the most surprising thing about it as a result because I never would've taken Silene to be a character that I'd have felt much sympathy for in the original manga. Or Kaim for that matter, who went out of his way to fuse with Silene to give her one last burst of strength to fight Devilman. But along with showing the origins of Amon, Silene was as much an important character to the story as the manga closely followed her attempts to carry on the pride of her tribe after everyone there was killed and was forced to eat her own mother. And the result? The Silene dies during childbirth, and spawns an infant Silene who will become the same one that fights Devilman in the original manga, all while continuing to carry her tribe's legacy a bit longer. Kaim doesn't change though, and all of a sudden it gives more context to why he cares so much for her and offers his body to help in her fight with Devilman in the modern day.
The modern day aspect of the story is slowly starting to creep back in, though. In fact, every first page of each chapter in this volume is some event taking place or had taken place during the original manga, Ryo and Akira standing in front of the demon statue helmet thing being one in particular. It continues to full my appreciation for Kinutani's artwork in this, both seeing the new things created for Amon and reinterpretations of memorable scenes from the original. Though the most ambiguous scene is during Satan's resting period where he's met by a mysterious being who explains to him that Satan's been having visions of the past and future, and the revelation that it's always going to end with him losing a loved one is unavoidable. Whether this is during his healing in the past or present day is the ambiguous part, and it doesn't matter anyway since the weird creature goes ahead and erases Satan's memories of the exchange anyway. Guess they needed to slip in a reminder some how even though I felt Devilman and Violence Jack both had made the time loop scenario fairly clear before.
Two thirds through this thing now. Let's hope the momentum keeps up, because I've been getting more and more excited with each volume.
