Maō Dante

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Maō Dante or Demon Lord Dante is a 1971 Manga by Go Nagai. Remakes of the manga were released in 1994 and 2002. A 13-episode Anime was released in 2002. Unfortantely, the animation of that series was extremely poor, the story was filled with plot holes, and to get it worse, the english dubbed version was dreadful at best.

Many themes from Maō Dante recur in other works by Nagai, including Devilman and Devilman Lady.


Tropes used in Maō Dante include:


  • Attempted Rape: Lamia to Medusa.
  • Eye Beams: Dante starts using these out of nowhere in the last episode.
  • Fan Service: This is written by Go Nagai, so it's expected to pop out here and there.
  • God Is Evil
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Ironically, most demons get this treatment, especially Medusa in her Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Hotblooded Sideburns: Obviously.
  • Light Is Not Good: God speaks to his followers via a pillar of light, but that doesn't keep him from being a Complete Monster.
  • Lost in Translation: Official subs have... questionable quality. Prime example is calling Beelzebub "Veil Zebub". His demon form is even a giant fly.
  • Male Gaze: Comes up during Fan Service parts. Shower scenes come to mind.
  • Power of Love: In the final episode Ryou and Saori's mutual love destroys the Big Bad. Subverted in that it also destroys the world, kills everyone else, and puts them in the roles of Adam and Eve of the new world.
  • Rape as Drama: While it was never shown on screen, one can guess how Lamia impregnated dozens of kidnapped women in her dimension/lair. Scene with them hanging down naked and pregnant from her nets.
  • Satan: One of the sealed Demon Lords. He's actually a pretty nice guy.