Time has come and so have I
Pointless trivia, Devil May Cry edition.
The concept for Devil May Cry grew out of one of several rejected ideas for Resident Evil 4. It was rejected because the ability to juggle zombies in the air wasn't very scary, but Capcom wanted to use the mechanic anyway, so a few things were reworked here and there and Devil May Cry was born. The main character of the failed Resident Evil 4 was a bionically-enhanced human named Tony - in Devil May Cry, Dante commissioned his handguns, Ebony & Ivory, under the pseudonym "Tony Redgrave".
The ability to juggle enemies actually originated from a patched-out glitch in Onimusha: Warlords (simply titled Onimusha in Japan) whereby an enemy could be "juggled" by hitting it in midair. While Capcom removed the glitch before the game was released, as mentioned above, they thought the mechanic was too cool to just scrap entirely, and worked it into what would eventually become Devil May Cry.
Many of the characters in the Devil May Cry games are named after characters from Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri, better known as the Divine Comedy. Dante is obviously named after the author and main character of said poem, and Dante's brother Vergil is named after Virgil, Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory in the poem (and based on Publius Vergilius Maro, another real-life poet). Trish's name derives from Beatrice, Dante's guide through Heaven. Mary, whom Dante calls Lady due to her not revealing her name (and still does even after he learns her real name), is a clever one - in Italian, "Lady" translates as "Madonna", which is another name for the Virgin Mary. Lucia is named after a martyr who aided Dante on his quest.
Cerberus having ice powers in Devil May Cry 3 may seem random, but it's another reference to the Divine Comedy. In it, Cerberus is described as the guardian of the third circle of Inferno, where those who committed the sin of gluttony in life are tormented by continuous icy rain.
The names of Dante's handguns, Ebony & Ivory, reference the song "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Being a set of twin pistols, one black and one white, the name and reference are fitting. In Devil May Cry 2, Lucia's pistols are named Luce and Ombra, which is Italian for Light and Shadow.
In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Jester was originally named Joker. Since his real name is Arkham, this would have basically made him a walking Batman reference, though Arkham's name was originally going to be Hyne (pronounced "High-neh") until Reuben Langdon convinced Capcom to change it since he didn't think it would work in English. It's possible that the change from Hyne to Arkham is the reason for changing his alter-ego's name from Joker to Jester, to avoid making too close a parallel with the Batman franchise.
Reuben Langdon, Dante's official voice actor as of Devil May Cry 3, is a professional stuntman who was originally only hired to provide motion capture work for Dante.
Since the games are released out of chronological order, it can be a bit confusing to work out the proper order of things, though according to Capcom the proper chronological order is: Manga, 3, 1, anime, 4, novel 2, and finally 2.
Dante was planned to appear in Soulcalibur III, but didn't make the roster. Capcom have said that him already appearing in many non-Capcom games (such as the PS2 version of Viewtiful Joe and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, known as Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call in Europe) is the reason why he wasn't included in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, though Dante was included along with Trish in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and Vergil was added to the mix in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
Contrary to popular belief, Kamiya Hideki (director of Devil May Cry (though he only worked on the first game in the series) and Bayonetta) does not seriously believe that Bayonetta would win against Dante in a fight. He was just making a joke about how women usually have the final say over men in a relationship.
Despite not directly working on it, Kamiya used the battle system of Devil May Cry 4 as research when working on Bayonetta.
In Devil May Cry 4, Dante was originally going to have completely original levels and bosses, rather than his levels just being Nero's levels in reverse (a result of the game being rushed out), in which a bigger villain would be revealed. This is why the weapons Dante receives from bosses in that game have nothing to do with the bosses themselves.
Also in DMC4, Nero was planned to have a more complete Devil Trigger form, as a counterpoint to a "Perfect Devil Trigger" form that was planned for Dante. His name was originally going to be Rodin, derived from the name of a famous French sculptor who once made a motif of a Hellgate mentioned in the Divine Comedy.
In Devil May Cry 2, Dante's more powerful Devil Trigger that activates when he's very low on health is named Desperation Devil Trigger, or DDT, by fans, but its official name according to Capcom is Devil Trigger Majin Form. "Majin" is Japanese for "demon" or "devil".
Yamato, the name of Vergil's katana and an important plot point in DMC4, takes its name from an old name for Japan, meaning "great harmony", which refers to the people and traditional nationalistic spirit of Japan, symbolising Vergil's traditionalist views (though the name of the sword is written with different kanji, meaning "Sword of Enma" or "Enma's Sword", Enma being the god of the dead in Buddhist mythology.) This is a counter to Dante's sword, Rebellion, whose name symbolises Dante's resistance to tradition.
The name of the boss Nelo Angelo (later revealed to be Dante's brother Vergil) in Devil May Cry was a mistranslation of Nero Angelo, which is Italian for Black Angel. The name is spelled out in English as "Nero Angelo" in the Japanese manual, which means this was a mistake on the part of the English translators, not the Japanese writers. Similarly, Berial (a demon in the fourth game) is supposed to be Belial, the name of an actual demon in occult mythology.
The different modes for the weapon Pandora in DMC4 are named after the evils that were contained in the box (actually a jar or urn) in the original legend.
The concept for Devil May Cry grew out of one of several rejected ideas for Resident Evil 4. It was rejected because the ability to juggle zombies in the air wasn't very scary, but Capcom wanted to use the mechanic anyway, so a few things were reworked here and there and Devil May Cry was born. The main character of the failed Resident Evil 4 was a bionically-enhanced human named Tony - in Devil May Cry, Dante commissioned his handguns, Ebony & Ivory, under the pseudonym "Tony Redgrave".
The ability to juggle enemies actually originated from a patched-out glitch in Onimusha: Warlords (simply titled Onimusha in Japan) whereby an enemy could be "juggled" by hitting it in midair. While Capcom removed the glitch before the game was released, as mentioned above, they thought the mechanic was too cool to just scrap entirely, and worked it into what would eventually become Devil May Cry.
Many of the characters in the Devil May Cry games are named after characters from Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri, better known as the Divine Comedy. Dante is obviously named after the author and main character of said poem, and Dante's brother Vergil is named after Virgil, Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory in the poem (and based on Publius Vergilius Maro, another real-life poet). Trish's name derives from Beatrice, Dante's guide through Heaven. Mary, whom Dante calls Lady due to her not revealing her name (and still does even after he learns her real name), is a clever one - in Italian, "Lady" translates as "Madonna", which is another name for the Virgin Mary. Lucia is named after a martyr who aided Dante on his quest.
Cerberus having ice powers in Devil May Cry 3 may seem random, but it's another reference to the Divine Comedy. In it, Cerberus is described as the guardian of the third circle of Inferno, where those who committed the sin of gluttony in life are tormented by continuous icy rain.
The names of Dante's handguns, Ebony & Ivory, reference the song "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. Being a set of twin pistols, one black and one white, the name and reference are fitting. In Devil May Cry 2, Lucia's pistols are named Luce and Ombra, which is Italian for Light and Shadow.
In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Jester was originally named Joker. Since his real name is Arkham, this would have basically made him a walking Batman reference, though Arkham's name was originally going to be Hyne (pronounced "High-neh") until Reuben Langdon convinced Capcom to change it since he didn't think it would work in English. It's possible that the change from Hyne to Arkham is the reason for changing his alter-ego's name from Joker to Jester, to avoid making too close a parallel with the Batman franchise.
Reuben Langdon, Dante's official voice actor as of Devil May Cry 3, is a professional stuntman who was originally only hired to provide motion capture work for Dante.
Since the games are released out of chronological order, it can be a bit confusing to work out the proper order of things, though according to Capcom the proper chronological order is: Manga, 3, 1, anime, 4, novel 2, and finally 2.
Dante was planned to appear in Soulcalibur III, but didn't make the roster. Capcom have said that him already appearing in many non-Capcom games (such as the PS2 version of Viewtiful Joe and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, known as Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call in Europe) is the reason why he wasn't included in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, though Dante was included along with Trish in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and Vergil was added to the mix in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
Contrary to popular belief, Kamiya Hideki (director of Devil May Cry (though he only worked on the first game in the series) and Bayonetta) does not seriously believe that Bayonetta would win against Dante in a fight. He was just making a joke about how women usually have the final say over men in a relationship.
Despite not directly working on it, Kamiya used the battle system of Devil May Cry 4 as research when working on Bayonetta.
In Devil May Cry 4, Dante was originally going to have completely original levels and bosses, rather than his levels just being Nero's levels in reverse (a result of the game being rushed out), in which a bigger villain would be revealed. This is why the weapons Dante receives from bosses in that game have nothing to do with the bosses themselves.
Also in DMC4, Nero was planned to have a more complete Devil Trigger form, as a counterpoint to a "Perfect Devil Trigger" form that was planned for Dante. His name was originally going to be Rodin, derived from the name of a famous French sculptor who once made a motif of a Hellgate mentioned in the Divine Comedy.
In Devil May Cry 2, Dante's more powerful Devil Trigger that activates when he's very low on health is named Desperation Devil Trigger, or DDT, by fans, but its official name according to Capcom is Devil Trigger Majin Form. "Majin" is Japanese for "demon" or "devil".
Yamato, the name of Vergil's katana and an important plot point in DMC4, takes its name from an old name for Japan, meaning "great harmony", which refers to the people and traditional nationalistic spirit of Japan, symbolising Vergil's traditionalist views (though the name of the sword is written with different kanji, meaning "Sword of Enma" or "Enma's Sword", Enma being the god of the dead in Buddhist mythology.) This is a counter to Dante's sword, Rebellion, whose name symbolises Dante's resistance to tradition.
The name of the boss Nelo Angelo (later revealed to be Dante's brother Vergil) in Devil May Cry was a mistranslation of Nero Angelo, which is Italian for Black Angel. The name is spelled out in English as "Nero Angelo" in the Japanese manual, which means this was a mistake on the part of the English translators, not the Japanese writers. Similarly, Berial (a demon in the fourth game) is supposed to be Belial, the name of an actual demon in occult mythology.
The different modes for the weapon Pandora in DMC4 are named after the evils that were contained in the box (actually a jar or urn) in the original legend.
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