The Dark Anime Movie Based On Classic Literature Streaming For Free
Believe it or not, the world of anime isn’t solely based on manga-inspired adaptations. Some anime, like The Count of Monte Cristo: Gankutsuou, Les Misérables: Shoujo Cosette, and Fushigi no Kuni no Alice, were actually based on works of classical literature. Now, a dark anime movie based on Dante’s Inferno, a classic medieval poem, has made its way on streaming, and those interested can watch Dante’s Inferno on free streaming.
2010’s Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic is an adult animated dark fantasy anime very loosely based on Inferno, the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. The Inferno describes Dante’s journey through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth, with each sin and its sinners having their own circle.
Dante’s Inferno is definitely worth the screentime, especially if you’re a fan of Hellsing, Berserk anime, or God of War games.
The Dante’s Inferno anime, however, takes a different approach and describes Dante as a warrior returning from the Third Crusade, only to find his servants slain, his father dead, and his beloved fiancé Beatrice dying of a stab wound to the stomach.
As she dies, Lucifer plucks Beatrice into the gates of Hell, and Dante gives chase. Virgil appears and offers to guide Dante, a brutal and vengeful character, through Hell to rescue Beatrice. And this is where the story actually unfolds; nearly every circle is accompanied by a flashback of Dante’s past and his sins.
In the first circle, he learns that Beatrice was pregnant with his child but miscarried; in the second circle, Lust, he’s reminded of his infidelity to Beatrice; in the fourth circle, Greed, he finds and confronts his father.
He also discovers some family secrets along the way, like the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death. In the meantime, Beatrice weds Lucifer in Hell and becomes a demon. The two eventually clash towards the end of Dante’s Inferno, and Beatrice forces Dante to look upon his greatest sin—Treachery.
We won’t dive into further detail to avoid spoiling the story for those who haven’t watched the animated epic. However, we will say that Dante’s Inferno is definitely worth the screentime, especially if you’re a fan of Hellsing, Berserk anime, or God of War games—it would seem that the adaptation borrowed much from God of War’s Greek Saga (pre-2018), but we’ll get to that juicy part later. Let’s discuss animation.
In terms of animation, Dante’s Inferno is a bit of a mess. The animation isn’t bad, far from it, but it occasionally feels clunky and amateurish, while at other times, it’s really fluid and quite awesome. This doesn’t actually come as a surprise, considering that the animated epic was actually handled by six different animation directors and four different animation studios.
So, the results, while widely uneven at times, aren’t as nearly as bad as they sound—we promise.
Dante’s Inferno Is A Video Game Adaptation
As for the vast deviations from the narrative, well, this is where the whole thing gets interesting. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic is actually an animated adaptation of the Dante’s Inferno action-adventure game from 2010.
It’s actually quite a faithful adaptation of the video game, and we can say, with some degree of confidence, that the animated movie does a really good job of conveying the “edginess” of the game, as well as its adapted narrative.
Dante’s Inferno was one of the gems from the early 2010s that sought to capitalize on the massive success of the God of War series, particularly 2007’s God of War 2. It was developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles and PlayStation Portable handheld—although the version for PSP was developed by an entirely different studio.
We won’t dive much into the narrative of the game itself since it’s faithfully mirrored by the animated epic.
However, we’ll say that Dante’s Inferno isn’t a mere God of War rip-off. The game actually received plenty of positive reviews from critics for nearly all of its aspects, including the story, art direction, and gameplay, leading to a moderate success of one million copies sold—which was considered successful at the time.
The fans of the game are in high hopes that it would receive a similar treatment as God of War, or at least a remaster of the original game, but no announcement has been made.
Those interested in watching Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic can stream the content on Tubi; it’s really worthwhile.
