"Devil May Cry"

[charlesr]

Why did Dante call his agency "devil may cry"? Is it just a name, or is it explained.

[Extra Terrestrial]

In Devil May Cry 3, the last few lines spoken between Lady and Dante have certain relevance to the name:


Lady - Are you crying?
Dante - It's only the rain.
Lady - The rain already stopped.
Dante - Devils never cry.
Lady - I see. Maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a love one. Don't you think?
Dante - Maybe.

In the epilogue, we hear Lady speaking about the aftermath of the events (in DMC3):


Lady - What happened next? Nothing, really. We took care of all the remaining devils and that was it. I still have a job to do that's far from done, which is to eliminate every last demon.

I need to ensure that monsters like my father never come about again. Then he promised to help me hunt down the demons, even though he's part one himself. But now I realize, there are human as evil as any devil, as well as calm and compassion demons in this universe. At least I've found one so-called devil who's able to shed tears for those he cares about. That's enough for me to believe in him.

(Dante: Now I can start my business.)

Lady - Oh, speaking of a kind devil, he finally decided on a name for his shop. It took him quite awhile to pick one. Want to know the name?

"Devil May Cry."


I hope this is what you are looking for Charles.

[charlesr]

Good man.

[MattyD]

Good answer, but the story explanation is a Retcon. I read in an interview with Hideki Kamiya (which I can't for the life of me find ATM) that they wanted to call the game Devil May Care to reflect Dante's brash attitude, but they couldn't because someone had already trademarked the title for something else, possibly a movie.