The Titans (タイタンズ Taitanzu?), were a race of beings created by God before both Demons and Humans. In appearance the Titans all resemble gigantic muscular humans. They possess massive physical strength, but have no other known powers.
These characters are based off of the Titans presented in Canto XXXI of Dante's Inferno from The Divine Comedy.
History[]
Titans were created by God during the Age of Formless Chaos when the laws of the universe were not yet fixed and they are said to have been the first race to walk the earth. They eventually rebelled against God, but lost the battle. As punishment God bound them to the lower levels of Hell where they stayed until Dante freed them when he himself escaped Hell, after having consumed and merged with Ryo Utsugi.
After having defeated Sirene and the Great Vlava Army, Devilman takes Devilman Lady further down into hell, eventually coming across The Titans. He explains to her The Titan's origin and how they became subsequently integrated into Greek Myth. Before leaving, Akira and Jun are told by titans of the inevitable return of Satan and their joining the demon lord's army.
Go Nagai, The Divine Comedy[]
In Go Nagai's interpretation of The Divine Comedy The Titans are combined even more with their Greek mythological counterparts. They are still represented as being bound with chains around their wrists and placed inside wells of cold water at the outer rim of the Ninth Circle of Hell. The Titans bound in hell were as follows: Ephialtes, Briareus, Tityos, Typhon, and finally Antaeus, the only titan no bound in a well, who takes Dante and Virgil down into the Cocytus, wherein Satan was imprisoned. Another giant was King Nimrod, the sole biblical character among them. In Dante's original work, Virgil speaks of Nimrod's treachery against the Abrahamic God by building the Tower of Babel in Shinar (the biblical name for Mesopotamia). As punishment, God struck down the tower and brought about the Confusion of the Languages. But in Nagai's work, Virgil mentions the Titanomachia, where the TItans attempted a coup against Mount Olympus, but were struck down by Zeus's lightning bolts and imprisoned in Tartarus from their crimes. Nagai explains that the titans were trapt inside the wells in order to prevent the titans from touching the earth from which they drew their immense strength. Antaeus is the only exception because he was not present at the coup. In both instances the titans are a metaphor for the Christian sin of hubris. Nimrod is still present in Nagai's iteration, shown as the crowned titan who blows from a trumpet. Virgil explains the connection to Dante and compares the battle on Mount Olympus with the story of The Tower of Babel.
Appearance[]
The Titans were all giant in size and resembled muscular men or women with long unkempt hair.