Characters / Devil May Cry - Dante

Main characters index | Heroes (Dante | Nero | V) | Villains (Vergil) | Other | DmC: Devil May Cry

Character subpage for Dante, the primary character from Devil May Cry.

Be aware that some spoilers will be unmarked. Read ahead at your own risk of being spoiled.

---

Dante

The Legendary Devil Hunter

^{Click here to see his Devil Trigger Form}

^{Click here to see his Sin Devil Trigger Form}

^{Click here to see his DMC 4 self}

^{Click here to see his DMC 3 self}

^{Click here to see his DMC 2 self}

^{Click here to see his DMC 1 self}

"This whole business started with my father sealing the entrance between the two worlds. And now, my brother is trying to break the spell and turn this place into Demonville. This is my family matter, too. Quite frankly, at first, I didn't give a damn. But because of you, I know what's important now. I know what I need to do."

Voiced by: Reuben Langdon

Drew Coombs (DMC, Viewtiful Joe, Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble), Jonathan Mallen (young, DMC), Matthew Kaminsky (DMC2, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (original version)),

Toshiyuki Morikawa (The Animated Series, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Project × Zone, DMC4: Special Edition, Project X Zone 2, DMC5, TEPPEN, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne HD Remaster; Japanese)

Face Model: Adam Cowie (DMC5)

Image Songs: Devils Never Cry (DMC3), Lock And Load (DMC4), Subhuman (DMC5)

The Anti-Hero Demon Slaying son of an Ascended Demon named Sparda and a human named Eva. After losing his mother to demons as a child, Dante grows up to become a demon-hunting mercenary who runs his own devil-hunting business named Devil May Cry.

Being half-demon, Dante has Super-Strength, Super-Speed, Nigh-Invulnerability and a Healing Factor, along with the ability to transform into a demonic Super Mode called Devil Trigger. His weapons of choice are two custom handguns known as Ebony & Ivory, and a memento broadsword of his father's named Rebellion.

While often cocky, deep down he is a compassionate man devoted to fighting for the good of humanity and helping his friends. Still, he does like getting paid for it.

Dante's fighting style (popularized by the third game) revolves around his... well, Styles, which are toggle-able movesets that change what the Circle/B button does depending on what weapon he has equipped and the situation at hand. Dante has a total of four styles, two offensive and two defensive. Swordmaster adds new Devil Arm abilities that improve his damage with them significantly, and Gunslinger makes his firearms much more versatile and adaptive. Trickster gives him a dash move, an air dash, and a teleport, and Royalguard allows him to block, as well as allowing him to absorb the blocked damage and redirect it back at his enemies. Devil May Cry 3 also grants him Quicksilver and Doppelganger. In 4, Dante can switch between these styles at will, and judicious usage of his abilities turns him into a Master of All, but Some Dexterity Required.

His Devil Trigger gives him a Healing Factor, increased defense, and enhanced strength. Some of his attacks also come off differently while in this state, usually giving him higher damage potential.

He also now has his own Self-Demonstrating page.

---

#-G

• '90s Hair: Although the first game came out just after the '90s in 2001, Dante's long boyish "curtains" hairdo is a holdover from the previous era. The HD Collection version of the third game even changes Dante's hair texture making his bangs bigger and less transparent so that they cover his eyes.
• The Ace: Right from the first game, Dante is shown to be supremely skilled in melee and gunfighting, instantly mastering any bizarre and exotic weapon he picks up. He's so powerful that even the bosses he faces are little more than jokes to him, and that's before he deigns to unleash his Devil Trigger. In 3, which is supposed to be him at his weakest, he gains access to a total of six Styles that expand or augment his moveset (reduced to a 'mere' four Styles by the fifth game). In 2, Dante has become so powerful, that he can make short work of a demon lord who rivals Mundus without even using his Devil Trigger. His power is exemplified in 4, where he upstages Nero at every turn, and his gameplay segments showcase the vast difference in skill, precision, and speed between the two. By 5, he gains even more power, and he's either personally defeated or had a hand in defeating several godlike beings, all accomplishments which pale in comparison to his victories over his own elder brother.
• Action Hero: He's a snarky demon hunter with superhuman abilities and expertise in multiple weapons.
• Air-Dashing: From 3 onward, Dante's Trickster Style grants him the ability to perform a dash in the air. This is manifested as a red, circular incantation that he bounces off of.
• Alas, Poor Villain: See Angsty Surviving Twin. He is shown to mourn Vergil after both of his deaths.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Heavily implied. While it's not really that seen heavily, it's shown that Dante's supernatural troubles has prevented him from living a normal life. The biggest example of this is in the DMC anime, where a town Dante was in when he was younger got burned down because a demon was trying to kill him. While the demon was eventually killed later on, it earned him the hatred of a normal human, viewing him as a monster.
• Always Identical Twins: He and Vergil. The only thing distinguishing them is that Vergil styles his hair. This changes after enough time in completely separate worlds, to the point the two have different face models in 5.
• Amazon Chaser: Invoked in 3 when Dante meets Lady. She almost runs him over twice with her Cool Bike and even shoots a rocket (which he rides) at him, but his reaction is simply whooping with glee at the latter. And when she leaves the room, he declares "This just keeps getting better and better". He also shows immense excitement while fighting Lady later on and says "Oh, I love a fast woman". Given Dante's win quote against Morrigan in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is literally "Mmm, baby. I love it when a girl gets violent", this is hardly surprising.
• Ancestral Weapon: His sword Rebellion is suggested to be another memento from Sparda.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Dante is this after both of Vergil's deaths. The first time he simply denies it, and the second time it is not dwelled on, but the sorrow on his face as he picks up Vergil's amulet, and his reminiscing of one of their birthdays makes this apparent.
• Animal Sweet on Object: In the prequel manga of 3, Dante says that he once proposed to a mop while drunk.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: A rare protagonist example. He's snarky to everyone, but his taunting of Vergil in 3 reeks of this trope. Especially when contrasted with Vergil's perpetual stoicism and seriousness. However, Vergil is also a Big Brother Bully at the same time, so they're somewhat even. For example, after the two finally reconcile well enough at the end of 5, Dante tries to get Vergil to say "Jackpot" alongside him again like they did as kids, but Vergil denies him every time, even trying to intercept Dante from saying it...but when Dante's not around Vergil still says it too. The implication being that Dante wore out the catchphrase in the Underworld so much that Vergil, now sick of hearing him say it, refuses to indulge his little brother's fixation on the word anymore.
• Anti-Hero: Pragmatic Hero in most of his appearances, Disney Anti-Hero in 1 and 2.
• Arm Cannon:
  • One of the more unusual traits of Dante's Devil Trigger in 2 was that the palms of his hands had six-barreled, rapid-fire mini-cannons protruding out of them◊.
  • One of his weapons in the third game is Artemis, a laser gun strapped to his arm that lets him fire purple beams; it can be charged to make him fire homing orbs, and he can also make it rain beams with it.
• Armed Legs:
  • In 3, Dante obtains these as parts of the Beowulf Devil Arm alongside a pair of Power Fists.
  • In 4, Dante obtains the Gilgamesh, which aside from turning into gauntlets, also covers his legs with organic metal. The spurs in his boots empower his kicks during some charged combos.
  • In 5, Dante has Balrog as one of his starting weapons, a Devil Arm that covers both his arms and legs with armor and enhances his punches and kicks with flames. Its "Kick" mode allows him to perform sweeping Capoeira-style kicks.
• Armor Is Useless:
  • While the gauntlets and/or greaves combination of Devil Arms like Ifrit in 1, Beowulf in 3, Gilgamesh in 4, and Balrog in 5 cover Dante's limbs and can also technically double as armor in terms of appearance, most of them don't really offer in-game protection when equipped. Beowulf is the only Devil Arm among them that subverts this trope; while it doesn't offer protection by default in Dante's human form, his Devil Trigger form with this weapon passively increases his defense.
  • Although Dante's default outfit in 2 includes what looks like a breastplate, it's more of a harness than any actual armor. He does manage to avoid his usual habit of being made into a human shish kebab (outside of a boss battle if the player fumbles), so there's that.
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: The gauntlet-type Devil Arms (Ifrit, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Balrog), Cerberus in 3 (which is a tripartite nunchaku instead of a traditional two-part nunchaku) and King Cerberus's three forms (tripartite nunchaku, bo staff, and three-section staff) in 5 have moves based on actual martial arts, but enhanced by elemental properties and/or Dante's Super-Strength. For example, a one-inch punch from Gilgamesh wrecks a huge monolith in 4.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Averted. Even though demons operate on Klingon Promotion and Dante has proven himself to be the strongest known demon (having defeated previous demon kings like Mundus, Argosax and Urizen), the demons of Hell still oppose him and Vergil in the epilogue of 5 rather than crowning him their new king.
• Awesome, but Impractical: In 3, 4, and 5, Dante has a recurring uppercut move called "Real Impact" that does tremendous amounts of damage, but it only targets one enemy at a time, has a long start-up animation and short range, all of which make him vulnerable when fighting in crowds.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: With both Lady and Vergil in 3.
• Badass Biker: He can drive motorcycles in style as seen in 2, 3 and especially 5. In the third game, Dante even goes as far as to unleash some Bike Fu, though at the cost of Lady's motorcycle. And he later acquires a wicked looking demonic motorcycle in 5, which he gets to use as a weapon.

• Badass in Distress: To show how serious the situation in 5 is, Dante gets hit by The Worf Effect and, not only does his Rebellion get shattered by Urizen, he almost gets himself captured by the villain. Though he does manage to break free, he is quickly knocked out and left in a month-long coma, of which he wakes up from at full condition after V found him.
• Badass Fingersnap: The full gesture for switching to Gunslinger Style in 4 (i.e. if Dante is stationary) is this.
• Badass Longcoat: He's rarely seen without a red coat. The coats are different in each game, however.
• Bag of Spilling: Most of the firearms and Devil Arms he acquires in the games don't get carried over between them. Chronologically speaking, the only ones that do are Force Edge ^note acquired in 3, kept for 1, became the Sparda sword, then given to Trish after the endgame, Rebellion ^note his default sword in 3, re-appeared in 2 and 4, destroyed in 5 only to be fused with the Devil Sword Sparda to become Devil Sword Dante. and the Shotgun ^note acquired in 3, lost sometime after the endgame, re-acquired in 1, lost prior to 2 but re-acquired during the story, and then kept for 4 onwards (as the Coyote-A). One reason that justifies this trend is that the Devil Arms from 1 and 3 were given to Enzo, his former agent mentioned in 1's manual, as a form of collateral on his debt. Enzo cancels the debt so Dante can use them to destroy another Devil Arm, but Dante leaves the Devil Arms behind in part of feeling guilty for having to amputate one of Enzo's arms due to a Devil Arm trying to possess Enzo before the anime, as told by Morrison in Vol.1 of the Audio Drama CD. Another specific justified example is mentioned in the Before the Nightmare prequel novel for 5; Dante kept Cerberus from 3 at least, but it broke when he was fighting Balrog, which explains why it doesn't appear in the game itself.
• Berserk Button: Bringing up Vergil or trying to use him to earn his cooperation is a surefire way to get Dante uncharacteristically pissed at the offending party. In the manga Visions of V, V himself learned that lesson when Dante briefly leaks his demonic power and gives V one hell of a Death Glare.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He constantly messes around with the demons trying to kill him. The reason he acts like this, however, is because he's just that powerful that none of these are an actual threat to him. He could easily defeat any demon that faced him, but that's not nearly as fun as toying with them first.
• BFS:
  • His trademark claymore sword Rebellion, a memento from his father Sparda, is almost his own height in length.
  • The true form of his father's own namesake sword, the Devil Sword Sparda, has a large curved blade attached to the side of its main body and hilt. It can shapeshift into other melee weapons as well.
  • Dante acquires several other demonic swords that also qualify for this trope over the course of the series, although they are game-specific. For example, the Vendetta blade in 2 is about as broad as Dante's shoulders.
  • During the course of 5, Rebellion gets shattered but he holds onto the hilt of the weapon afterwards. For a few missions, he uses his father's BFS, the Devil Sword Sparda, before stabbing himself with the Rebellion and absorbing the Sparda to create a new BFS called "Devil Sword Dante" that also gives him a new Devil Trigger form. The new sword has a thick and wide decorated blade.
• Big Good:
  • Of 4, being the major force of good opposing the Order of the Sword; he does, however, come off as the bad guy at first.
  • In 5, he serves as a major force of good against the demon invasion in Red Grave City.
• Big "NO!": Gives one when Trish does a Heroic Sacrifice to save him from Mundus's Agony Beam.
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Dante is a prime offender of this, showing off feats like:
  • Deflecting bullets with other bullets.
  • Firing six bullets into the base of a broadsword, in order to make it pierce through a group of gargoyles, while running down along the side of a building.
  • Firing bullets in mid-air to keep your self and/or enemies aloft.
  • There's also the description of Dante's "Trick Shot" ability with the anti-tank rifle Spiral in 3. It states that he ricochets the bullet so it ends up travelling faster with each rebound, making it an authentic non-conservation-of-momentum gun.
• Black Swords Are Better: In 5, Dante's iconic sword Rebellion is destroyed by the Big Bad Urizen. After finally realizing the true nature of his sword, Dante stabs himself with its remains, with it and Sparda unlocking the most powerful stage of his Devil Trigger and gaining a new sword called the Devil Sword Dante made of a substance resembling hardened lava.
• Blade Spam: Million Stab is one of Dante's iconic moves throughout the games. It's a blinding whirlwind of sword stabs with one hand, followed by a finisher.
• Blessed with Suck: Being a Son of Sparda has granted him powerful abilities that allows to go toe to toe with every demon that comes his way, but it’s also made him a supernatural bullseye to The Legions of Hell, not to mention being the same reason why he took up devil hunting in the first place.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: Dante's Royal Block skill can negate anything if properly done, including explosions, electrified floors, and nearly 500ft tall statues dropkicking him. Mistimed blocks can break, causing Dante to take damage.
• Blood Knight: Heroic example; Dante really enjoys his job as a demon hunter. According to the first game's manual, Dante will usually refuse any jobs he dislikes regardless of the pay, but will immediately take any jobs involving the supernatural, especially involving demon hunting, with or without pay. Dante's character file from 3 also says he crushes his enemies after having some fun with them. He usually loves to demonstrate his demonic like powers along with the new weapons he's obtained throughout the story to fight in the most flashy and extravagant way. His ending quote for the third game summarizes it best:
  Dante: Well bring it on! I love this! This is what I live for! I'm absolutely crazy about it! (Cheshire Cat Grin)
• Boring, but Practical: One of his weapons in 4, Pandora, has (among other things) a giant laser, a mobile turret that shoots missiles, and the ability to weaponize all the evil within to nuke everything on screen. What're the most used forms in combo videos? The chaingun (the aerial version specifically) and boomerang-glaive.
• Born Winner: Being the offspring of a very powerful demon hero, Dante and his brother have inherited some of his powers.
• Boss Subtitles: As the Final Boss of Vergil's story in 5: Special Edition.
  The Legendary Devil Hunter: Dante
• Bottomless Magazines: Dante can run out of ammo, but his weapons refill automatically given time. According to the manual for the first game, one of his demonic powers actually creates more bullets in his guns.
• Boxing Battler: The Blow portion of Balrog's moveset in 5 uses boxing moves including weaving and Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs and a Shoryuken.
• Bring My Red Jacket: Dante wears a big red Badass Longcoat and gets swords through him a lot.
• Broken Ace: A devil hunter with badassery only a few can match...but is compounded with several tragedies hidden underneath his playful and carefree attitude.
• Butt-Monkey: Surprisingly, he's shown to be this in the anime, 4 and 5 thanks to his financial troubles: he goes into debt, doesn't have enough money to buy food, has his water shut off, and other ridiculous indignities. Patty even quips that Dante has to be the unluckiest guy she's ever met. Lady goes so far as to call Dante undateable after Trish accuses her of being jealous, countering that Dante's general attitude as a slob when not working would be a turn-off anyone from being interested in him romantically.
• Cain and Abel: Starting from 3, the sibling rivalry theme is primarily focused on Dante and Vergil's differences in regards to which side of their nature they embraced. Dante chose to go with his human heritage, Vergil with his demonic side, and the two never met peacefully again.
• Calling Your Attacks: Sometimes not the attacks' actual names, but war cries and phrases that is associated with each move, like him finishing with "Breakdown!" after performing Million Stab. He does shout out "Rising Dragon!" on executing Rising Dragon when using Beowulf in 3, Gilgamesh in 4, and Balrog in 5.
• Car Fu:
  • In 3, Dante uses Lady's motorbike to drive up Temen-ni-gru's outer wall, falls towards it for a short distance, and is then besieged in midair by demons. So he beats all of them up with the motorbike, which explodes shortly after he lands, leaving only the handlebars.
  • In 5, the Caveliere is a motorcycle/dual-wield chainsaw hybrid devil arm, complete with Bike-Fu when used by Dante.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Jackpot!", usually said right before defeating the Big Bad. It sees its fair share of usage by Vergil and Nero as well.
  • "Devils never cry" seems to be one as well, seeing as he's said those words to Trish, Lucia, and Lady near or at the climax of the first three games (in the first two instances, he was trying to comfort Trish and Lucia, while the latter was Dante trying to deny the pain he felt when he believed Vergil to be dead).
• Celibate Hero: Despite meeting rather attractive new women in nearly every single installment, Dante has shown zero outward interest of actually getting with any of them. Trish looking exactly like his mother aside, he has never had anything more than a professional relationship with Lady and Lucia either. Casual flirting isn't off the table however, as is the repeated amounts of trash-talking he, Lady and Trish give each other. Lucia, in fact, has directly propositioned him for sex, which Dante declined on the grounds that it would simply get in the way of his work. It is also highly likely that due to the death of his parents, Dante simply believes that entering a romantic relationship with someone will only end with more loss.
• Character Development: Though his main personality is the same in each game, chronologically, he matures quite a bit. Witness his change from thrill-seeking (3) to guilt-ridden (1) to serious (2) to cool-headed (4).
  • This is clearly seen in 3 where he begins as being resentful towards his father for being absent, and for creating a plan to seal the gates to the Demon world using his mother's amulet. He also complains about Beowulf fighting him just because of what Sparda did in the past. Over time, after seeing Lady's own struggles with coming to terms that her human father Arkham is a complete monster, he begins to change his attitude towards his father and admits realizing what's at stake, unlike when he didn't care much at first. By the end of the game, Dante outright admits he's a Son of Sparda, and speaks about embracing what his dad stood for even though he was a devil himself.
    Dante (to Lady): Quite frankly, at first, I didn't give a damn. But because of you, I know what's important now. I know what I need to do....Trust me! I'll make things right for you. That's what my soul is telling me to do.
  • His renewed point-of-view towards Sparda is carried over to the next chronological games after 3, especially when he shows several signs of following his father's footsteps. While still able to crack jokes at Sparda's expense in 1, 2, and 4, Dante comes to respect and understand his father's ideals and the sacrifices he made because of his love towards humanity, a contrast to the early parts of 3 where Dante still had a lingering resentment towards his connection to Sparda.
• Character Exaggeration: Suffers from it in the anime. The Rule of Cool that he adheres by in the games seems to have become the equivalent of air for him in The Animated Series, to the point of Destructive Savior tendencies.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first game, Dante was portrayed as a cocky but otherwise coolheaded demon hunter with plenty of snark. The second game ramped up the coolheadedness and greatly toned down his humorous side, while the third game brought it back up to full gear while reinventing him as a campy Large Ham. The fourth game onwards, however, solidified his characterization as a level-headed, but still show-offy guy.
• Charged Attack: The hand-to-hand weapons of 1, 3, and 4 (Ifrit, Beowulf, and Gilgamesh, respectively) can add increased attack power (or even new attacks) by holding down the input on each strike. However, this makes an already slow weapon even slower, so use this feature wisely. He can also charge up attacks on Ebony and Ivory, and Coyote-A in 4. In the fifth game, Dr. Faust's strongest attack (meteors made of big Red Orbs) need to be charged first, while the Double Kalina Ann's attack, when charged, will make him combine the 2 rocket launchers into one and then fire a quick, powerful laser that hits all enemies on its path.
• Chekhov's Gun: He comes across a few in the games, but the best examples would be the objects he carries with him, namely; his half of the Perfect Amulet (which transforms the Force Edge into the Sparda in 1, and is used to undo the seal of the tower in 3), and his lucky coin (actually a trick coin) which is later used to thwart the Big Bad's plan in 2.
• Chick Magnet: While he does play the role of Handsome Lech towards Lady at first, every single female lead of the first three games became a viable love interest for him towards endgame, Unresolved Sexual Tension and everything. It doesn't hurt that he has the air of The Charmer about him. In the case of Trish and Lady, the romantic tension was dialed back for their joint reappearance in 4. Here, it's obvious that Dante sees his ladyfriends at least as True Companions; any non-platonic feelings are negated by Dante's lack of (or suppression of) perverted qualities. As for Lucia, chronologically, she's the last girl Dante meets, so the matter of Dante's love life could have taken one of several different directions. However, he instead remains a Celibate Hero because he thinks romance will get in the way of his work.
• The Collector of the Strange: Has several demon skulls in his office as well as various weapons mounted on his wall. The skulls on his walls are all from demons that he's killed during his career as a devil hunter, and they can be noticed in some cutscenes such as the start of 1. A bonus art from 3 takes this to its logical conclusion, where Dante's office is so filled up with corpses of all the monsters he's killed and gear he's collected over the game, there's almost no walking room left.
• Competitive Balance: Dante being able to use his ultimate form at will in DMC5 has put some little limitations to how it previously worked in DMC2. Sin Devil Trigger is ridiculously powerful but the Majin Form still boasts characteristics that the former doesn’t, such as two special attacks that will instantly kill any enemy and bosses that can get hit by it (the majority of them in DMC2). The normal attack damage output data for the Majin Form remains slightly bigger than the Sin Devil Trigger as well, and Majin Form is absolutely untouchable and can not be pushed back in any way. If Sin Devil Trigger remained as broken as Majin Form while still being easily accessible it would just void DMC5 of any semblance of difficulty.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The Animated Series initially invoked this when it used Dante's alias of "Tony Redgrave" (the same name inscribed on his guns) from the seemingly non-canon prequel novel for 1. Further nods to the novel were found in Dante's guns. Ebony and Ivory contain an inscription that reads "By .45 Art Works". In another nod to the novel, .45 Art Works is a gun shop owned by a female proprietor named Nell Goldstein (who has a tendency to misspell the name of her shop as ".45 Art Warks"). Goldstein apparently helped "Tony" construct E&I, as well as Sparda's Luce and Ombra (which bear the same engraving). Devil May Cry 5 contains multiple references to Tony Redgrave and Nell Goldstein, details the .45 Art Works and introduces Nico, Nell's adopted granddaughter, as a main character.
  • His taste for strawberry sundaes comes from a prequel novel that was retconned by 3, but later reintroduced by 5.
• Cool Bike: Cavaliere is his motorcycle Devil Arm in 5, made from the parts of a devil boss fused with a motorcycle, that can also transform into a pair of giant chainsaws BFSs he can dual wield.
• Cool Old Guy: In 5, he's sporting longer, grayer hair and meaner stubble, making him look older and more hardened than he had in 4. He's still just as cocky as ever.
• Cool Sword: Rebellion, a sword that was passed down from his father, is what connects him to his demonic side once awakened. He has also used several other swords throughout all games including the Force Edge/Sparda (his father's Devil Arm), the Alastor, Agni and Rudra and his own Devil Arm, the Devil Sword Dante. The latter sword even toggles its appearance when Dante activates his Swords Formation skill or when he's in Devil Trigger form.
• Cool Uncle: According to the semi-canon novel Deadly Fortune, finally confirmed◊ in the artbook Devil May Cry: 3-1-4-2 Graphic Arts. Dante is this to Nero. It actually puts a new spin on his Trickster Mentor attitude towards Nero, and his letting him keep the Yamato despite saying "it should be kept in the family." Dante further cements it in 5 when he reveals to Nero that the newly-revived Vergil is his father.
• Counter-Attack: Starting from 3, Dante can use his Royalguard Style to nullify damage taken and strike back with a punch move known as "Release". A unique Rage meter fills up every time he blocks attacks, and is consumed every time he executes "Release". Meanwhile, "Royal Release" is a stronger variant and a more true-to-form counter-attack, but it relies heavily on a "Just Frame" Bonus.
• Crossover Cameo:
  • The DMC2 version of Dante makes an appearance in the Updated Re-release of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne.
  • The DMC1 version is playable as a Secret Character in the PS2 port of Viewtiful Joe. This version is also a DLC costume in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Mii Swordsman.
  • The DMC3 version is a playable fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
  • The anime version (DMC1 outfit with Rebellion) is a playable character in Project × Zone and its sequel.
    • Dante appears in Project x Zone 2 going through the events of DMC1 before the game interrupts it. So this means that this Dante has only gone through DMC3's story at this point.
  • The DMC5 version is an event-only character alongside Nero and V in a collaboration with Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2 from March 14, 2019 until April 3, 2019.
  • The DMC4 version is a playable character in Teppen.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Dante loves this pose when getting impaled, to the point where it doubles as a Running Gag. While it usually happens on the floor or in a wall, the anime adaptation shows him pinned to a life-sized cross.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Dante constantly tries to distance Nero from Urizen/Vergil. He shoos Nero away by calling him dead weight and criticizes V's decison to bring Nero in, all in order to keep the truth from his protege. His attempts fail and drive a wedge between them that's not resolved until Nero intervenes in the fight between Dante and Vergil.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Is subject to this when Vergil comes back from V and Urizen's Fusion Dance. Dante is in no condition to fight Vergil, but he's still able to stagger him with Yamato's sheath.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: While you can certainly pull of some decently badass-looking moves in-game, the kind of flashy and acrobatic stunts that Dante does in cutscenes is jaw-droppingly ridiculous.
• Dance Battler: The kick portion of Balrog in 5 has him fight in a capoiera-esque fighting style, with lots of Hurricane Kicks and a Diving Kick.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Dante and Vergil grew up separately after their mother Eva died when Mundus led a demon attack on their household, while their father Sparda disappeared and died from unrevealed circumstances. In 5 and its supplementary material, this incident is discussed and revisited in a flashback; Eva died before she could find Vergil. Consequently, Dante believed that his brother died, and he took on an alias to start a new life.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Wears "dark" colors like red and black, but is a fairly decent guy. Not to mention being a half-demon who fights to protect humanity from demons.
• Dash Attack: The Stinger attack works like a pair of Sprint Shoes in some situations, as it moves far faster than his usual running speed, albeit with a cooldown or recovery animation. Dante will dash along the ground before stabbing his sword into the nearest target-locked enemy.
• Deadpan Snarker: The man certainly has a penchant for dishing out wisecracks and trash talk like no one's business, especially in comparison to the more stoic and no-nonsense Vergil.
• Death from Above: Can perform this with Dr. Faust in 5 once he's accumulated enough Red Orbs.
• Death Glare: Despite his laidback demeanor, he flashes V an absolutely vicious one in the Visions of V manga when V declares that the name of the demon about to terrorize Redgrave City is none other than Dante's brother Vergil. To emphasize how deadly serious he is, Dante's pupils narrow into demonic slits.
• Death or Glory Attack: The Royal Release is one risky Counter-Attack. With the proper timing, Dante can unleash a powerful punch. Mistime it otherwise, and it will just be a regular Release. Missing this attack completely can also make him briefly vulnerable to whiff punishes.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Dante develops this kind of relationship with some characters after battling them. There's Lady in 3, Nero in 4 (where he even allows the young man to keep Yamato), and with Trish in 1 (after Nightmare's third and final death, that is).
  • Dante must defeat the Devil Arms before he can use them as weapons. Agni and Rudra in particular are very enthusiastic about this trope, practically begging Dante to take them with him.
• Demon Slaying: Dante's stock in trade, and the primary point of the series. This also becomes the "job" of his allies in the Devil May Cry joint.
• Deuteragonist:
  • 4 is Nero's story. Dante's path just so happens to intersect with the young knight's for his latest assignment, whereupon he acts as an occasional adversary, big brother figure, and ace in the hole when Nero is incapacitated.
  • 5 continues this theme as it starts and ends from Nero's perspective, with Dante showing up at the end to defeat the Big Bad Urizen directly, and fight Vergil when he reappears. However, the story ultimately concludes when the player retakes control of Nero so he can defeat Vergil himself and force him and Dante to focus on the more important task of sealing the portal to the Underworld.
• Difficult, but Awesome: He's this in 4:SE compared to all the other characters and (possibly) every other version of himself^note He's largely similar in 5, thanks in part to no less than four Styles available at any given moment. Advanced play as Dante in that game involves the use of tons of really difficult techniques, as detailed in the video series that this video starts (spoiler warning, though). That said, he's leagues more fun and stylish than Nero if you master him.
• Discard and Draw: Happens three separate times during 5. He briefly is playable with Rebellion as his standard weapon, but as we see in the prologue, it gets shattered by Urizen. After that, for a few missions, he uses Sparda, his father's sword, which plays identically to Rebellion. After that, he fuses the power of Rebellion and Sparda to create a brand new sword drawn from Dante's own demonic power (that is even named after him). This is the sword he keeps for the remainder of the game, and Swordmaster style permanently changes (the Style attack button summons energy swords while all of the Swordmaster style abilities have been remapped elsewhere.) After beating the game, the player can use any of the 3 swords in gameplay.
• Discontinuity Nod:
  • In the PS2 port of Viewtiful Joe, Dante makes a guest appearance as a Secret Character. In his story, Alastor is revealed to be the spirit of the eponymous sword Dante picked up in 1. Among other things, Alastor is seething that Dante that didn't bring him along to "Somewhere Island" (Dumary Island). Dante protests, "I don't remember that!" Seeing as the series was also originally helmed by Hideki Kamiya, the man responsible for the original game, this could also be a Take That!.
  • His change in characterization for 2 was handwaved when Dante (who is only clad in a speedo when not transformed) asks if Enzo stole his clothes again, suggesting that it wasn't even Dante you were playing as. Again, most likely another Take That! from Kamiya.
• Does Not Like Spam: He loves his pizza, but the one topping he won't eat is olives. In the Animated Series, every pizza he orders explicitly comes with the tag of "no olives".
• Double Entendre: His interaction with Nevan and his acquisition of Lucifer. Both are cases of Does This Remind You of Anything? and the latter is something of a Badass Creed.
• Double Jump: The Air Hike technique has him creating a demonic circle under his feet in midair, which he then jumps off of. In Devil Trigger, he can do more air jumps.
• Dual Wielding: His Agni and Rudra in 3 are a pair of scimitars, one with fire powers and the other with wind powers.
• Et Tu, Brute?: How he felt when he learns that Trish was created by Mundus to kill him.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He is appalled when Mundus kills Griffon for the latter failing to kill Dante. So much so, that he decides to kill Mundus himself.
  • He can't stand Jester, who he thinks is too talkative even by his own standards.
• Experienced Protagonist: Even with 3 being Dante's origin story, he already appears to have a decent amount of experience under his belt, as seen with his casual butchery of a group of Hell Prides.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: After Dante acquired his Devil Trigger ability in 3 and grabbed Vergil's katana with his bare hand, the next mission's cutscene shows him tearing off half his coat's right sleeve since it had been ripped in the prior fight.
• Feeling Their Age: One of his death quotes in 5 is him grunting out "Man, I'm old" as he crumples over.
• Fell Asleep Crying: Supposedly cries for his mother in his sleep, according to the DMC 1 novel.
• Fetish Retardant: In-Universe. According to Lady, despite Dante's power, charisma and morality, he's a major slob and very irresponsible, which she says makes him "undateable".
• Fight Magnet: Dante is always getting mixed up in demon-related trouble, both due to his job as a demon hunter and because he is the son of Sparda, a demon knight who rebelled against Mundus to protect humanity (which a lot of demons that served Mundus are rather mad about) and possessed a great deal of power that many villains want for themselves.
• Final Boss:
  • In 4, he's the last enemy faced in that game's Bloody Palace.
  • Dante replaces Vergil himself as the final challenge to overcome in Vergil's bonus campaign in 5 Special Edition. He also replaces Nero in Mission 20, instead having a second battle where Dante isn't afraid to use Sin Devil Trigger against the player.
• Finger-Twitching Revival:
  • The end result of "acquiring" Alastor in 1.
  • Subverted in 3. You see his fingers twitch, and Vergil stabs him again without missing a beat.
• Firing One-Handed: Dude can fire shotguns and more supernaturally-empowered weapons (Nightmare Beta, Artemis) with one hand. Must be that demon blood in him.
• Flanderization: Dante started out in 1 as a good mix of badass and Jerkass. He was certainly cocky and had a flair for showmanship, but still knew when to be serious, despite always having a few snappy remarks prepared. Later games and spin-offs all but ditched the serious side of his personality, replacing it with more cockiness and one-liners. Specifically in Devil May Cry 3, this behavior was to contrast his younger self as a more brash and arrogant Former Teen Rebel. However, with some Character Development, he became a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and grows out of that attitude by the end of that same game. But even then, the Campy Combat, goofball theatrics carried over even into his adult self; most of his screen time always involves focusing on the fun side of fighting, even going as far as toying with his enemies if it means more style or fun.
• Flash Step: The "Air Trick" technique that Dante learns after maxing out the Trickster Style would make him teleport in a short distance.
• Flight: In some of the games, Dante's Devil Trigger form can sport wings and allow him to fly. The first three games tie this mechanic to a specific weapon, ability or item upgrade (Alastor in 1, Aerial Heart in 2, and Nevan in 3). However in 5, the power of flight is innately available to his Devil Trigger form regardless of the equipped weapon.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Dante has a very complicated case of this with Vergil. At the first glance, you can assume that Dante with his devil-may-care attitude cares only about entertaining himself, barely taking responsibility for anything in his life, while the calm and composed Vergil is the responisible twin that takes everything seriously. However, their actions under pressure can testify otherwise: Dante becomes a bit more serious when things get tough, while Vergil shows cracks in his persona, easily becoming irritated when something doesn't go his way. Dante surprisingly also displayed a lot of maturity in his teens, saving up enough money to buy space for his shop and intending to become a Devil Hunter, while Vergil ran around the world in pursuit of power, even fathering Nero during a one-night stand, which shows that despite his cold and calculating facade, the older brother can still be prone to impulsive decisions.
• From Hero to Mentor: The series' original protagonist, Dante, isn't the one in control at the beginning of 4. That honor goes instead to a new hero, Nero. Dante is mostly pursuing his own goals through most of that game but upon interacting with Nero, shifts more into a mentor trying to subtly push the new hero into the forefront. In the supplementary materials or spin-offs such as the Deadly Fortune novel, Dante even helps Nero set up his own branch of the Devil May Cry demon-hunting business, and as of 5, Nero runs his (alongside a driver/mechanic partner named Nico) as a mobile version operated out of a van. This relationship goes even further in the latter game where Nero is desperate to live up to Dante's legacy; dialogue lines has Nero wanting to prove his worth in helping to defeat Urizen, even if Dante initially tells him to stay back. Eventually, Dante has to travel to the Underworld (alongside his brother Vergil) to sever the Qliphoth and leaves Nero in charge of defending humanity on Earth.
• Funny Bruce Lee Noises: While he only did it with the Cerberus nunchaku Crazy Combo in 3, he does it for every single nunchuck move in 5. Of course, unlike the usual examples, Dante does know how to fight - it's just him being irreverent in the face of battle as usual.
• Fun Personified: He is almost always seen smiling and wisecracking, and enjoys showing off for the sake of showing off.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: You know how crazy Dante can be when you control him but how about a taste of being on the other side of the sword? Nero is a novice compared to Dante, despite being a decently accomplished fighter in his own right, and during the second battle against Dante in 4 you will know exactly how Nero feels. Dante isn't even an SNK Boss, he is actually just THAT hard to defeat. In the story Nero doesn't even win, Dante just doesn't kill him at the end. Nero can't even say he fought Dante to a stalemate even though you as a player put every ounce of effort into the fight.
• Gangsta Style: How Dante holds Ebony and Ivory when firing and strafing. Also, when he executes the "Honeycomb Fire" move which somehow enables him to shoot faster.
• Gathering Steam: Compared to his other gauntlets & greaves weapons, which uses Charged Attack, the fifth game's Balrog uses this mechanic. By hitting enemies 10 times (in Blow stance) or holding the attack button after any attack (in Kick stance), he sets his gauntlets and greaves in flames, strengthening them. There are also 2 attacks with the weapon in Swordmaster style that requires him to be in his "ignited" state.
• Generation Xerox: To his father Sparda in several ways:
  • While it took some time for him to accept this role, he ultimately follows in Sparda's footsteps as humanity's protector against demons.
  • If the alternate costumes are to be believed, Sparda also had white hair in his human form and wore a Badass Longcoat.
  • Like Sparda, Dante fights primarily using a BFS and a pair of guns. Dante even sometimes uses the BFS his father once used.
  • Dante has defeated both Mundus and Argosax, two demon lords his father once fought. In 1, Mundus even chalks it up to fate's workings. In 2 and Before The Nightmare, Dante fights alongside Lucia just as his father and Lucia's mother Matier fought side-by-side in the past.
    Mundus: Again, I must face a Sparda... Strange fate. Isn't it?
  • In the finale of 2, Dante's decision to make an apparent one-way trip to the Demon World and defeat the Demon King is often compared to what his father did in the past. Even Dante is aware of it. Lucia also mentions that Sparda did come back after that, which is later proven true in Dante's case thanks to the updated chronology of the series.
    Lucia: Don't you want to hear the story about Sparda from... Matier?
    Dante: I know... He did the same thing...
  • Glimpses of Sparda's demon form look very much like Dante and Vergil's Devil Trigger forms.
  • After acquiring the Devil Sword Dante in 5, Dante now has his own namesake sword just like his father and the Devil Sword Sparda. Nico's Weapon Report on it also lampshades this: "Looks like Dante's following in his daddy's footsteps, swinging around a demon blade with his own name."
• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  • Dante has these towards the end of 1 when he stops fooling around with Mundus and gets really pissed off.
    Dante: SILENCE!
  • His Super Costume in 5 permanently gives him glowing red eyes even if he's in human form.
• Good Is Not Nice: While Dante is unambiguously a good guy, he's prone to a load of Jerkass behavior, particularly since 3. It's downplayed in that game, as the other characters he's interacting with are either major villains or tried to kill him at least once before he says anything to them. In 4, however, the first thing we see him do is shoot a helpless but NOT innocent old man in the face in front of a church full of innocent people. The old man in question is the Big Bad of that game, and Dante was trying to cut the head off the snake. In 5 he's a complete dick to Nero for most of the game, because the main villain is Nero's father, and the last thing Dante wants is to have Nero kill his own dad. Dante is too familiar with that kind of guilt.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: As mentioned elsewhere on this page, Dante seems to have a habit of being gruesomely impaled. He'd likely be dead several times over if not for his Healing Factor.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Majin Form, a Japanese name for a very western-looking demon/fallen angel design; it's also one of the very few Japanese terms in the entire franchise.
• Ground Punch:
  • The Inferno ability in 1 and all its offshoots in the later games (Volcano, Shock!, Shocking!, Cruiser Dive) have Dante smash the ground with his fist to create either a wave of lava, a blast of Hard Light or a heavy shockwave. If you execute it immediately in certain games such as 4, the ground punch creates a small shockwave, but if you charge it up, you get a fairly large splash zone.
  • In 1, Dante punches the ground as a part of his animation while switching from the Alastor sword to the Ifrit gauntlets.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • He only ever uses Ebony or Ivory by themselves in cutscenes. Whenever you're playing as Dante he always keeps both pistols out if he's using them. The fifth game notably changes how the guns work if he's in Gunslinger mode: the normal gun button makes him shoot with Ivory (weaker, but shoots more rapidly), while the Style button makes him shoot with Ebony (deals more damage and hitstun, but isn't as rapid). His "style attacks" will still have him use both guns at the same time, however.
  • In 5, if he can find the original Kalina Ann rocket launcher (hidden in one of the stages) after having received Kalina Ann II from Nico, he can get to wield both at the same time, giving him more firepower. He can also combine the two together to perform an even more powerful shot.
• The Gunslinger: Dante blends all four types of this trope together, with near-flawless accuracy and Offhand Backhand shots, a crazy rate of fire and a variety of explosive weapons, superhuman agility, and the ability (both in and out of cutscenes) to draw quickly yet still fire accurately. Of course, he has a Style explicitly named Gunslinger that enhances his firearm moveset.

H-Q

• Half-Breed Angst: Dante resents being a Human-Demon Hybrid, seeing his demonic heritage as a curse.
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: Sparda's twin sons form this dynamic; Dante is prone to bouts of hamminess (although he clearly plays it for amusement, shits and giggles) while Vergil is completely straight-laced.
• Hand Cannon: Dante's signature pair of pistols look like handcannons, but they're more like heavily customized Colt .45 M1911s. What gives them their Hand cannon status, however, is that the bullets fired by them are charged (and somehow reloaded) by Dante's power. Nico's Note for Dante in The Art of Devil May Cry 5 even outright calls his Ebony & Ivory as "hand cannons".
• Hat of Power: Dr. Faust from 5, also manifesting a Scarf Of Ass Kicking, is a long-range Devil Arm cowboy hat that allows him to use Red Orbs to attack his enemies, while also letting him summon a meteor-like attack once he's accumulated enough Red Orbs.
• Headbutting Heroes: In 5, he and Nero clash a lot over how to deal with the new threat of Urizen: Nero is eager to fight him but Dante harshly berates him, telling to stand back and saying he is "dead weight" and leave the fighting to him. The harshness was deliberate on Dante's part because he didn't want Nero to realize at the time that Urizen was actually Vergil, who is revealed to be his father.
• Heads or Tails?: Picks up this quirk in 2 for unexplained reasons, using his coin to determine whether or not he'll help Lucia and Matier, most notably when deciding who between him and Lucia will go into Demon World and slay the recently-revived devil king Argosax and most likely be trapped there for eternity. Lucia notices in the epilogue that it's a trick coin, and the coin itself later comes in handy when Dante switches his own lucky coin with the Arcana Medaglia to fool Arius near the end of the game. Dante retains this trait during his guest appearance in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. Savvy players can actually recruit Dante for only one Macca if they know about the trick coin. However, in a bit of a Call-Forward, Dante in the first episode of TAS promptly picks heads when Morrison challenged him to a coin toss on whether or not to take the job of being Patty's bodyguard. (It's tails.)
• Healing Factor: He's gotten shot in the head, electrocuted, impaled in five places, and impaled in the chest... a lot. Yet no wounds ever stay. It does have some limits as extreme exhaustion seems to reduce its effectiveness, as seen at the end of his first fight with Vergil and when Arkham makes his big play. Even in those cases, Dante makes a complete recovery within minutes. Gameplay and Story Integration does help explain this - Dante's Devil Trigger heals him when he attacks while it's active, which is very useful during long boss battles.
• The Hero: For the entire franchise except 4, although Nero does share much of the role in 5.
• Hero Antagonist:
  • For the first half of 4, Dante is presented as the protagonist Nero's main enemy, culminating in their duel in Mission 10. But after said mission, the identity and objective of the real villain Sanctus are revealed, along with Dante's true reasons for opposing Nero.
  • In the Special Edition of 5, Dante is the Final Boss of Vergil's campaign.
• Heroic BSoD: He has a minor one when Trish pushes him out of the way from Mundus's blast, causing her to take it instead and go unconscious.
• Heroic Lineage: Son of the righteous demon knight Sparda.
• Heroic Neutral: At the start of 3. He does hunt demons, but only as a paying job (and because he's having fun doing it); he initially doesn't share his father's sentiments about protecting humanity, but later he comes to terms with his father's ideas as the events of the game unfolds.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Dante happens to be a music aficionado. His office contains a drum set (complete with a guitar in 3) and an antique jukebox, and Dante is shown to be a very accomplished musician when he obtains Nevan in 3. Dante himself lampshades this in the preview to the episode "Rock Queen" from the anime, where he notes that you wouldn't expect a guy like him to understand the deeper messages conveyed through music.
  • Though it is only used for a gag, Dante briefly quotes Shakespeare after the boss fight against Agnus in 4, and understands the line well enough to use it in the correct context.
    Dante: And the rest is silence.
  • Ever since Devil May Cry 2, there have been subtle hints that Dante’s Large Ham personality traits are somewhat of a facade. It’s impossible to argue that he doesn’t enjoy fighting demons and acting like a fool, but there has been increasing evidence that suggests that he suffers from depression, best shown in the anime and DMC2 where he's quiet, lazy and lacking a drive to really do anything.Which makes sense as they follow the events of DMC1 and the death of Vergil, with Dante only showing real signs of recovering upon meeting Nero, his nephew.
  • While Dante has a reputation for being a showy and excitable goof in combat, looking closer at his move animations tells a different story. While Dante does have many animations that are absurd and over-the-top, like Rainstorm and Prop/Shredder, he has many more that demonstrate a lot of discipline and restraint. He wields most of his melee weapons with a lot of finesse, which implies that for all his goofing off, Dante is highly trained with his weapons. This is shown even more with SDT, which is said to be the manifestation of Dante's deepest power and truest self. SDT Dante is graceful, elegant, and controls his movements with minimal force and maximum effect- the complete opposite of his normally brash self.
  • An underlying aspect of Dante's character is despite how brash and cheerful he gets, he hardly goes out of his way to make friends. Even with his current group of associates he's fairly distant and doesn't go out of his to attend public gatherings unless it's part of the job as well as he's never having a close tie with anyone that he isn't close that's not related to demonic matters (Lady, Trish, Morrison and Patty) or family (Nero and Vergil). This shows how Dante's personal tragedies have made him unwilling to get close to anyone out of fear of getting them hurt, and the only reason why he hangs out with his current group is because either they're family or help him with his occupation. He doesn't have a personal connection that's not pertaining to his job or family.
• Hired Guns: Although people like him, Trish, and Lady happen to be a different sort of mercenary breed.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Concerning Trish in the first game. Again, it seems like he's solely drawn to her because she looks like his mother, even after Trish tries to kill him. Twice. She spares no time in mocking him when the ruse is dropped... and Dante still saves her after, but not before angrily giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how she lacks his mother's soul (or a soul at all). Later, though, Dante's kindness towards Trish convinces her to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
  Trish: (laughs) You Fool! You're so easy!
  Dante: Trish?! You?!
  Trish: You humans. What sweets. You should know better than to trust a stranger!
• Human-Demon Hybrid: Dante is half-demon from Sparda, half-human from Eva.
• Hunk: Dante's Older and Wiser incarnation in DMC4, in contrast to the Bishōnen that he was in DMC3. He's visibly more muscular, has a rugged quality to his good looks and an extremely nonchalant swagger to go with it; and Reuben Langdon gives him a noticeably deeper voice than he did for the teenage Dante in DMC3, all of which contributes to the effect.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: He's part demon and hunts demons.
• Hybrid Power: Dante is often stated to have surpassed his father in strength; it basically boils down to the fact that although he has the power of demons, it's also because he has the soul of a human that makes him more powerful, which can easily be applied to Nero as well. Director Hideki Kamiya of DMC1 has tweeted that it's because humans have heart, which demons lack, as well that Dante chooses to live as a human. In 4, he tells Agnus point-blank that he's stronger than him and was able to defeat him because Agnus surrendered his humanity while Dante did not.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Dante acquires a variety of BFGs and BFSes in every game, and other large weapons up to and including a motorcycle Devil Arm, but you never see him carry anything other than what is currently equipped.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: In 4 after he gains Yamato. The Dark Slayer style in this case ends up referring to Dante's use of the sword as opposed to Vergil's teleportation moves and he uses the sword as Vergil did, on the draw.
• I Am a Monster: While he doesn't share Nero's level of supernatural self-loathing nor does he really show it in-game, Before the Nightmare notes that Dante's not fond of socializing around "normal people" and does consider himself a freak.
  Dante: Even as a child I had powers, there's demonic blood in me.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Dante has a relatively simple red longcoat in all his appearances and wears his hair loose. Vergil wears a far more elaborate blue coat and keeps his hair slicked back, though occasionally (such as toward the end of their first fight in 3), it falls out of place, making it look identical to Dante's.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Dante would much rather be "just some guy" living a normal human life than a Son of Sparda. One of the reasons Dante hates Vergil so much is that by awakening Dante's Devil Trigger, Vergil virtually destroyed his brother's ability to pretend to be just an especially talented human. By the time of 5 he's better than he used to be, but still not comfortable enough with himself to attend a birthday party unless it's only attended by those extraordinarily close to him. Finally averted once Dante realizes the sheer love and trust Sparda placed in him by giving him Rebellion rather than Yamato, helping Dante come to terms with his nature.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A frequent occurrence for him and often on his own sword to boot, with his demonic Healing Factor ensuring it doesn't slow him down for more than a couple of seconds. He chooses his fashion sense well. In 1, it's Force Edge and Alastor, in 3, Vergil stabs him twice, in TAS, it's the Rebellion, in 4, he gets impaled and pinned to a statue of Sparda in the game's opening by Nero. This reaches its zenith in 5 where he stabs himself with the remains of Rebellion, causing him to merge with it and the Sparda sword to turn it into the Devil Sword Dante and for him to acquire his Sin Devil Trigger. And in gameplay, the latter is activated by him getting impaled by the Dante sword.
• Implacable Man: Mostly demonstrated in cutscenes, but Dante himself is a rare heroic example. His toughness is justified by his demonic nature and Healing Factor, and there are moments when he doesn't give up no matter how many times he's brought down by a stronger foe.
  • Upon meeting Mundus face-to-face in 1, Dante survives a powerful attack from the demon king, though the last straw comes from Mundus insulting Dante's mother Eva. With glowing red eyes, Dante yells "Silence!" and awakens to the power of Sparda. Dante then spends the initial fights against Mundus under the influence of the Sparda Devil Trigger, and succeeds in weakening Mundus.
  • He loses his first fight with Vergil in 3, but the moment he unlocks his Devil Trigger, he immediately tries to charge towards Vergil again. When Vergil and Arkham descend the tower after they obtained his half of the Perfect Amulet, Dante slowly follows suit. On the way down, he's swallowed by the Leviathan, and the succeeding mission has Dante killing the Leviathan from the inside-out.
  • He's defeated by Urizen in the flashback of 5, causing him to fall into a month-long coma before V found him. Upon waking up, he grabs the Devil Sword Sparda and makes his way back to the Qliphoth again where Urizen is. At first, it looks like this is a subdued case, but it's later revealed that Dante keeps pushing through because he views Urizen as a manifestation of his brother Vergil.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Although his demonic nature justifies these, some of the stylish and over-the-top swordplay that Dante demonstrates includes Million Stab (blinding-fast stabs with one hand), sending shockwaves via slashes (Drive and Overdrive), and tossing the sword and making it return like a boomerang (Round Trip).
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: In addition to being stylish as hell, Dante's clothes never actually get holes in them.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: Many of the weapons in his arsenal could qualify, but a few stand out:
  • Cerberus, large-size three-sided nunchuks that can spout ice.
  • Nevan, a literal electric guitar that shoots homing bats and lightning.
  • Pandora, a briefcase that can morph into 666 different forms of weaponry, among which are a heavy machine gun, a turret-launcher missile station, and a mini Wave-Motion Gun.
  • Gilgamesh is literally organic metal that forms gauntlets and boots with spurs.
  • Lucifer, a backpack that generates endless amounts of demonically powered swords which Dante throws to his enemies, turning them into Human Pincushions. He can will the swords to explode at any time, and they do so on their own after a short while or after there's too many of them on screen.
  • Cavaliere, the motorcycle he acquires in 5 doubles as dual wielded chainsaws that Dante is able to split the bike into at will, and use its motorcycle form as well for some Bike Fu.
  • Dr. Faust, a Hat of Power that absorbs Red Orbs to use as a resource and can unleash many powerful attacks, such as Red Orb meteorites, at Dante's enemies.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Amongst many examples that could be given:
  • In 3, Dante both flips a billard table over and proceeds to shoot the white ball, initiating an aerial game of pool to take place which knocks out a couple of demons when the balls hit their heads, AND, at a later point, he also deflects bullets by shooting them out of their trajectory path.
  • Dante can block Lady's pistol shots by shooting them out of the air with Ebony and Ivory when you fight her in 3. This also happens in 4 when he is fought as a boss.
  • Dante puts a round through the Mad Scientist Agnus' papers. When Agnus picks one up to examine the damage, Dante puts another round through the exact same hole to kill him.
  • Dante later repeats the trick when getting Echidna's attention in 4, replacing the billiard balls with seeds. And shoving Yamato into the heart of the False Savior by shooting it with 8 bullets that stack up one right behind the last.
• Immune to Flinching: Majin Form is a walking fortress; it is the only Devil Trigger in series so far to grant Dante true invulnerability, as in he can’t possibly be hurt knocked down in this form — be it a Mook or the Final Boss, he is untouchable.
• Improbable Weapon User: Dante with his Devil Arms.
  • In 3, Cerberus has an unusual configuration for a three-section nunchaku. Then there's Nevan, the scythe-equipped electric guitar... which sees more use in combat as a guitar than a scythe. (And shoots bats, sound waves, and electricity.) Well, given that Cerberus's form is clearly meant to represent his three heads and Nevan may be a Leanashe/Dearg-Due/Dearg-Dul, this could be justified. Could.
  • Pandora in 4. Regardless of how awesome all of its forms are, let's face it: You're blasting stuff to pieces with a suitcase.
• Informed Attractiveness:
  • In 3, Nevan compares Dante to his "handsome devil" of a father, but also says Dante is "no slouch" himself in comparison.
  • In Episode 7 of TAS, the Warden describes Dante as someone who "looks cute", "talks cute", and Dante's body as "firm" and "delicious".
• Informed Attribute:
  • It's frequently implied that the reason Dante is so powerful is because of his love for humanity, something normal demons aren't capable of. However, while it's frequently stated that Dante loves humanity, he never actually shows much interest in humanity as a whole at all in any of games, unless saving the ones who haven't already died via killing the final boss counts. In fact, it's shown that he'll downright turn down helping people with demon problems if it doesn't sound interesting enough to him, to the point he'd rather just lay around and do nothing than help. If he does love humanity, his actual acts of love must all be off-screen. While there is a bit of leeway in the games due to the fact that Dante doesn't have much direct interaction with humans anyway ^note Although both 4 and 5 do involve normal humans being killed quite a lot, and in both games Dante doesn't show any initiative or concern for saving anyone, the anime makes it far worse, with him frequently looking bored and disinterested when normal humans die right in front of him. There's even a scene where a man gets killed within arms reach after Dante gives him some sarcastic sounding advice that he should probably move, and Dante looks as if he could not care less. It can be chalked up to both his wisecracking/sarcastic nature, as well as how he doesn't feel comfortable interacting with "normal people" unless they're personally close to him.
  • Two pieces of lore imply Dante having already surpassed his father Sparda in terms of ability or strength, but both are written as In-Universe speculation or rumors by other characters. The first comes from Dante's Character File in 4, and the other comes from Nico's report on his Sin Devil Trigger form in 5. The events of 4 are too easy for Dante, he doesn't even fully transform via his Devil Trigger in cutscenes, and while he acquires a more powerful form in 5, there's still no definite way to compare his power level to Sparda's. After all, Sparda is long-dead and any hints about the Legendary Dark Knight's abilities and strengths in the past are mentioned as legends or snippets of text instead of being directly shown or demonstrated.
• Intergenerational Rivalry: Nero and Dante form a student-teacher rivalry through the course of 4. At first Nero is hunting down Dante for killing Sanctus, the holy leader of Fortuna. Dante constantly teases and goads Nero into trying to fight him, seeing a lot of potential in the young devil hunter. Of course Sanctus turns out to be Evil All Along, which gives Dante and Nero a common goal. By the end of the game, Dante entrusts Nero with his brother's sword, Yamato, and the two part ways implying they'll meet again. Come the sequel, Nero is trying to prove himself that he can handle protecting the human realm to Dante, who has grown colder towards him believing he can't defeat the Big Bad, Urizen.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Reuben Langdon in 3 and 4, providing voice and Motion Capture in both games, voice in the anime and MvC3. In 5, Reuben is still Dante's voice actor and mocap actor, but Dante's appearance is portrayed by Adam Cowie.
• Instant Expert: It's explicitly stated that one of Dante's abilities is instantaneous and thorough knowledge of how to use any weapon to its fullest potential. In fact, this extends to any object or device—even ones that aren't inherently weapons, such as a motorcycle.
• Invincible Hero:
  • From a narrative standpoint, Dante is this to the forces of evil in 2. Unlike other villains, Dante is barely fazed by Big Bad Arius and his army, easily defeating all of them with the blatant implications Arius doesn't even remotely stand a chance vs him. His master Argosax doesn't fare much better, and Dante later in his life can't even be bothered to remember its name.
  • Again in 4, where he keeps his more laid-back and goofy persona of 3 while being just as unfazed by the enemies he faces in Fortuna as he was back in Vie de Marli. Even more so is that you fight him as a boss as Nero and, despite winning in gameplay, it canonically results in a draw. No matter how much effort Nero (and the player) puts in the battle, Dante is always ahead in terms of power.
• I Shall Taunt You: More noticeable in 3, where he treats Cerberus like a regular dog. He's also occasionally teased others over the various medias, and it's a game mechanic in 1, 3, 4, and 5, as stopping to taunt will refill your Devil Trigger gauge and raise your Style Meter, albeit at the cost of leaving Dante open to attack. In 1, he usually says "Come on!" in either a single-handed or double-handed pose. As this became a series tradition, Dante's taunts became more elaborate in the next games.
• It Was a Gift: Rebellion was a memento from Sparda. There's also his half of the Perfect Amulet, given to him by Eva on his birthday.
• It's All About Me: In 5, Dante is unusually selfish and confrontational, insisting on keeping Nero out of the fight with Urizen and claiming that the entire mission is his gig, which Nero complains about. This is actually because he knows that Urizen is actually Vergil, or at least a part of him, and refuses to let Nero bare the burden of killing his father, and when the time comes to actually kill Urizen, he allows V to do so instead, making this an Averted Trope.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: More shown than told. Dante doesn’t go out of his way to befriend anyone is because of his troubles with the underworld. The only people he frequently talks to are Morrison (for contracts) his demon hunting partners (since they’re in the same business, as well as Patty (whom he met in a contract) and Nero. The amount of normal people he talks to that doesn’t involve with any demonic matter whatsoever can be counted on one hand.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech he gives to Trish when she betrays him to Mundus includes calling her a devil and saying she lacks a soul. Harsh, but she realized he's right about this.
  • While Dante could have been a bit kinder about it, he was absolutely right to try and get Nero away from Urizen, as A - If Dante couldn't beat Urizen, then what chance did a recently crippled Nero have, B - Nero would be the only hope for humanity, and C - Nero, at that point, really was "Dead Weight." He's lost his Devil Trigger, missing his buster, and was outright missing an arm. Hell, the whole "Deadweight" comment wasn't even malicious, just desperate.
• Jerkass Façade: Downplayed. Dante isn’t really someone who you’d call an asshole, but isn’t above being snarky and throwing in the occasional rude comment. It’s his way of coping with the circumstances of having the entire underworld after his ass and doesn’t want anyone getting hurt because of his troubles.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all his rudeness, Dante shows a deeply compassionate side such as with Lucia during her Heroic BSoD, or even Trish after her return from the dead, and even with Brad in the animated series, when he realizes the latter is a good guy and in love. He's also surprisingly friendly with Nero at the end of the fourth game. Sure, he'll snark endlessly about it and complain about being in debt, but make no mistake: Dante's got a strong sense of right and wrong and will always end up saving the day simply because it's the right thing to do, and has been known not to enforce payment from people who cannot afford it.
• Jumped at the Call: He does... only if the caller shows up in person. A comical example of this in literal context happens in 3. He picks up the phone, blows whoever is calling him off, hangs up, and then instantly goes to Temen-ni-gru when Arkham shows up in person. For all we know, that was Arkham himself calling on the phone. In general, Dante loves his work and actively flaunts his powers whenever possible, especially if someone requests him for help.
• "Just Frame" Bonus:
  • Some charged attacks have a small window in which letting go of the attack button right as the attack hits max charge results in either a more powerful or faster attack. This applies to Dante's Drive, and most of his moves using the Gilgamesh.
  • Dante's Royalguard style takes advantage of such proper timings when an opponent is about to hit him. "Just" Block nullifies all damage, while "Just" Release is a stronger Counter-Attack.
• Just Toying with Them: With his penchant for this in nearly every game, the series might as well be called "Dante Might Care" for what it's worth. It's more evident in the third and fourth games with Dante's fights against Lady and Nero respectively. While Lady and Nero are trying their hardest to kill him, Dante is having fun and treating it like a game. As said below in Let's Get Dangerous!, the times he's not doing this are an indication that you're merely going to get your ass kicked much harder and much faster.
  Dante: What's the matter? Why the glare?
  Nero: You look as if you've just been playing me from the beginning...
• Kamehame Hadoken: While in his Physical God form, Majin Devil Trigger, Dante has a massive laser beam as one of his special attacks, the attack can One-Hit Kill everything, bosses that can actually be hit by it included.
• Kiai: While using Cerberus' Satellite. In its return for DMC5, Dante expresses the kiai grunts and yells way more often upon using the classic nunchaku stance, most swings get a noise.
• Knight in Sour Armor: His defining characteristic, in 1, the anime and 2. Dante’s someone who pritoritizes his morals over cash and will fight the good fight, but countless tragedies and hardships of being a Son of Sparda has made him snarky, cynical and more withdrawn. He gets over this in the fourth and fifth games, being back to his wisecrack self while maintaining his maturity.
  • In the first game, Dante, while throwing in the occasional flippant comment, is usually acting serious.
  • The anime has Dante lacking the desire to do anything except drink himself silly and kill demons.
  • The second game has him act at his most serious, not too different from his brother.
• The Lady's Favour: Gender flipped in 2, where Dante bequeaths his lucky coin to Lucia before heading into Demon World to face Argosax.
• Large Ham: He acts like a cocky sonofagun almost constantly during the story. This is especially evident in the opening cutscenes of 3 and 4, where Dante isn't fighting so much as playing with his enemies. It's also famously demonstrated against Agnus in 4, resulting in a Ham-to-Ham Combat.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the first prequel novel, verging on split personality syndrome, going by "Tony Redgrave". Justified because he's basically in deep denial: Vergil keeps trying to give obvious hints and Dante refuses to pick up on them until Vergil pulls all the stops by causing Nell to die the way Eva did.
• The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Dante usually just tanks whatever is thrown at him in cutscenes, pulling out swords or blades like splinters and spitting out a bullet shot in his mouth, all thanks to his healing factor. However he's been shown to struggle against Mundus, the Savior, and especially Urizen. If he starts blocking or evading properly, then you know the fight's serious.
• Le Parkour: Air Trick aside, this is Trickster Style in a nutshell. Dashing in and out of tight spots (including in the air), running up walls, leaping over gaps, you name it.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: His default face is usually a Cheshire Cat Grin, or at least some kind of cocky smirk. The moment he loses it, that is your cue to run (and pray that he's merely been overcome by boredom), because Dante is now deadly serious.
  • In 4, you fight him as Nero in a tutorial fight. After being impaled by his own sword again, he admits to underestimating Nero. The next time they fight, he doesn't hold anything back, and many players consider him to be That One Boss.
  • In 3, once Dante realizes what he should really be fighting for, just about everyone, from Lady to Vergil, learns the hard way that Dante is not one to be trifled with. And who could forget that Curb-Stomp Battle against Mundus in the first game?
  • During the course of 5, Dante tries to put on his usual face but it's fairly obvious as the ordeal goes on that he's feeling the effects of it at a personal level and quips to himself that this isn't the time to be messing around. To give proper gravitas to his more focused mentality, during the course of the game he ends up in several situations that put him on his back, which isn't typical for the legendary devil hunter.
• Lightning Bruiser: Thanks to his demonic nature, Dante is extremely fast, agile, durable and very hard-hitting. Especially in the hands of a particularly skilled player, he can clean house against a room full of mooks without ever taking a hit with breathtaking alacrity. In 4 he can switch styles at will and use Trickster, Swordmaster, Royal Guard, and Gunslinger simultaneously. See Difficult, but Awesome above.
• Limit Break: He gains one in 5 in form of Sin Devil Trigger. Unlike regular Devil Trigger, he has to accumulate DT energy to a special red gauge, and it can only be used when the gauge is full. Once he enters this mode, he gains entirely new, destructive attacks, including a wide-ranging attack that deals massive damage to a lot of enemies at once, but consumes the remaining of the gauge (akin to Vergil's Judgment Cut End in the fourth game).
• Living Legend: Post-1, he's revered as "The Legendary Devil Hunter" (compare this to his father, "The Legendary Dark Knight"), and with good reason.
• Lone Wolf Boss: Dante plays this role in 4. Nero thinks he is the main villain at first, since the first thing he does is interrupting a sermon and killing the local Pope. He's actually just here to get Yamato back and discover what the Order of the Sword (for which Nero works) is up to. Then Nero discovers that the Not Quite Dead Pope in question is the real villain, so Dante sort of becomes an Aloof Ally.
• Lured into a Trap:
  • In the first game, Trish leads Dante to Mallet Island under the orders of Mundus so that the Demon Emperor can have his revenge for Sparda's betrayal ages ago.
  • In the third game, Arkham personally visits Dante in his shop to inform him of an "invitation" sent by his brother Vergil. Dante ventures through the tower for the main reason of fighting the latter, but without realizing that both Arkham and Vergil needed his Amulet to undo Sparda's spell on Temen-ni-gru.
• Major Injury Underreaction: In cutscenes, Dante is impaled with a sword or a bladed weapon (sometimes his own, sometimes not) on a regular basis, nearly Once per Episode in the series. He barely flinches. In fact, he barely reacts to any damage at all. A good example happens during one of the first cutscenes in 3 where several demon Mooks slash and skewer Dante with scythes. Some of the scythe blades break off and are stuck in his body... yet he shrugs it off as he casually walks over to his jukebox to turn on some music! During his stroll, he picks up a slice of pizza and pulls a blade out of his chest without even flinching! He then turns the music on and proceeds to slaughter the mooks effortlessly, at times even using the broken-off scythe blades sticking out of his arms to parry their attacks.
• Manchild: Subverted. While Dante is often irreverent and goofy, he's shown to be a self-assured person who has used his Dark and Troubled Past to motivate him to do good. This is in contrast to Vergil, who acts mature but has defined his goals and life by his childhood trauma.
• Manly Tears:
  • At the end of 3. Of course, "It's just the rain" because "Devils never cry."
  • He also sheds a few tears when he believes Trish to be dead.
• Married to the Job: According to Before the Nightmare, Dante rarely (and perhaps never) engages in sexual trysts because he is completely focused on his Devil Hunting and shuns anything that gets in the way of that. He also refuses Lucia's offer in 2 because he claims that it'll just get in the way of his job.
• Master of All: Especially in 4 and 5, Dante is number 1 in just about every category of combat compared to Nero. Even ignoring Swordmaster and Gunslinger styles, he has much more options for melee and ranged combat than Nero does, he has much better evasive abilities when in trickster form, and he can straight up tank attacks with Royal Guard stance, something Nero cannot do. And in 4, Dante's Devil Trigger is MUCH stronger than Nero's, though it was nerfed somewhat in 5 until Dante unlocks his Sin Devil Trigger at least. About the only two things Nero has that Dante doesn't is the ability to pull enemies to him (and technically vice versa, though Trickster form lets him warp towards enemies) and the ability to grab enemies for special attacks. But Dante is so powerful that not having those abilities hardly slows him down.
• Meaningful Echo: Thanks to some comforting words from Lady ("Maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one"), "Devils never cry" morphs from an utterance of sorrowful denial in the face of Vergil's death to Dante's words of choice for providing similar emotional support for Trish and Lucia in their times of need. It was Lady's change in perspective on demons that indirectly allowed Dante's other two female companions to cope with who and what they were.
• Meaningful Name: In Devil May Cry 5, "The Legend of Sparda" library file narrates how the three swords of Sparda (Devil Sword Sparda, Rebellion, Yamato) were named, and Dante's Rebellion was fittingly named to "embody retaliation".
• Mellow Fellow: This is Dante's chief characterization. A happy-go-lucky guy who takes everything easy and likes to goof around, which often cause his enemies to underestimate him, despite being the Son of Sparda. He can be angered, but he'll just go with a Tranquil Fury expression and then trash his enemies thoroughly. He fits right between his cold and no-nonsense twin Vergil and his more emotional, Hot-Blooded young partner Nero.
• Memento MacGuffin:
  • His half of the Perfect Amulet, gifted to him by Eva. Vergil uses it to partially unseal Temen-ni-gru in 3, and when Vergil drops it as Nelo Angelo in 1, Dante combines it with his half to unseal Force Edge into Demon Sword Sparda.
  • Rebellion is often said to be a memento from Sparda. When Urizen shatters it in 5, Dante uses Rebellion's hilt to combine it with Demon Sword Sparda to form Demon Sword Dante.
• Menacing Stroll: Compare this to Vergil, who favors the more traditional Slow Walk.
• Messianic Archetype: Dante is a subtler and less traditional example than his father Sparda, but he still shows signs of being a Messianic Archetype. He's the son of a god-like figure who uses his abilities to help humanity and manages to bring/inspire goodness out of self-doubting or demonic-inclined characters such as Trish and his brother Vergil. Just like Jesus, Dante christens his allies with new names that they accept forever, as seen with "Lady" formerly known as Mary in DMC3. Trish and Lady also follow him as his trusted allies ever since he befriended them in their respective debut games. He also gets several Crucified Hero Shots throughout the series, but the 2007 anime made it more blatant with Dante being pinned to a life-sized cross, seemingly dead, but then waking up later. DMC5 adds more subtle allusions as Dante now has long hair and has facial hair and performs a Heroic Sacrifice which seemingly "killed" him but he awakens again after several days and returns to his friends.
• Meteor Move: Depending on the weapon, Dante has different moves that send an airborne enemy crashing down, though the most common/recurring one is "Helm Breaker", a straight downward slash with a BFS like the Rebellion.
• Mirror Boss: He plays this role to Nero in 4. During the tutorial, he's a Warm-Up Boss who also wields a sword and handguns to match Nero's. Both are also acrobatic and have similar jumps and dodges. Played straighter in Bloody Palace if one is playing as Dante, pitting him against a pitch-black clone of himself in a Mirror Match.
• Momma's Boy: His fascination with Trish, preference for humanity over demons, and his conversation with Vergil at the end of DMC5:SE indicate that Dante was always better with his mum, Eva, than with his father, Sparda. Dante also keeps a photo of her on his desk at all times. According to Morrison's fourth letter in DMC5, this photo was common knowledge associated to Dante, which Mundus took advantage of by making Trish look just like Dante's mother. One unlockable image after beating the main story campaign of DMC5 also shows that Dante and Vergil were close to Eva since they were toddlers.
• Money Dumb: Dante is revealed to be exceptionally bad with money, to the degree that his utilities and rent are constantly late (the events of Devil May Cry 5 begin with Dante's business having no electricity or running water). His character profile also states that he often needs to borrow money from Lady, which is something she considers a massive turn-off. As explained further in side materials such as the first Devil May Cry novel, the 2007 anime, and Before the Nightmare, this is largely self-imposed; he refuses to take money from those that need it and often rejects jobs that either don't involve demons or he believes are wrong, such as when he refused to kill Brad after assessing that he had good intentions, regardless of how profitable they would be. He has also been sending a significant amount of money to Grue's surviving daughters over the years after the death of their father and sister, while the rest of his savings are used to replace his red coat. It should be noted that, despite this, he was able to get enough money to buy his office by the age of 18.
• More Dakka: Dante's "Honeycomb Fire" is a move for the Ebony & Ivory which increases his fire rate at the cost of standing still.
• Mr. Fanservice: Gains some costumes that reveal his chiseled abs and he gets some Shirtless Scenes in later games down the road.
• The Musketeer: He's a Gunslinger and a Swordmaster who always fights with his dual handguns Ebony & Ivory and his sword Rebellion.
• Mystical White Hair: He's a half-demon with silver hair.
• Named Weapons: The majority of the weapons he can equip, from his default guns Ebony and Ivory, to the electric guitar-sycthe Nevan in 3, to the transforming weapons-platform-suitcase Pandora in 4. A slight aversion for some in 2, like the Submachine Guns and Rocket Launcher; his shotgun is also simply called "Shotgun" until 4, where it's called "Coyote-A". In 5 he lends his own name to his new Devil Sword forged from fusing Rebellion and Sparda within himself.
• Nerf:
  • The Devil Trigger offers special abilities and attacks in 1 and 2; it is all but nerfed in 3. The increased footspeed, increased offensive power, increased resistance to flinching, and Healing Factor are still quite useful. On top of that, special abilities still do exist with certain Devil Arms (i.e. Air Raid with Nevan).
  • The Styles were nerfed in 4 as a price for being able to switch them on the fly.
  • In 5, Dante's regular Devil Trigger mode isn't as powerful as it was in 4. Justified in that he was powerful enough in 4 to not have to take any of the conflict seriously on any level, but apparently this time, things are serious enough that even he can't take the whole thing as a joke. Of course that isn't counting the new "Sin" Devil Trigger that he gets during the game, which is insanely powerful.
• Nerves of Steel: This guy's reaction to things like giant demon birds threatening him, a three-headed ice dog trying to block his way, or a demon snake-plant trying to eat him? Dodging or no-selling whatever they try to do and taunting them back.
• Never Be Hurt Again: The prequel manga for 3 suggests that this might be what drove him to become powerful. After losing his mother to demons, he didn't get stronger to protect other people, it was so nothing like that could happen to him again.
• Never Gets Fat: Dante is mostly shown eating ice cream and pizza all the time, as well as drinking alcohol occasionally. Yet he still has a flat stomach with a six-pack. Justified as he is a half-demon and his line of work involves killing supernatural monsters, so he has a physically active lifestyle and needs a lot of calories to burn.
• Next Tier Power-Up: In 5, Dante gets a power-up of his own when he runs himself through on a broken piece of his sword, Rebellion. His subsequently absorbing the Devil Sword Sparda unlocks a new form of his Devil Trigger ability: Sin Devil Trigger, which completely changes his moveset and massively buffs his damage. At the same time, he also gains a new, more powerful sword: Devil Sword Dante. As a gameplay mechanic, Dante can access this form by sacrificing bars of the DT Gauge to fill the SDT Gauge.
• The Nicknamer: Throughout the series, Dante has shown a habit of giving nicknames to friends or foes alike. He calls Griffon "Feather-face" in 1. His "Whatever, lady" reply in 3 (due to Mary not divulging her real name) became the latter's own name of choice as she goes by "Lady" instead onwards. In the 2007 anime, he calls the first demon who attacked him as "Mr. Royal Flush" (given that it disguised itself as a human bar-goer who had a Royal Straight Flush in a game of poker). In 4, he constantly calls Nero "kid" even after they've formally introduced themselves to each other. In 5, he calls V "Mr. Poetry" and V's familiar Griffon as "little chicken" (the latter is also a part of that game's Running Gag where several characters call Griffon as a "chicken"). Dante would also use similar nicknames on two related characters, such as when he both calls Cerberus in 3 and King Cerberus in 5 as "puppy" and "little puppy", respectively.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Because of his part-demon nature, Dante can shrug off many attacks and also has a powerful Healing Factor that allows him to recover from injuries that could kill or severely cripple him. This is not the case in gameplay where Dante is very much at risk of dying.
• Nonchalant Dodge: When Nero throws a giant statue sword at him in 4, Dante responds by just barely moving his head out of the way, then barely reacts to the object's size and force of throw.
• No-Sell: Played with. When Nero duels Dante at the beginning of 4, Nero thinks he's beating Dante within an inch of his life, but Dante knows better, as does the player. His only reaction while tanking Nero's savage pummeling is a partial DT (his hand, presumably resonating with Nero's Devil Bringer), and after being impaled by his own sword courtesy of Nero, Dante slides back down and pulls out the blade like it's a harmless splinter.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: His standard outfit in 3, which is mostly exclusive to that game because he wears shirts under his red coat in the other DMC games. It's justified as Dante had just gotten out of the shower at the start of the game, and since his shop is immediately attacked by demons, it's only until the second mission where he puts on the coat. This is also his outfit as a Guest Fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
• The Nose Knows:
  • In 4, he can smell Dagon from a mile away, but intentionally screws around with him and pretends to fall for his tricks to humor himself.
    Dante: You can hide that body. But that smell, woo!
  • In 5, he concludes that Urizen is already deep down the Qliphoth just from his scent.
    Dante: I can smell that piece of shit from up here. He needs to be flushed.
• Occult Blue Eyes: Dante has bright blue eyes, a common trait of those who share Sparda's blood and demonic heritage.
• Odd Friendship: Dante is the son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, a demon who slaughtered the armies of the Underworld and sealed away the demon emperor Mundus to protect humanity, while Trish is an artificial demon created by Mundus for the express purpose of luring and getting Dante killed in Mallet Island. And yet, by the end of the first game, these two are close enough for Dante to entrust her with the sword of Sparda, her creator's greatest enemy. She later became a long-time ally of Dante in the next adaptations and sequels.
• Offhand Backhand: In every game after the first, Dante can fire one of his twin pistols in a direction he's not facing, a move referred to as "Twosome Time"; notable in that Dante will frequently pick improbable poses for this (i.e. firing forward and left has him point his left gun forward and his right one behind his back). There's also a move that lets him swing his shotgun around like it's a nunchaku, hitting enemies in every direction without specifically having to turn towards them.
• Older and Wiser: In 4, whilst still keeping his wit and eccentric personality, Dante is much more mature and responsible than the earlier titles and eventually acts as somewhat of a mentor to Nero. 5 plays with this a bit more, in that Dante is visibly older than all of the previous games and has the experience to go with it, but Nero still finds his rivalry with Vergil to be ridiculous considering the alternatives and the far more important matter of the Qliphoth being a continued threat to the world whilst the two brothers try to kill each other.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: Be it Rebellion or Sparda or any of the other BFSs such as Alastor, Dante has no problem swinging them with one hand, and even demonstrates incredible flair and dexterity with them. Justified on account of his clearly superhuman strength owing to him being a half-devil.
• One-Man Army: He's perfectly capable of mowing through entire hordes of demons, be it in cutscenes or under a particularly skilled player's control.
• Opposites Theme Naming: Dante's handguns are named "Ebony" and "Ivory". They are also appropriately colored.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: His half of the Perfect Amulet.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Whenever the subject of Vergil comes up, Dante starts getting serious—or at least more serious than he usually is. This is taken to an extreme in 5, where Nero decides to put an end to their feud once and for all because he finds the whole thing stupid.
  • When he faces Urizen for the first time and realizes just how insanely strong he is, he tells Nero and V to run.
  • And when he finds the ruins of his childhood home, he can only quietly express his wonder that it hasn't been completely destroyed.
  • Dante's language is fairly clean most of the time, but in the fifth game he finally unleashes everything at the now Qliphoth boosted Urizen.
    Urizen: This is true power. The power I've sought for so long.
    Dante: You've been chasing this for an eternity. And it's nothing but useless shit!
• Our Demons Are Different: When in Devil Trigger state, Dante has a full-on demonic appearance that mostly looks like a "draconic humanoid lizard" (it has similar traits to Sparda and Vergil's Devil Trigger forms, but look different than them) and mostly shares the color theme of his clothing. His Devil Trigger's default appearance also varies across the games, though the version shown in 5 is similar to that in 4 as a Continuity Nod. He also has a Sin Devil Trigger form that's more monstrous than the regular one.
• Painful Transformation: Dante howls in pain during his first chronological Devil Trigger transformation in 3, but never does so again during subsequent uses.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Becomes very protective as a babysitter for Patty in the anime.
  • Has shades of this toward Nero in 5, trying to keep him away of danger and is seriously angry at Vergil for tearing his own son's arm off, being more resolved at killing his brother than before.
• Parental Abandonment: Although it's more so implied than outright stated, his childhood took a turn for the worse after his eighth birthday. The disappearance of his father and death of his mother also doubles as the beginning of the major schism between Dante and Vergil, which comes to a head between them in 5.
• Parrying Bullets: Dante usually prefers to block enemy fire by shooting it, but there are times when he swats them away with Rebellion, like what he briefly did to Nero's shots in the first mission of 4.
• Passing the Torch: At the end of 5, Dante and Vergil elect to venture to the underworld together to sever the roots of the Qliphoth and seal the portal to the demon world, leaving the two trapped there. Dante makes it explicitly clear that the reason both of them can go is because Nero is there to protect the human world.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Gives one to Agnus in 4, and again to Sid in The Animated Series.
• Perfect Play A.I.: When he fights Nero a second time in 4 as a boss fight, and it hurts.
• Perma-Stubble: Spends the entirety of 4 with a five o'clock shadow. It grows out into a beard in 5, before he uses a spinning bladed demon to shave it, at which point it returns back to a light stubble.
• Perpetual Poverty: Something that early as 1 was only shown in side-materials has increasingly been given spotlight in the games proper, where Dante simply cannot rid himself of being in debt towards someone to the point of it being some sort of sad joke. Viewtiful Joe went as far as to poke fun about Dante needing to pawn off some of his Devil Arms to pay some debts, it's usually brought up in TAS; he also has problems staying financially afloat because of the collateral damage he racks up during his Demon Slaying jobs. It doesn't help that he's also in debt to various people, or that Trish and Lady like to stick him with their shopping bills. It reached a point in 5 that Dante got the running water in his office cut. According to Morrison, Dante is very bad at holding on to money, often needing Lady to help bail him out of financial trouble (which she considered a major turn-off).
• Physical God: It's implied that Dante has the potential to surpass his father (who also qualifies for this trope). By 2, he slaughters Argosax the Chaos, King of the Demon World, and the Despair Embodied (its Bishōnen Line of a One-Winged Angel) with little visible effort. And that's when he's in his normal form. Devil Trigger (Majin Form), anyone? In the 5 prequel novel, Argosax was so inconsequential he doesn't remember his name. By 4, he can take a blow from The Savior and still be relatively unscratched. In 5, he unlocks his final form, Sin Devil Trigger, which takes on a form which is a hybrid of his normal Devil Trigger and his Majin from 2 and gains his own Devil Arm, Demon Sword Dante. He's powerful enough that he's able to dominate Urizen one-on-one, who had previously overpowered Dante without even getting out of his chair. Dante's only other equals are Vergil after he acquires his own Sin Devil Trigger and Nero when he regains his Devil Trigger.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Lady. Director Itsuno had to clarify this further by specifically stating that their relationship is not romantic, but whatever bond they shared is more focused on understanding what the other had gone through.
• Polar Opposite Twins: With Vergil - Dante prefers his human side and sides with humanity, uses his demonic powers on protecting those weaker than him, wears red clothing, a more laid-back attitude while occasionally acting over the top with glimpses of compassion and kindness, fights with a lot of flair and uses firearms, and has friends who stick by him even though they all poke fun at each other (mostly poking fun at him).
• Possession Implies Mastery: If he obtains a weapon (no matter how cool), he will instantly know how to use it (usually complete with a flashy demonstration cutscene of him playing around with the weapon in a manner that shows him being incredibly skilled with it), ranging from being a one-man show Musical Assassin with Nevan, becoming an expert martial artist with Ifrit, Beowulf and Gilgamesh, masterfully pulling off sick spins with Cerberus, showing skillful slashes with Agni & Rudra, to deftly using his own brother's Yamato. This could be justified since his Devil Arms are actually demons subjugated to his will. Supplemental materials state that this is one of Dante's canon superpowers. Upon coming in contact with a tool or weapon, he is instantly able to wield said object with absolute mastery. Even in ways it wasn't intended for.
• Power Fist: One recurring weapon type that he can aquire is a pair of gauntlets, such as Ifrit in 1, Beowulf in 3, Gilgamesh in 4, and Balrog in 5. The latter three combine this trope with Armed Legs.
• Power Gives You Wings: Some of Dante’s DTs gives him wings: Alastor and Sparda in 1, his own in 2 and 4, and Nevan in 3. However, the absolute examples is the Majin Form DT in 2 and Sin Devil Trigger in 5, showing two pairs of wings. If being in line with some angelic mythos that the more wings one has, the more powerful one is, the Majin Form DT and then later Sin Devil Trigger in 5 is by far Dante’s most powerful form(s).
• Power Makes Your Voice Deep: While using his Devil Trigger Majin Form, his voice becomes very deep.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Tends to pop off these before various boss fights, or during cutscenes preceding a scripted fight.
• Precision F-Strike: He usually doesn't use anything stronger than "damn", "hell," or "ass", but in 5, he finally snaps at the futility and sheer destructiveness of Urizen's aka Vergil's failed plan to achieve ultimate power.
  Dante: You've been chasing this for an eternity. And it's nothing but USELESS SHIT!
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Partial to the phrase "Jackpot" just before he finishes a major demon off. The only time he broke the "Jackpot" trend is 2 where Dante instead says "'King'? Yeah, here's your crown..."
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Dante is a half-demon who uses his powers to protect humans from demons that would torment and prey on them. While Dante is the son of the legendary demon Sparda, it is made clear that he holds his human mother Eva in far greater esteem and the Central Theme throughout the games is that humanity is a source of strength not weakness.
• Purple Is Powerful: The fire blasts, body energy, and overall color theme for the Majin Form DT is a mix of Black and Purple, and its power of course is ridiculously strong, making the Sparda DT look normal in comparison.
• The Quiet One: In stark contrast to his cocky motormouth portrayal in every other entry in the series, Dante in 2 is stoic and reserved, and has fewer than 30 lines of dialogue in the entire game.

R-Y

• Razor-Sharp Hand: He cuts a slab of stone, and then many slabs, when he acquires Gilgamesh (a set of supposedly non-sharp gauntlets and boots). Unfortunately, that only worked in a cutscene.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Dante gives out one to Trish upon learning she was created by Mundus to kill him in 1.
    Dante: Don't come any closer, you devil! You may look like my mother, but you're nowhere close to her. You have no soul! You have the face, but you'll never have her fire!
  • Delivers a glorious one to Urizen in 5
    Urizen: How... How are you so powerful?! You never lost anything!
    Dante: It's not about loss... Strength is a choice! Fighting like hell to protect what matters! You threw away everything you ever had! No wonder you have no true power!
    Urizen: Danteeeeee!
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In 1, having witnessed the death of Trish at the hands of Mundus, Dante's eyes glow red as he gains a Battle Aura. In a rare break from his wisecracking personality, he delivers both a Death Glare and Shut Up, Hannibal!. His Sparda Devil Trigger then activates. Mundus gets trounced. They're also present on the cover to 2, but not in gameplay.
• Red Hot Masculinity: Dante wears a red Badass Longcoat and is a fearless demon hunter who loves a good fight.
• Red Is Heroic: Red is his primary color due to his coat, and he's a good guy.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: To both Vergil and Nero.
  • A prominent example in the series shows that Dante is the Red to Vergil's Blue, along with having their respective color-coded outfits. From their characterizations in 3, Dante is the red-clad protagonist who's arrogant, sarcastic and impetuous, while Vergil is his blue-clad antagonistic twin brother who's somber, stoic and ruthless. This is carried over to 5; Dante remains much more passionate and red than his controlling blue twin, Vergil.
  • His comparison with Nero is a bit of an oddball inversion in this regard. Nero, wearing blue, is the one prone to emotional outbursts, though he is still pretty levelheaded. Dante, wearing red, is the mysterious and somewhat more stoic one, though he still keeps his brand of wacky. In DMC4, he spends a boss fight getting Nero to cool off. Dante progressively becomes more Red during his own section of the game, though not by much. This is carried over to 5; Hot-headed red Nero tags along with a much more level-headed blue Dante.
• Refuge in Audacity: Standard operating procedure. For instance: need to kill the leader of an order of holy knights with demonic powers? Show up during one of the guy's sermons and cap him in the face.
• Reverse Grip: Dante switches to reverse grip for the Drive shockwave attack.
• Right Makes Might:
  • It was stated several times in the original continuity that the two sons of Sparda are perfectly equal or evenly-matched in every way; power, ability, face, etc. to the point where some of their battles are tied; their physical differences are only due to circumstances or preference. Naturally, Dante beats Vergil in their final clash in 3 after having just awoken to justice or having realized what he's fighting for. This trope is a decisive factor in favor of Dante, as the original continuity also stated several times that Vergil has a much stronger control over his demonic powers (specifically the Devil Trigger form, which Vergil acquired first before Dante) and takes his training more seriously.
  • Dante is a firm believer in this philosophy. In the anime, he tells Sid that power means nothing if you don't have a soul. In 4, he tells Agnus that the reason the latter lost is because he threw away his humanity for power. This is also part of his "The Reason You Suck" Speech against Urizen above.
• Rogue Protagonist: The first interaction Nero has with Dante in 4 is when Dante crashes a church service to put a bullet between the Vicar's eyes. No well-meaning devil hunter would ever murder an innocent priest, right? Turns out Nero was actually fighting for the wrong side the whole time.
• Rule of Symbolism: He wears a red Badass Longcoat over his clothing, just as his mother Eva wore a red shawl, referencing that he chose his mother's humanity over his father's power.
• Running Gag: In almost every game (save for 2 in the final fight against the Despair Embodied if the player isn't careful), Dante has been impaled through the chest in one way or another and yet despite that, he manages to get back up like it was nothing. Sometimes this has been Played for Drama, like when Vergil stabs Dante with his own sword in their first battle in 3 and when Dante stabs himself with the broken Rebellion in 5 to fully unleash his power.
• Sad Clown: Dante might be known as the "wacky wahoo pizza man" who's always the life of the party, but he's also someone who's suffered a lifetime of tragedy and sorrow. His mother was killed by demons at a young age, he's chosen a life upholding the legacy of a father he hated, unable to live a normal human life like his mother and ultimately had to choose between his twin brother Vergil and his duty to protect humanity. Because of his tragic life, it's hard not to imagine that Dante's over-the-top antics and personality are a way to cope with his lot in life. One of the most underplayed parts of Dante's character is that despite his over-the-top thrill seeker persona, he's actually rather distant towards his companions and doesn't go out of his way to meet new people. He barely tries to keep in touch or even attend any social functions, and despite his occupation and business as a demon slayer, he never really makes any attempt getting out of his Perpetual Poverty status. All very common symptoms of depression.
• Sarcastic Clapping: In 4, Dante does this to express his disdain after seeing Sanctus unleash The Savior as a masquerade to save the citizens of Fortuna after Agnus opens the Hellgate to the Demon World. He also does this as a taunt during his boss fight with Nero.
• Save the Villain: Negated with his attempted Take My Hand! moment at the end of 3. He gets a cut across his hand for his troubles, mainly because Vergil wanted to stay in Demon World and had just told Dante to leave before he too was stranded there with no hope of escape.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: Dante uses a double-barrel shotgun in every game, given the name of Coyote-A as of 4.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Gains one made out of Red Orbs when he has Dr. Faust equipped in 5.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Constantly complains about living in debt, but seems to take jobs for the sake of good, and will not take a job he doesn't like, even if it pays high.
• Secret-Keeper: He knew early on in 4 that Nero was Vergil's son but kept it to himself, looking out for his nephew without interfering too much. It isn't until Vergil returns in 5 that Dante drops that bombshell. Likewise, he figures out very quickly that Urizen is none other than Vergil sans his humanity.
• Self-Harm–Induced Superpower: To activate his Sin Devil Trigger, he stabs himself with Devil Sword Dante.
• Sequential Boss: As the Final Boss of Vergil's story in 5: Special Edition, he is fought in two stages. He makes use of Kalina Ann II and King Cerberus and is far more aggressive with Sin Devil Trigger in the second round.
• Series Mascot: For being the original protagonist, Dante is the main representative of the Devil May Cry series, appearing as the usual Guest Fighter in many Crossover events of other franchises. He's also the original face of Stylish Action games.
• Sheath Strike: When he gets his hands on the Yamato via the Dark Slayer Style in 4, Dante's basic combo copies Vergil's act of striking with the Yamato's sheath as the first two strikes of his main combo.
• Shirtless Scene: The beginning of 3. You can unlock that outfit (or lack thereof) upon beating the game.
• Shoot the Bullet: He is a pro at this. In DMC3, he does it during the cutscene where he and Lady find the body of Arkham. Indeed, you can also do it in-game during her boss battle by firing when she does, which also gives you a nice Style boost. During his boss battles in DMC4, he uses his handguns to cancel out Nero's revolver shots.
• Shoryuken: Dante has a jumping uppercut move in most of his gauntlet-type weapons, particularly Beowulf, Gilgamesh and Balrog.
• Shout-Out: Dante's character is based off of the eponymous hero of Space Adventure Cobra, and the Nightmare gun is meant to resemble the Psychogun.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: He's named after Dante Alighieri, the author and main character of the poem, The Divine Comedy.
• Show, Don't Tell: While it's never outright stated, there's plenty of evidence that Dante has all but surpassed his old man in power. In Devil May Cry 2, he was able to kill Argosax, a demon on par with Mundus, who Sparda could only seal away, in Devil May Cry 4, Dante is able to effortlessly beat the Saviour, which uses the power of Sparda in conjunction with Nero, and in Devil May Cry 5 the Devil Sword Sparda, the weapon that permanently had the power and damage output of Alastor in Devil Trigger at all times, acts only as a small damage boost which can be increased with Dante’s own devil trigger, showing that, while the DSS is better than Rebellion, it’s not too significant of a power boost for Dante. Not to mention how the Devil Sword Dante and Sin Devil Trigger completely eclipse everything shown prior.
• Showy Invincible Hero: Though we do see foes in 1, 3 and 5 who are much closer to (or even above) Dante's level giving him a hard time^note Vergil outright curbstomps Dante in their first battle, Nelo Angelo does the same after getting a second wind following their first duel, and even with his father's sword, Dante struggles a bit against Mundus in the beginning, Urizen overpowers him before he can get the Devil Sword Dante. Those rare occurrences aside, Dante cleans out the trash with ease, and a skilled enough player can be just as unstoppable and untouchable in-game.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • At least two; one to Mundus at the end of the first game, and another to Arius in 2 after your second fight with him. The second case is more flashy, as it was a Shut Up, Hannibal! performed with bullets.
  • Another case from 2.
    Trismagia: The Son of Sparda. You must repent your sins!
    Dante: Don't speak, just die!
• Sibling Rivalry: Dante and Vergil, constantly. It's natural for such a diametrical pair. As Dante says before fighting him in Mission 19 in 5, as far as he can remember, they've always fought. Even when they're trapped in the Underworld undertaking the grand task of cutting the Qliphoth at its roots and demons are liable to jump in and try to kill them at any time, they'll take the time to duel each other yet again.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Dante is loud-mouthed, playful showy, and dresses in red, yet is a demon hunter who embraces his human side, using his demonic powers to aid humanity, being the hero. Vergil is soft-spoken, stoic, quiet, composed, more introverted, and dresses in blue yet embraces his demonic side and is obsessed with gaining power at every cost, being the antagonist.
• Signature Move: Dante has several series-wide recurring moves, but his Stinger is available in every DMC game fairly early on, and labeled as a "classic original" in its Flavor Texts. It's even present in his Guest Fighter or Crossover Cameo appearances in third-party games.
• Silver Fox: As of 5, Dante has visibly aged (something noted by Lucia in Before the Nightmare, although he's shown musing on just how long his lifespan will be and he's still not sporting a single full wrinkle), but he is still extremely good-looking.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Several devil bosses have major grudges against Sparda for siding with humanity, and they take it out on Dante. This happens on him often enough that he lampshades this trope in 3, as he got sick of it.
  Dante: "Why do I gotta take the heat for my father?"
• Smug Super: In 3 and 4 (in 1 and 2, not so much). Especially in the latter, where he will lesson Nero, play the three big demons of the game while clearly holding back, and never seem the least bit shaken by the chaos occurring.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: The Devil Sword Dante in 5 can conjure four floating energy swords to attack on Dante's behalf. The swords behave differently depending on his style: As Swordmaster, the swords follow his melee attacks with any weapon in different ways to deal extra hits; as Gunslinger, the swords repeatedly fly towards the target; as Trickster, the swords allow him to dash and jump more times at once; and as Royalguard, it improves his blocking, allowing him to gather energy more quickly.
• Stance System:
  • Starting in 3, Dante is given access to specialized movesets which determine how the Son of Sparda fights in addition to his basic combat skills with each individual weapon. He starts with Trickster, Swordmaster, Gunslinger, and Royal Guard, later obtaining Quicksilver and Doppelganger as spoils for defeating Geryon and Doppelganger. 4 drops Quicksilver and Doppelganger, only keeping the default four from 3, but allows Dante (while name calling the respective Style) to switch between them on the fly as the player sees fit (instead of how it worked in 3 where he's restricted to only one Style at a time unless swapped at a Mission Start screen or Divinity Statue). Midway through his segment of the game, Dante unlocks Dark Slayer, a homage to Vergil's single style of battle in 3; unlike Vergil, Dante doesn't focus on Vergil's various teleportation "Trick" techniques, instead using Yamato to emulate a few of his brother's trademark moves. In 5, he's back to the basic four again. With the Nintendo Switch release of 3:SE on 2020, there's an option to use a Real-Time Style Switching feature that was implemented in later games past DMC3.
  • In 5, several of Dante's weapons have multiple stances or modes that can be switched between. The Balrog gauntlets and greaves can switch between a boxing mode and a capoeira-style mode, while the King Cerberus has three transformations depending on the move; the ice-elemental nunchucks from DMC3, a fire-elemental bo-staff and an electrical three-sectioned staff. His Styles can also directly affect some of his other weapons; the properties of his "Swords Formation" skill vary depending on his current style, Swordmaster converts the Cavaliere from two buzzsaws into a motorcycle weapon, Gunslinger now provides separate button inputs for the Ebony & Ivory, and a hidden Gunslinger mechanic of the Double Kalina Ann allows Dante to use just one rocket launcher instead of Dual Wielding them.
• Sticks to the Back: He carries his swords on the back when not using them, even if there's actually nothing that would strap them to his coat. It's even more apparent in cutscenes where he just touches the sword in his back and it sticks there. The most egregious example happens when his topless outfit is equipped in 3; the sword easily sticks to his skin. In 5, the Devil Sword Dante magically teleports from his hand to his back if he stays idle after using it, although it's briefly signalled by a slight arm motion.
• The Stoic: Dante is eerily much more serious and Vergil-like in 2 than in any other game in the series. Funnily enough, the game's back cover notes that he was supposed to have even more of a trash talking attitude here.
• Strong and Skilled: In addition to the various superpowers that come with his demonic heritage, Dante is a Multi-Melee Master and expert with guns.
• Strong as They Need to Be: An ability description in 3 says the Devil Trigger form is Dante's "true power". However in 5, Dante later gains a Next Tier Power-Up to it - the Sin Devil Trigger form, which is now identified as Dante's "true form" according to its section from Nico's Character Report. Therefore, the significance of the standard Devil Trigger ability is now distinct from the Sin Devil Trigger, and the former can no longer be considered the "true" extent of Dante's abilities in retrospect.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He shares the same white hair and blue eyes just like his dad Sparda, his brother Vergil, and his nephew Nero. Dante and Vergil are identical twins as well.
• Sword and Gun: He can fight with a sword on one hand and a gun on the other, such as when he takes on the Blood-goyles in mid-air after he just acquired his Devil Trigger ability in a cutscene of 3. The 2007 anime gives more shots and scenes of Dante using Rebellion in tandem with Ebony & Ivory, such as in the promotional covers, in the final act of Episode 1 (where he shoots the giant demon and then slashes it, ending with him holding Rebellion on one hand, Ebony on the other hand, and Ivory on his mouth), and during his short fight against Belphegor in Episode 3.
• Sword Beam: Dante's "Drive" move causes a shockwave to jet across the ground and damage all enemies in its path.
• Summon to Hand:
  • He can recall his BFS-type swords back after tossing them during Round Trip.
  • In 5, this is an inherent trait of Devil Sword Dante; he can let the sword vanish into Hammerspace, and make it manifest to his hand when he needs to use it again. Because of this newfound ability, he no longer has to grab his sword from his back anymore.
• Superhero Packing Heat: Throughout his career, Dante has acquired and used a collection of firearms, alongside swords and other close range weapons in addition to already having superhuman strength, speed, and durability via his demonic heritage. He has the explicit power of channeling his demonic power through his guns, making them quite effective weapons against his demonic foes alongside his other weapons.
• Super Mode: Dante's Devil Trigger unleashes the full extent of his demonic power and true potential, amplifying his abilities and giving him new ones. It's implied that Devil Trigger causes Dante to assume his true form. In 1, he can also fly and fire lightning bolts. In 2 he gains his Majin form, which is another super mode to his Devil Trigger and in 5, he absorbs Rebellion's hilt and Sparda together to transform into Sin Devil Trigger, which eclipses everything prior.
• Super-Strength: The BFS-wielding Dante is the most prominent example in Devil May Cry and his strength just becomes more extreme as the series goes on. It's one of his superpowers that get demonstrated more than it's told. In his first scene from DMC3, Dante destroys a demon by simply shoving it into a wall, crushes a jukebox, then kicks a pool table around. And after Dante acquires his Devil Trigger, he destroys a stone pillar accidentally. DMC4 takes this trope even further with Dante who not only does a Punch Catch to Nero's Devil Bringer arm and forces him back, but also holds Echidna's jaws open, destroys a Hell Gate with a one inch-punch using Gilgamesh and even stops the gigantic Savior's fist without his Devil Trigger! In DMC5, he wields the equally-large chainsaw-motorcycle halves of the Cavaliere Devil Arm on each hand. Spin-offs may showcase this as well, such as in Episode 7 of the 2007 anime where he effortlessly breaks his handcuff chains.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Tall? Check, as the character height sheets for his anime self puts him at 190cm tall (about 6 feet, 3 inches), while his in-game 5 model has him a bit taller than Nero (whose own life-sized statue is 190cm tall). Dark? Demonic powers, and he has worn black. Handsome and snarky? Both in spades.
• Teased with Awesome: Sparda Devil Trigger in 1, Majin Devil Trigger in 2 (since the conditions to trigger it are Awesome, but Impractical and this DT depletes very quickly; to top it off, there's no infinite DT unlockable for this game); also his obtaining of Lucifer and Pandora (right before switching back to Nero) in 4. At least you have New Game Plus and Bloody Palace in the case of the latter...
• Technician/Performer Team-Up: In Devil May Cry 3, Dante and Vergil end up working together to take down Arkham, who is denying the brothers their ultimate match. Dante is firmly the "Performer," preferring to defeat enemies in a hailstorm of Bullets and Swordplay, contrasting Vergil's "Technician," who prefers methodical and precise strikes. Arkham by himself gives Dante a run for his money, but when working with Vergil, the two are able to overcome him. They are even able to effortlessly trade swords and use their individual fighting styles, before finishing Arkham off with a combined "Jackpot" attack from Dante's guns.
• Technician Versus Performer:
  • Dante's play style leans heavily on being a "Performer," whereas Vergil's methodical and little-wasted movement fighting style is most definitely the "Technician." With the four main styles of Trickster, Gunslinger, Swordmaster, and Royalguard mentioned in the Stance System entry above, he can freely switch between all four in 4 and 5 (plus Dark Slayer in 4). Add real-time weapon switching in 3, 4, and 5, Dante can create some of the most over-the-top and flashiest combos at the hands of skilled players.
  • Is both the superior Technician and Performer to Nero, who has a far more limited moveset and weapons list, and is far less refined in his attacks.
• Tell Me About My Father: Averted. Dante couldn't care less about the fables revolving around his father (Lady apparently knows more about the legend of Sparda in 3 than Dante does). In 2, when Matier bribes him with a tale about Sparda as payment for his help, Dante passes up on the offer, coming to the conclusion that it parallels his own quest in the game.
• Theme Twin Naming: Dante and Vergil are named after Dante Alighieri and Virgil, the Roman poet whom the former admired and wrote as his guide through Hell and Purgatory.
• Three-Strike Combo: Dante's default combo with his Rebellion are three strokes. With certain tricks, he can perform an alternative combo with more strokes.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: His Round Trip technique is especially notable because it turns Dante's sword into a Precision-Guided Boomerang.
• Time to Unlock More True Potential:
  • Majin Devil Trigger. Nothing in the series so far dared to claim someone or something stronger than Sparda (and Mundus); when Dante attained his father's form, it seemed that he reached the top of his game, then Dante apparently impersonated Goku and got a more powerful form off-screen.
  • In 5, he impales himself with the remains of Rebellion, and it merges with his father's sword to create a new weapon called "Devil Sword Dante". This weapon lets him access a new tier of Devil Trigger called "Sin Devil Trigger" with absolutely ludicrous power, although it lacks the health regeneration of normal Devil Trigger. Whether or not this surpasses the Majin form is unclear, but at the very least, he seems to have reached some sort of perfect balance between his human and devil ancestries that lets him use the best of both, making him at least stronger than any full-blooded demon.
• To Hell and Back: Every mainline videogame in the series (except the fourth) has had the protagonist Dante go to Hell in order to deal with something there and return to the Human World. In the second game, it's part of the ending.
• Too Many Belts: Dante's outfit from 1 and TAS has several belts on his vest and right thigh. The latter would appear to be a holster for his guns, but he also has an actual leather belt on his waist. In 5, his boots are also wrapped by several belt straps.
• Took a Level in Badass: Simply put, anytime he unlocks a Devil Trigger.
  • First happened after his fight with Vergil at the top of the Temen-ni-gru in 3. This new ability gives him a Super Mode with increased speed, endurance, strength, attack rate and a Healing Factor. Later in the events of 2, he gains another level of DT when at 10% of health, in which he becomes invulnerable and Immune to Flinching.
  • And then in 5, at the ruins of his family's home, he unlocks his most powerful transformation so far: The Sin Devil Trigger, which allows him to turn the tables against Urizen, who had kicked his ass. In the process, he gains the Devil Sword Dante, the most powerful of his Devil Arms in the game.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In 5 Dante is unusually more of a dick than usual. He spends most of the game trying to keep Nero away from Urizen, calling him as "dead weight" and rudely hangs up on Patty, refusing to attend her 18th birthday party. However, this is actually subverted for both scenarios, as in regards to Nero, the deadweight comment was made right before he was defeated by Urizen, and he was trying desperately to stop Nero from needlessly throwing his life away against a threat even he couldn't beat, and his later attempts to dissuade Nero are explained as him trying to prevent him from killing his father Vergil, as Dante knows the pain of killing family. With regards to Patty, the prequel novel Before the Nightmare explained that he had full intentions of dropping by to see Patty, just in a more private situation, making it more of a facade.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Pizza! As well as strawberry sundaes in the anime (a nod to a prequel novel meant to be the groundwork for the series, until 3 kicked it out of canon). Trish and Lady give him endless amounts of shit for eating it all the time in the anime, but aren't averse to splitting some, too. Dante in particular snarks at how much Trish seems to dislike his preference for pizza, making a jab at how - despite physically resembling her - she isn't his mom.
  • The 3 prequel manga also gives Dante a fondness for tomato juice, though this was changed to beer in the English translation by Tokyopop, where Dante notes he was so wasted, he ended up proposing to a mop. He's additionally seen with what appears to be a bottle of Jack Daniel's on his office desk, though no other references to Dante having a taste for alcohol exist in-series (barring the aforementioned liberty taken in the first volume of the manga).
• Training Boss: Dante serves this role in the beginning of 4, where Nero gradually demonstrates his most basic moves on the former, as the tutorial segments are justified and split by how their initial fight progresses. Afterwards, he decides to play along with you and becomes a proper Warm-Up Boss. Should the player disable the Tutorials in the options menu however, the mission would immediately start with the actual boss fight instead.
• Trash Talk: Mixed with I Shall Taunt You, although not to Nero's level.
• Translation Style Choices: 5 finally gave prominence to Dante's ultimate form, but its name in English has been revised; what was known as "Majin Devil Trigger" in English is called "Shin Majin" in Japanese, as in "True Devil Trigger" being a more accurate equivalent due Japan calling the Devil Trigger simply "Majin", yet 5 came and gave Dante's true form an actual English name: Sin Devil Trigger, which can make people in the west think it is a new form unrelated to what was known as Majin Devil Trigger, but Japan still calling it Shin Majin makes perfectly clear that it is the same form Dante debuted in DMC2 but given a proper revised concept.
• Tranquil Fury: While Dante is usually upbeat and goofy nature, when Dante gets serious, he defaults to this trope, as seen when facing Vergil in the climax of 3, after Mundus kills Trish in the first game, or when facing Urizen in 5. While this may seem surprising considering his hot blooded personality, it contrasts well with Vergil's immature habit of going into an Unstoppable Rage when things don't go his way, showing Dante to be the more calm, focused and mature of the twins.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Suffers from this in the first prequel novel, apparently due to Eva's death.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening:
  • In 3, Dante unlocks his Devil Trigger ability after losing a fight with his brother Vergil, who then steals the amulet that Dante keeps as an heirloom of their dead mother and impales Dante on his own sword.
  • In 5, when Dante has a light bulb moment and realizes that the Rebellion can fuse his human and demon halves, he impales himself with it and absorbs the Sparda, obtaining his Sin Devil Trigger and Devil Sword Dante.
• Trickster Mentor: To a small degree, he's like this towards Nero. It starts developing into a Big Brother Mentor complex near endgame.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Dante frequently runs into opponents who assume he will be easy prey either because of his humorous personality or human heritage. Dante proves them wrong every single time.
  • In 4, Dante underestimates Nero's abilities and he even admits it after their first fight. He didn't expect that the young man had a demonic arm that turned the tide of their battle.
    Dante: Looks like you've got a trick up your sleeve.
    Nero: I thought the cat had your tongue. But if it's the trick that you want, then try this!
  • In 5, Dante does this to Urizen. While he is mildly impressed at Urizen defeating Lady and Trish, it is not until the villain destroys Rebellion that Dante finally understands the severity of what he is dealing with and he can only cry out for Nero to run.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Trish. Even after alienating himself from her after she's revealed to be working for Mundus, he ended up being concerned for her capture by his hands, and is also enraged at him for her death.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: Dante is roped into the conflict of 5 because V believes that he could defeat Urizen. V is proven right; while Urizen had curb-stomped Dante, Nero, Lady, and Trish for the first half of the game, Dante acquired a Next Tier Power-Up that helps him turn the tide, the Devil Sword Dante and the Sin Devil Trigger were enough to take down the Demon King.
• Villain Killer: Dante has killed countless demons and baddies from the underworld or from Earth. In DMC1 he kills Phantom, Nightmare, and Nelo Angelo/Vergil (though he comes back). In DMC2 he kills Jokatgulm, Nefasturris, Arius^note Although he temporarily comes back and is killed by Lucia permanently in her campaign and Argosax the demon king. In DMC3 he kills Cerberus, Agni & Rudra, Nevan, Beowulf and Geryon ^note  though you can argue he's simply turning them into weapons, not technically killing them and defeats his brother Vergil who is the aforementioned Nelo Angelo. In DMC4 Dante kills Berial, Dagon, Echidna and Agnus. In DMC5 Dante slays Cavaliere Angelo and King Cerberus. The canonical anime series adds several other demons to Dante's body count, including the final villain Sid.
• Waistcoat of Style: A red one that's seen more often in the anime when he's in his office without his long coat.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: After beating Son of Sparda Mode in 4, some may step into Dante Must Die Mode full of confidence since the first fight isn't that hard. If they are lucky, they will be woken up by Pandora's laser beam two seconds into the fight and die before knowing what's happening. Ouch.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Has a few costumes where he's completely shirtless◊).
• Warm-Up Boss: The first mission of 4 uses the series' main character, Dante, as a warm-up boss for the new playable character, Nero. Especially in the lower difficulty modes, Dante has a limited moveset, and is less aggressive as a testament of being the tutorial boss. Subverted in the harder difficulty modes where he has full access to his arsenal of weapons (even when he doesn't acquire the majority of them until later in the game), and is obviously harder to beat. The difficulty spike in Dante Must Die mode also makes Dante a Wake-Up Call Boss to players who still expect him to play just like a tutorial boss.
• Wasted Beauty: Dante is widely considered to be attractive due to his immense and stylish power, heroic nature, chiseled body, and handsome features (even after aging a bit). However, he is a lazy, slovenly, arrogant layabout with a terrible sense of responsibilities, and poor sense of money. Combined with caring much more about demon-slaying than relationships, these traits are often considered an Instant Turn-Off for many women who are otherwise attracted to him, with Lady in particular even calling him "undateable" after he continually needs her to bail him out financially.
• Weapon Across the Shoulder: Dante does this very often... on the sharp side of the blade. While it usually happens with Rebellion, he likewise rests a sheathed Yamato across his shoulders during a late-game cutscene of 4.
• Weapon Specialization: Regardless of the Devil Arms and new weaponry he picks up, Dante will usually stick with Rebellion, Ebony and Ivory.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Played with. Despite his chosen profession, Dante appears to only fight evil demons, and has little qualms with accepting good ones. In the ending of the first game, he reassures a crying Trish that the fact that she possesses human emotions makes her the equivalent of a human, and only those who cannot shed tears are true devils.
• Who You Gonna Call?: Ghostbusters? All jokes aside, this is the reasoning behind his Devil May Cry shop and business; he's the only one who can protect humans from demonic infestation... for a fee. Apparently, the business has been confused for a more generic We Help the Helpless outfit before, hence Dante having a password that only those really needing demons slain would get. Initially, Dante was the only one slaying demons around, but over time, he later had this gig extended to his allies like Lady, Trish, and Nero. The latter even got his own Devil May Cry sign and placed it on Nico's van.
• Willfully Weak: It's perfectly clear that Dante never goes all out in any of his adventures, barring the fight against Mundus and Vergil/Nero Angelo, mostly due to his laid-back personality and that he likes to have fun hunting each demon personally (or because he's Passing the Torch in Nero's case). This is most evident in his incarnations from 4 and 2, the former where an enemy states that he has surpassed his father in strength and the latter in which Dante has proven the statement to be correct, rendering Sparda's powers useless to him by attaining the Majin Devil Trigger, basically becoming the top Physical God in the series. He can probably decimate demon-populated countries by just flicking his fingers by 2. This even applies to his weapon: Despite having full access to the Sparda Devil Arm after the first game, Dante still uses the fairly basic Rebellion sword in all his subsequent appearances, instead passing the Sparda on to Trish. Come 5, however, he's faced with a roadblock in the name of Urizen; he realizes that he has to get serious, and then he gains a new power boost in form of Sin Devil Trigger (and Devil Sword Dante) that finally allows him to overcome Urizen. It helps that Urizen is Vergil's demon half, thus being the only one who can match Dante.
• Will They or Won't They?: This dynamic is usually avoided within the games themselves, with the story ending just as Dante and the Girl of the Week become partners in Devil Hunting. However, it's brought up both in the anime and in Before the Nightmare that there are often obstacles (specifically, Dante's own character flaws) between Dante and the women in his life that prevent them from consummating.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • In 3, he's heavily curb-stomped by Arkham after exhausting himself battling up Temen-ni-gru and multiple fights with Vergil.
  • This happens twice in 5. After defeating Urizen, Dante is in no perfect condition to fight Vergil when the latter emerged from the Fusion Dance of V and Urizen. Finally after continuous battles throughout the Qliphoth, including Urizen and Vergil, both brothers struggle to stand. Dante is then knocked on his back by a backhand from the newly Devil Triggered Nero and is so exhausted, he doesn't bother getting up while Vergil and Nero battle.
• The Worf Effect: Dante is by a fair margin, the most powerful protagonist in the series and one of, if not the, strongest individual in the first four games. As such, there's no better way to show Urizen is serious business by having him completely overpower Dante's Devil Trigger, seemingly with little effort, and shatter the Rebellion sword into pieces. This shocks Morrison, who knew Dante and his capabilities for a long time.
  Morrison: This can't be happening... Dante lost?!
• World's Best Warrior: Easily the strongest known being in the entire DMC universe, considering that both Mundus and Argosax (both former rulers of Hell) can't hold a candle to him. The only being left capable of challenging him is his twin brother Vergil, and even then Vergil has to power himself up considerably using the same method as Mundus to even stand a chance.
• World's Strongest Man: You could probably count the number of people or demons capable of giving Dante a real fight on one hand. In 2, he's gained the invincible Majin Form and is stated to have surpassed his father Sparda in power. By 4, he's able to block a blow from the Savior and it's pretty obvious he's not even bothering to go all out. And by the end of 5, he and the fully restored Vergil are on a level of their own above anybody else. The Japanese manual for 2 and the promo site for 5 also describe him as the strongest demon slayer on Earth.
• Would Hit a Girl: In 3, his boss fight with Lady is this. Next, in 1, his attempt to shoot down Trish when she reveals her true colors of working for Mundus. He also has no qualms plowing through the series' handful of demonesses you encounter as bosses either. At any rate, Dante retains his usual flippant affability when interacting with Nevan and Echidna.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Dante is both a sender and receiver of this trope thanks to "Devils never cry", a recurring phrase in the games, given to emphasize a character's humanity despite their demonic heritage or creation; Dante says this to punctuate Trish's Heel–Face Turn in the first game, and Lucia's Tomato in the Mirror moment from the second. Even Dante gets a slight variant from Lady in the third game when Vergil is trapped in the demon world.
  Dante: Devils never cry.
  Lady: I see. Maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one. Don't you think?
• You Remind Me of X: In 1, Phantom, Griffon, and Mundus all remark on how similar Dante is to Sparda. Nevan also compares him to Sparda in 3, although she's commenting more on appearance and sex appeal than personality and demeanor.
• Youngest Child Wins: Conversations and in-game information indicate that Dante is the younger twin (which is finally confirmed at various points in 5). This culminates literally at the end of 3 as Dante wins his duel against Vergil. Not that he's happy about it, however.

---

"This party's getting crazy! Let's rock!"