Dante Sparda

Dante and his twin brother Vergil were born to the legendary demon Sparda and his human wife Eva. The family lived in a remote home near Red Grave City. As young children, Sparda would train the boys in the art of combat and for much of Dante's early childhood, he didn't realize his father was a demon. As a child, Dante would supposedly begin crying whenever Sparda raised his voice. Sometime before their eighth birthday, Eva gave Dante and Vergil each one half of the Perfect Amulet, which their father had used to seal away the demon world eons past before eventually giving to Eva. Eventually, Sparda died under unknown circumstances, leaving Eva to care for the twins alone. Sometime later, they were attacked by demons. Eva was killed, and though both Vergil and Dante survived, the twins were separated, with Dante believing that Vergil had died. Dante followed his mother's last wish and took up a new identity to hide from the demons, adopting the name "Anthony 'Tony' Redgrave". In time, Dante began to resent his father, seemingly blaming him for the fate that befell their family.

Some years later, he found himself under the care of a woman posing as his mother on Morris Island. He befriended a young boy named Ernest. Dante and his "mother" were forced to leave when a demon hunting him attacked and burned down the town.

Years after the Morris Island incident, Dante became a mercenary and frequented an underground bar called Bobby's Cellar, still using the alias Tony Redgrave. He partnered up with a man by the name of Grue, with the two taking on jobs together. At Bobby's Cellar he befriended a local gunsmith named Nell Goldstein, who would go on to craft his signature handguns, Ebony and Ivory. After working with Grue, Dante was paired with another mercenary, a mysterious masked man by the name of Gilver. Desperate to pay for his sick daughter's hospital bills, Grue took on an assassination contract targeting Gilver and learned that the man was in fact an agent of the Demon World and a summoner of demons. Gilver and Grue fought, with Gilver successfully murdering him. Dante soon learns of his old partner's death and visits his daughter in the sanatorium after learning that she had been hallucinating of demons. He finds the sanatorium overrun by demons, who have converted it into a gateway to the Demon World. Dante manages to fight his way to Grue's daughter and ends her suffering, severing the link between Earth and the Demon World. Scorned by his fellow mercenaries due to the deaths at the sanatorium and the death of his partner Grue, Dante retreats to Nell Goldstein's house, unaware that Gilver was in fact behind it all. Gilver proceeded to convert the patrons of Bobby's Cellar into demons before attacking Dante. While Nell lost her life in the ensuing battle, Dante managed to defeat and fatally shoot Gilver. He was horrified to discover that Gilver had the same face as his twin-brother Vergil, unaware that he was in fact a clone of Vergil created by Mundus, lord of the Demon World. Following these events, Dante returned to his true name and stopped using his "Tony Redgrave" alias. He also began sending Grue's surviving daughters money to help care for them after the death of their father.

Now having returned to his true name, Dante opens up a business, selling his services as a demon-hunter. With Dante's then-unnamed shop still just opened, his old associate Enzo Ferino, an information broker, comes by to offer him a job; a four million dollar reward for the return of a missing child named Alice. Despite his initial reluctance, Dante agrees to take the job. He tracks Alice down to a demon-infested castle, and soon learns that Alice had run away with a demon known as the White Rabbit, which had possessed her beloved rabbit doll. The White Rabbit reveals that Dante's twin Vergil is still alive, and offers to arrange a meeting between them, an offer which Dante refuses. The White Rabbit strips Alice of her innocence, a human trait valued by demons, and transforms her into a beautiful adult woman. The now adult Alice begins to flirt with Dante, but after he rejects her advances, she turns into a demon and attacks him. Dante is forced to change into his Devil form to subdue her but manages to do so without harming her. The White Rabbit soon reveals that he was the one that gave Dante the job to track Alice down, telling him that he wished to see "the legendary son of Sparda" in action. Before Dante leaves, the White Rabbit offers to buy his half of the Perfect Amulet, an offer Dante rejects. He returns to his shop only to find Alice waiting for him. He attempts to scare her off and leaves his half of the amulet unattended while he takes a shower. Alice steals the amulet and leaves a map for Dante to follow. He tracks her down in an old church where an associate of the White Rabbit known as the Mad Hatter attempts to trick Dante into giving a name to an ancient demon whose name was stripped from it by Sparda. Dante refuses but is surprised when his brother appears and names the demon. The two brothers speak for the first time in many years, and Dante is shocked to learn that Vergil intends to raise the Temen-ni-gru and open the way to the demon realm. Vergil takes Dante's half of the amulet and the two fight, with Vergil effortlessly defeating him. Despite needing the amulet to open Temen-ni-gru, Vergil returns Dante's half, declaring he can take it from him any time.

A year after his last encounter with Vergil, Dante is visited in his yet-to-be-named shop by an associate of Vergil's named Arkham. Arkham offers Dante an invitation to the Temen-ni-gru on behalf of Vergil; as soon as he leaves, Dante is attacked by a swarm of hell jailers. Dante effortlessly kills them all, and heads to the tower in search of an "interesting time". Vergil's plan is to reopen the portal to the demon world in order to obtain his father's power, in the form of the Force Edge, the weapon imbued with Sparda's power. Within the tower, Dante encounters the demon Jester, who guides him through the tower for his own reasons. He also encounters the demon huntress Lady, who seeks revenge against her father Arkham for his murder of her mother. Lady dismisses Dante as just another demon and attempts to kill him.

Dante is forced to fight his way through the demonic gatekeepers guarding the various parts of the tower. Upon defeating most of these demons, Dante acquires their souls in the form of new weapons and combat styles. Dante fights his way to the top of the tower, where Vergil awaits him. The two fight, with Vergil maintaining the upper hand. Vergil questions why Dante refuses to gain the power of their father. Dante scornfully answers that he has no father and declares that he simply doesn't like Vergil. Vergil impales him with Yamato, disappointed in what he views as his brother's foolishness, and once again steals Dante's half of the Perfect Amulet. Grievously injured, Dante taps into his demonic power in order to rise again. While Vergil wishes to carry on their fight, he is convinced by Arkham to leave. Dante attempts to pursue them but is swallowed by the Leviathan. After fighting his way through the beast and back into the tower, Dante finds the seemingly dead body of Arkham. Lady catches up to him, and angrily accuses him of robbing her of the chance to kill her father after revealing their familial connection. She allows Dante to leave, whereupon Arkham stirs, telling Lady that he was corrupted by Vergil. With his dying words, he begs her to stop Vergil from opening the gate to the demon world. Having made his way to the lock, an increasingly frustrated Vergil attempts to open the gateway to the Demon World. He believes that he has all that is needed; the blood of Sparda, which runs through his own veins, and the Perfect Amulet, and yet the way will not open. The two fight yet again, this time more evenly, despite Vergil having claimed the powers of Beowulf. Their battle is interrupted by Lady, who joins the fighting in an attempt to kill Vergil. As the three are exhausted by the fight, Jester suddenly appears. Taking advantage of their weakness, Jester defeats them and reveals himself to be Arkham, having manipulated the three of them in order to claim Sparda's power for himself. Arkham reveals that in addition to his own blood, Sparda sacrificed a mortal priestess to seal the Demon World away. He informs Lady that he has led her here because she is a descendant of that priestess through her mother. He stabs her, and with her blood spilled the tower is unlocked and the way to the Demon World is opened. As the tower begins to shift, the three combatants are scattered. Dante fights his way to the top of the tower once more, finding a wounded and desperate Lady in his path. In a rare moment of seriousness, Dante tells her that Arkham is now beyond any human and refuses to let her go on, despite Lady's desperation for vengeance. The two fight, and when Lady finally asks why Dante cares so much, he tells her of his familial connection to Sparda and Vergil. He reveals that he initially didn't care about any of this, but that his interactions with Lady taught him what was important and drove him to settle his family's affairs. He promises that he will make things right for Lady, and in return, she lends him her gun in exchange for his name.

Dante finally makes his way into the Demon World, and encounters Arkham, now having claimed the power of Sparda. However, Arkham's body is unable to contain Sparda's power, causing him to mutate into a giant tentacled blob. Dante attempts to fight Arkham but is unable to contend with his father's power. Just as Dante is about to be defeated, Vergil appears, with the two brothers fighting together for the first time since childhood. They manage to separate Arkham from Force Edge, as it and the two amulets tumble deeper into the Netherworld. A wounded Arkham is found by Lady who finally finishes him.

Dante and Vergil pursue the sword, with Vergil claiming it. A somber Dante asks his brother what he's going to do with all this power, telling him that no matter how hard he tries, he will never become like their father. He tells Vergil that not only their father's blood, but his soul, lives on in them, and declares that he will stop Vergil at any cost. As Vergil dismisses his brother's words and replies that he needs more power, the two begin a final duel. Dante finally manages to gain the upper hand and defeats his brother. As their battle has raged on, the portal to the Demon World has begun to close as the amulets were separated during their battle with Arkham. An injured Vergil declares that he will remain in the Netherworld, which was their father's home and takes his half of the amulet with him, refusing Dante's attempt to save him. Dante retrieves Force Edge and leaves the tower. Outside, he finds Lady waiting for him, and returns her gun. Dante begins to cry over the loss of his brother, but blames it on the rain when Lady presses him, telling her that "devils never cry". Lady anwers that perhaps "even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one", before the pair are attacked by demons once again, as an ecstatic Dante disposes of them.

Dante matures considerably as a result of his ordeal and inspired by Lady's courage and commitment to her own family, he continues his demon-hunting business with a greater sense of purpose. They become partners and he decides to call his shop "Devil May Cry", in reference to Lady's words of comfort.

Dante is a paranormal mercenary, private investigator and vigilante Devil Hunter dedicated to exterminating evil demons and other malevolent supernatural forces; a mission he follows in pursuit of those that killed his mother and corrupted his brother. He is the second son of the demon Sparda and the human Eva, and the younger twin brother of Vergil.

Dante has worn a myriad of clothing throughout his many appearances, yet his most glaring trait is his affinity for red-colored apparel, often in the form of long, two-tailed coats. Dante wears long, tan-colored jeans, black fingerless gloves, and military-style boots. His coat has zippers on the sleeves and a buckle around the waist, and two brown, leather holsters on the back to carry Ebony & Ivory. Dante does not wear any form of clothing underneath his coat, displaying his silver half of the Perfect Amulet around his neck, as well as his bare, well-toned chest and muscular physique. Following Dante's first battle with Vergil, his half of the amulet is stolen and the right sleeve of his coat is damaged, with Dante tearing it off afterward. In his final confrontation with Vergil, his left glove is slashed across the palm by Yamato, and the epilogue shows that Dante keeps it on his desk, perhaps in remembrance of his lost brother.

Dante is incredibly flippant, casually mouthing off to even the most powerful of demons, and he generally enjoys showing off and taunting his adversaries as often as he can. Dante also displays a fearless, almost disinterested attitude towards incredibly dangerous situations, such as assuming Trish simply had to use the bathroom after crashing through his office's front door on a motorcycle, being attacked by the 7 Hells in his office, being swallowed by Echidna, and effortlessly shrugging off wounds such as a headshot or impalement numerous times, the latter of which happens quite frequently for the Devil Hunter. He can be serious when the situation calls for it, but still maintains an overall laid-back demeanor during tense situations, and is never without a witty taunt or comeback. Although seemingly shown at times to be uncaring or callous, Dante maintains a very strong sense of justice like his father, and prefers to fight fair. He can be counted on to do the right thing, even if he makes humorously cynical quips about it the entire time.

In addition, Dante values family and friends very highly. He cared deeply for his mother and, despite their differences and conflicting ideals, for his brother, Vergil. While he says little about his father, Sparda, over the course of the series, Dante has been shown to clearly maintain a level of respect for, but for a time bitterly resented him due to his absence and inability to prevent Eva's death.

Dante also enjoys fighting, as is shown when he restrains himself from using his full potential but he is also quick to unleash his full power if his opponent proves to be sufficiently powerful. Despite Dante's handsome appearance, he often has terrible luck with women, a condition he ironically reflects upon when Lady shoots him through the head after he attempts to keep her from falling.

While Dante is generally easygoing, he feels an immense weight of guilt on his heart for the tragedies that happen around him. As a form of atonement for the death of Grue, Dante regularly sends his surviving children money and pays Enzo a fee to hold his Devil Arms in his pawn shop, feeling responsible for having to cut off Enzo's arm.

Dante has a fondness for pizza, usually with "everything" on it, and while he complains about olives, he always ends up with them on his pizza. In the animated series, he is also shown to favor strawberry sundaes as well, with it being pointed out on several occasions that those two foods are seemingly all he eats. He also has a fondness for alcohol, specifically whiskey.

In spite of his carefree and cocky attitude another one of Dante's most strongest traits is his love for humanity. He dearly loves the world that he lives in and will go to extreme lengths to ensure its protection from demonic threats. Dante also believes that humans possess something that demons don't and that tears are a "gift only humans have."

Dante also treasures certain things. He kept his signature Rebellion with him which was a keepsake passed down to him by his father and would continue to use the weapon up until it was destroyed by Urizen after their first fight and despite the sword being destroyed Dante would still keep the weapon with him and later transform it into the Devil Sword Dante. He would also stay loyal to using Ebony & Ivory as well in which he kept with him in every game of the series. Dante also treasures the memories of his family as well and would hold them in high regard. An example of this is when he keeps a portrait of his mother in his office.