A Short Summary: Beelzebub Review

This is only a short summary
Read my complete review of Beelzebub here

-Interesting main character
-Decent-good side characters
-Decent-good villains
-Relies a lot on humour, which is funny occasionally
-Has some plot continuity, but relies a lot on individual episodes / chapters
-Is half battle shonen and half gag manga similar to Gintama
-Generally a bit oddball
-I personally don't like, but it's popular
-Art is good

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Beelzebub Chapter 196: Doppelganger vs. Super Milk Time!

Comments:
Pretty good chapter in terms of Beelzebub quality. This one was one of the rare fights that I've enjoyed in Beelzebub and it's really nice to see something else than individual gag chapters. I hope that Beelzebub gets a lot of good plot development for a longer time now, but we'll see what's going to happen. All this talk from the unknown person (at least to me, dunno if he has appeared before) like how they loaned a demon to Nasubi is still a mystery and that's the way I like it. At least there's something to wait for.

What comes to the fight of Nasubi vs. Oga I think it's pretty much done. Oga is still pretty much understandable the champion of this manga who will in the end overcome every villain in the series, that's the way he's built up the whole time. I couldn't help but to notice that Nasubi's doppelganger skill reminded me a lot of Kage Bunshin no jutsu which it basically was, so it lacking some freshness didn't really excite me. The author thankfully made Oga decimate all the clones in one page.

Praise to him for that.

Recap of Beelzebub Chapter 196: The Weight On His Fists

-Nasubi has jus received a blow to the face and he's down looking up at Oga

-Nasu uses Spell Gate Boost, but he still gets stopped and countered by Oga. Nasu can't understand what's going on.

-The "conspiracy person" is on the roof making a remark that this is Nasus limit and he/she then does something to channel all the power into Nasubi.

-Suddenly there are several Nasubis, like Kage Bunshin No Jutsu! This one's called "Doppelganger", though

-Oga takes a sip from a bottle that he's carrying: It's 600cc Super Milk Time. He then destroys all of Nasubis doppelgangers.

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Beelzebub Chapter 195: Whats With The Conspiracy?

Comments:
Pretty cool chapter overall and in terms of Beelzebub chapters it was an excellent one. Even though it was pretty good, practically nothing happened except for the conspiracy stuff + Nasu bragging with his spells.

Though Nasubi was pretty cool with his proficiency of spells and its still very unclear that who he is contracted to. There seems to be a conspiracy going on of which we have no knowledge about as of now (except that there's on going on :P). The character who seems to be related to that is unknown to me, if any of who reads this and has better knowledge of him/her then please comment.

Recap of Beelzebub Chapter 195: Daddy Switch!!

-Oda vs. Nasubi fight continues, Nasus weird style of fighting surprises Oga resulting in a kick and a hit in the face.

-Nasu says that the Ogas knowledge of spells is in child's shoes as proceeds to show some of his own proficiency. His contract spell begins multiplying on his body and he generates sort of an spell aura around him.

-Nasu manages to halt Ogas movement with his spells and then hits him several times to the stomach saying that he will take Baby Beel and use him.

-Meanwhile Kanzaki has beaten all of his underlings

-Oga at the same time rises up and manages to scare Nasu a bit. Nasu the receives a strong punch in to the face.

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Beelzebub Chapter 193: Zebul Spells spreading

Comments:
Usually I'm very bored with Beelzebub, but thankfully the author has managed to make some interesting plot developments. At first I was very reluctant about the new fighters inside Ishiyama, but in the end when he started focusing on Nasubi etc. I think it has been the right way so far.

However I can't shake the feeling that the author is ripping this whole Zebul Spell spreading from Magi's household vessels: it's not idiotic, but the originality simply isn't there. There also isn't in my opinion even a strong bond between the people in this series, even though the theme is a bit different compared to Magi.

At this point it is pretty obvious that Nasubi is the contractor and I'm very much interested finding out more of the one on the other side of the contract: ie. why isn't it necessary for him to be closer than 15m or is he just hiding? I gues we'll have to find out by waiting for more.

Recap of Beelzebub 193: Vs. The Poltergeists

-Nasubi's underlings are on the roof, Pacman is playing a trumpet.

-All of Ogas 'allies' are spying on the Poltergeists and confirming that they aren't with Nasubi.

-Furuichi and Kanzaki spot Nasubi on some room doing some gayish stuff and having some whips on his nipples.

-Kanzaki charges in and sees that all of the poltergeists are inside the room, even though they were split up just a moments before.

-Kanzaki kicks the fat guy in the head but it doesn't have any effect and gets pushed back to the ground. Pacman then jumps on him making a lot of damage.

-Then we are shown that Nasubis underlings all have a contract marks ("Zebul spells") and numbers on them.

-Kanzaki confirms that Oga is their boss and the boss of Ishiyama

-Then Oga kicks the door down and comes inside with Baby Beel.

-Then we are shown that Kanzaki has a Zebul spell on him.

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Beelzebub Chapter 192: Nasubi is a Contractor

Comments:

 Nothing much was going on in this chapter, it was just a typical build-up one. We got a confirmation of Nasubi having contract with some demon who opposes the kingdom, so we are finally getting more of the demon stuff that I hoped for couple of chapters ago. All the other Ishiyama "challengers" seem like fodder at this point and the main antagonist of this "arc" seems to be Nasubi after all. I hope that Beelzebub will stay at this path of plot continuity for a bit longer this time.

Recap of Beelzebub 192: That's exactly what I was going to do!

-Ebian Ichikawa leaves and says to Oga to remember that he's the blind swordsman.

-Hiabura high's Akahoshi also states that he's going to stand at the top of Ishiyama. Furuichi thinks that he resembles Oga a lot

-The "original" red tails are talking and they mention of Ringo Houjou.

-They have a meeting between all of who were at the top of Ishiyama high formerly. They want to talk about how to take down that Nasubi bastard.

-Red Tails are going to go after Tobacco (Tabako) from Majou Academy.

-Oga is going to go after Nasubi.

-Hilda and Alaindelon are talking: he reveals that there's one who has made a contract with a demon that opposes the kingdom..

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Beelzebub 191: How much does Nasu know?

Comments

I'm honestly not a huge fan of Beelzebub, the whole school setting is obviously not suitable for my tastes: it feels too overused, even if the story could be described as interesting. As which Beelzebub's story can not be described. For me reading weekly chapter of Beelzebub is more like a habit rather than interest towards this manga, so I can only hope that the author manages to pull good plot developments and good continuing story design, but as I've heard Beelzebub was intended to be a gag manga to some extent.

Well, maybe this kind of manga is for some people. The whole introduction of more "delinquents" to Ishiyama high feels very forced, it doesn't have any kind of (good) effect to me. I think I'd be interested with more demon -related developments rather than gags, but we'll have to see what future chapters bring us with them.

As for this chapter it's great to see that there's at least something to look forward to: what and how much does Nasu know? What is his relation to demons or are there any?

Recap of Beelzebub 191: Who's going to beat Oga?

Nasu has punched Ogas head through the roof. He then says that lil' "Beezy" is a cute kid, this makes Oda asks how much does he know.

Nasu plays innocent in front of his question.

Ebian then suddenly slashes the piece of wall around Nasu's neck making it crumble to the ground.

A small fight breaks out about who gets to take on Oga, Nasu overpowers Akahoshi and Ebian both with a Raging storm.

Oga breaks a huge wall with a single punch.

After a little bit of banter we are introduced to couple of new characters: Former poltergeists, trumpeter Teruomi Hino "Pacman", bassist Seiji Kamayama "Aquos" and drummer Taizou Shiori "Teddy Bear" who seem to be pals of Nasu.

Nasu and his group leave saying that they will eventually beat everyone and take baby Beel from Oga.

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Beelzebub 190: The Three Kings and The Three Beasts

Recap and Comments of Beelzebub 190: Ishiyama's Six Upstarts

At the beginning of the chapter we are introduced to Former #2 of Sabatou High Chabou Souken and to Former #3 of Sabatou High Kajiura Tetsuhito. They are talking about Nasu and Oga.

They both are seniors and they both ask the Former Head of the Sabatou School Ichikawa Ebian what to do. He says to go spread some bait and mentions that the man who actually takes down Oga Tatsumi will rise to the Top of Ishiyama.

At another location we are introduced to Former #3 and #2 of Hiaburi High, Shigemori Shigeru and Haizawa Ryou. They say that they have to act and say let's go to Former head of Hiaburi High Akahoshi Kankurou, who's also freshman.
Akahoshi reminds me of Oga a bit

Oga versus. Nasu clash is now imminent. It's funny how Nasu comes close and Baby Beel draws whiskers of Naruto on his face.
What a hilarious moment.

Oga says that he gives a free hit to him to be fair. Nasu then hits pretty strongly and Oga gets buried to the ceiling.

The Ishiyama six upstarts are serious business. We are hearing couple of people talk about them outside and they talk about how Fuji, Taka, Nasubi, Ougi, Tabako and Zatou are put together they are the six Ishiyama upstarts.

Then they talk about previously mentioned Hiabura High's Akahoshi, Sabatou High's Ichikawa and Majougari Academy's Tabako who we have yet to see. These three are called the Three kings.

 

Above them are The three beasts who are the Self proclaimed flying eggplant from Sourei High, Nasu

  

 Daten High's "Emperor" Takamiya

And the one who is called the strongest rookie ever Shinkyouku High's Fuji.

There's also a new branch of red tail who started calling themselves the New world red tails, who have surrounded Aoi outside.

Ichikawa and Akahoshi have arrived to the place where Nasu and Oga are. They want to take the credit for taking Oga down, but Oga is still alive and kicking and is going to kick some ass in the next chapter.

A decent build up chapter, it's great to see that Beelzebub is once again making a momentarily shift from being a gag manga to more serious one. Beel drawing Naruto whiskers to Nasu was a great moment, too bad that usually Beelzebub feels a bit too tryhard on the humour side but that hit spot on. I'll be interested in seeing which way the story now progresses, since we have been introduced to a load of new characters, which is kind of sudden and I'm really wondering whether they were even needed to mix up the story. Anyways I'll be waiting the next chapter not too eagerly, but when it arrives I just may want to read what it brings to us.

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Beelzebub 189: Finally something's going to happen

Recap of Beelzebub 189: Oh! My Eggplant

So, Ishiyama is back in business and I feel that we are about the get some action.

Nasu Yoshei, Former head of Sourei High is a Freshman in Ishiyama: Oga pucnhed him so hard that his head went through wall but this guy is tough. He rose taking a huge piece of wall stuck to his neck.

Meanwhile, Himekawa is talking with Oga and Furuichi about all of the groups fighting for power and how they are all actually freshmen. Oga says that Beel has been extremely agitated and can't calm down: I smell some foreshadowing for something related to the demon world to happen.

Back at Nasu and Kanzaki, they are fighting: Kanzaki got beat pretty quickly even though Nasu had that huge piece of wall as his hindrance.

A new character is introduced: Onizuka Masao who was apparently released for juvie: they heard that he went toe-to-toe with Toujou for all three years of high school. Onizuka asks Nasu if he'd mind if he'd take Shiroyama down. Shiroyama hits Onizuka first, but still goes down.

Then comes Natsume who grabs Onizukas shoulder, not long after Onizuka tries to hit him with all his strength but Natsume stops his first by grabbing it. Onizuka kneels down before Natsume, thinking that Natsume is also at Toujou's level.

At the end of the chapter Oga arrives to the scene.. I smell a fight coming.

Comments and Predictions:

In my opinion Beelzebub is usually too much of a gag manga - humor works too rarely for me: I enjoy well designed twists and plot developments much more. It seems that there's now some new powerful freshmen in Ishiyama and I predict that one or more of them are affiliated with demons: hence Baby Beel's agitation in this chapter.

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Beelzebub works better as anime (Review)

Beelzebub tells us a story of very strong delinquent called Oga Tatsumi, who happens to stumble upon a baby, who is heir to the demon lord. This baby Beel forms a contract with Oga which means that they can't go further from each other or Oga dies..

Beelzebub just might be one of those rare series that work better as anime than a manga. The flow of the series and anime adaptation feels entertaining and that's what's most important. Somehow Beelzebub manga's style didn't have as strong effect to me and I found myself a bit too bored. It's like Beelzebub is made for anime adaptation, as it works like that for me a lot better. Beelzebub anime seems to channel better it's comedic style. So I have to lean on actually recommending Beelzebub anime rather than manga. The best option of course is to find out yourself which works better.

Animation of Beelzebub has been done in a good manner, it's such a fresh series to have been animated so I don't really wonder. It may be that they put in their best in the first episodes, but I had to admit that at least the first one was very impressive in terms of animation. After watching couple of dozens of episodes I at least didn't recognize same stuff that has lately been going in One Piece anime: after Enies Lobby the animation quality dropped tremendously for one reason or another.

Beelzebub is very much character driven series. It revolves pretty much around Oga, Baby Beel and various side characters that vary from good to bad. I believe that the author intended at first Beelzebub to be somewhat similar to Gintama in terms of story flow. It's easy to recognize that the author has at least tried it, but in my opinion the humor half of the series' pales in comparison to the other half of the series: battle shonen which can be considered as promising.

Story of Beelzebub is pretty generic, as it involves demons, contracts between them etc. However the way that all these things are shown to readers/watchers is a relatively fresh one. What I myself hate about Beelzebub is that it tries to be partly a humor gag manga in which it doesn't succeed, but that mostly means that I basically have never liked that type of manga anyway. However what somewhat saves what left to save in Beelzebub is it's "traditional battle shonen" qualities which I mentioned earlier that manage to make the series some continuity as well as make it a little bit more interesting.

When I several years ago almost completely switched from anime to manga mostly because of low production values, it got harder and harder to watch actual episodes in continuing series (One Piece, Naruto in example).  Now I realize that I'm slowly making a small kind of transition back to anime - Of course I'll most likely never let go of manga as I did with anime adaptations, but I'll be most likely spending more time watching some episodes than trying to find new series to read. This is very positive, since anime at it's best is very entertaining, but it usually requires some production values.

It hasn't been long since I watched all 87 episodes of Toriko which are all that have been released at this point and I must say that I enjoyed them. Of course there are some minor obvious stuff that animators make to "stretch" the story to fit into anime episodes, which I will never get used to, but overall I certainly liked Toriko as anime. It may of course be one of deciding factors that I think Toriko is an exceptionally good series.

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Beelzebub Review, delinquent babysitting

Beelzebub tell us a story about a delinquent called Oga Tatsumi and a baby who happens to be the son of a Demon King. Oga Tatsumi becomes unintentional adoptive parent to this baby Beel as he is called. Baby Beels destiny is pretty simple, he is eventually going to destroy the world. These two form a bond, contract which binds them together. Oga is informed that if they separate by 15 m or more he will die and basically the only way to get separated to with this baby is to find someone who is stronger than him to take over the baby.

Beelzebub is sort of an odd ball in the field of shonen manga. It usually changes radically between being a humor story and a serious story but it at least has a long term plot. I myself like that serious side of the story but usually there is too much chapters that try to purely rely on the humor side, I often see those as a waste of plot development. 

So I must say that this series is pretty decent in the end. It has its good sides and also a bunch of bad sides which I don't enjoy very much. The idea behind the stories pretty solid but in my opinion it's not used very well. But that's only my opinion: I know lots of people think this is an amazing series. So it's at least worth it to give it a shot and maybe it may be so that you are one of those who think that this is a very good read. If you find the humor side funny then this will most likely be for you.

This has also been made into an ongoing anime adaptation. There's 60 episodes aired according to wikipedia.

I have just began to watch the anime and by the first looks this seems to be one of the rare series that actually work better as anime than manga.

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