Name: Beelzebub – SPOILER FREE REVIEW
Type: Manga
Volumes: 28
Chapters: 250
Status: Finished
Published: Feb 23, 2009 to Mar 13, 2015
Genres: Action, Comedy, Demons, School, Shounen, Supernatural
Authors: Tamura, Ryuuhei (Story & Art)
Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)

“Hey Punk you wanna die?” basically your comedic High School story with a delinquent twist except it’s a High School for delinquents and they’re all delinquents and there are demons as well – stay with me now.

The story starts up with our main protagonist Oga Tatsumi who is a delinquent among delinquents with an IQ of a potato (might be lower) with his solution to every problem being punching it in the face, kicking it and if that fails punching it even harder and a junior attending Ishiyama High School for delinquents and called a demon for his brutal personality, I found him to be a refreshing lead in this scenario, a change from some same-old types of characters. The scene starts with him finishing off a gang foolish enough to attack him and then coming across a baby boy who popped out of some old dude – because who needs biology, BTW the baby’s naked even through the entire course of reading it. Ok… where was I? Yeah, Oga having no clue on how to deal with the situation takes the baby to his best friend’s house; enter Creepichi- I mean Furuichi the only sane and non-delinquent character and highly relatable in the entire read IMO with some of the best comedic moments as he’s teased all through the story, sad actually and a favourite of mine. He stood out like a sore thumb because he was the only one out of the bunch to react accordingly to the outrageous situations and had expressions one would expect if it were a normal story but this story is anything but normal, far from it actually. Well turns out that the baby is the son of “THE” Demon King, named Beelzebub IV, Kaiser de Emperana, surprising cute with him only ever uttering “Dabuu” well he is a baby after all. And has chosen Oga to be his parent, to raise him into a demon lord fit to destroy all of humanity. This might sound all serious but trust me it isn’t in the slightest.

Now comedy is one of my very very preferred genres and it’s liked in general because it’s just there for the sake of entertainment no extra added stuff like deep plot or thought provoking dialogues… just fun. And Beelzebub’s take on this genre impressed me a lot. Beelzebub takes full advantage of that “comedy” tag by taking each and every situation and adding as much exaggeration as possible but not in a bad way. I would like to call this genius actually. Much like how “Konosuba” plays around with the isekai genre or how “Daily Lives of High School Boys” plays with the comedy genre Beelzebub plays around with it as well, you’ll understand this once you read it or have watched/read the series I mentioned. That being said, this has got to be among the best comedy manga I have read in a while, it just doesn’t disappoint or tries too hard to be funny. I guess I could say the story’s flow is naturally comedic, props to the mangaka on that. Though at times the story revolving around demons DOES get very serious (major plot unfolds or boss fights) and emotional (character pasts/interactions) but it always adds a touch of humor afterwards to lighten up the mood. Though one thing I was very disappointed in was that the story feels rushed in the later part of the manga, short fights, shorter character introductions which is generally the only complain I have about this. Though if this had taken its sweet time to explain and plot out everything near the end like from the start this would’ve been a 9 or possibly even a 10.

Onto the characters, this is where Beelzebub was great and somewhat bad at the same time. Great that it had some unique, interesting characters which had good character development, back stories and remained relevant to the plot till the end. I like it when a story keeps along all the characters it has managed to introduce in new ways but on the other hand, bad that it left some of the characters totally unexplained they just felt relevant for a relatively short time and introduced some characters out of the blue. And I guess I kinda explained the lead characters in the start, other characters you’ll have to see for yourselves such as the demon… wait for it MAID, yup demon maid Hildegard. Sounds cute doesn’t it? She’s more brutal than Oga and that’s saiyan something. Has sworn undying loyalty to Beelzebub and loves him like a mother, she’s here to act as a helper and to see whether all his needs are being fulfilled by the human host parent for little demon lord Beelzebub and for than often ends up beating the snot out of Oga for when he steps out of line, that’s comical in its own way.

Now the art style, nothing I’d look at and say “Whoa, that’s detailed”. Just fine but not something that would get in the way of your reading. Character designs were OK but being an action comedy the things that were handled really well IMO were the expressions like Oga’s demon expressions stating I’m going to beat you into submission or Lolichi- I mean Furuichi’s expressions for when he sees women or gets into some weird escalated situations.

Enjoyment factor was a max 10/10 for me in this read.
I’ll grant it a RATING of 8.5/10

Could’ve done better if it wasn’t rushed like I mentioned but hey all in all this was a good and very enjoyable read nonetheless. So if you’re looking for your next read with action or comedy this is a pretty good choice especially for comedy.