Beelzebub

A powerful delinquent named Oga is reluctantly chosen to be the human father to the son of the devil. Tagging along with the child is his demon caretaker, Hildegard. She has moved into Oga's house in order to help raise the baby. This is a dark-comedy+fighting type manga and since it deals with the supernatural, the humor can get pretty ridiculous at times. The overall feel of the manga never stays too serious. There will always be a gag or two to lighten the mood. If you're looking for epic fight scenes, skip ahead to the boss battles. Most of fights are going be very short.

In this story, the delinquents are the good guys and the "good guys" are the bad guys. Or maybe that's...the delinquents are the bad guys and the "good guys" are the...badder guys. Either way, delinquents are the main characters and while they might be delinquents, you'll soon find out that most aren't as bad of people as you would expect. Overall, the characters fit very nicely into the story. Oga is your typical ridiculously strong idiot. He is quite sadistic but at the same time cares for those close to him. He cannot be further than 15 meters from Baby Beel. Furuichi is Oga's best friend. He is smart, (or at least smarter than Oga), and usually finds himself involved in Oga's messes. As I said, Hildegard, or Hilda, is the demon selected as the baby's caretaker. She is cold and as violent as Oga, probably more violent in fact. She is completely devoted and loyal to baby Beelzebub. Beelzebub is just a baby doing things a baby would do with a supernatural twist. Baby Beel needs Oga to grow stronger so that he may grow stronger as well. There are a a lot of other recurring characters in the story, however, they come along later in the story.

The art is nothing special, typical of weekly shounen manga. I do love the way the delinquent's faces are drawn, especially Oga's evil smile, but other than that, you probably won't notice much. Really, the art fits very well with the story.

This is a great manga. You will find yourself busting out laughing in every chapter. After 55 chapters, I don't think I have disliked a single chapter. The humor is far from subtle and each character has a unique personality that adds to the humor. It truly is one of those stories you have to read to fully understand.

I have read my fair share of fantasy fiction and anything involving the demons tends to be on the darker side of horror and it is not usually fit for mainstream consumption. The ones that are mainstream, unfortunately, tend to be a mere shadow of the original.

Yeah, Beelzebub is nothing like that.

I wasn’t quite sure if Beelzebub would live up to its hype – despite the acclaim it has received. But within a few pages, it had me in splits.

To start with, Oga Tatsumi is a terror to be reckoned with. He picks up a strange green haired baby who, he’s informed, happens to be the son of the Demon Lord. Enter Hilda, the violent wet nurse; the Tohoshinki, the four big powers at Ishiyama High and Furuichi, the only normal guy.

Hilarious shenanigans ensue.

Aside from the ‘life raising a young demon lord’ thing, the other central plot point within Beelzebub happens to be power struggles on various levels but without the politics and with 100% more humour. Baby Beel and Oga seem to get inadvertently caught up in them and deal with it the only way Oga really knows – with sheer brute force.

They’re not kidding when they call him the ‘Strongest Delinquent’.

Probably the biggest plus point of Beelzebub is how it constantly delivers. I have read through 167 chapters and, so far, there hasn’t been a single one of them that I’ve disliked. It (literally) punches any conventional proceedings in the face – screw super-stretched out fights with ‘evil’ villains waxing eloquent on their greatness, Oga just nonchalantly takes them out with one of his attacks before they can do a thing.

The humour is not sophisticated – given that it’s a shounen, Beelzebub has a juvenile edge to it – but perhaps that’s what really increases its appeal. There no talk of adhering to the principles of Shounen Jump, there’s just a lot of bizarre situations which are brilliantly interspersed with even better character interaction.

Speaking of characters – practically everyone within the main cast is either: a) a Demon, b) a Delinquent or c) Furuichi. So, you have chock full of comic opportunities that are rarely wasted and each of the characters are interesting and do not grate the nerves in any way.

Furuichi provides delightful ‘tsukkomi’, being the only sane individual throughout the manga and is usually the butt of several pervert/paedophile related jokes. The Tohoshinki are amazing – each of them is distinct and memorable, The Great Demon Lord is a hilarious, flaky individual who's sole purpose in life is to make you choke on your own laughter every time he comes up with a new frivolous scheme, Oga is a brilliant protagonist with both strength and denseness that is always amusing and Baby Beel is just plain adorable.

Another thing I approve of is the way the female leads – Hilda and Aoi – are portrayed. There is a distinct lack of airheaded, helpless bimbos which only adds to the Beelzebub experience and the two ladies are more than capable of holding their own in an all out brawl. I personally enjoyed the inclusion of an all girls gang, though I wish they had more panel time and the fanservice is not as blatant as it could've been.

Beelzebub’s biggest hindrance remains its art. If one were to compare it to other shounen series within Jump, it’s drawing style is heavily lacking. For one thing, the backgrounds in most panels are neglected and intricate detail is not present. Most of the men in the series adhere to a rather boxy build and it feels off sometimes. I have a personal gripe for the way Hilda’s shoes are drawn – the heels on her stiletto lace-up boots are just plain ugly.

At the same time, Beelzebub is suited to this sort of art and it’s not as bad as to be unreadable. The characters are well drawn with crisp, sharp strokes. The male character designs are varied, though I find that most of the female characters have almost the same base. But the latter can be forgiven since there aren’t many prominent females anyway.

That said, I commend the mangaka on his expressions. He captures the incredulous expressions so well, it certainly adds to the humour. I particularly love any of the ‘demon faces’ that Oga takes on from time to time.

Overall, Beelzebub takes a solid 9/10 since the art doesn’t deprecate the series’ enjoyment in any manner and manages to compound it instead, like any good manga should.

Beelzebub doesn’t make any lofty promises – I’ll take down the great demon king and save the world? No sir! – and continues on in its own charming, if somewhat dysfunctional, way. It captures you with its puerile humour, delinquent characters and the ever-loved high school setting with just a dash of Demons (who are equally hilarious in their own right) and happens to be the perfect mood-lifter right in the middle of any normal, tedious week.

Definitely recommended to anyone looking for a light shounen manga series.

EDIT:

Having finally finished the manga, I decided to bump down my score to a respectable 8, even though most of my other thoughts on Beelzebub still hold true in the intervening years I have been away from it.

On rereading Beelzebub as a whole, it's still hilarious and I must commend Tamura Ryohei's comic timing and exaggerated art for it. I did appreciate how Furuichi was ultimately handled though; he did remain my absolute favourite to the very end. I also liked the romantic resolution (rather, the lack of thereof) because it remained true to its characters.

The epilogue chapters don't add much to the story either; it's just more of the same - not that that was a problem with me. I was particularly happy with the chapter focused on Aoi, but apart from that, the rest were okayish.

Unfortunately, one of the many pitfalls the series encounters is at par for a cancelled series. The ending is rushed and much of the humour is sacrificed to get there, the ending itself is not really an ending at all and some characters remain underdeveloped (looking at you, Natsume).

I can actually forgive a lot of that because Beelzebub never promises a deep story and it gives you exactly what's on the tin. It has its problems but they never outweighed the good for me, so my enjoyment of this series remains at a solid 10.

In closing, I feel that Beelzebub should be taken at face value if one wants to enjoy it to it's fullest. I'm additionally glad that it was cancelled when it was, because it didn't overstay it's welcome (or maybe it did, but I digress). All in all, I look forward to what Tamura Ryohei comes up with next.

Story: 9
The story is filled with humour and has a plot with its great conflicts. I like a story that actually has a problem that takes time and effort to fix, and Beelzebub definitely gave me what I wanted. The arcs have a nice variety, and the story somehow weaves the violence and fights into it that makes it so hilarious, such as the Christmas arc. The manga artist has an amazing sense of timing when it comes to humor; most of the chapters are simply priceless.

However, I think the last arc was a little rushed and I didn't really understand it without reading back on it; I felt I was being jerked off my feet with the force of that one. It seemed it introduced a bunch of new characters at once that I keep track of who was who, and I ended up thinking "that guy" was like this, "this other guy" fought Oga. It also developed the concept of demons and how their world works which is good, but I think it was very overwhelming.

Character: 9
Beelzebub has its own weird assortment of characters which are totally different from the others, so there is no-one who is there without a purpose in the manga. In the delinquent school, everyone has to fight; naturally the girls are badasses in their way, with Queen Aoi Kunieda and the Red Tails.

Oga starts off by trying to get rid of Beelzebub, causing a number of misunderstandings which has its own butterfly effect. However, he grows to appreciate and like his new son, and matures as the series goes. His sadistic character combined with his supernatural strength make him a person to behold and fear. I personally really like his character because he's actually a nice person deep down, however much of an asshole he may be, and really cares for his friends in his own way. His natural fighting ability make him the "living legend, child-rearing badass" standing at the top of Ishiyama, his kingdom with baby Beel at his side.

The Ishiyama Tohoshinki are ferocious fighters in their own right; they are not to be underestimated just because Oga defeated them. Being the only girl leader, Aoi Kunieda was definitely going to be more developed than the other leaders, but that was expected and it really paid off. They stand behind their king and help him when the going gets tough, but all from their own will and their undying loyalty to him.

Personally I really liked Furuichi. Even as polar opposites he is still best (and only) friends with Oga, by his side no matter what happens; I really like that part of him. Though he is a perverted one, he is definitely the closest person to being "normal" in Ishiyama, and the one to provide comic relief and to point out the illogical circumstances, but his words usually fall on deaf ears. Doesn't matter though, it's Ishiyama High!

Enjoyment: 10
I swear there wasn't a single chapter where I was either grinning like a madman or just totally immersed in the story. The comedy is basically "people beating each other up" but it's actually a lot better than that. Beware, because the manga will find absolutely the most random places to put a comedic scene, and it'll throw you off course, but it's still going to be awesome

Overall: 10
Honestly this is the first manga I've read in a single day... I read it from 12 noon to 5 in the morning because I was so hooked on this and I simply couldn't wait until the next day to finish it. Technically it wasn't a single day but you get what I mean. 5 HOURS OF SLEEP BUT TOTALLY WORTH IT. I would definitely recommend this one. I had really hoped it would continue, but I guess it would have become worse if it did. After all, "you either die as Death Note, or live long enough to see yourself become Bleach."

This is my first review, so read at your own risk.

I first found this when the manga website I used listed this above Naruto in popularity. Something that might topple that behemoth in popularity I had to see, so I went ahead and tried it. And it was oh so very promising. I had laughed within the first couple of minutes, the facial expressions were very good. The main character seemed interesting enough, and the absurd circumstances seemed like a break from the typical shonen.

And it did follow through, for a short time. The manga set up that there were 4 student bosses in the school, the 4 strongest, and predictably, Oga goes to try and fight them all. And that arc was good, I had high hopes for this, a shonen that I might actually like. But the problem is, after this happens, it appears the manga gets a little confused, it doesn't know what else to do. And so the manga goes from quite good, to... the same thing again, but with less driving force.

And it doesn't really ever recover from it. The humour is still there, but that's all that's left, the humour holding up a series that should of finished on a high, but instead continues. Maybe it gets better after x hours after I dropped it, but I didn't have any reason to continue it, I saw nothing going for it. I don't think this is a bad shonen, just not a good one. Maybe my dislike of shonen anime to significantly biasing my opinion, probably is really. But this was the first shonen I had real hopes for after reading it, and the first I felt genuinely let down when I dropped it.

In conclusion, if you don't like shonen this isn't going to be an exception to your rule. But if you are willing to give it a chance, read the first arc, because if the manga had kept that up my review would have been much more favourable.

Story:10
The plot of this series is unique from most of the published manga in the same genre. The story begins with Oga, the protagonist finding a baby and becomes forced to care for him. The baby, Beelzebub(Hebrew for devil) is the heir to become the next king of the underworld but to become a being worthy of the seat he must be raised by a powerful human-which is Oga. The story mixes comedy and action in a smooth flow where the comedy doesn't stray from the story. Despite the protagonist's lack of common sense he is often reliable(the end justifies the means) and more than just an ordinary delinquent. Overall the story is very enticing with a balance of comedy and action.

Art: 8
The art is pretty clean in most cases and if I might add probably one of the best artwork for stories revolving around a delinquent. The characters are well drawn, no real slackoffs, and facial expressions help improve the humor of the story/dialogues.

Character: 9
Oga- The anti-hero or just the carefree not your average delinquent type of protagonist you'll usually get. Oga is infamous in his school where delinquency is 130% if I recall correctly for being the most powerful. Many of the groups in the school detest and fear Oga because he stands in their way of dominating the school. Oga usually doesn't pick the fights but the fights come to him and he's usually one to avoid fights however in most situations he gets in involve comedic reasons and test of his strength. Oga unlike the other groups of delinquents in the school has no interest in power but due to his idiocy he gets involved in every struggle for power that happens in and outside of school.

Baby Beelzebub IV: Baby Bel as he's referred to in the manga often appears hanging off the back of Oga butt naked anywhere he goes. From time to time Baby Bel would not be latched onto Oga's back but usually proceeding in humorous activities. Baby Bel despite being the next King of Hell he is often portrayed physically weak but when his emotions get the best of him he is capable of massive destruction, that or when he is 20ft or more away from Oga.

Furuichi: Oga's best if not only friend in the series who gets dragged in every scenario despite if he does or does not have any relevance in it. He is at most times a failed womanizer and a coward when things get rough but he's usually there for Oga when he needs advice-though many of the advices are criticism and appeals to Oga's ignorance/stupidity.

Hildegarda: Baby Bel's eternal servant who she claims, "exist to serve Baby Bel" and often has no regards or interest in anything that does not involve Baby Bel. She is at most times cynical and cold towards anyone besides Bel and you would see her be portrayed as the mother bluejay defending her eggs from outsiders. She, like Baby Bel is a demon and possess supernatural powers that she rarely displays but does if the situation calls for it. Oga's family see her as the mother of Baby Bel...and Oga is the father.

Enjoyment: This manga was particularly entertaining and unique from other mangas. The story might start off a bit sketch but the overall series is entertaining and humorous.

Overall: 9-The story, characters, and art were spectacular all blending in to create a unique story. The chapters in the series are a bit short though-20 pages average, and usually leaves a cliff hanger at the end of every chapter(like most but it really leaves a cliff hang grand canyon high).