Ranked #934

Konjiki no Gash Bell!!

This simply does not work well as an anime like it does as a manga. The only part that does work is Gash being cute due to the greatly innocent/cute voice. A big culprit in this is the slow pacing of everything - all the dramatic cries, the pacing of any fight, the way people move - which really takes the impact out of the comedy, the fighting, and the drama. It especially hurts the fighting, in which everyone always seems to have an incredibly long time to finish the opponent off, yet strangely never does so. They also cut off the entire last arc from the manga, and change the previous to last significantly at the point Gash and Zeon meet, mostly by cutting out details, so it leaves you short of a lot of important plot.

Maybe a specific scene to point to as a difference would help my explanation: in the manga, there is a page where Gash is cutely wandering to find what to play with, has a close up :O moment, then it zooms out to him with a traffic cone; he has that on, then repeats the :O frame, then zooms out to a samurai headdress; finally, it is all repeated again with a dog as the newfound object. In the manga, the stopping gives it a firm, comedic pace, and everything just piles up as this cute and funny moment. In the anime, the execution is clumsy and I basically did not even notice the moment at all.

The art is pretty much atrocious, and while it is not like I expected anything incredible, since the manga's art is below average as well, it hurts the anime more than the manga by making it feel much more like a kid's product. I am sure part of the consideration has to be budgetary/time, but there are soooo many still shots.

Gash's voice acting is great, Kiyomaro's is average, and everyone else's is pretty much bad or hard to notice in a major role. Demons have fun voices sometimes though, like Umagon/Schneider and Victoreem. The music never does a good job, outside of the goofy songs, of doing anything particularly good or bad...just incredibly average. The goofy songs are pretty well executed, like Tetsu no Folgore is pretty typically funny, not annoying. The opening and introduction songs seemed to be a lot higher quality at the start of the series, but that might just be personal taste. The departure of Gash's normal, better voice actor for maternity leave is not really the series' fault, so I am not holding that against it!

There are changes to the plot and bonus stories. I think the bonus stories were a better idea than not, since what other reason do you have to keep watching a series this long (although I would advocate not watching it all the way...I really enjoyed it through about fifty episodes, but I was really bored the rest of the way)? I think some of the changes (especially the ending to shorten the story) weakened the story...matters were not really hashed out well toward the end.

The manga is not perfect itself, but I think that it makes more sense, has a better pacing, and that the art is a lot more compelling to look at. The drama is less grating, what with the endless FRIENDSSSSSSSS! stuff going on, the fights are more cohesive, and you get the full plot, not the version which prematurely ends.

However, saying all that, since it is a touching and extremely fun manga, it is fun to see it in animation, and it is fun to see Gash and Umagon especially in motion with good voice acting!

(I know my ratings are "higher" than 4, but it is not like I suddenly hate the story or characters...so the art, sound, and enjoyment are more applicable here, at least to me). read more

If you really want to have fun then this is the right one for you. However, there are parts where you wanna cry over the tragics that happen in this story.
The show is extremely good however, there are parts when I wanted to stop watching since it got boring or the fillers where plain annoying. That is why overall I gave it a nine.

Story

Basically it is about a teenage boy who receives a demon from his father in order to make friends. Kiyo is pulled into crazy adventures with his friends, trying to save the demon world. There are many challenges and many issues they have to face, however the deal with problems with their friends, Umagon, Tio, and Kanchome. The plot was very intriguing but the fillers would ruin the plot line time to time.

Characters

The characters each have their own story that they have to face, and the hardships pull them down. But when they learn about friendship, and courage, it makes you want to jump up and cheer them on. The teach us in different ways the effects of violence, friendship, and loss through their own eyes. They each stick to their portrayed character extremely well, and they were well constructed.


I loved this anime overall even all the bad points, and I couldn't wait for the next episode to follow. I believe that they are many people who would enjoy this type of anime.
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