Konjiki no Gash!!

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Konjiki no Gash Bell!!

Japanese: 金色のガッシュ!!

More titles

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 33

Chapters: 323

Status: Finished

Published: Jan 10, 2001 to Dec 26, 2007

Genres: Action, Adventure, Award Winning, Comedy, Supernatural

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Sunday

Authors: Raiku, Makoto (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 8.36¹ (scored by 13,834 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #256²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #542

Members: 32,172

Favorites: 2,111

Resources

Wikipedia

8.36

Ranked #256Popularity #542Members 32,172

MangaShounen SundayRaiku, Makoto (Story & Art)

Add to My List

Volumes: /33

Chapters: /323

Edit
Synopsis

Kiyomaro Takamine, genius middle schooler, is greeted one morning by Gash Bell, a boy with a mysterious red book. Tasked by his father to decipher it, Kiyomaro soon learns Gash is no ordinary boy. Able to shoot lightning from his mouth at the chant of a word, Gash is a demon child—one apart of a war that takes place every 1000 years to decide the Demon King. With Kiyomaro being the only one who can read Gash's book, the duty of partner is thrust on him in this exciting tale of friendship, determination, and melons...?

Edit
Background

Konjiki no Gash!! was published in English as Zatch Bell! by VIZ Media and 25 volumes were released from August 9, 2005 to June 9, 2009. Publication was discontinued following the aftermath of Makoto Raiku's suing of Shogakukan for losing some of his original artwork.

Edit
Related Manga

Sequel:	Konjiki no Gash!! 2
Adaptation:	Konjiki no Gash Bell!!, Shounen Sunday CM: Konjiki no Gash!!

More characters
Characters

Bell, Gash

Main

Takamine, Kiyomaro

Main

Folgore, Parco

Main

Umagon

Main

Brago

Main

Kanchomé

Main

Tio

Main

Belmont, Sherry

Main

Mizuno, Suzume

Main

Ooumi, Megumi

Main

Reviews

Nov 13, 2009

MeltyBlood_Len

Recommended

If you're the kind of person who appreciates a good story about demons, fighting, friendship, and growing up, then Konjiki no Gash Bell could be right for you. The characters are believable, the logic is easy to follow, there are no long random deviations from the main plot of the story that don't somehow tie in, and most importantly, it ends.

I think that for the most part the characters in this series are those that could be conceivable in the real world. Obviously not all aspects of each character could be perceived as true in our reality, but I do believe that most, if not ... all of the characteristics for Kiyomaro as he grows as a character in this series are those that would follow if someone in his same situation was given a chance to grow as he was.

There are some stories where the storyline can become really complex because of logical errors or logical complexity. Sometimes it's just how the publisher/editors have chosen to rewrite the Japanese text, and other times it is just that the author chooses confusing and winding logic instead of simple, easy-to-follow logic. I personally get annoyed when there is a simple efficient answer to a problem, but the characters in a series take the roundabout route, even though they are smart enough to realize that the choice that they've made, though it achieves the same end, is too difficult for a slower member of their group to understand. One of the best things about this series is that whenever a strategic move is used, there is no difficult, hard-to-grasp strategy-- just the most simple and efficient, as if the reader had also been in mind.

In anime, tangents to the plot are called fillers. Fillers are annoying because the characters in fillers are usually never to be seen again characters who don't advance the story at all. Every character in this story advances the plot even by a little bit. This means that most of the tangential things in this book end up not actually being tangential. But this only applies to certain characters within the manga itself-- like most manga that has also been adapted into anime, there is a movie, and those characters have no bearing on anything.

Finally, this series ends. I know it seems stupid to mention this, but there is a saying that all good things must come to an end, but sometimes authors don't seem to realize when a story must end. When you understand what the idea of the story is, what the goal of all the characters are, then you understand that once that goal is met, the story must terminate, and it does. The author does not throw a wrench into the works and add another plot to a story that's dying down-- he just allows the story to end. It's wonderful and sad all at once, especially if you end up enjoying the series.

I thought the story was great-- but I had the chance to watch the anime while reading the manga and I don't really enjoy the fillers as much, so I give it a 9. I do like the art work a lot as well, it's really well done in both the anime and the manga. The characters were wonderful, and I enjoyed being able to watch and read their stories. Overall, this series gets a 10 from me!

Open

Gift

Jul 31, 2020

T3Deliciouz

Mixed Feelings

Spoiler

This review contains spoilers.

This story starts out nicely and relatively small scale. A couple of odd battles here with Kiyomaru our protagonist making friends along the way. Everyone questions whats the point of having everyone fight each to be king and Zatch likes to avoid them if needed. The story is really neat when it acts as a slice of life with the tournament to decide the Demon King is put in the after thought. The first 1/3rd is a nice little read. '

However, the later 2/3rds of the series is taken up by 3 major arcs all in a row. Each one terribly ... drawn out. The first 2 major arcs throw a wide array of characters at us, over 2 dozen each. Some people complain about One Piece introducing 10 new characters for new arcs, Zatch Bell blows it out of the park. So many characters I don't know and never will care for. So many useless battles. It becomes sluggish to push through the series. This is ultimately what made me stop/start read the series until 6.5 years had passed.

To add to the problems, the consequences within Zatch Bell fell into the shonen power trap. The escalations of failure continued to grow to monstrous size. It goes from one demon wanting to genocide humans, to another demon wanting to genocide demons lol. The clashes turned from small scale fights that can happen in a field, to mountain busting, to a full on space battle.

Speaking of tropes. The ending was worse than Naruto and Fairy Tail combined. Power of friendship? Zatch Bell takes the cake easily with an unexplained power up having the spirits of the fallen demons coming to back Zatch up in his final fight lol. This is a massive problem from the beginning since the series failed to establish power rules or a power scale.

There's a mess of other issues. Racist depictions of black people, never explaining the politics of the demon world which is the source of every single problem, attempting to redeem every single character by giving them a sad backstory or saying the power they held is what made them evil. That includes both genocidal maniacs. There's also stupid reasoning that we shouldn't kill people even when dire circumstances call for it. At one point someone could've shot the book owner of one of the genocidal demons, effectively stopping the demon from using his power. Which was very much needed because a giant demon he was controlling was about to destroy to Japan. But noooo, we cant kill people, that'd make us just as bad.

To fixate on another issue, I mentioned prior how the last arcs introduced far too many new characters, This not only resulted in boring fights, but also diluted the use of the main stay characters. Many really good characters within the series got shafted to do something else so Zatch could be the forefront of attention. We never got to see the really unique fights that could've occurred between the other main stay heavy hitters. A travesty in storytelling setting up the less interesting protagonist to be the savior of all. Horse cock and bullshit is what it is. Fuck you, Bari is a better character. Fuck Raiku for shitting all over him.

I could go on and on with the issues of Zatch Bell citing more detailed examples, but you get it. Now I will focus on the positives.

Cute and badass character designs. Multiple amazing double spreads straight out of some kaiju world. There can be some really great character moments in mid-fight too.

That's it. Fuck this mess. Hopefully Raiku improved his craft in Animal Land.

Open

Gift

Nov 14, 2022

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Not Recommended

Spoiler

It begins by establishing the protagonist as an antisocial who doesn’t have friends, gets bullied at school, and treats everyone else as inferior. I like this guy, he reminds me of someone. With that said, this information is told to us, we don’t see it, so it comes off as lazy. I’m not going to believe him just because he said it, I want to see him being an antisocial who doesn’t have friends, gets bullied at school, and treats everyone else as inferior. Doing stuff like making youtube videos for showing off how smart he is by constantly shitting on the opinions of others, ...

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Licenses Left in Limbo

by Katayone

40 Entries · 47 Restacks

Best of Weekly Shounen Sunday

by ren999999

50 Entries · 3 Restacks

Manga is art.

by Dane-se

50 Entries · 30 Restacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

Manga 'Konjiki no Gash!!' Receives Sequel in Mid-March

Makoto Raiku, the manga author of Konjiki no Gash!! (Zatch Bell!), announced a sequel manga on Twitter on Saturday. The sequel, Konjiki no Gash!! II (Zatch Bell! II)...read more

Feb 26, 2022 10:17 PM by Vindstot | Discuss (11 comments)

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Konjiki no Gash!! Chapter 101 Discussion joe_g7 - Nov 8, 2017	1 replies	by ReadyforRevy »» Mar 28, 11:25 AM
Poll: Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Chapter 323 Discussion FlarisKnight - Oct 27, 2009	17 replies	by NaughtySempai »» Aug 3, 2023 11:47 PM
Is Konjiki no Gash getting a reprint?? DigiCat - Mar 9, 2023	7 replies	by DigiCat »» Mar 27, 2023 4:20 PM
Poll: Konjiki no Gash!! Chapter 64 Discussion joe_g7 - Nov 1, 2017	2 replies	by TarveerSingh »» Feb 6, 2023 1:36 PM
Poll: Konjiki no Gash!! Chapter 38 Discussion joe_g7 - Oct 30, 2017	3 replies	by TarveerSingh »» Jan 29, 2023 1:14 PM

Konjiki no Gash!!
Zatch Bell!
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Resources

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Edit
Related Manga

More characters
Characters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

More featured articles
Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Konjiki no Gash!!Zatch Bell! Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Resources

EditSynopsis

EditBackground

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

EditRelated Manga

More charactersCharacters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

More recommendations Recommendations

More newsRecent News

More discussionsRecent Forum Discussion

More featured articlesRecent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Konjiki no Gash!!
Zatch Bell!
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Edit
Synopsis

Edit
Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Edit
Related Manga

More characters
Characters

More recommendations
Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

More featured articles
Recent Featured Articles