Beelzebub

"He's sweating alot."
"...THAT'S NOT SWEAT, THAT'S --[SPOILER]--"

Give this anime about 2minutes, and you'll already be laughing your ass off. I'm usually very picky with my comedy animes. I need them to be surprising, unique, and more than anything --weird. (Seriously...nothing normal is EVER FUNNY.)

Story: 8/10

What you get:

- A tougher-than-anyone yankee
- ...paired up with a Demon-Lord Baby (who is adorable)
- ...and is perpetually naked.
- A giant beefy man whose ability to transport people is nothing short of NUTS, not to mention GROSS and disturbing.
- VERY easily distracted Demon-Lord-King who puts Mahjong over destroying the human race
- AND MORE.

Art: 9/10
Beelzebub is so evil AND cute you just want to squish him.

Sound: 8/10
It's good, what can I say other than that?

Character: 10/10
When a writer takes a Cliche and twists it into a product of Genius then you know you have a winner. The chemistry between the characters is also wonderful --especially between Beelzebub and Oga.

Enjoyment: 10/10
It's funny, it's exciting, it's fast-paced, it's GOOOD.

Overall: 9/10
All right, there are probably funnier animes, but this is still one of the best. =D

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I will not deny, I'll be a little biased towards this anime cuz my favourite genre is comedy and the supernatural, so this was quite the perfect show for me.

Story:
Once upon a time, in a land faraway, there was a barbaric, ruthless, defiant, demon-like bastard who thought nothing of his fellow man. And under some strange as heck circumstances, he started to raise a baby.

Correction. Not just any baby. The next great demon lord!

And so we follow this man, Oga and Baby Beel with their wacky so called 'adventures'. The story's plot is not deep or anything, however it does feature something out of our daily lives and the humor is hilarious. Oga is always dealing with weird situations (which I kind of feel sorry for him) and all of them have to do with Baby Beel. But there are certain moments in the story that will make you go "aww" just for abit as well.

Art:
The art is mediocre. But there are certain times where humorous exaggerated facial expressions are drawn very well which I will give a thumbs up for. They do have a little bit of fights, which are short enough and not too long.

Sound:
The OP and ED suit the anime very much. OP is a kind of rock-ish song which is kind of catchy and the lyrics are all of Baby Beel's words while ED is slightly more toned down and mature. The background music in each and every episode is fufilling and goes very well especially in comical scenes.

I'll be honest-I'm a little biased because of Baby Beel's seiyuu, Sawashiro Miyuki who has done a great job on him and his baby-like noises.

Characters:
Okay, so I gave this one a high score but of course with reason. The characters inside are not that usual in animes and so is Baby Beel (of course, why would Baby Beel be usual? He's the cutest thing on both hell and earth.)

Oga, as said by many as the bastard who never seems to have any sympathy for fellow men, actually shows a slightly (reaaaal slight) tender side towards Baby Beel. You can see him actually developing for a bit in the anime as the story progresses, I would say that it's because he faces the hardships of raising a baby and being a parent etc.

Baby Beel is the great demon baby as you probably know already. He exerts great demon-like qualities, yet for some reason can still manage to maintain that innocent image.

Overall:
I enjoyed this anime quite thoroughly, each episode had me laughing my ass off. If you're looking for something out of this world (or perhaps under instead) and something to laugh at as well, I'd highly recommend this anime. read more

Beelzebub is a genuinely funny anime. And I mean laugh out loud 'til your sides hurt sort of funny. You know you're in for a good time when we are introduced to the basic storyline in the first episode... a huge guy floating down the river spots a “handsome and good looking young man” "who cared nothing for his follow humans". He proceeds to then bestow the green haired demon baby (Beelzebub) unto our protagonist, Oga Tatsumi, in one of the strangest fashions imaginable, before taking with an impressive ballerina pirouette. Hijinks ensue when the baby's beautiful demon maid servant, Hildegarde comes looking for the toddler and finds him attached to Oga. Hildegarde is not impressed but is intent on forcing Oga to fulfil his contract with baby Beel. Oga spends many many episodes trying to pawn the baby off to someone more badass than himself while trying to keep his family, who comically misinterpret his situation, off his back, with varying degrees of success, and lots and lots of comedy. Along for the ride are Furuichi, Oga's best friend and the show's resident pervert, and a host of other delinquents from his infamous Ishiyama High.

As you can probably tell, Beelzebub is a show that doesn't take itself too seriously, and this approach works very well for the story being told. The main characters, particularly Furuichi, seem aware that they part of a show that routinely sets them up with ludicrous scenarios, as if to test their reactions, and they are not shy about calling out some of the more preposterous elements that arise. Characters also address the viewer directly, which adds a nice touch of humour to the show while making the situations more relatable. I found this approach more satisfying than one where we are asked to accept ridiculous circumstances at face value.

The show has a lot of heart, and can also be surprisingly creepy at times; these are demons and the underworld we are dealing with after all, but this never lasts for very long, which is a pity because I think the show would have benefited from playing up the darker themes for longer periods to counter the otherwise jovial tone, which becomes a bit tiresome over a 60 episode arc. Still, the show maintains enough originality to entertain and the delivery of punch lines remains top notch for the most part.

One place where the show does disappoint terribly is in character development. Its remarkable how little the main characters change over the course of the series. This actually turns out to be a main detractor for the comedy as the show goes on because I often found myself wishing for fewer farces and more feeling. Some decent character growth would have solved this issue, but alas there just isn't enough of that to go around. Relationships are especially frustrating. Waiting for something interesting to happen between characters other than fights with comically named "special attacks" is like watching paint dry; there just isn't a lot going on there. The supporting characters fare a bit better in this respect, in particular with an entertaining story arc involving a multi-player FPS.

To add to this, the filler episodes quickly become an annoyance. Simply put, there are too many of them. This wouldn't be so bad if these episodes contributed something towards developing characters, however, they do not. And in the end I kept feeling like these episodes were simply taking away valuable time that could be better used oh say, developing characters.

Overall though Beelzebub is a well written series which keeps track of its story plots, at least until the last episode, so you almost never see characters “forgetting they did something”, or acting out of character, which is very impressive for a farcical comedy like this. Eventually though, lack of character development and some nonsensical villains make it hard for me to call this anime great. Halfway through this series, if you're not being entertained by the humor, chances are you aren't being entertained by anything else. And this is unfortunate, because the show had all the right ingredients to make it absolutely amazing. Still, I would recommend watching the series because you will not regret doing so, if only because it is very different from a lot of what is out there. Moreover, I managed to find a much more satisfying end by basically ignoring the last episode and switching to the manga to get more out this series. The story of Beelzesama and his contractor Oga Tatsumi, does not end at episode 60, and for my money, is definitely worth catching up on.
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I give this serise a 6, which may come as a suprise to others, yet carefull though has gone into this...

When the manga came out, I though it sounded promising and in all honesty, it came off to a good start; it was entertaining and the plot is actually fairly brilliant.
Unfortuantley, it slowed down. I gave up a while back, hoping to start reading when it became eventful.
Around a year ago however, I heared an anime was in production; so I dropped the manga in order to fully enjoy this serise in motion picture and erase predictability; at a faster pace, this wasn't the case.

The above is my decliration informing people that I did really want to enjoy this series and have invested time into it over the past few years...

Now, I'll get back on topic...
The problem with this serise is it's slow pace and characters...

Story...

A delinquant youth must raise the infant demon lord, who thrives on conflict, into becoming a fearsome leader who will dominate the world.
The comdey comes into place as this teenager has no choice but to furfil his duty, dispite the fact that he wants no part bringing about world distruction and is far from ready to be a dad.

What's wrong with the story is there's way to much 'humor' and not enough focus on the enitial plot.
Comedy or not, the 'humor', which mainly consists of; comical violence, mediocre villians getting beaten up and the babies tantrums, quickly becomes repetitive when you concider how much potential the series actually has.

Another major flaw is the fact that the manga is still so young, yet it seems production want this to be one of those serises that runs indefinatley, meaning it's pace won't speed up and chances are, fillers may be incorporated.

Characters...

My personal problem with this serise is the cast of characters.

Oga is a teenage boy who seems pleasant enough, however, alledgedly, he's scary, an established delinquant feared by all. We are suppose to simply accept that nobody can beat him - every guy fears him, thoses who don't are overconfident thugs, some of whom are also established and unbeaten, still, somehow, they all prove no match for him.
There seem to be little quirks to his character apart from the fact that he doesn't really want any part in what is going on, minus the scenarios, the writer hasn't really given him a great deal of attention.

The other characters consist of; a pretty icequeen and a pretty tsundere (cliche of shounen's today - grumpy girls supressing their feelings); these are the two 'love interests'.
There is a fairly interesting passive friend/sidekick who represents the 'normal person', aswell as a submissive supernatural aid, lagging in the attention department in comparrason.
Finally, the baby, simply a baby.


I check out the manga now and then, hopefull, something will occur to enspire me to get back into the serise and re-consider this review, yet after two years and 12 episodes, this serise is, unfortunately, dropped. :( read more