Zatch Bell: A Manga of Heartbreak and Wonder

[@austinnoliphant]

Before fairytale and Black clover their was Zatch Bell. You know who's got the power you know who's got to cast that spell. It was fun to watch back in the day.

[@JohannaDarner]

Except when the demons in Zatch Bell get new spells they are directly connected to their character arcs and past battles. For example, Zatch obtains Rauzaruk not just because he desires a strong body to protect Kiyomaro from getting hurt after they lost their fights, but to him the only way to become a kind king is to have a strong body that protects others from getting hurt in general.

[@henrysullivan6341]

Now it's time... FOR THE FOURTH SPELL!!!

[@austinnoliphant]

@@JohannaDarner That was the point of the spells. The spells were based on the person's desire and needs and emotions, and acted has powerful for the arc.

[@90Arod1]

Definitely one of the most underrated anime and manga. The character development was amazing and definitely has some great battles.

[@noeLotreboR]

It's literally just one long tournament arc, as the story. I just re-read the series, since I stopped at the Faudo arc, as a kid, and got to experience the ending for the first time. It was so beautiful, terrifying, and glorious. I have never cried for a manga before, and this made me cry so hard. I'm glad we got the sequel coming out now!

[@XZatchBellGamerX]

I've spent quite a while collecting my thoughts before posting my feedback on this video, because I really wanted to take the time to do it the justice this video deserves. It always blows me away whenever I find another fan of Konjiki no Gash who has so much unyielding love for the franchise that they can gush about it for hours at a time... and you are exactly that type of fan, my friend. From beginning to end, your words were brimming with passion for Makoto Raiku's magnum opus, and the sheer amount of research you devoted to this series is nothing short of exemplary! The points you made about the ambition behind the character teams, their outstanding displays of growth and development, the delicate yet relentless nature of the battle for king (how these mighty creatures can be taken down by the mere destruction of a leather-bound book and the fact that character death, or rather character dismissal, is highly unique in this series), and even the heavy involvement of the human partners needing to frantically run for cover and dodge attacks in the middle of any given battle... a stark contrast from Pokémon indeed! You explained Makoto Raiku's fateful lawsuit and how it was a necessary sacrifice with amazing tact and empathy, and then I was promptly caught off guard by the mountains of praise you had to say about my scanlation team's efforts to revitalize the series. Not only did you basically go out of your way to showcase our revamped scanlation for anything covered in volumes 1 through 4, you even had glowing comments about the project as a whole, and I can't even put into words how much my team and I appreciate your support. As you can imagine, it gets very tricky to advertise these reworked scanlations for this 23-year-old series when the only available place to read them right now is Mangadex (and our Google Drive). We'll definitely be making a conscious effort to try and bring them over to other mainstay manga-reading sites in the future once we have more volumes to pitch to them. That being said, please look forward to the next chapter of Zatch Bell 2 (and a few Gash Cafe bonus pages the day after!) on Wednesday and Thursday! Also, be on the lookout for volume 5 of the revamped scanlation! I've been hard at work on it with my colleague and we'll absolutely have it finished and released by the end of the month, so stay tuned. ;)

[@FenixPJ_]

Thank you so much man. I really appreciate your kind words and you and your team's work on the translations for the sequel and the revamped volumes are a blessing to the community. Hopefully one day Raiku can get an all-new publishing deal for the series and the sequel in English and I can make a pinned telling people to support it.

[@XZatchBellGamerX]

​@@FenixPJ_ Thank you very much! I think we just have an advantage that Null and Anime-Destiny unfortunately didn't when they were scanlating the manga. We have the luxury of actually going through it with full knowledge of the series lore, from start to finish, which makes it a lot easier to stay consistently in character when translating their dialogue. I'm sure that if Null and Anime-Destiny had the same privilege, things would be a lot different. Be that as it may, we couldn't be more thrilled to provide this updated translation for everyone! Ah, yes. An official English localization is the dream, and we should never give up hope on it! If Brazil, Spain, and France can pull off a kanzenban manga localization, then surely English-speaking countries can as well! :)

[@lasagnamoment2340]

Fellow zatchbell lovers are so rare man, it’s such a hidden gem

[@tiaraalanna]

I appreciate all the work you've been doing for this niche community of gash bell fans. You're the reason why i got more into the gba konjiki gash bell games because of your walk throughs and giving me the motivation to play them enough to unlock zeon in each of them on my own. I've also read your manga translations which is my preferred method of enjoying the series at its meat because of the anime being rushed to incomplete and long overdue for an anime remake. I wish more people knew about this gem of a manga and game series. Good luck on the translations with gash bell 2 the manga series 👍🏾 i wish more people knew about this gem of a manga series. I actually wish the games took inspiration from the completed manga rather than the anime but what can you do.

[@XZatchBellGamerX]

​@@tiaraalanna Thank you very much for all your support! :D We've got plenty for you to read this week, because a new chapter of Zatch Bell 2 is coming this Wednesday, and the team has just finished releasing volume 6 of the revamped translation for Zatch Bell 1 TODAY! :D Be sure to check out the bonus pages of the New Fan Translation as well... it features the very first demon drawing contest that has never been scanlated before until now!

[@emperorluffy6001]

Zatch Bell is definitely an underrated Legend. Genuinely weird that people don't talk about it more. Theres just something magical about Zatch & Kyomaru's friendship.

[@ZatchBellZB_]

Zatch bell will get a reboot one day and we need the original dub actors for whole cast

[@ZER0O9]

The majestic 12 would stomp the avengers.

[@ZER0O9]

@bluetorpido5929 😱

[@jagdishnigam5]

Big boing alone would stomp the Avengers.

[@henrysullivan6341]

​@@jagdishnigam5 bro, in anime big boing took out a group of armed individuals. Can't remember if it was bank robbers or terrorists

[@ianthmendullbong6560]

@ 1:34, when Gash says, "I'll help the fool Kiyomaro, even if it costs me my life," it hits differently towards the end of the series... For me, this story of friendship set the standards of loyalty. I've been using it my whole life. I'm glad I got to learn these lessons at a young age.

[@DigitalZakMonster]

This is my number 1 manga. Nothing else I’ve read even compares. I’m a big fan of the slapstick and absurdity that is some of the humor. Glad this popped up in my feed. I need more people to read and checkout the manga with. One thing I did hear, is that production company didn’t lose it, they just said they did, now I won’t take it as fact. It’s suspicious tho. I think Makoto really pioneers the better culture for artists as well. I would love it if a producer came to him with the proposal to make a whole new anime. A remaster version of Zatch Bell would be bought by me in an instant

[@emperorluffy6001]

If you like the sense of humor here you'll probably enjoy Gintama, One Piece, or Konosuba. Those are my top 3 comedies.

[@TheBeef89]

I’d love to have them give a reboot anime of this a shot. Like, do what they did with Shaman King

[@Serjohn]

I love that it never gets rick and Morty. No portals to the demon world, no fakeouts making the show about something else. It's all out battle royale. It captures the Japanese fighting spirit and sportsmanship like no other

[@-penta-1357]

Great video! I'll be sure to recommend it to people I want to introduce Gash Bell to! Also, although I agree that the last arc leaves much to be desired in terms of its main antagonist, their henchmen, Gorm and Mir, are my favorite duo in the entire series. I love their dynamic, with Gorm being a dumb and headtsrong loner that only cares about himself, and Mir being a sassy dominatrix that hides her insecurities over a mask of silliness. Their development is really well done too, and is probably one of the best examples of the series' themes of friendship, since it's Gorm's friendship with Kyanchomé that leads him to eventually confront Clear Note, despite Mir's protests because of her previous life experiences and trauma (it's implied that she was a sex slave/worker for a mafia boss before Gorm literally abducted her). I love how nonchalant she is about asking Gash and Kiyomaro to burn Gorm's book after Clear Note slices his body in half too. No emotional farewell, no tears shed, nothing, they just accept their powerlessness before the situation, which I find to be a great and refreshing way to subvert our expectations towards their redemption arc, since most characters that got redemption arcs in the series before (such as Penny, Byonko and Zeon) got emotional and heartfelt goodbyes. They're just built different, and I love how subversive their roles in the story are.

[@SlyScyther]

Wow, you actually went into detail on my favorite character, Vincent Bari. That makes me so happy

[@coreyboyd28]

I'm glad you made this. I was looking for a full series retrospective of Zatch Bell but this will definitely do wonders. I'd give ANYTHING for us to get a full on remake of this series. If there's any filler, I'd want it to be about Clear Note and make his presence more pronounced so he doesn't just come out of nowhere. Just have him pop up here and there randomly and that's all we'd need til he shows up proper. Found out about Zatch Bell gamer before I even knew about this video so to hear you mentioning the hardwork they're doing is such a gem to my ears. I wish more people knew about Zatch Bell like how Solo Leveling popped up out of nowhere and turned heads. It's legit one of the greatest manga ever made and I'll die on that damned hill man. One of my all time favorites. Fights. Laughs. Cries. Literally leveling up! By the end in that final fight with Clear, everyone that's still alive are just BEASTS! Their strongest spells and the like are just.....feats for the eyes. Shit was indescribable when I first read through all those years ago on those shitty online scans. I cannot WAIT to see the remastered version of them. I'm gonna be in absolute shambles and tears. Thanks so much for the video my guy. You did ya big one here.

[@MrGeorge1Kin]

Gash bell is a very special series for me. Not only it introduced me to my favourite thing ever, it being manga, because the anime didn't have a satisfying ending, it also forced me to learn english because the full manga wasn't available in spanish. Thanks for this video, man, it means a lot to see people didn't forget.

[@TheoVorster]

Very well made video, learning more about the background of Raiku’s lawsuit was interesting to learn. Even with the high quality fan rescanlation being made, I do hope that an official English re-release and completion by Kodansha can eventually happen.

[@emperorluffy6001]

@21:45 I'm glad you're calling this out because I have been complaining for years that Digimon's fights weren't as good as they could be. The kids not participating in any real way has always been a major criticism of mine. Zatch Bell perfectly solves this problem and I love it for that. When I write my own series I definitely use Zatch Bell as a blueprint. I think the biggest problem with Digimon is that it never had an official battle system. They'd literally just been going off of vibes without any sort of real plan or structure to the combat. Pokemon solved this problem with it's rpg turn based mechanics but they still didn't let the kids get involved. Zatch Bell took this a step further by offering both a battle system and forcing the partners to fight as well. If Digimon learned to combine both it could've taken off and gotten bigger than Pokemon.

[@Laguzrick]

I still have Zatch Bell cards from the now defunct TCG! Definitely some of my favourite bits of defunct collectibles I have :)

[@WyseWalker]

If there's one thing I've learned about Manga its that a series can life and die by its community and fan's work to publicize and spread it as well as make it publicly available.

[@takusaka3667]

Man! I got exited just by listening to you talk about the manga! Definitely going to read it!

[@charliemew2]

Barry is the goat, stoked you love him as much as I do. Great video!

[@wesleypatterson2284]

I'm so glad this show is finally getting it's flowers. I feltlike I was the only person who watched it for years

[@riv7797]

I remember keeping up with the sequel after I heard of its announcement but I stopped after the first three or so chapters. I definitely feel like rereading all of the original Zatch Bell and catching up with the sequel but it's going to be tough. What luck for me to finally binge the entire series after only having read a few of the volumes back in middle school and then the sequel being announced

[@emperorluffy6001]

Zatch Bell definitely needs a reboot.

[@Goku22411]

Great video Fenix. I remember watching Zatch Bell on CN, this video is quite a throwback. One manga I would recommend is Psyren, it's a 2000s shonen manga that fell under the radar with no anime, but the series is pretty good and would make a great video.

[@FenixPJ_]

I just added it my plan to read! I'll try and check it out at some point next year.

[@kingj9664]

​@@FenixPJ_ Thanks for reminding me about this series I remember watching it back when it came on to Naomi and never finishing it then when I heard there was a sequel to it. I was wondering should I check out the first series to understand what was going on in the second and because of this video I'm definitely going to have to read the Manga thank you

[@bmanlader3377]

I think the artist was right those color panels could worth alot and especilly for future collections, for the company to just loose them shows they didn't care original art work for manga and comic books goes for alot of money and that is how they support themselves when a series ends

[@JoseDorda]

As someone who broke his hand 6 years ago by slamming it very hard on steel door... I seriously question if this mangaka went to butcher instead of a doctor for him to want to amputate his hand.

[@pabloruiz5821]

Amazing zatch bell video

[@lasagnamoment2340]

Beautiful vid man

[@ponsey8526]

banger vid as always 🫡🫡

[@geossi]

New Fenix video?? Poggers

[@FenixPJ_]

Thank you, it's a big honor to be acknowledged by Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

[@emperorluffy6001]

As you're laying it all out, I realize that pretty much all of the things that make Zatch Bell great are traits it shares with One Piece. Now I realize why I love them both so much. lol.

[@emperorluffy6001]

It should be said that the sequel is Peak Fiction.

[@yoleeisbored]

The faudo arc is amazing.

[@jakehero95]

Great video man got it recommended today and watched the whole thing. Earned a like and a sub very nice work! Def gonna check out the manga 👊

[@Vawxel]

Zach bell was the first anime i watched, goddamn i forgot all about it but the fuckung fulgore and melon dance is still burrowed in my head like a cognito virus

[@Alacaelum]

Gash Bell is... amazing. I wont go on a verbose rant because i would make a fucking essay here about how amazing this series is but i will say two things. First... Gash Bell is one of the first series i concluded in my years as a manga fan, i read the last chapter when it was released, and i had that bittersweet feeling you have when you conclude a very good book and you stay there trying to process. Second... there is a sequel... and it is AMAZING, just a few chapters out but the hype is indescribable, and the art only got better, Raiku-sensei is a master of making badass moments.

[@phucpham7081]

I hope the studio would remake this series in the future

[@TheGodOfWarhammer]

16:03 the manga scene where Kyomaru keeps using Zakeru on that one particularly cruel demon and Kyoto keeps turning more and more like a demon and when he’s out of energy, you see him reloading to unload again. 😂😂😂😂😂 it’s such overkill and it still makes me laugh every time I think about it!

[@coldkgon5836]

Recognise the silver wings motif at 08:00. Ahh, i see u r also a man of culture (if a fan of kng isnt reason enough)

[@ItsCrocc804]

Berry was my favorite character too. He had a cool, color was a bad ass, beat the main character. Bro was him

[@DengekiVR]

would be cool if they release another game where you could customize your own mamodo and book and compete to become the next king.

[@Titanxzero1]

Honestly, the humor is on the level of One Pieces. It's great!

[@emperorluffy6001]

I'm gonna have to push back on the notion that Megumi wasn't a love interest. She was totally into Kiyomaru. It was just never emphasized or given focus. Hopefully that changes in Part 2.

[@weirdface1846]

*sigh* i really wish they'd redo the anime again. from the faudo arc to the final battle. i'm not a manga reader and it's boring to me. i really would love to see the unadapted arcs animated.

[@jmlchaosdragon]

gash author just know how the bring what I call the goosebumps moment and no other manga brought it to this extend and It's why I love gash bell. The author did not lose it with the sequel.

[@MoostachedSaiyanPrince]

So it sounds like the way this anime ended is kinda similar to what happened with Soul Eater and the original Full Metal Alchemist. The anime ran out of material and had to make up it's own ending. Not that I'm saying Amy of these three anima adaptations are good or bad (especially this one since I haven't seen it), just that there's some really good manga series out there that have anime adaptations that swerve pretty hard from the source material near the end.

[@FenixPJ_]

Pretty much yeah lol. Although I feel that the problem is worsened because of the anime being rather mediocre as an adaptation. The two you mentioned are still good anime's even with the changed endings but Zatch Bell's anime was completely carried by the manga's story and characters and I feel it's very noticiable when everything starts falling apart.

[@Redharvest10]

Who here is hyped over Zatch Bell 2!

[@pitagor2]

Gash sweep

[@FenixPJ_]

GASH SWEEP

[@gmaxx5478]

Zatch bell isn’t just one of my personal favorite mangas(though yes It’s a top 5 favorite) I am O it’s the best battle Shounen manga of all time, there are battles shown in manga with better stories like Gintama, HXH, and of course, One Piece, but Zatch bell is genuinely the best in terms of fights

[@luminousxii]

Banger vid 🔥

[@caphead100]

Based Bari enjoyer

[@Marihl1354]

"imagine pokemon but almost nothing alike in any way"

[@Serjohn]

the greatest silly story ever told

[@benjaminbethel5640]

Opening song name please

[@The_Gentleman_Blacksmith]

Maybe, just maybe. They should wait till the managa is finished by at least 3/4ths nefore making an anime

[@valentinecure329]

Let the Western casuals sleep on Gash, they don't need to cook their peak gyatts over what is honestly, art. Part 2 is soooooo good. Raiku is in rare form.

[@kayvonclark5900]

We hope we get a amine remake a Netflix shaman king treatment

[@king_soundwave]

I’m the Soundwave in question btw

[@Gabe_29]

The only shonen I had patience to read Better than thrashy ones like *insert the name here and anger their fandom*

[@TheQuancy]

CHI CHI CHI WO OPPAI BOING BOING

[@inorris609]

Nah iron man fulore is him ! I heard he’s also invincible 😂

[@LegitCactus]

Play on 2x speed and thank me later

[@Entityenigma]

This is NOT ky kiske

[@hurricaneb6243]

Sheesh, me just wondering why you put 40mins content about Zatchbell in 2023 I'm not gonna watch the video, but I respect you enough to put it on the background.

[@yhajime]

"With some exceptions, like Tamers" I'm glad you know HAHA Lots of effort put into this video I hope it really bangs, definitely got me interested in the manga 🫶

[@TamiBlaze]

I’m the Soundwave in question btw