Print Review: Zatch Bell volumes 1-4

Review Zatch Bell volumes 1-4Written by WarpshadowRating good

Almost every big anime series has it start in manga and in the case of dub only shows on cartoon network at least the manga doesn't have awful dubbing.

For his fourteenth birthday Kiyo was not expecting anything like what he got from his father. The present was Zatch, a strange little boy that Kiyo's father found in England along with a red book that is filled with strange markings. Zatch declares himself Kiyo's new friend; something that Kiyo needs as his intellect has distanced himself from his peers. Zatch is no ordinary boy as his ability to shoot lightning bolts out of mouth can attest to but even he didn't know that there were others like him that want to fight him.

As fighting manga goes Zatch Bell has a fairly childish look to it and that may cause some to judge it unfairly. The main character, Kiyo, is an interesting change from the usual gung ho hero who is instead thrust into the role of taking care of Zatch. The plot of this manga drifts from battle to battle at this stage of the manga. Even so to say that this manga is nothing more than Mamodo (the race of beings that Zatch belongs to) would ignore how the battles themselves are simply a framework for character development. Even so Zatch Bell remains a title firmly enmeshed in the tropes of shonen manga. While it may not be a work of genius at least it is not crap either.