Beelzebub

Ishiyama High is a school populated entirely by delinquents, where nonstop violence and lawlessness are the norm. However, there is one universally acknowledged rule—don't cross first year student Tatsumi Oga, Ishiyama's most vicious fighter.

One day, Oga is by a riverbed when he encounters a man floating down the river. After being retrieved by Oga, the man splits down the middle to reveal a baby, which crawls onto Oga's back and immediately forms an attachment to him. Though he doesn't know it yet, this baby is named Kaiser de Emperana Beelzebub IV, or "Baby Beel" for short—the son of the Demon Lord!

As if finding the future Lord of the Underworld isn't enough, Oga is also confronted by Hildegard, Beel's demon maid. Together they attempt to raise Baby Beel—although surrounded by juvenile delinquents and demonic powers, the two of them may be in for more of a challenge than they can imagine.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Oga, Tatsumi Main

Konishi, Katsuyuki Japanese

Beelzebub IV, Kaiser de Emperana Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Hildegard Main

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Furuichi, Takayuki Main

Mizushima, Daichuu Japanese

Kunieda, Aoi Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Toujou, Hidetora Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Hanazawa, Yuka Supporting

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Kanzaki, Hajime Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Himekawa, Tatsuya Supporting

Ogino, Seirou Japanese

Bathin de Emuna, Alaindelon Supporting

Takagi, Wataru Japanese

Furukawa, Shin Producer

Nagai, Kouji Producer

Fukui, Youhei Assistant Producer

Takamoto, Yoshihiro Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Dec 6, 2012

Last_Chevalier

Recommended

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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 24, 2013

explicit707

Mixed Feelings

This anime started out great. It has a lot of comedy that works well. In fact it was the comedy that really drove it for me. There is a story of sort, but the storyline is the weakest element in this series. The idea is great, but all in all it's a fair delivery at best.

The main character is an incredibly strong delinquent. The connection he forms with Beel is pretty solid, and their relationship is key to the story. The supporting characters are all delinquents as well, and though they have a lot of humor they are all lacking. The fight scenes build up ... to be a little disappointing, and a lot of great ideas just fall short. By no means is this a bad series, it's just missing something. Though I loved the comedy at first, it all became a little monotonous.

I wouldn't recommend skipping this series because it does have it's high moments. I just wouldn't set your expectations too high. Some will love the comedy all the way through and others will feel as I did. I loved the premise but was disappointed in the execution. Keep this on the back burner, but no rush to watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 26, 2023

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Not Recommended

Funny

Beelzebub is a slapstick comedy around teenage delinquents and a baby which will become the demon lord when it grows up. The story is by far the weakest part as it is aimless. Nothing is going on in terms of on-going plot and all conflicts are solved easily and superficially. It gets even worse when you get a man like Takamoto Nobuhiro to direct it. His roster is nothing but a long line of pitiful titles (with the exception of Record of Lodoss War, which is rather watchable just for the kitch factor).

Production values are average to good, albeit worse than the artwork in the ... manga version. As if the animators lack funds, lots of scenes are done very simplistic and you end up feeling half the excitement of the manga. The studio who made this is basically a branch of Pierrot Studio, where all their shonen shows have the same lazy feeling.

The cast is the meat of the series and if you find them funny then nothing else matters in this review. Practically everyone is an idiot, doing idiotic things. I guess the quality of the stupidity is good if you like this sort of humor but a fatal flaw is again ruining it. You see, before the series they had made a single OVA episode that compacted the plot of all the initial missions, with far better production values. The expectations of most were too high and when the tv series began, they were disappointed with the far less amount of gags per episode, as well as the less fluent animation and the less detailed artwork.

Another thing that annoyed many outside the fanbase is the baby protagonist itself. It is butt naked. Although there is not much of a problem to pass as pedophilic, at the same time the most basic question anyone would ask is “Why is it not wearing a diaper?” There is simply no excuse for that; it is naked just for us to ask the question. And no, the fact it is a demon is not an excuse because we clearly see its demonic father being fully dressed.

Yet another thing that feels too weird to be funny for many is the fact that the baby is continually pissing, shitting and electrocuting people. Although that can count as a form of humor as well, scat jokes are only meant to last for a few minutes at best yet the entire series seems to be running on it. It grows easily tiresome, the plot is not going anywhere, and there is also not much context in the baby as a character. I mean, in the early Dragonball episodes, Son Goku was running around naked and doing somewhat similar jokes but there was still a story to follow and he was eventually given a backdrop. In the same manner, in the old Urusei Yatsura comedy from the 80’s Lum would constantly electrocute people but there was far more context for you to care about her, as well as the various adventures she had, which were all about some social criticism or a parody of some movie or event. Yet Beel, Oga and all the rest have no context at all. They are completely shallow and unoriginal stereotypes, doing retarded jokes that never seem to matter after the episode is over. This way you end up feeling bored fast, especially when there are many more comedies out there with far more developed casts and stories.

Beelzebub is a shallow comedy, without a context in the plot or the cast for you to care. It doesn’t appear to be worthy of remembering it for anything else other than the baby’s nakedness. I highly doubt it will be remembered in a few years as a good comedy. As for the comedy part, I am not fond of scat and piss jokes at all. That is a very tasteless type of humor and nobody mature enough would stand it for more than a few episodes. So no, I don’t consider this to be a good anime, despite the few fanboys out there who find it hilarious for being retarded.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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