Beelzebub Anime Review

Beelzebub:
Information:
Other Names: べるぜバブ
Studio: Pierrot
Writer: Ryūhei Tamura
Director: Nobuhiro Takamoto
Music: Yasuharu Takanashi
Type: Manga Adaptation, TV Series
Length: 60 episodes, 24 min per episode approx
Genres: Action, Comedy, Demons,School, Shounen, Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Air Dates: 9th January 2011 - 25th March 2012
Alternate Recommendations: Bleach & Gintama

Synopsis:
The story follows the "strongest juvenile delinquent," Tatsumi Oga, a first year at Ishiyama High, the school for delinquents. One day while sleeping next to a river, he sees a man floating down it. Tatsumi pulls him to shore, and the man splits in half revealing a baby boy. This boy is the son of the demon king, and Tatsumi has been chosen as the one to raise it with the baby's demon maid, Hilda. The story follows his life with the child at the delinquent school.

Review:
Is raising a Demon Lord going to be a fun challenge for Oga Tatsumi or will it be a boring chore?

Well it turned out to be a bit of both thanks good old filler and a nice story, yes there is filler though it only appears close to the shows conclusion with the first two arcs of the series being highly enjoyable and fun to watch up until the three quarter mark (around the 40th -45th episodes) due to a great setting that is both original and a great idea, as having a delinquent raise a demon lord in a delinquent high school (Ishiyama) is just a recipe for comedy and great action set pieces which series delivers on splendidly with credit due to a great first arc that introduces characters, in well thought out encounters and a great second arc that makes new characters known while still giving enough screen time to the previous ones, during which the overall story of the two parts is enjoyable and fun it can get very predictable with how the scenarios will play out and once again another setting in high school.
Others issues I had with the story as mentioned before are the fillers which is very poor quality that only gets worse as the show progresses and more frequent with the last few episodes with seven of  ten of the last ten episodes being filler, though in respect to that the last arc of the story is nothing special being both boring and rushed with a terrible ending to the show that just felt like a betrayal.

As said previously characters in Beelzebub are a great watch, and have good character design as you really get the feel that these are delinquents for the most part with some have very typical looks too others that just look bizarre. But while all this is nice and good, they don't get much development,  with only a handful getting any at all, with only a few subtle moments of supposed development that don't increase much attachment to characters even if there all given a reasonable amount of scene time.

The characters personalities on the other hand are currently at a fifty - fifty spilt with some being really predictable and other being unique, with the more boring ones being mainly the main character like main character Oga loving to fight and generally plays the role of straight man, normally in response to Hilda the sadistic demon (also for the sake of length I'll just stick to the main characters of the series as there is a LOT of characters) and carer of Baby Be'el the demon lord who out of the main cast was surprisingly, has the more unique although annoying at the start he grows on you as one of the few characters who develops while in comparison with no development there's Furuichi also known as comic relief and the creepy pervert. There is also the top 'dogs' of Ishiyama who play a big role in the plot as it progresses and get a very good amount of screen time, also get almost no development aside from a small romance sub-plot that goes nowhere but on the other hand get good character design and interesting personalities, well for the most part as one of them is a little boring having quite a boring personalities.

The art of another note is quite stylish and looks nice though the quality drops as the show reaches its conclusion, which could also be said of the animation that also starts of great and then slowly degrades as the series continues.  Though in contrast the sound track is well done and never gets old, while openings for the show I found annoying grew on me to the point where I downloaded them, though the same could not be said for the Endings which while some where enjoyable the rest were forgettable.

In conclusion Beelzebub started out great with interesting story and characters, while having a nice style and great animation but slowly it bogged down by fillers, no character development and degrading animation. Save this one for a rainy day and if you've got nothing else to watch. Or if you ever up for a good laugh and aren't afraid of some negatives that could lower you sprites.



Final Verdict:
Story/Setting: 7.8
Characters: 7.4
Art/Animation: 7.6
Soundtrack: 8.1

Final Score: 7.9/10

Ranking System:
10 = Perfect Masterpiece
9.6 - 9.9= Near Perfect
 9 - 9.5 = Excellent
 7-8.9 = Good
 5-6.9 = Average/Mediocre
 2-4.9 =Bad

 1- 1.9= Unwatchable