Zatch Bell!, Volume 1

金色のガッシュ!! [Konjiki no Gash!!] #1

by Makoto Raiku

Fourteen-year-old Kiyo, an arrogant genius who is teased mercilessly at school, is given a strange boy, Zatch Bell, for his birthday to help him make friends, but Zatch turns out to have strange powers that change Kiyo's life forever.

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Comics, Shonen, Action, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 2005

About the author

See also 雷句 誠.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange 'Pinocchioish' little boy...a 'red' book of magic...a genius junior high student who has no friends...a contest to determine the next ruler of a strange world - Zatch Bell! Very different tale of trying to fit in and find your destiny. Really enjoyed this first book - will look for more issues!

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m rereading this after a conversation with some buddies about who their favorite shonen protag is. One person mentioned Kiyo from Zatch Bell and yeah, I gotta agree. I love this guy. He’s like a realistic Light Yagami, a capital g Gifted Kid and everyone hates him and then instead of getting a death note he just gets a strange toddler voiced by Jimmy Neutron who can shoot lightning from his mouth.

Anyway the art is great too. Lots of stuff looks wrong and janky but the energy and passion of the art outweighs the mistakes.

Point is this series rules. As a kid I caught episodes on toonami and thought it was dumb and OH how wrong I was. They should reprint this in the US.

[Taha · Rating 5 out of 5]

who are these 5 y/os writing reviews for their class
couldn't be me

(I'm so gonna nuke this acct lmao eventually. It is p good though I'm torn bc is it bad to like such childish stuff? maybe if you have kids then it becomes ok by proxy. what do adults even do hike and travel all day or just have kids whatever gash bell is cool and the humor was p good. I think I read it bc first time I played a game online on MKWii this guy had a zatch bell mii.)

[Ananya Upadhyay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am well aware that zatchbell has all the tropes of a shounen manga but it also happens to be my first ever introduction into this world. I have read zatchbell in its entirety like 3 times and I remember getting all pumped up and emotional.
Zatchbell deserves the world and five stars.

[Khalil Omran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zach bell vol 1 by makoto raika
Review by kal i oran
In modern Tokyo there a young men named kiyo takamine he meets a mystery boy named Zatch bell. He give kiyo mystery book it has mystery letter kiyo read words of the book then zatch shoot lighting of his mouth. then he founds out zatch is a mamodo a demon child zatch forget his mamodo world. Then they random meet a mamodo with the ability of wind zatch fight after defect he explain why there here “One hundred Mamodo go to Earth every 1,000 years to battle to be the king of the Mamodo world. Each Mamodo needs a human partner in order to use his or her spell book” the best part was when kiyo get a new spell.

[Zara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chose this at random from my local library as I wanted to try some manga. I really enjoyed it.

It moves at a fast pace, the main story arc deepens and ends on a twist which makes reading the second book a priority, and I enjoyed the black and white drawings. The characters begin developing and there is so much scope in manga which ordinary novels don't have.

Being new to manga I cant compare Zatch Bell to others, but I enjoyed it and thought it was worth 5* and reading the rest of the books

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5/5

[Hourai Teahouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is less about Zatch volume 1 and more about the series as a whole, so potential spoiler warnings, though I will try to avoid anything explicit.

Zatch Bell has some great good ideas, such as characters’ power coming from an emotion that resonates with them, as well as becoming more powerful through character development. Whether that development is an improvement or becoming worse is irrelevant - they just need to grow. Coupled with that are some pretty fun characters and ideas, though it does begin to fall off in the final arc. This series has been in my head since the anime first aired two decades ago, and it’s not hard to see why.

But its biggest problem is that some bits were much more difficult to read than they were back in 2005, and the series is pretty sexist. Aside from a few select female characters, the girls and women are drawn as animalistic or otherwise inhuman - as opposed to how even the men are given respect no matter how unsympathetic they are. The black woman in particular is portrayed as significantly less of a character than her joke character of a mamodo, being drawn more like a bird and treated as animalistic. Were it not for Tia, Megumi, and Sherry, (sorry, Suzy) I could see myself giving it two stars.

[ACARVA · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love this manga! At first it felt like being just thrown into it, but everything collected itself just as fast and pulled me happily in. This whole manga developed at such a pleasing pace and only became richer as time went on.
The story, characters, dialogue, reaction sounds and artwork are altogether captivating and clearly thoughtful (I really enjoyed those stylised reaction illustrations--so cute and funny). I had plenty of smiles, laughs, "ah" moments and one where I almost cried, so yeah... you can say I got more out of this than I imagined first walking in with 😅

So I had a lot of fun with this manga and can't wait to read more! This is yet another book I'm happy to have stumbled into and experienced 🤗

Also, the bonus in the end is heartfelt and such a fun way into the personality of the creator. Thank you!

I wish that you'll have at least as much fun with this manga as I have 😁 *RECOMMENDED*

[Jhonatan Zuluaga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hace algunos años vi el anime que adaptó este manga, me gustó mucho, pero lastimosamente finalizó antes que su obra original, por lo que la historia quedó inconclusa.

En su momento, aunque la decepción fue grande, no fue motivo suficiente para continuar con el manga.

Ahora, tras atreverme a explorar y fortalecer mis habilidades y gustos por la lectura, y tras leer mi primer novela gráfica (comic), decidí dar una oportunidad al manga, por lo que ahora este es el primero de muchos.

Normalmente destaco puntos fuertes, medios y flojos de las obras que reseño, pero creo que no sería muy justo ya que conozco la historia y no sentí las sorpresas del primer tomo.

En general es una historia muy interesante y divertida, supongo que para un público jóven, pero no por eso excluyendo al público más adulto.

Recomendadísimo!

[Ahsan Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kiyo is a brilliant junior high student whose inflated ego has made him a major target for teasing at school. So his father sends him a bizarre birthday present - a strange little boy named Zatch Bell - to help him make friends and reform his bad attitude. Zatch brings with him a mysterious red volume of spells.

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok this start up from what I remember is different from the Anime as the anime as a little bit more filler before the first Mamodo fight. The manga has a nice pace and it does not dwell on the whole Zatch mystery as long as the anime does. Also love the development and the bond that Zatch and Kiyo are starting to form in these first chapters.

[Gabriel Quintana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un buen inicio y el cierre con la revelación de lo Mamodos queda bien, nace un misterio muy interesante, aún vamos comenzando pero me parece que el arranque es muy interesante y da para mucho, a seguir leyendo.

[Asif Iqbal · Rating 5 out of 5]

well

[Kurtis Burkhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty awesome and funny manga so far! 😻😁👌💕💕

[SUDEEP BISWAS · Rating 2 out of 5]

it is exciting book
Thanks you

[Rocky · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEST MANGA BY RAIKU I LOVE IT

[Shrigun Kalekar]

Ko

[Brittney Bower · Rating 4 out of 5]

online fan up load chapters 1-8. read dec 16-18 2022. only vol I'll allow myself to read by fan upload. Rest of series I've vowed to actual spend money on buying.

[electricyakuza]

DNF

[Paige Maroney-Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[GABRIEL MEZENCIO · Rating 5 out of 5]

não esperava ser tão bom, passa um ar de yugioh 10*

[Aksh Ghildiyal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good

[Yuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real rating: Infinity stars. It is THAT good. Expect spoilers since this is my fandom.
I love mangas since you notice something new every time. This time I realized that the bird that brings Zatch to Kiyo's house is named Owashi. The annoying thing about reading the English version is that they take the liberty of editing out nudity scenes and violent scenes. The violent scenes are realistic so should remain. And you wouldn't understand the weirdness of how the first time Zatch met Kiyo he was stark naked with the English version. Obviously there are differences from the anime like not having Hyde and Eido and how in the anime Reycom was the one robbing the bank not this random guy. The first few books could have some work on their art but he writes so many that it gets better later on. Since I guess this is shonen, there are way too many black lines you know for action. It's like everything's a crisis...which to them, it kind of is. Kiyo is so rude to Suzume! And it's weird to think of Kane as a bully. "Who the heck poops like THAT?" I don't know, Kiyo, you took an awful long time to get there..."Freeze! This is a stick up! Everyone get down!" Suzy=keep on smiling...I feel sorry for Reycom. Zatch is so CUTE sometimes, oh my gorsh. I really like the friendship between Gofure and Gash when Gash and Kiyo were fighting like brats. Here's the thing: Gofure was actually trying to be friends with Zatch. If you see Gofure, he's sad when Renji comes. You know how Kolulu was injected with this fighting personality since she didn't want to fight? Well, the same thing happened to Gofure. Now Sherry and Brago are amazing. Sherry is so beautiful and strong, a good role model. Brago is...well, it's not smart to say anything bad about him. It's weird to think that Brago is shorter than Sherry. And they take their shoes off in Kiyo's house like they own it! I don't know why Sherry and Brago would bother telling everyone what's up with the mamodo battle, and go all the way to Japan from France to boot. They should just wait for everyone else to burn their books-they don't need to go the trouble. Still, I guess it helps them train and gets Sherry's anger out about Zofis manipulating her bestie Koko. I love how Sherry and Brago acted like they came there to talk not fight then end up torturing Kiyo with Gravirei!

[Ace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title character Zatch Bell is sent to teenager Kiyo as a birthday present from his absent father; Kiyo is uninterested in the boy and his friendship until Zatch presents a mysterious book and shoots a bolt of lightening out of his mouth. From there, the action kicks up - these scenes are well-paced and the humor offsets the seriousness of the series. Though marketed as an action manga, Zatch Bell isn't afraid to get emotional: this volume alone touches on the desperation of feeling like an outsider for both Zatch and Kiyo; it portrays emotions well (even if the crying faces look a little scary sometimes!).

The downside is the overall juvenile nature of some of the humor. Zatch tells a bully that Kiyo isn't there to save him because he's busy pooping. For real. For a manga marketed at teens, the humor remains juvenile; this manga walks a fine line between the ratings All Ages and Teen. For me, it falls closer to All Ages and might be better marketed as a kids' story. Teens and older readers will recognize the tropes that this series relies on: Zatch's amnesia (when will amnesia grow old?) as well as the lack of character depth; everyone is a caricature instead of a complicated, fully-developed character.

I'll give the manga three stars from my middle school self, who enjoyed both this manga and the anime; as an older reader outside of the target audience, it's closer to two stars.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the first five volumes of this series, which I had never heard of before, at my library so decided my son and I would give it a go. We both really enjoyed the first volume. Humor is used to great effect in both the text and the typical old-style manga over dramatic illustrations of emotion. This is a good first volume in that it both serves up a good beginning plot and introduces us well to the two main characters. It zips along at a fast pace with action moving the story along rapidly. While starting off mysteriously, not knowing who Zatch is or what the red book means, by the end we have quite a satisfactory explanation and our characters are set for their mission and the plot of the series to continue. Zatch is adorable, very cute to look at, he has a cute naive personality with a huge violent anger streak when he feels dishonoured. Kiyo starts off arrogant but even by the end of the first volume we are seeing his character change already. Zatch has already battled two other kids like himself and the book ends in the middle of another such battle but with a bit of a scary twist that makes reading volume two a priority.

[Nicholas Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be a review over the entire Zatch Bell manga, as a whole. In the story of Zatch Bell, strange creatures, A.K.A. Momodos, are sent to Earth to find the owner of their spell book. These spell books enabled h Momodo to unlock spells that they would use to battle other Momodo, and burn their books. If a Momodo's book is burned, they are sent back to the Momodo World. The last remaining Momodo would be crowned King of the Momodos. One of the Momodo's is Zatch Bell, and he wants to become king in order to create peace and ensure that they would no longer need these wars. Out of all the manga I've read, this is one of my favorites. What really grabs my attention is that they set up a story where Zatch has memory loss, and continues to learn more throughout the entire series. If you enjoy stories about epic battles, or an underdog story, where the least likely man for the job is the victorious one, then Zatch Bell is a great manga for you to read.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This manga is a good light read, mostly aimed at junior high ages. Very action oriented, it reads quickly and the plots are fairly simple until the end. Super-intelligent junior high student Kiyu becomes responsible for Zatch, a mysterious child who can shoot lightning when Kiyu uses a spell from Zatch's book, but has lost his memory, including the fact that these powers are his and not Kiyu's. Zatch decides that Kiyu should be a hero in order to become popular. Lots of lightning blots ensue. The last few pages of the final chapter promise some interesting future developments as some of the mystery of Zatch's origin is revealed. While light on character overall, the few character moments we do get are interesting and nicely done.

[Firiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This manga is a good light read, mostly aimed at junior high ages. Very action oriented, it reads quickly and the plots are fairly simple until the end. Super-intelligent junior high student Kiyu becomes responsible for Zatch, a mysterious child who can shoot lightning when Kiyu uses a spell from Zatch's book, but has lost his memory, including the fact that these powers are his and not Kiyu's. Zatch decides that Kiyu should be a hero in order to become popular. Lots of lightning blots ensue. The last few pages of the final chapter promise some interesting future developments as some of the mystery of Zatch's origin is revealed. While light on character overall, the few character moments we do get are interesting and nicely done.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading this shortly after watching the show, and my 13/14 year-old self totally being in love with Kiyo. *snort* Today, while rummaging around in my boxes of junk under the bed, I found a bunch of old manga I had bought in middle school. Prince of Tennis, Naruto, and -whaddya know- Zatch Bell. So I read a few of them and re-lived my dark, er, middle school days. Zatch Bell is quite.... goofy, but still a light, comical read that put me in a good mood, despite what the old mangas symbolized for me. Ahhh, my childhood...