YMMV / Zatch Bell!

• Adorkable: Suzume is an awkward airhead, but that's all just part of her charm.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Maruss/Mars, was he really a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing or was he Brainwashed and Crazy like Kolulu/Koruru and Gofure?
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Victoreem. For many, he's the Ensemble Dark Horse. For others, he's just utterly random and pointless.
  • Purio is another one; whether his survival to the very end of the competition on nothing more than pure luck is hilarious or annoying varies heavily from fan to fan.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Zatch/Gash has horns on his head when Kiyomaro is forced to wash him after a battle. Other Demon have horns, yet it is never brought up again.
  • The demon Momon was known to let out "kikiki" like sounds, akin to a monkey, but suddenly begins talking multiple volumes later. No one questions it.
  • One of the manga chapters is completely dedicated to a weird dream Kiyomaro had. It involved the reappearance of many characters (like Kiddo, D'artagnan and Leila), Sunbeam dressed as a fairy, "Manly Brago" teaching how do do "Silly Juggling" and many characters slapping Kiyo silly with various items. Apparently Kiyo loses his Answer-Talking ability for a while after having it, but the dream itself is never mentioned again.
• Complete Monster:
  • Zofis is a sadistic mamodo who delights in breaking the minds of others. Recruiting an army of fossilized mamodo, Zofis controls them by threatening to return them to stone should they disobey him. For his own cruel amusement, Zofis mind controls Koko, the best friend of Sherry, into being his partner in the mamodo tournament, keeping her as his brainwashed slave all the while. Throughout his awful treatment, Zofis delights in hurting Koko, nearly making her burn herself to death at one point. Upon being defeated, Zofis threatens to leave Koko burdened with the guilt of the memories of all the things she did under his orders simply to spite Sherry and her mamodo partner Brago.
  • Shin Clear Seonous/Shin Kuria Seunousu is the most powerful spell in the arsenal of Clear Note and Vino. A malignant being fancied as "destruction itself", its very existence corrupted and outright possessed Clear Note into a ruthless nihilist aiming to make extinct the entire Mamodo race through the King's Privilege. With its "husk" of a vessel bested by Zatch Bell and Brago, Shin Clear Seonous reveals its true, sinister nature and painfully desiccates the two. When damaged significantly by the Golden Spellbook, Shin Clear Seonous retreats into outer space with the intention recovering enough of its power to annihilate the whole of Earth.
  • Goren of the Stone was the most notorious participant in the previous tournament 1,000 years ago. Earning his infamy by subjecting over 40 fellow Mamodo to a millennium of petrifaction with their consciousness in varying states of intact, Goren was particularly sadistic enough to fool certain foes with fake hostages before delivering unto them his special brand of domination.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Victoreem, for... well everything. On top of his generally memetic theme, that utterly batshit song, and general ham, he's voiced by none other then Norio Wakamoto. His popularity is lampshaded repeatedly in omakes and the ending of the manga. On top of that, the manga's fanart corner for fan-created demon children had to announce that they had gotten an absurd amount of Victoreem spinoff entries based on other letters, such as "Extreem".
• Genius Bonus:
  • In the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the final chapter, Demolt, perhaps the single most Ax-Crazy demon in the fight, is shown working in a quarry with a pickaxe that appears to be made from his weapons. It would seem that the reign of the fight's ultimate victor entailed the near-literal beating of swords into plowshares.
  • During the England Arc, Suzie ends up in London mistaking it for Hong Kong. This could be a reference to how Hong Kong was British territory until 1997.
• Good Bad Translation: The Mad Scientist in the Demon Demon Mirror filler arc was named Professor Fusaichi Ichiro in the original version, and was usually referred to as simply "Professor", or "Hakase." The US dubbers apparently mistook "Hakase" for the character's name, so he's called Dr. Hakase in the dub. So essentially, he's named "Doctor Professor."
• Growing the Beard: In the case of the anime, it takes a long while for the series to really take off and become something epic...until episodes 44 and 45, which features a brutal battle that Kiyo and Zatch flat-out lose. Shortly afterwards we're introduced to the stone tablets of 1000 year old demon in episode 48, and it just keeps going from there!
  • The series as a whole had earlier started to hit it's stride with the England arc, which, among other things, gave us our first glimpse of Zeno.
• Iron Woobie: Ponygon. He had no partner for the entire first half of the battle, despite his constant searching in dangerous, open areas that would make him a great target for any Mamodo that happened to see him, especially since he got everyone he could to try to read his book. On top of that, he's stuck with someone who doesn't like him and who he doesn't like in return for protection, and nobody understands that his name is Schneider because he can't speak by virtue of being a horse, including his eventual partner who understands everything else he says. In spite of this, he doesn't stop searching for a partner, doesn't take it out on anyone (except Kiyo, but only when the latter insults him), and eventually proves to be a great ally.
• Like You Would Really Do It: A villainous example with Clear Note. After all the build up to him being the final Big Bad, it's pretty clear Ashuron was not going to take him out.
• Macekre: For the most part avoided except for one infamous element: the radioactive guns. ^note The localization did a good job balancing the violence in the shows to appease the censors. The one pesky element they could not work around were all the guns, so instead of making them invisible like in Yu-Gi-Oh!, the localization team gave them a light green glow.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Zeno Bell is the twin brother of Zatch who, thanks to unfortunate circumstances, comes to resent Zatch and desires both the Mamodo World crown and to make his sibling's life miserable. Learning the existence of the ancient Mamodo weapon Faudo, Zeno strays to the shadows and uses a doll-like emissary to manipulate both Zatch's group of friends as well as Leo and the Faudo cult against one another. Upon Faudo's awakening, after Leo weakens the heroes, Zeno sneaks into the control room, sends Leo away, and takes over control of Faudo in one fell swoop. Earning the loyalty of the other cult members, Zeno still uses the power of Godafu as a contingency in the event one tries to betray him and shows flexibility as a fighter. Even so, Zeno is ruthless enough to make people submit to his ways through fear and pain. Upon the realization Zatch lived a horrible life himself and that their father hid the whole story from him, Zeno immediately changes his ways and, in his final moments in the Human World, provides the twin he now loves everything he needs for the tournament.
  • Vincent Bari and Gustav, seemingly another run-of-the-mill powerhouse in the tournament, stand out for their surprising depth. Bari, obsessed with strength but lacking meaningful purpose, seeks out Zatch Bell to engage in combat, showing tactical ability to complement his raw power. Gustav, while a dutiful partner, subliminally urges Bari to think more deeply about his desires, insightfully pushing him to be a better Mamodo at heart. Arriving during the Faudo arc to confront his old rival Keith, Bari displays tremendous growth as both a fighter and person, holding no tolerance for Keith's petty grudge while he and Gustav analyze every single spell he uses and counterattack accordingly with ease. In the climax against Clear Note, Bari once again demonstrates his newfound skills by skillfully circumventing the nigh-impenetrable barrier around Vino to aid Zatch.
  • Robnos, a young but crafty troll smarter than his sniveling bully of a partner Ruku, tricks Zatch and Kiyo into an industrial freezer by pretending to have taken the latter's classmate hostage to disadvantage them in the subsequent battle from the very beginning. Using the environment to manipulate the trajectory of his Biratsu spell, Robnos hid a second body amongst the objects to continue his ploy even after Kiyo figured out the first layer. All fun and games even after elimination, Robnos rewards Zatch with a tip someone who resembled him was in England, instrumental to discerning the secret behind his amnesia.
  • Garza and Baransha are two strategic hunters who manipulated Kiyo, Zatch, and others to a hot springs vacation in a remote forest, where after tricking the first two to the forest, proceed to push them to the brink with their hunting capabilities. With Garza disguising himself as a deer and Baransha using her animal instincts and invisibility, they patiently attempt to erode Kiyo's "power from within" so they can eliminate Zatch in one fell swoop. Although briefly outsmarted by Zatch, the two escape via a water to hunt another day.
• Moral Event Horizon: There appear to be several things that are unwritten taboos in thee Fight, most notably a.) destroying a book that's already burning, and b.) attempting to kill your opponent rather than simply send them back. Each of the three main villains does one or the other at some point.
• Narm: The Device That Sends Faudo Back to the Demon World. For whatever reason, this title gets said in full nearly every time it's referred to during the Faudo arc. It begins to feel a bit silly when every character refers to it as such every time it's mentioned, particularly with how long the name is.
• Narm Charm: The amount of crying in this series can be extremely offputting at first, but by the time you finish the series you’ll probably be crying just as hard.
• Only the Author Can Save Them Now: Against Clear Note. The rules of the tournament established throughout the story had to be completely broken to give the main characters a shot at victory.
• Quirky Work: The premise itself is a straight-forward There Can Only Be One setup but what happens between that is weird. Exhibit A: The Very Melon Song.
• The Scrappy: Of the four main villains, Clear Note is by far the least liked, owing to his lack of connection to the main characters, his extremely offbeat appearance, and his rather generic Straw Nihilist motives (even likening himself to an atomic bomb at one point). Many fans felt he more or less existed to be the Final Boss because... somebody has to.
• Shocking Moments: Once Zatch starts shooting building-sized lightning dragons out of his mouth, all bets are off. Of particular note is the fight against Clear, as he utterly brutalizes the protagonists and is then stabbed through the chest by Ashuron’s horn.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Eido and Hyde. By the point they stopped appearing in the series like the filler villains they were, they had been undergoing some serious Character Development and had pulled a draw against Kiyomaro and Zatch that is utterly shocking in hindsight. It genuinely seemed that they would do Heel–Face Turn in the future and maybe serve a The Lancer or The Big Guy in the main cast, or at least as occasional allies. (In fact, to prove how important they seemed to be, the Spanish dub assigned them two of the biggest VA in the entire cast, including one that rarely voices anything other than protagonists and big time villains.) But then the canonical supporting cast was established, and Eido and Hyde disappeared without a trace, most likely because they couldn't be incorporated into the main cast without tons of rewrites if not entire deviations from the story. While Hyde (and Eido presumably) was eventually made canon by way of adding him to the collage of demons in the end of the manga, it pretty much meant that he got his book burned without ever meeting any of the main cast.
  • Baransha and Garza. They are introduced giving the protagonists one of the roughest fights in the series, where they come close to beating Kiyo and Zatch and only lose because of Kiyo coming up with a plan to bait them out that ends with the two escaping. Despite their formidable abilities and their pragmatism, they get thier book burnt by a fairly minor trio of ancient Mamodo later and never get to fight the heroes again.
  • Shion Hibiki and Nyarurato. Similar to the above, they had the potential for more exposure and development were they to play any part in stories later on in the series, but since their story arc was filler, neither of them reappeared after the arc was done. While in Nya's case it's justifiable seeing as his book got burned, Shion could have easily remained in Kiyo's class as a recurring supporting character (also giving Kiyo a classmate confidante who's familiar with Demon and the battle to become king, something he didn't have before), but the arc's ending has her transferring out of the school and leaving town for reasons that didn't seem entirely convincing. There's a reason there are quite a few Fan Fiction that keeps one or both of them around to be featured throughout the remainder of the story.
  • Kolulu had excellent potential for a character arc about learning to control her Power Incontinence, not to mention the fact that Zatch was pretty plainly sweet on her. Instead she's Mercy Killed by Zatch after two chapters in the manga and one episode in the anime. The same could be said of her partner Lori, who had sisterly relationship with her and seemed to connect well with Kiyo, but she only appeared in a single episode following Kolulu's one.
  • Badios and Ferrius too. They're the two Mamodo who primarily transport Penny, Byonko, and any other Ancient Mamodo from Zofis' castle to wherever the heroes are to attack them. They have a pretty important function, putting it mildly. Despite that, they don't get to team up against anyone of note for a badass two-on-two fight, and instead are brushed aside like an afterthought by Brago along with all the remaining Ancient Mamodo excluding Demolt and Laila.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: There can't be a single person who knew that Zofis was supposed to be male from the beginning. It doesn't help that his dub voice is noticeably similar to that of Wuya.
• Wangst: Gash/Zatch can go a little overboard with his crying sometimes.
• The Woobie:
  • Sherry Belmont in her backstory and whenever she's confronted with the possibility of not being able to save her dearest friend.
  • Zatch, especially in his past.
  • The anime had Shion Hibiki in its first filler arc and later a Jerkass Woobie in Maestro in its second filler arc.
• Woolseyism:
  • Ponygon's nickname was dubbed such because he was a pony and Kiyo wanted him gone.
  • The introduction of Zatch's trademark spell was done pretty well in the English dub. Since "Don't mess with me" (fuzakeru na) doesn't exactly translate well as a pun, the dub instead has Kiyo mishear Zatch/Gash's name, and he reacts to Zatch's letter by telling him to stop messing around with him and refers to him as "Zack, or whatever your name is"— triggering the Zaker (which rhymes with pack air) spell.
  • The "monster" characters being called Mamodo is this. In the original version, they're demons - in the sense that they're mystical creatures. Changing it to Mamodo preserved the idea that they're a type of magical being from another world, as well as helped with matching lip movements.
  • Zatch's name, as the word gash refers to a deep cut and is unpleasant to those with a weak stomach. Keeping his name as Gash in the English translation would've scared off a number of people, not to mention that it would be unfitting for such a benevolent character. Zatch meanwhile comes off more friendly and seems fitting because it is reminscent of "zap". Also matches that of his brother, Zeno.

---