‘Zatch Bell!!’ Commemorates New Mobile Game By Making Entire Japanese Series Available For Free On YouTube, English Release Presumably In Limbo
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Just one year after developer Imagineer made all fifty-two episodes of their Medabots anime available to watch for free on YouTube, Toei Animation is following suit and doing the same for all 150 Japanese-language episodes of their 2003 cult classic Zatch Bell adaptation.
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Per Toei (translated via DeepL), Zatch Bell!! is being uploaded to YouTube in order to commemorate the start of production on the series’ new, upcoming mobile gacha game, Zatch Bell!! Companions of Eternal Bond.
However, similar to Medabots, Zatch Bell!!‘s episodes will not be uploaded simultaneously. Instead, Toei will upload one episode of the series per day to the Toei Animation Museum channel.
Currently, the uploads are set to begin on December 6th at 11 AM JST, with the last episode scheduled for May 3rd, 2024.
Adapted from Raiku Makoto’s award-winning manga of the same name, Zatch Bell!! (or Golden Gash!! in Japan) follows the story of the angsty, friendless genius Kiyomaru Takamine, whose world changes forever when demon child Zatch Bell literally comes crashing into his life
The duo eventually discover that Zatch is one of the one-hundred chosen demons sent to the human world every thousand years to battle it out in order to become the next king of the demon world.
Once in the human world, the demons will use their books to find their human partner, the latter of whom will then use its contents to direct their new companions in battle.
During these battles, opponents will battle it out to destroy each other’s book, the fights continuing until just one remains.
Notably, when a demon’s book is destroyed, they lose their right to be king and are forcibly sent back to the demon world.
American fans growing up in the early 2000s more than likely remember watching the Zatch Bell!! anime on Toonami.
However, not all the episodes were broadcasted on Toonami, and in fact the official English localizations of the 33 volume manga and anime will likely never be completed.
At current, Viz Media has only published 25 volumes of the manga and dubbed 104 episodes of the anime.
Unfortunately, due to author Makoto Raiku suing and cutting ties with series publisher Shogakukan, its Western subsidiary, Viz Media, lost the series English localization license.
As such, despite being originally being freely available, Zatch Bell!! was removed from streaming services including Crunchyroll, Hulu and Prime Video and subsequently left in license limbo before ultimately fading into obscurity in the west.
Meanwhile, Kiyomaru and Zatch’s story has continued in Zatch Bell!! 2 (or Konjiki no Gash!! 2 in Japan), which is currently being digitally distributed monthly through Raiku’s own publishing company Birgdin Board Corp and receiving physical print releases from Kraken Comics.
Sadly, thanks to the series’ existence in licensing limbo, its sequel has yet to be officially released outside of Japan.
As for the gatcha game whose production drew this free series release, Zatch Bell!! Companions of Eternal Bonds is a collaborative project by GameOn, NEOWIZ and Toei Animation.
Greenlit in honor of the anime’s 20th anniversary, the game kicks off Zatch and Kiyomaru make the acquaintance of both the game-exclusive, ram-horned amnesiac Someil, as well as a mysterious new threat encroaching upon Mochinoki Town.
To combat this new threat and progress through the story, players will form a team consisting of demons from the series and use their spells and techniques to defeat various enemies.
The bond-building gacha RPG features traditional standard genre training methods, such as leveling up and awakening, as well as a bond system between demons and their partners, an archetype board, support cards, and various other avenues for strengthening up for the fights ahead.
Zatch Bell!! Companions of Eternal Bonds also features a variety of mini-games including “Total War”, wherein you fight with all the demons at your dispoal, “Tower of Dream World”, wherein you defeat enemies and climb up the eponymous tower, and the “Monster Arena”, wherein players from all over the country can connect to duke it out with the demons they have raised.
At the time of this writing, the Toei Animation Museum channel’s Zatch Bell playlist is region locked with no English subtitles, with the studio yet to offer any official word regarding an English release – likely due to the aforementioned licensing issues.
Zatch Bell!! Companions of Eternal Bonds is set to release on IOS and Android in Japan has no release date.
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