Its long overdue but finally writing up for this phenomenal gag comedy dark adventure epic. Helck is undoubtedly my favorite fantasyadventure manga of all time Sorry Berserk and HxH. While bearing several noticeable flaws the characters story art action comedy and feels are some topnotch apex shit. 420https://terrenceswiff.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/helck25.png Story After the defeat of the Demon King by the hands of the human hero the Demon World begins to hold a tournament to select the successor to the throne. However among the participants there is a particularly strange one. Why? Well its a fucking human. Winning over the demonic crowds with his charisma and denouncement of humanity Helck becomes a strong candidate to win. The only one suspicious of his intentions Red Vamirio of the Four Heavenly Kings goes to lengths to investigate this mysteriously ridiculously buff human. However what she discovers goes beyond her expectations something that would shake both the Demon and Human Worlds. The whole Defeated Demon King plot is standard fantasy comedy material at this point and Helck certainly doesnt add much flavor to the trope. The story initially focuses on the tournament and gag comedy with Straight Man Vamirio amusingly failing to expose Funny Man Helck whose ridiculous antics increase his popularity. If youre not a fan of the comedy youll find the start quite boring and dull. However the story progression rapidly evolves into a more complex plot with a darker tone yet still retaining the comedy. Helcks past is slowly unraveled while strange things start to occur over the world. The Demon World enters a state of emergency with the arrival of mysterious angelic enemies Helck and Vamirio are stranded in a foreign world and must return back to aid their comrades and more mysteries loom that all somehow connect back to Helcks past. The rest of the start and middle of the story dedicates themselves to Helck and Vamirios relationship and the Demon World fighting against the new enemies. The former is my favorite part about this series. We simultaneously witness a beautiful flourishing of the bond between these two severely polar opposite characters and worldbuilding exploration through their adventures while being stranded. The comedic chemistry and the feelsmoments between the two plus one other strange green little chick is fantastic. I absolutely adored this part of the story. As for the latter part the Demons fighting the new enemies it served to simultaneously unravel and add more questions to the mystery. Who are these enemies? Why are they fighting the Demons? Who are they to Helck? Whos the mastermind? The anticipation and excitement of this aspect of the story was another favorite of mine I think Helck hit a very enjoyable balance of mystery and action within this portion of the story. Side characters get their screen time and characterization not by interacting with the mains but among themselves. The side characters in Helck never had their roles diminished as the story progressed and I enjoyed them nearly as much as our main characters here. Now the story towards the end. I ride with the popular opinion that it was convoluted and rushed. Without any major spoilers it basically all felt like thishttps://i.yt.com/vi/aUPcXFSRFpY/hqdefault.jpg. My enjoyment took a moderate dip at this point. Everything was going ballsdeep bonkers now the action and mystery were at their peak with twists at every turn and corner. But the cleanup was definitely not clean. However I quite enjoyed the actual ending. Feelsgood moments everywhere and felt like a proper conclusion to this epic tale. Overall I still massively enjoyed the story. 420https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/f/fa/Helck.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160508060921 Characters Helcks characters arent incredibly deep or anything but theyre welldone in their simplicity. Minor characters are characterized sufficiently to add depth to the story comedy and mystery. Theyre all fun to watch both in action and comedy. As for the main characters theyre an absolute joy to read. Helck comes off as a happygolucky standard gag character and Vamirio as a strict serious straight man character. Two precise polar opposites. However with the story told from Vamirios POV both we and her steadily see past Helcks surfacelevel personality and see his incredibly heavy burdens and thoughts. Losing her initial hostility Vamirio slowly becomes the shoulder for Helck to lean on. Her biases and disdain towards humans dissipates in favor of protecting her first human friend and his world. Helck who wanted to take on the entire worlds burdens on his own realizes he has people to rely on. The steady progression of their relationship through empathy and trust not romance is phenomenal. Helck and Vamirios relationship is absolutely my favorite platonic malefemale relationship Ive seen and one of the highlights of this series. 620https://i.redd.it/7r7sinv3mmv31.jpg 420https://i.ur.com/g1c18RU.png Art Probably the biggest highlight of Helck. The artistic improvement over the course of the series blew me away. While the initial art was far from mediocre the visuals exploded in fine details. My particular favorite is the fantastic lighting and use of blackandwhite. The character design took a massive improvement as well. The facial expressions anatomic composition hair everything visual about the characters became ingrained with massive detail. The enormous artistic improvement truly elevated the action and emotional scenes. 420https://i.ur.com/f1AXhIA.jpg 420https://imagescdn.9gag.com/photo/aBgr9o1700b.jpg 420https://pm1.narvii.com/6354/c084cc5fb6ac287468c30656eb2c9986e6be073e00.jpg 420https://pics.me.me/helcknowhelckthenletsdestroyiwantthehumans12918194.png Enjoyment Barring the end I tremendously adore everything encompassing Helck. While not perfect innovative or godtier I chuckled impatiently shook my legs like a mad man had my heart beating rapidly choked up and grinned toothy grins during the course of this emotional uplifting journey. Out of all the series Id followed during the course of their ongoing runtimes Helck had undeniably been my favorite one and it was an absolute blessing to come home from school to see a new update. Though my top 10 list changes so often I firmly believe Helck will continue to be cemented in mine for a long time coming. 420https://imageswixmped30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/c9de04ae006a44d0ac055979aa6ac67d/dd4sqsz1c7f242dfc534eba8fa9e960f34a2eca.png/v1/fill/w1280h1811q80strp/vamiriobyvodyanoiidd4sqszfullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD0xODExIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYzlkZTA0YWUtMDA2YS00NGQwLWFjMDUtNTk3OWFhNmFjNjdkXC9kZDRzcXN6LTFjN2YyNDJkLWZjNTMtNGViYS04ZmE5LWU5NjBmMzRhMmVjYS5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.HI0MqpKeofL1BwJm3dALBxKwdzaHD1scimiTQNdL0 Final Words Helck is a scrumptious culmination of comedy fantasy adventure and action. An emotional mess of lightheartedness crushingly dark and hope. It blew my expectations for just a dumb fun comedy out of the waters with its care in topnotch mystery and action. With its longawaited sequel coming out this week I earnestly hope this fantastic gem to perk the ears of those whove yet to read.