This starts as a gag manga and ends up getting quite dark, although it doesn't fully commit to either comedy or drama. The stakes are set high, but there's no real losses incurred, and is quite lighthearted and optimistic in the end. I'd recommend this if you like classical adventure stories with a balanced mix of humor.

As other people have pointed out, the absurdity of the story gets in the way of a relatively solid manga. The issue is that each chapter gets progressively more insane until the whole thing is just nonsense. There are comedy elements in the first volume but they completely disappear after that. Overall nothing offensively bad but also not much to recommend either.

This was really painful to read. It starts as a comedy action manga but by the end it devolves into what are basically two different comics. One is a mostly serious fantasy/sci-fi manga, and the other are a few - and mostly canonical - gag comics at the end of each chapter. Reading the last few volumes feels like watching a movies on TV with a comercial break every 5 minutes. You just get into the story and then the story halts and you have to read this BS 2-6 pages gag minicomic. And this happens for almost every single chapter.

The story itself would probably be a 6-7, but the gag strips and minicomis just kill the mood on the regular. Either one would have been ok, but both combined, it just give you tonal whiplash.

Even then, I'd probably give this at least a 5 if not for the epilogue. And if you're wandering what's wrong with it, it's basically a LotR type of deal. I mean, on the one hand it does end a lot of story arcs, on the other, it keeps on going, and going, and going, and going. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

This isn't a bad story, but the supplemental gag material that can be found in the later volumes really shouldn't be there. One or two at the end of a volume are fine, but 1-6 pages at the end of every chapter really is too much.

Full of optimism and very constructive, Helck is a fantastic fantasy manga.

The cast plays off of each other very well, and the main duo of Vamirio, one of the 4 Heavenly Kings of Hell, and Helck, a hero of humanity, is probably one of the best in the medium as a whole.
Each one supports the other, and especially seeing Vamirio bring Helck back from the pits of despair over and over, hits just as powerfully each time.
And his genuine support and respect towards her balances things off greatly.

The humor is worked into the manga well, with some genuinely hilarious jokes, and the inclusion of many joke chapters in the volume releases that you can read as you feel the need, helps to balance off any down feelings in the more serious latter half of the manga while not destroying the atmosphere of the actual story.
Gags from early on in the manga become worked in as serious plot points later on, which depending on your demands for the story to take itself totally seriously in that manner, can be bothersome. However, I found it to be very smart writing myself and something that only looked obvious in hindsight.

The action is well done and the choreography, while never particularly complex, is clean and comprehensible. Fights are rather simple and straight-forward.
The cast is incredibly competent across the board, both villain and hero. Making the action enjoyable for showing off the best of both sides. The struggle is rarely in terms of the cast not being able to beat the enemies as they are all very strong and the story makes no attempt to change that, but in terms of them being able to deal with the plans of the villains outside of direct fighting or the emotional toll of having to fight against what the story poses.

While there are references to Levels for characters, they don't mean much at all other than be vague representations of the cast's strength. There is no game-ification of the world.
Much of the fantasy and the races are novel and the manga doesn't parrot Tolkien or Wizardry as many others do.
The twisting of certain 'stock races' is very well done in the places where it happens and works to certainly set the manga apart.

The manga is one that doesn't become depressing or have a ton of bad ends. It is an optimistic work at its core and that is largely the point of it. The manga is built around seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and fighting through all of the darkness with hope and love for those around you. Even in its darkest moments, and Helck does become a very depressing manga at times, the work swings around to bring things back to a happier place.

There was actualy no arc.
It was all one long story about a hero.
Enjoyable and very funny story

Sorry but no, I thoroughly enjoyed the earlier chapter of Helck when everyone havent got beaten into their designated role in the story yet but it suffers horrible flaw starting from the middle of the story all the way down to the last part.

The mangaka obviously suffered from Make-Shit-Up-As-You-Go syndrome because its not enough to layer one conspiracy over the whole story, they have to beat more and more layer until the end the story is so full of holes and a mess that you wonder what the main central plot is because insignificant red herring keeps getting referenced then forgotten before dug up again.

Oh right back on track, the middle part of the story is just endlessly filled with the titular Helck getting some character building through flashback that takes an amazing 5+ chapters that gets referenced over and over again. To add to this insignificant character gets promoted and suddenly become the villian of the week before getting rotated and just forgotten by the story end.

I felt that reading Helck was the equivalent of eating a lasagna filled to the brim with meat only to discover the bottom part is nothing but wheat. Oh also there's gonna be a sequel despite the highly unsatisfactory ending in the end. Give this one a pass it ain't worth slugging through 100 chapter of a bird singing.



... Last updated on May 27th, 2018, 4:59pm

There are few mangas that deserve this much of ovation. Spirit Circle, FMA are one such example. This manga is one of them. You will be moved - mark my words. Tears will be shed.

Although the stakes are high in some events they lack any suspense due to the heroes always having countermeasures no matter how bad the situation, although they are logical and still make sense they lack any foreshadowing so instead of the solution being illogical they become extremely convenient where

The main positive is the bond between Helck and vamirio that deserve a good amount of praise that is for certain. But every time they show you that a character might die or have a horrible fate it becomes predictable that they always find a solution everything The flashback was an exception because it already happened. Helck AND Vamirio are just too strong is that there is no real challenge. I admit way better than Fairy Tail as that manga is the worst manga due to its abysmal writing.

For those who want to see a male and female bond without any element of romance Hito Hitori Futari is way better and has a more focused plot and pacing. Overall I find Helck extremely overrated

... Last updated on February 13th, 2018, 5:08pm

A very strong start and middle but a very weak ending. The manga suffers from a very serious tone problem towards the later stages, where the stakes are supposed to be high but are not really depicted as such. The humor that is its strength at the start really interferes with the end, where humorous scenes are inserted wantonly in situations that are supposed to be life or death. This stands in contrast with Helck's flashback, which in my opinion, was really well done (I was really tearing up), so I don't really know why the end degenerated so much. Plus lots and lots of deus ex machina towards the end.

The end of this "arc" (supposedly there will be a sequel) ends up making this manga a very middle of the road, cliche filled, cheap shonen. If you are someone who's sick of that sort of plot, I would highly advise you to stay away from this manga. Frankly I'd advise anyone to stay away from this manga and read better things, but hey, it seems like a lot of people love it so to each their own.

Reading this manga has been a waste of time.

Helck is an alright manga. It isn't great in the slightest and it had the decency to end at some point. The story starts off silly but gets more serious later. The main issue with the story is the overload of concepts and ideas. There is too much happening in the plot, the background lore goes way too far. Deus ex machina is the name of the game here. Not in the action scenes, but in the amount of stuff that is rapidly introduced and rarely foreshadowed. The final villain changed like four times, and even at the end there seemed to be even more that was supposed to happen. All the combat capable characters constantly bring out their strongest attacks but later they bring out even stronger attacks and so on. It makes you wonder if anyone was truly in any danger. I get the feeling that the author wasn't quite sure how to go about writing the story. They had a lot of ideas, but they didn't all fit together very well. Some characters come out of nowhere, do some world changing thing, then basically disappear from the plot. It gets very hard to keep up later on and drags the story down greatly.