It's long overdue, but finally writing up for this phenomenal gag comedy, dark adventure epic. Helck is undoubtedly my favorite fantasy-adventure manga of all time Sorry, Berserk and HxH. While bearing several noticeable flaws, the characters, story, art, action, comedy and feels are some top-notch, apex shit.

___ #__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, it's 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 doesn't 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 you're not a fan of the comedy, you'll 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. Helck's 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 Helck's past.

The rest of the start and middle of the story dedicates themselves to Helck and Vamirio's 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 world-building 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? Who's 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 this. My enjoyment took a moderate dip at this point. Everything was going balls-deep bonkers now, the action and mystery were at their peak with twists at every turn and corner. But the clean-up 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.

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___ #__Characters__

Helck's characters aren't incredibly deep or anything, but they're well-done in their simplicity. Minor characters are characterized sufficiently to add depth to the story, comedy and mystery. They're all fun to watch, both in action and comedy. As for the main characters, they're an absolute joy to read.

Helck comes off as a happy-go-lucky, standard gag character and Vamirio as a strict, serious straight man character. Two precise polar opposites. However, with the story told from Vamirio's POV, both we and her steadily see past Helck's surface-level 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 world's 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 Vamirio's relationship is absolutely my favorite platonic male-female relationship I've seen and one of the highlights of this series.

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___ #__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 black-and-white. 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. ___ ___ #__Enjoyment__ Barring the end, I tremendously adore everything encompassing _Helck_. While not perfect, innovative or god-tier, 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 I'd 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. ___ ___ #__Final Words__ _Helck_ is a scrumptious culmination of comedy, fantasy adventure and action. An emotional mess of light-heartedness, crushingly dark and hope. It blew my expectations for just a dumb, fun comedy out of the waters, with its care in top-notch mystery and action. With its long-awaited sequel coming out this week, I earnestly hope this fantastic gem to perk the ears of those who've yet to read.

If there was ever a story I would want more people to read it would be this one, and honestly, it feels a little strange saying that. In a lot of ways Helck should just be another generic, fantasy hero's story that you could find anywhere in this age of Isekai, but it manages to stand out among the crowd. It seemingly plays into every trope imaginable and yet it felt refreshing and fun to read. It is one of my favorite showcases to prove that generic doesn't inherently mean bad.

Now let me know if this sounds familiar. The plot involves two unlikely companions trying to save the world from a secret government conspiracy using the power of friendship built up along their travels. The heroes are overpowered, they have a joke companion character and there are sad backstories everywhere. Everything about this setup is generic, so then how does it manage to be so interesting? I think the answer lies in the use of comedy of the series. In the beginning few chapters, Helck is almost entirely a comedy series with no hint of a real plot or seriousness. It keeps the mood light before hitting you with the more serious storyline which adds an extra weight to the conflict than you'd initially expect. And Helck continues to do this wonderfully throughout the series. During scenes where characters need to learn to come together there is a levity to the mood and when the story gets serious there's not a joke to be seen. The contrast between these two moods keeps the story feeling fresh compared to other stories in the same genre.

In addition to that, Helck does a good job at making its characters overall likeable. Now, this is of course heavily subjective (alongside the fact that the comedy will also be) but it at least rung true for me. Now, there is a trade-off here, since the characters are more one note than not, so depending on your taste in characters that might be a turn-off. That's not to say that they are completely terribly written though. One thing I appreciate a lot in Helck is the way that character weaknesses are written. A story with an overpowered character lives and dies by the way their weaknesses are shown, and Helck does a good job in showing different types of potential weaknesses. Whether it be emotional or ideological, each overpowered character has their own flaws that contrast their massive strength.

Outside of the plot and characters, there are a few more things to note about Helck. Similarly to what I mentioned before, the mood of Helck is basically my favorite part of it. It balances between comedic, serious, calming and sad. Each of these moods basically never clash in jarring ways and at their best they compete with some of my favorite scenes in manga (though I admit I'm a little soft to cheap emotional bits). Additionally, and this is a close runner up to my favorite part, Helck does an amazing job at showing a male-female friendship rather than a romantic relationship throughout. At first I was thinking that the two lead characters should end up in a relationship at the end, but as I continued on in the story I found myself thinking that less and less. And at the end of the story it came to a fulfilling conclusion to the arc between the two.

Now, Helck is not a story without flaws. It can actually have quite a few depending on what type of person you are and what you tend to enjoy in manga. It isn't a deep series with themes and takeaways that you can chew on for hours after you read. The ultimate climax of the story can feel "too big" and overblown, the animal side character can be pretty annoying at times and death is admittedly treated a little ambiguously. Of course, I don't think that all these take enough away from the story to make it bad or even average in my eyes, but to some it might.

Helck is perhaps my favorite read in the past few months or so in terms of enjoyment, and it makes me just a little sad to not see anyone really talking about it. It's of course not for everyone but I would encourage everyone to at least check out the first few chapters to see if the comedy clicks. If it does then you might be in for a great adventure, and it not then maybe pass it. But all in all, Helck is maybe the best example of a generic manga being done effectively.