O-Parts Hunter

666 Satan, written by Seishi Kishimoto (twin brother of Naruto's author Masashi Kishimoto), inspite of what it's title might make you think, is an tipical shounen series that tells the story of Jio Freed and Ruby Crescent and their quest to find legendary O-Parts ("magical" items left by an ancient civilization). Even with this simple premise, 666 Satan has in fact a relatively complex plot, in this manga Seishi Kishimoto used various elements from religions all around the world, but most of all from Judaism (so, if you fell you might get offended or something, you shouldn't read this), to create a new world, that livesan constant conflict, derived from it's own history, and to make it more beliavable, it's filled with a great variety of towns, each with it's unique wheater, culture and what not. In fact the story itself deserves an perfect score, however, the way it was told wasn't flawless. The pace wasn't always well conduced by the author, rushing at crucial points, and taking a long time to finish arcs that weren't really that important. Although this new "world" created on 666 Satan is really great, the plot itself is quite predictable and filled with clichés (especially towards the end), borrowing elements from many other classic shounens, so, if you already have some "luggage" on the genre, you will be able to tell where the story is going at some points, which makes the experience of reading this manga much less enjoyable. Given the fact that the Kishimoto brothers started drawing manga together, it's kind of a given that they would have a similar style. This tells all about the art in 666 Satan, it's exactly like Naruto's: simple and clean most of the times, but detailed in the most exciting moments (it gets specially good when he is drawing demons); with lots of varied landscapes; and girls with unusual faces. By reading this manga I got the impression that in the author's mind, all girls fall in love extremely fast, ALWAYS. There is not one female character in the show that is not in love with someone (usually someone she meet a few days ago). Also, all the "romance" in the manga seems rushed: in one chapter the characters don't care/hate each other, in the next one they are completly in love, which pass a feeling that there is a missing chapter in there. Inspite of this unusual trait in the female characters, they, overall, have an quite captivating personality, even if sometimes they tend to fall back in the tipical shounen character (the same can be said about the male characters). One of the highest points in this manga (and what makes up for some of it's defects) is basically the fights: as there are countless types of O-Part's, all fights are different from one another, giving the impression that the stronger O-Part or OPT doens't necessarily will win, it will depend on ability of each one to think of the better strategy to use his O-Part and the battleground in his favor, this dynamic makes most (if not all) the fight very entertaining and exciting. Summarizing, if Seishi Kishimoto had written this manga with a little more experince (perhaps with one or two manga already published) he could have turned 666 Satan into an great shounen (on the same level of Bleach or Naruto), but nevertheless, he wrote a very good story that, even if it's not an "must read", it's recommended for every fan of the genre.

How can I describe '666 Satan'? Probably the first word that comes to my mind would be 'typical'. If anyone is looking for a generic, typical shonen series, than this manga is just what you are looking for. However, I suggest picking another title, because this one is a sad disappointment. The main characters personalities are extremely similar to Bulma and Goku from 'Dragon Ball', with a touch of 'Naruto' - ' I will make my dream come true' philosophy. That being said, we can't expect nothing more of them than dull friendship speeches and fights (which, in my opinion, are just average). Asstory progresses, the title looses it's comedic nature and becomes more serious, however, the plot is so simple and plain that the 'seriousness' can't save it. The thing that tries to save it, but fails, is 'fan service', that we can see a whole lot from about the tenth issue. The drawing style resembles Masashi Kishimoto style, however, there is a certain problem with characters anatomy (e.g. the arms are too wide or the face is deformed). In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend this series to anyone. It is simply dull, and it copies schemes from other popular shonen manga. It's better to read them first and leave '666 Satan' alone.

There are two things that stand out about 666 Satan. One the title itself; you'd think it would be some dark themed witch craft suspense thriller about an underground cult or religion just by reading the name of the manga. In reality it's actually an action adventure shounen. And two, it shares many many many similarities to the famous Naruto; from character mannerisms to storyline straight down to its art. Not a surprise as the author is the younger brother of Masashi Kishimoto, creator of Naruto. Although most of 666 Satan feels like just another variation of Naruto just told in a different fantasy landfilled with its own magical intricacies, it still shares the same thrills and excitement, and even if it feels like a carbon copy, how much you enjoy a manga is all that matters. Well, it did an admirable job around 50 chapters in, and was actually shaping up to be a better read than Naruto, and then it goes straight downhill after a certain point. Like Naruto himself who is always aspiring to become the Hokage of his village, the hero of this manga, Jio Freed, has a dream himself, just a bit more ambitious; to rule the world. He is joined by a handful of friends as they embark on a journey to fulfill each of their dreams; but like every shounen story, little do they know they're in for another save the world plot. As generic and vague a description that is, it's actually a pretty fun ride. Although the concepts of the O-Parts, specialized weapons each with different and unique attributes to use during battle, are nothing special, the fights themselves are well choreographed and are exciting to watch. Each of the fights are constructed using intense strategies and tactics that almost always have you on the edge of your seat. It is pretty clear that Seishi Kishimoto devoted quite some time creating the battles, but he also made sure that the story was just as great. Although not to spoil the goods, it's a bit like Naruto's tailed beasts concept, except replace the monsters with demons and angels. Like Naruto who is harboring one of these monsters within him, Jio Freed is also the same who actually carries within him Satan, the strongest of them all. Over the course of the story, we are told bits by bits the mysteries of the these demons and angels, along with the origins of O-Parts and the history of the world. The pacing is one of the best you'll find in a shounen and the execution is just perfect. Although it may seem like Jio Freed is just a Naruto copy cat, the characters as a whole, including Jio, are just much more likable and believable than the ones in Naruto. They're more developed, they have better chemistry with each other, and just show more emotion. Kirin, this manga's version of Kakashi, just seems to have a more interesting personality, and Ball, who is actually the playful rival of Jio, is actually the better bestfriend compliment as oppose to Sasuke. For a while, 666 Satan was actually molding to be the better version of Naruto. That is until it hits a certain plot twist, which I should add was absolutely great, but it dives head first into the dumps afterwards. When a manga was being paced so nicely for 50 chapters and offers nothing but quality after quality chapters, and then wraps it up suddenly in just a matter of 26 chapters, it's just unbelievable how one of the better shounen mangas out there is just absolutely ruined. The battles remain somewhat consistent, but the character development and the story just turn into complete shambles. And the sad part is that it wasn't just a matter of declining quality; you could see how the manga would be like if it were stretched out into at least 50 more chapters, but it's as if the editor told Seishi Kishimoto to wrap it up, took out all sense of quality in the remaining plot, and called it a day. Really a shame. A huge huge shame. It was firing on all cylinders and doing everything great that a manga should be doing. A phenomenally memorable cast, some eye pleasing battles, a nicely paced storyline coupled with some stunning plot twists, but the last 1/3rd of the manga was just bad. Almost bad enough to drag the other 2/3rds into complete mediocrity, but fortunately it wasn't THAT bad. 666 Satan is largely still one of the better shounen reads out there and is a must read for fans of the genre, especially Naruto fans, but expect to be disappointed towards the end, big time.

O-Parts Hunter (666〜サタン〜) Review Story (6/10) Fair The story for 666 Satan is a fair story, if you are looking for a synopsis you are in the wrong place. The pacing for the first half of 666 Satan was good. Character introductions and the world that they live in were fair nothing super special but it wasn't necessarily too generic or enough to complain about. Some arcs in the story did feel out of place and unmemorable to the overall story. And the time skip that occurs in the last 22/76 chapters of the manga felt like it wasn't necessarily needed. Even though the character designs changeand they looked cooler which (usually always comes when you have a time-skip in any series so that's given). The reason the time-skip occur felt forced. Why do I say this you ask? Well firstly let just talk about WHEN this timeskip occurred and WHO this mangaka's older brother is firstly. In the manga the first chapter of this time skip as far as the volume (Volume 14 to be exact) release came out in June 22, 2006. Now let's answer this question who is the Managaka's older brother? We all know this it's most likely the reason what intrigues people to read this manga in the first place Mashashi Kishimoto people creator of Naruto yes yes. It's definitely the reason why I gave this manga a chance. Anyway back to my point, time-skips happen in mangas all the time and I'm not saying that because of Naruto having their timeskip a year before 666 Satan has their time skip (Naruto chapter 245 in the year June 2005) is Seishi copying Masashi because that's just an assumption. But Naruto's and 666 Satan's timeskips should have reasons for them occurring right? So let's see spoilers for Naruto pre-time skip if you still don't know what happens but Naruto chases Sasuke to the outskirts of the left village looses their fight Sasuke leaves the village timeskip occurs with Naruto training with Jiraiya to get stronger for the future upcoming conflicts, obstacles and battles any other other bigger reason for the timeskip occurring in Naruto is debatable. Now for the timeskip in 666 Satan which basically occurs because... well Jio get's knocked out and goes missing and his friends search for FOUR YEARS trying to find him, that's basically it. Why didn't Jio try to contact his friends within these four years? My guess is as good as yours, but I'm going to go with the easiest one to fall back on. Plot convenience and a pretty bad excuse/reason to half a time-skip to entice readers that all my characters are all more grown but I'll talk more about that in the character section. Anyway back to timeskips, I'm not going to say it wasn't needed but it kind of wasn't and honestly with that bad excuse of "we couldn't find Jio in 4 years" just wasn't a good enough in story plot excuse and only makes me believe more that the reason Seishi decided to have a timeskip is before Masashi had a timeskip in his manga exactly a year ago. And with Naruto like I said the timeskip happens on chapter 245. Naruto is over now with a hefty 700 chapters so Masashi definitely had a lot more chapters and content to write about before his overall story concluded. But with 666 Satan pulling a timeskip which I already explained why I think it came out of now where is a weak reasoning and to only have the last 22 of the remaining chapters be timeskip content just felt like he didn't need to do a timeskip and when I figured out that a timeskip was going to happen the first thing you do is to get excited because you can't wait to see what the future holds (which is why I think he did his timeskip to turn heads and keep people who may have dropped off during that time to come back and to follow in his brother's footsteps let's just be honest here there was really no legit reason for the timeskip to occur in this manga). The remainder of the story had a couple of cool things which usually comes when you have to reintroduce all of your characters and their new abilities. And it does help that even though it was the last 22 chapters of the manga to be about the timeskip this was a monthly manga that had around 35-46 pages per chapter. And with a mangaka rushing though 30+ page chapters was about to cover everything he wanted within 22 chapters (except one thing of course). One of the IF NOT THE biggest issue I ended up having with the conclusion of this series was the conclusion. Yes I am talking about that "We are True Nakama" ending he gave us because it felt like he just wanted to wrap it up real quick and I'm not a fan of anti-climatic endings that this sure was one. Now I've see worse, but this ending was rather sloppy when it came to telling us what happen after the final fight between Jio and Lucifer. Even Naruto's ending (even though I'm not a fan of that ending either) had a some what more conclusive ending when it came to letting us know what everyone is up to and right at chapter 700 which was nice of Masashi to do. But here it was just "We are true nakama" the end... Anyway I didn't think the entire story was bad because if I did this would be a 4 it isn't a 4 but it's not anything higher than a 6 in my opinion and everything I stated above is my reasons why I feel this way. Art (8/10) Very Good As a Kishimoto, I have to give him credit where credit is due. Regardless of how I feel about the content within this manga, character or how it concluded it was indeed drawn very well. Basically if you like the art style Naruto you'll like this also and I didn't think that the art style that the Kishimotos have were bad or good it's very good. He knows how to create to cool and unique looking characters just like his brother and yes since both of their character art styles and designs like damn near identical some character may or may not look like they were ripped straight out of Naruto but once you know that they were brothers and grew up drawing their art style together it's reasonable enough to give it a pass because at the end of the day it looks very good. Characters (7/10) Good The characters in 666 Satan are good. The designs on them are good as well and their aren't too generic outside of the main character. But even he (at least pre-timeskip) had a little uniqueness to him. Yes he does have his goal that he'll let you know continuously just like Luffy from One Piece or Naruto (pre-timeskip) where he wants to conquer the world. But at least his personality (at least for a MC) doesn't follow every single generic troupe. He's not willing to make friends when the series first started unlike Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo, Goku etc. He kind of denies that he has friends for the majority of the manga so that's different. And yeah you can say that was just put in there for easy character development in the future of the series but it is what it is. Ball is a cool character also being basically the friendly rival to the MC and probably the only character I thought was enjoyable to experience post-timeskip. Ruby isn't that unique for a female character in my opinion as she kind of shares just a bit too much similarities between Bulma from Dragonball and Sakura from Naruto (it's basically Bulma + Sakura = Ruby honestly). The other supporting, side, rival and antagonist characters aren't anything super special but they aren't worth complaining about too much. Not going to go over all of them but their were fine. Enjoyment (6/10) Fine 666 Satan I think would be more enjoyable as an anime than a manga. The fight scenes and choreography that happens during majority of the fights in this manga are probably the key enjoyable factor to this manga and that was when I was having the most enjoyment in the series. The comedy was ok nothing super funny the only characters out of the few comedic relief character that I thought stood out is the dog,sheep,wolf creature Jajamaru him he reminds me of Iggy from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3. Other than that it couldn't raise past a 7 for enjoyment because I did feel that majority of this manga (especially for a manga with 35-46 pages per chapter) felt either too rushed in one place and dragging in others. It's like driving a car and pushing the gas down at your hardest kicking it into full gear going as fast as possible then hitting the breaks and tapping it ridiculously softly to the point where your car is moving at a walking pace. Overall (6/10) Fine More Specifically (6.75/10) Fine+ Like I said earlier this would series would be better if it was an anime. 666 Satan is a fine manga but the pacing was weird and it felt like Seishi was too bust looking at what Naruto was doing instead of really focusing on what it wanted to be itself. With that being said do I think it's a Naruto clone? No because a lot of manga will remind you of another manga. But do I think it's anything special? No I don't but I do still hope this does get an anime because like I said the things that it had going for it would be received better if it was animated. The masses and countless of Naruto fans out there that don't know about this series existence would eat this up in a good way. But if you aren't really too fond of Naruto in it's entirety like I ended up being by the end of Naruto then 666 Satan I wouldn't recommend it a good alternative either because it's kind of like saying "If you like Naruto you'll like this" so what do you think the opposite will be? Well there you go..