Oga Tatsumi is a first year student in Ishiyama High, a notorious school for delinquents. One day while taking a nap by the river he sees a man floating by, and the man suddenly splits in half to reveal a baby boy inside! This boy is the son of the Demon King, and Oga has been chosen as the one to raise him, together with the baby's demon maid Hilda. With his close friend Furuichi and a bunch of other characters joining in on the fun, Oga must raise baby Beel while preventing the world from being destroyed... When Crunchyroll were announcing their slate for this season, there were two shows that I had mentally tagged as likely candidates for "watch one episode and dump": Cardfight!! Vanguard, which fully lived down to expectations, and Beelzebub, which has turned out to be... curious. It's this season's contribution from Shounen Jump, but rather than being a long-running show it seems to be currently slated for just 12 episodes. It also seems to major more on the comedy than on action, which is where my expectations have caught me out - and in the best possible way, as I did laugh through this episode - and in some places is channeling the Cromartie High School vibe. While a lot of people seem to be latching onto Beel's antics, though, for me it was more Oga, his best friend Furuichi, and the sole woman in the piece - demon nanny Hildegarde - who tweaked by funny bone. Beel himself was more of an annoyance, with pee and tantrums being the order of the day - perhaps I'm just too close to having kids that age myself (my kids are 2 & 4), but I don't find that aspect of kids funny at all. I also couldn't help but keep thinking "put some bloody clothes on that kid", as he spends the entire episode naked. For all that there are things here I don't like, though, I did get enough out of it that it's at least not getting tossed on the "dropped" pile - and in that way it's beaten by expectations of it. The Good: Genuinely funny in places, fast paced, Hildegarde. The Bad Beelzebub himself. Which is quite a major handicap, when you think about it. Beelzebub has done enough to get the three-episode rule applied to it, at least. I'm still sceptical about the long-term appeal of the story (which makes it only being slated for 12 episodes a good thing), and I want to see how Beel is used as the series progresses, as depending how that's done I could end up being put right off the series after all. But this episode is a solid enough start, all things considered.
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