Zatch Bell!
The episodes of the "Zatch Bell!" anime series were directed by Tetsuji Nakamura and Yukio Kaizawa and produced by Toei Animation. The episodes were aired on Fuji Television between April 6, 2003 to March 26, 2006 and spanned 150 episodes. Viz Media obtained the foreign television, home video, and merchandising rights to the "Zatch Bell!" anime from Toei Studio on August 4, 2005. Subsequently, Viz Media contracted Studiopolis to create the English adaptation of the anime. The North American English dub has been edited and localized for young children aged 6 to 10 years in America. Viz Media has licensed its individual "Zatch Bell!" merchandising rights to several different companies, including a new toy line made by Mattel and a collectible card game released by Bandai in the United States and Japan.
List of Zatch Bell! characters
After Raiku's "Newtown Heroes" series in the Shonen Sunday Super ended, Raiku looked at his old drafts he created in the past for an idea for his next series. One of his ideas was about a mercenary who used a giant sword to defeat enemies. After playing with that idea for three months, Raiku decided to abandon it and go with another idea. His next idea was a story where a middle school student, the prototype of Kiyo, finds an old toy that turns into a giant knight that combats evil. After taking this up with his agent, he was advised to use a cuter character to fight and thus, Zatch was created. After Raiku worked on the idea for a month, it was published. The reason Zatch uses lightning spells is because the "rai" in his name is the Japanese word for "lightning".