u/Visible_Investment47

We first see them fight off-screen, each of them shouting out a spell and then we see an aftermath of all four of them looking terrified with a big crater between them. At first we think they had a DBZ style beam clash that exploded on contact, but when he finally see their spells in action this terror is unfairly skewed.

Zoboron's power being terrifying makes sense, as he has a gigano sized spell baked into presumably his first spell as he uses it a lot, that is strong enough to destroy Rashield, and he has an upgraded form that's even more powerful.

But Papipurio feels oddly hyped up before we know what his spell actually does. It just hardens like glue and takes a while to work. Zoboron's book owner remarks that he has the power he always wished he had and that "it's simple, yet so strong," and both of them are cowering at THIS?

Come to think about it, when Papipurio gets mad he's too short for a ride and tells Lupa to destroy it, he doesn't even have a destructive spell to accomplish this. The most he could do is stop it, and it wears off after a while anyway. At least later on he actually gets acidic attack spells, but at this point in time he can't actually harm anybody.

Because of his grudge he hunted Zatch down, electrocuted him to near death, and was about to burn his book, but in the end he decided it was more fulfilling to swipe his memories and make him continue fighting in the tournament knowing that a weakling like him would constantly suffer injuries.

Even though Zatch had just awakened Baou Zakeruga, the main sourse of his grudge, when Zeon sees him in England he doesn't seek to wreck him again. Even despite his hatred he seems fine simply letting others attack Zatch even though he could easily do the job himself.

I know the story would be bleak if Zeon tortured Zatch for fun like that, but it just feels odd that despite his hatred he doesn't seek his revenge himself outside of their very first encounter. Even their match inside Faudo only came about because Zatch and his crew had defeated literally everyone else under him so he had to finally step in himself.

But how long would this go on for? Hypothetically, if Zeon hadn't been involved in the Faudo arc, would he have let Zatch get into the top 10? The top 2? Or would he only have waited long enough for Zatch to at least fully awaken Baou so he could crush it and prove his superiority?

We see at the start Brago and Sherry basically despised each other. Brago hated to be forced to rely on a weak human to use his abilities and that he had to babysit and protect someone else to survive, while Sherry hated his callousness and his disregard for humanity, seeing him the same as Zofis.

He threatens to kill her butler to make him obey, but she threatens to off herself rather than take orders from someone like Zofis, which would rob him of his book owner and ensure he would lose down the line.

However, by the time we see him in the present he's mellowed out considerably. He allows Sherry to exposition dump the battle of the Mamodo and try to talk Kiyo into giving up the book without a fight. Later on, even though Kiyo passed out and she could have taken the book and burned it, she saw that Kiyo wasn't using the book selfishly and that Zatch was making him a better person, and so allowed him to keep it. The old Brago would have said Eff that and not allowed an opponent to get away just because his weak human was being weak.

Even though Sherry compares Brago to Zofis, do you think Brago would have been as bad as Zofis if he became king without this character development? We don't see Brago interact with another Mamodo before he mellows out, but I assume that he would be more respectful to his own kind even if they have to be crushed as opponents.

Well, he does insult Zatch as being a weakling who shouldn't have even been in the battle even after the mellowing, so he'd probably be closer to pre-character development Bari, a person who only respects power and looks down on the weak.

When Kiyo fights Dr Riddles he is told that simply winning battles isn't enough. When a Mamodo has emotional growth or makes an important realization that power makes itself known in the book.

However it's hard to picture this for someone like Zeon, who is an already elite fighter. From what we see of him he feels like exactly the same person throughout for 99 percent.

Look at someone like Eshros, who had a whopping 8 spells at a time when Zatch only had 3, and doesn't even reach that number until like book 27, 75 percent of the series run. He thinks he's elite, but he would go down effortlessly against any of the true elites like Brago or Zeon.

What kind of growth did he go through to unlock 7 whole extra spells in such a short period when he's mostly just full of himself?

I know just being a villain in itself doesn't make one incapable of growth, but these aren't noble demon types with a greater cause behind their cruelty. They're just completely self centered and too arrogant to think they NEED to learn anything.

Zatch was happy go lucky for the longest time, and Baou was just a finisher, but during the Faudo arc his anger at Riou for almost killing Kiyo awakened darkness in him that caused the true Baou to emerge along with 4 new spells.

This Baou was also sentient, corrupted by the countless darkness it absorbed and nearly killed both Zatch and Kiyo in its rage until Zatch eventually purified it.

We don't see much of Clear in the past outside of a flashback of him meeting Ashuron, but it's stated later on that he was being controlled by his own spell. I don't think he was ever quite as noble as Zatch but it does seem like he was corrupted because Shin Kuria was too powerful and took over him.

Like the usual for Castlevania style games I collected as many shards as I could as I went along, and Gebel commented on if I was starting to see his side after having so many.

Similarly, if you don't do the required steps for the good ending the game will end after you kill Gebel and you'll hear a mysterious voice saying you'll be easy to control with so many shards bound to you.

You'd really have to go out of your way to avoid collecting any non mandatory shards but I think there's only like 4 or 5 boss shards that are absolutely required for progress.