Zatch Bell, Volume 20 by Makoto Raiku

Zatch and his fellow Mamudo are trying to discover the secret of the tower visible only to Mamudo that appeared suddenly on earth. Although they have a videotape of the tower, no one knows where it is located, and each Mamudo and holder of their book is looking desperately for information, including Dr. Riddles, former holder of a book of a Mamudo named Kedo. Kedo's book was burned by an enemy Mamudo, but Dr. Riddles is comitted to helping Zatch become a kind King of the Mamudo.

First, Zatch and Kiyo finish helping the boy, Kyle, and his Mamudo, Rein. Kyle won the battle against the enemy Mamudo, but passed out from fear afterwards. His battle, however, has finally given the little boy the backbone to stand up to his bullying keeper, Jill, laying down the law to her that if she doesn't shape up and stop being such a bitch, he's going to the police and tell them everything she did to him, as well as all the townspeople. But Kyle's speech has another effect, that of getting the rest of the servants to stand behind him and help him regain his father's estate. His mission to protect Kyle over, Rein tells Zatch to become King and disappears back to the Mamodo world.

Meanwhile, Zatch and his friends aren't the only ones interested in the tower from the Mamodo world. Evil Mamodo are determined to unlock the tower and unleash its power on not only the Mamodo, but on the human world as well. The leader of the group is a Mamodo named Riou, who has the power to cast curses on people that can kill them if they don't do his bidding. He has used this power to recruit many strong Mamodo to his cause, cursing their human holders of the books and compelling them to add their power to support Riou's plan.

Meanwhile, Zatch, Tia and Ponygon have an encounter with Sister Elle Chivas, a nun who is looking for Momon, her Mamudo. She has travelled the world looking for other Mamudo to stop their fighting, but hasn't encountered one. Meanwhile, Kiyo is encountering Momon, and not liking the other Mamudo, who is very mischevious and seemingly cannot resist playing pranks and showing off. When he decided to pick on Tia by continually looking at her underwear and lifting up her skirt, he so enrages her that everyone around her becomes extremely scared of her. The battle reveals another spell in her book, one that calls an angel-like being with a crystal and and blade. Tia's anger and feelings of violation empower the spell, turning the angelic being more and more demonic, and it sears Momon badly before disappearing. Momon, who was trying to run away, passes out, and Tia, leeched of her anger by the spell, returns to normal.

Kiyo theorizes that Momon can tell the locations of other Mamudo and always runs away from them, which is why sister Elle never encountered any on her trip. He also theorizes that Momon can also tell where structures from the Mamudo world are, and Momon's petrified reaction proves him correct. Using Momon's reactions, they soon settle on where in the South Pacific the tower is, but Dr. Riddles reaches them with the word that it has appeared in New Zealand. Going with Kiyo, Megumi, Kafk Sunbeam and Parco Folgore are sister Elle and Dr. Riddles, who gives them another disturbing bit of news: Li-en and Wonrei have seemingly joined with the villainous Mamodo trying to open the tower. Before he leaves, Kiyo's friend Suzi struggles with telling Kiyo she likes him, and gives him a lucky charm to bring him back safely. Kiyo promises to be safe.

Before they leave, a spectre appears, telling Kiyo and Zatch that the Tower has a name: Faudo. And it confirms that Li-en and Wonrei have joined the Mamudo named Kedo, but they only did so to save Li-en's life. He tells them they have four days to prevent Faudo's release, but disappears before Kiyo can ask him any questions. Kanchomé, Folgore's Mamodo, has been extremely scared of the tower since he first saw it, and now he finally reveals why: it looks, to him, like a giant Mamodo chained and caged. The others realize he is right and are frightened of the damage such a huge Mamodo could wreak on the human world. They determine to stop it before it can be released.

Travelling to the area where the tower is in a private plane, they are forced to parachute from the plane when a Mamudo fires at the plane's wing and disables it. They land near the tower and ascend it, only to encounter a Mamudo named Kerith, and his book-holder, Bari. Folgore steps forward to fight him, only to nearly get killed by the other Mamudo's attacks. Folgore tells Kachomé to protect everyone, but the little Mamodo is afraid and hides. He is afraid that Folgore is going to die, just like when Kedo went back to the Mamodo world. And on that note, the book ends, setting us up for the next volume.

This was an interesting story, but not one I was dying to read. It is set up well, and seeing Momon be such a jerk reminded me that not all Mamodo are good or evil. They can be just like humans in their jerkiness. Momon doesn't want to fight, he just wants to run away... which begs the question of how he and Sister Elle have so many spells if neither of them have fought... something I found disappointing about the supposed logic of this.

Yes, it may be wrong to want some kind of logic from a manga, but a story should have some sort of internal consistency if it doesn't want to jolt the reader out of the suspension of disbelief in reading such a fantastic scenario to begin with. The rest of the story is back to the usual sorts of stuff, but the other thing that made me annoyed with the story is that one of the villains is black, and drawn as the worst sort of caricatured racial stereotype imaginable, which doesn't sit well with me. These two combined to give me some serious hesitations while reading this volume. It's not really horrible, but the logical inconsistency of Momon having so many spells available in his book, and the appearance (again) of the racial stereotype black woman kicked me far out of the story twice and makes me hesitant to suggest this volume to readers.