NO! For the last time, it's not a Naruto ripoff!...it's a Dragon Ball ripoff with Naruto-esque characters!
Written by Seishi Kishimoto, younger twin brother of Masashi Kishimoto — yes, that Masashi Kishimoto — O-Parts Hunter is about Jio Freed, who, after joining up with a girl named Ruby Crescant, starts searching for artifacts of an ancient civilization, called "O-parts", so he can take over the world.
Oh, and Jio has Satan sealed inside of him.
If nothing else, that would explain why the original Japanese title is 666 Satan. The series was renamed for the North American release for rather obvious reasons, though its translation is otherwise faithful to the original.
The series gained a bit of controversy in Japan as many readers accused it of being a blatant ripoff of Naruto. Being the twin brother of the author of that series didn't help matters. It got so bad that Masashi had to step in and pretty much tell everyone that wasn't the case and that both brothers just had the same influence (i.e. Dragon Ball) for their works. Indeed, save for the heroes having demons living inside them and a character that can use eye power, there's very little similarity between this series and Naruto, especially when you read further in.
This was Seishi Kishimoto's debut manga, which ran in Monthly Shonen Gangan from 2001 to 2007. He followed up this series with Blazer Drive.
Tropes:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Which is Jio's driving force for his world domination goal.
- Art Evolution: The art gradually improves over the course of the various time-skips, with the clunkier looking characters gradually becoming more slender and prettier to look at. Jio especially becomes a handsome looking young man by the end.
- Asmodeus: Asmodeus appears in the final arc as one of the two demons that reside in Zect Crescent, along with Belphegor. It's the 5th demon of the Reverse Kabbalah and the demon of Cruelty. It looks like a monstrous three-headed being and has powers over darkness.
- Assimilation Plot: Amateratsu Miko's ultimate plan, before being hijacked by Satan.
- Berserk Button: Do NOT say God's name in vain around Cross. He will ruin you.
- BFS: Kaito uses one that can change its weight in his first appearance, but it gets broken.
- Big Bad: Averted. Several villains would like to be the Big Bad, but none of them can be held responsible for everything, nor could they have become what they were without the O-Parts, Recipes or Shin. Beelzebub and Satan are the closest to the actual thing.
- Butt-Monkey: Ball
- Bittersweet Ending : Jio is able to defeat his Satan side and save the world from the Shin ship but he, along with the other Kaballahs (Ruby, Zero, Jack and Cross), teleport it into space with them on it, destination unknown, in a effort to keep it from being misused again.
- Dark Is Evil: Played with. Demonic Recipe Holders (eg. Jio himself) can be decent people. Unfortunately, this power is still evil and threatens everyone around them. Moral alignment doesn't determine Recipe compatibility, it seems...
- Distant Finale: The final page of the comic is a grown up Ball, married to Mei, telling this story to their two children.
- Duality Motif: Jio has one blue and one red eye, as well as half-and-half hair. This is mainly to symbolize the fact that he is a host to Demon 1i, Satan.
- Eldritch Abomination: In spades: every single demonic or angelic recipe is an Eldritch Abomination of notable horror. The most normal-looking (in comparison to the others, at least) would have to be Naamah, number 10i on the Reverse Kabbalah: it looks like a giganitc whale creature in which the main villains hold their base of operations. Some of them, mostly the angelic recipes, can be classified as Humanoid Abominations as well.
- Eyes Always Shut: Futomomotaru
- Extra Eyes: A few people of the Cyclops race can open a third eye in the middle of their forehead.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Jio's (and quite a few other characters') costume.
- Jio's costume comprises odd shoes (one is a white converse and the other a black school shoe) a black one side 'n' white the other top and hair. This is displayed to be a visual reperentation of his split personalty. Indeed when he goes 666 on enemies' asses his hair turns all white. In the 3rd part there is a scene where a black Jio (good) and white Jio (satan) are having 'words'.
- Floating Continent: Roc Bird City, built around the body of the demonic recipe Beelzebub.)
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Astaroth has the power to turn one thing into another, he was only shown using it to switch two people's bodies, and to make them very, very heavy.
- Genius Loci: The entire Roc Bird City is part of Beelzebub, and therefore, alive.
- Heel–Face Turn: Shuri.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Kaito/Kite and Yuria.
- An Ice Person: Shuri
- Improbable Weapon User: Many bizarre O-parts are shown, but the most notable one is Futomomotaro's Mackerel Sword. Which is exactly what it sounds like.
- Kabbalah: Featured prominently throughout the series.
- Kill It with Fire: Jin's O-part uses fire-based attacks.
- Killed Off for Real: Unlike in other Shōnen series, when a character dies here they stay dead. Period.
- Knight Templar: Amaterasu Miko and Cross; but he gets better after the 4-year timeskip.
- Light Is Good: Subverted. On the one hand, an angel's consciousness is literally pure goodness. Sandalphon (Ruby) is The Cutie, Zadkiel (Zero) is a badass Mentor and Metatron (Cross) gets over his Knight Templar tendencies. On the other hand, we have Michael and Samael. On the other other hand, bringing together all ten angels will let Amatarasu Miko rule the world. ...yeah.
- Market-Based Title: Viz understandably didn't want to deal with the protests they would have faced had they released this series in English with its original title, so it became O-Parts Hunter in the United States.
- Meaningful Name: His name is Ball and he loves spherical things and hates sharp edges. Pretty damn obvious.
- Morph Weapon: The O-Parts are notable for this. Even more so after the Time Skip.
- Ms. Fanservice: Ponzu. Period.
- ...until you notice that her Stalker with a Crush tendencies began noticeably before Cross hit puberty. When she later tries to claim him, her argument is basically "He's seen me naked therefore he's mine."
- Number of the Beast: Satan who is the Recipie Jio hosts eventually revealed to be the other way around
- One-Winged Angel: When the Kaballah holders go to their true forms.
- People Puppets: One of Beelzebub's powers.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Ball, to an extent. Combined with the dreadlocks, if one were to avoid looking at any color pages, they could go the entire series and not realize that he's not actually black.
- Pure Is Not Good: Hoo boy howdy. An Angel's power shields its owner from the evil in their own heart. In the case of a genuinely evil person, this means they cannot recognize their own depravity.
- Raised by Wolves: Jio, for a time. A talking wolf who's bones are O-Parts, but still.
- Rummage Sale Reject: Jio
- Satan: No shit.
- Stripperiffic: Ruby and Panzu after the Time Skip. And Anna from the Roc Bird arc.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Jio with Satan might look like this, but Jio is actually a personality that was forced off of Satan and had priority control of the body they shared.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Kirin and Kujaku are twins. Kirin inherited the Cyclops third eye from their father, Kujaku inherited the O.P.T abilities of their mother. Kirin is good, Kujaku is evil. Do I have to go on?
- Although in flashbacks it appears that they weren't so different after all...
- Superpowered Evil Side: Jio/Satan.
- Take Over the World: Jio's ultimate goal, though he's a lot more benevolent than other characters with similar goals.
- Talking Animal: Zero justified because he's actually an Angel recipe.
- Time Skip: Two actually: a somewhat subtle one from child to pre-teen and another to teenager.
- Took a Level in Badass: Almost everyone after the timeskip
- Tournament Arc: Sponsored by Beelzebub
- Trademark Favorite Food: Kirin loves his pickles.
- Vicious Cycle: Wick explains that every civilization since the O-Parts appeared are destroyed at a given interval.
- Wild Child: Jio was trained for several years by a talking wolf — possibly as close as he came to having a parent.
- Until he meets up with a couple that is
- Words Can Break My Bones: Spika has an O-part that makes the words she says into it materialize into actual words that act like or are made out of their meaning.
- The Worm That Walks: Beelzebub.
