Looking for an anime from my childhood (or am I remembering Zatch Bell completely wrong?)
This has been driving me crazy for the past few days.
I'm looking for an anime I watched on Indian TV around the same time as Dinosaur King and Idaten Jump (roughly early 2010s).
Here's everything I remember:
\- Modern-day Japan/Tokyo setting.
\- Characters were mostly young adults/high school age, not little kids.
\- One of the main characters looked very similar to Light Yagami from Death Note (same serious face, hairstyle, white shirt, etc.).
\- Every important character (at least from what I remember) had their own grimoire/spell book.
\- During fights they would hold the grimoire in one hand, point at the target with their index and middle finger, and read spells from the book.
\- I remember the spell text glowing while it was being read.
\- I distinctly remember the main character having a red grimoire.
\- After one fight, I remember him unlocking a new spell in the grimoire.
The obvious answer everyone gives is Zatch Bell, and I understand why because some details match perfectly:
\- Red spellbook.
\- Reading spells from the book.
\- Finger-pointing while casting.
\- Unlocking new spells.
But here's the problem: I have absolutely no memory of the kid protagonist or the human-demon partner system. In my memory, it was just young adults fighting each other using grimoires.
I'm completely open to the possibility that my childhood memory has changed over time, but before I accept that, I wanted to ask:
Does anyone know another anime that fits this description, especially one that aired on Indian TV around that time? Or am I actually remembering a heavily distorted version of Zatch Bell?
Any suggestions are appreciated, even obscure ones. This mystery has genuinely been bothering me.