Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin

Oh, what shall I say about Bastard!! It's the kind of anime you'd furtively get from your local video rental place's anime section back when it was the weirdest thing you could be into. Bastard!! is the kind of anime you'd find painted on the side of a van, next to Conan the Barbarian. In short, Bastard!! is violent, horny, and 90s as hell, and not once does it pull back or apologize for it. It leans so heavily into the trope that it almost borders on parody, with just enough sincerity to not quite cross the line. There's blood, there's titties, and there's Dark ... Schneider, the badmouthing overpowered badass that can never seem to just stay dead. It's also enveloped in an array of bizarre production decisions that lend the whole thing a sense of hallucinatory absurdity. For example, the intro sequence is given by an English-speaking narrator in both the sub and the dub, but the narrator for the sub positively sucks, while the narrator for the dub is legitimately professional, providing the perfect tone for the show. Furthermore, the English dub has Daran Norris as the voice of Dark Schneider, who is best known for his part as Cosmo in the Fairly Odd Parents, making the dub a surreal experience to say the least. But, my favorite part about all of this is, ironically, how damn funny the whole thing ended up being. I have no clue if this was intentional or unintentional, but Bastard!! ranks among the greats for comedy. With all this in mind I have to start somewhere, so I'll start with the story. Taking place in a dark fantasy post-apocalyptic future filled with magic and monsters, Dark Schneider is awakened by a desperate mankind to prevent evil sorcerers from awakening the god of destruction. Overall, the setup is pretty simple and fairly episodic, with Dark Schneider running into some powerful foe, making snarky quips and irreverent insults at them as the carnage ensues, peppered with nudity throughout. It's a fun, if simple formula. I wouldn't say it's groundbreaking, or even particularly notable, but the worldbuilding provides enough of a setting for the story to take place, however thin and unexplained, which is straightforward and avoids any confusion. The art is very strong, with intricately detailed backgrounds characteristic of the time, making the world feel tangible and alive when paired with a strong visual style that embodies all the best things that 90s dark fantasy anime had to offer. This still stands even as it is wildly inconsistent in terms of its internal theming, filled to the brim with knights, ninjas, castles and slime all crowded in shoulder to shoulder within the world of Bastard!! The character designs especially bolster this anime, being each in their own right distinct and strikingly memorable, with a firm grasp on the human figure, as well as inhuman figures. The one failing of the art is the occasional choppiness of the animation itself, which doesn't flow as smoothly as it should every now and then. Given this, it must be said that the majority of the time, it does indeed flow, sometimes impressively, especially when it comes to many of the earlier fight scenes. Next, the sound is the strongest aspect of the anime, not for the soaring, adventurous score, not for the sounds of life which meet all standards of quality for the time, but for this anime's English dub, which I consider legendary. The dub for Bastard!! makes this not only one of the few anime for which I prefer the dub, but one of the even fewer for which I consider the dub essential. The comedic timing is flawless, the banter is witty, and the dialogue as delivered by Norris as the voice of Dark Schneider is snarky, original, and utterly hilarious. Put simply, I must reiterate in the strongest possible terms that the English dub of Bastard!! takes the whole show to the next level, and is the entire reason I have rated it a 7 instead of a 6. Without the dub, I'd say this was a unique but ultimately forgettable 90s OVA, but it has the dub, and it is impossible to forget. The characters are by and large just as developed as they need to be, no more no less, with the strongest of them being Dark Schneider and Gara. Dark Schneider is in the lead by a mile because he is the anchor of the show, and it is his dub that elevates the entire anime. Even besides that, he is simply a funny, irreverent main character who lives up to his namesake- Bastard. Gara is a pretty distant second, but still takes his spot as a notable character for his over-the-top warrior spirit and a glimmer of that same chaotic irreverence we see in our unshakable protagonist, especially in the final two episodes. Overall, Bastard!! is an over-the-top OVA with a strong sense of identity apart from other similar anime of the same era, harboring an unexpected payload of comedy gold that cements its place in anime history.

I read reviews for this show before watching it, finding the premise intriguing but still unsure about it. However, since it was only six episodes wrong, I thought why not give it a watch. And yeah there are definitely times this anime is bad. The ecchi type humor also doesn't do it many favors.

However, I still enjoyed it. Some of the humor made me chuckle because it was that ridiculous and the voicework wasn't that bad in those moments (I especially liked recognizing some familiar voices in the cast).

It was a genuinely interesting premise that I honestly think would benefit from a ... new, longer anime for it. But until then, I'm considering giving the manga a read since the anime as it is is incomplete.

Bastard!! is dark fantasy OVA focusing on a powerful magician known as Dark Schneider. He tried to conquer the world with the help of four other magicians known as the lords of Havoc, but was eventually trapped in the body of a child named Rushe by a group of clerics. Fifteen years later, the lords of havoc are trying to awaken Ansla-sax, the god of destruction that destroyed the world and brought humanity back to the medieval ages. Trying to defend their town from the lords of Havoc, the clerics bring back Dark Schneider so that he can defeat his former comrades. Joined by a ... few other people, such as a girl named Yoko and the princess of the town, Dark Schneider goes on a quest to track down his former friends, beat them up and reconciliate with them, because as you know if you’ve watched Dragon Ball Z, when you beat the crap out of somebody they become your friend. With a plot as simple as this you would think there would be no way to fuck this up, yet…


--- Dumb and random

This OVA is plagued with dumb, random and unexplained things.

Firstly, it is never properly explained what were Dark Schneider’s motivations. He wanted to conquer the world, but not to rule it, and as such he brought chaos to every country. Perhaps the motivation was sex, as it stated that he had sex with hundreds of women. Same thing for his former comrades. Why are they now against him, and why are they trying to revive a god that would probably annihilate what’s left of humanity, nobody knows. Perhaps the manga readers know, but a proper anime adaptation shouldn’t have to make you read the source material to actually understand what the hell is happening. If the lords of havoc were evil for the purpose of being evil, it would make sense, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as after they are beat up by Dark Schneider they loose any evil goals, without any explanation. Not knowing what the characters’ motivations are makes it hard to like them, and hinders the show significantly.

Secondly, you often don’t understand what is happening on the screen. Why this spell does this, why doing this does that, how the hell did Dark Schneider “shrink himself into his arm” to dodge an attack, you are never given a proper explanation.

Thirdly, the universe is completely random. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, and you often see ruins of skyscrapers and modern buildings, but at the same time you have tons of things that feel completely out of place in a post-apocalyptic world, such as magic, orcs, ninjas, medieval castles and towns, monsters, dark-elves, werewolves, minautors, cyclops, vampires, and so on. The randomness also applies to the names, as they are just random syllables put one after another: Di Amon, Tia Note Yoko, Arshes Nei, Witos-neiki… For the umpteenth time plot writers, randomness is not an efficient way to create good names. Some of the names are apparently references to Heavy Metal (Meta-Rikana = Metallica), but I know jack shit about Heavy Metal, and even so it doesn’t make the names sound less ridiculous. Of course, the attack names and incantations also sound ridiculous, with the characters saying random stuff like “zazard zazard scrono-rono-sook”, or “tesla”, sometimes English words that are unrelated to the effect of the attack, like “damned”, “exodus”, “accused”, “raven”, “riot”… Why not “garlic bread”, “prostate cancer”, or “dialectical materialism” while we’re at it?

Lastly, there’s the fact that Dark Schneider is overpowered, and basically immortal. It doesn’t matter if he died after tearing his heart out of his body, he will come back to life anyway, with an explanation that can basically be summed up in “shut the fuck up it’s magic!”. Regarding how he defeats his enemies, it is either very stupid, like using very hot fire to beat a fire elemental, or the usual anime thing where anger makes you stronger.


--- No, the characters aren’t that good

One of the things people praise this anime for is the characters, and in particular the protagonist Dark Schneider. While I do agree that Dark Schneider is a better protagonist than the average modern protagonist with zero charisma and no balls, as this one is arrogant, manly, and has had sexual intercourse with hundreds of women, it doesn’t make him a good character either. When he is first introduced, he is portrayed as a bad guy with incredible power. But it turns out that he is just a very arrogant good guy, as he fights bad guys, saves his friends, spares his enemies and even sacrifices himself to save his former comrade who had become his enemy. As you can see, Dark Schneider shares many similarities with the archetype of the “demon lord” in modern anime, that is to say an overpowered man who was, is, or pretends to be a demon lord, but is actually kind and good, like Diablo in Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu, Sai Akuto in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, or Maou Sadao in Hataraku Maou-sama!, to name a few bad series that I made a review for (obligatory self-advertising).

The other characters are worse. Male characters are very manly, while female characters are frail and stupid, and that’s all. Alright, the vampire count Di Amon is pretty comical and somewhat enjoyable, but he doesn’t have much screen-time.

To sum up, the characters, which are supposed to be this OVA’s strong point, are actually very average and forgettable.


--- “Randomness equals funny”

Some people defend this OVA by saying that it is bad on purpose, as if that was an excuse! To these people, having an incoherent universe, cheesy dialogues, and throwing Heavy Metal references everywhere is enough to make a show funny and entertaining! To these people, randomness equals comedy! It’s a parody, so all of its flaws are made on purpose, some of them say! And what is it parodying, exactly? It’s true that this OVA is – or tries to be – a parody. There are a few things that indicate it, for example when Dark Schneider uses a 5 yen coin, or when one of the characters breaks the fourth wall. But that is not sufficient. A parody should make it obvious to the viewer that it is a parody, otherwise it will just come out as as bad as the thing it is trying to parody! Parody or not, this OVA isn’t funny, and at best you will only smile a bit.


--- The production value is decent at best

The animation is pretty average overall. Obviously, it must be taken into account that this is an OVA from the early 90’s, and that it can’t be compared with modern animation standards, but it doesn’t excuse everything. It doesn’t excuse, for examples, the characters designs. Most of them are boring, forgettable, and sometimes even ugly. One of the characters is literally just ninja Guts. The girls are neither cute nor sexy, which makes the fan-service even more tasteless. The art-style appears to me as the standard art-style of that era, and doesn’t strike me as particularly good. One of the features of that art-style is that pretty much all of the males are huge, tall mountains of muscles with normal-sized eyes, while females are short, frail, and have the usual large anime eyes. The fights scenes look okay to me. However, the backgrounds look meh.

The sound is also average. The quality of the background music varies, it is sometimes shit, sometimes good, but never like something you would re-listen to on YouTube. The sound effects can also be bad. Regarding the voice-acting, some of it is bad, mostly secondary characters (the clerics, for example), but Dark Schneider’s voice-acting is actually pretty good.


--- Verdict

To conclude this review, Bastard!! is yet another anime that tries to be “so bad it’s good” and ends up being so bad it’s shit. The plot is a failure. The characters are pretty bad and boring. I don’t know if the arrogant protagonist was something original at that time, but nowadays it just feel like a re-skin of the “demon lord but actually he’s a good person” type of protagonist that you can find in a lot of recent series. The animation and the sound are nothing incredible and don’t manage to make the show entertaining. I guess that people who understand what the hell is this OVA parodying, and are Heavy Metal fans that can get all of the references could enjoy it, but most people should avoid it.