Feb 13, 2022
Bastard!! is one of these shows that is extremely honest with its viewer from the start. Its cover and title are pretty much summarizing it. It's a dark fantasy world with monsters, magic, violent fights, that has tons of metal music references. But most importantly : its main character is an absolute bastard.
Story 6/10
The plot in Bastard!! is definitely its main weakness. The first half has a pretty basic story. Its narration is simple and a bit repetitive, making it almost an excuse to draw the characters, jokes and battle scenes. But it's not necessarily a problem. While not being the most interesting show in
...
the universe, it is still decent enough to be credible.
The second half, however, is much more complicated. Around Volume 13, the manga takes an insane turn, almost erasing everything that has been established before with a massive plot twist. And honestly, this is not even that big of a deal. The real issue with the plot at this moment... is not even the plot itself, but the narration. It makes the manga seems way more complicated than it really is, and unless you're really invested in the story, you're most likely gonna lose yourself between the chapters.
Art 10/10
Following its weakness, let's now talk about Bastard!!'s strongest category : its visual.
At the beginning, Hagiwara's drawing was already good. While definitely not the most detailled art, it has its charm, and really feels like an old-school work that might attract a lot of people.
However, the more the years have passed, and the more Hagiwara's art has improved, to the point where it feels like a different manga with its most recent volumes. It went from a pretty charming, old-school art to being one of the best in the industry.
Fun fact : Daisuke Ishiwatari, Guilty Gear video game series' creator, took Hagiwara's work as an inspiration for his game series' character design.
Character 10/10
Bastard!! is one of these work that is heavily centered on its main character. And in its case, it is absolutely amazing, because even if every other character was bad, Dark Schneider's greatness would make it so this section would still have this score.
Dark Schneider (also known as Darsh, or D.S. because of how long his name is) is an absolute giga chad. He is violent, ruthless, arrogant to the point where it makes Gilgamesh from the Fate series look like the humblest person in the world. He doesn't give a fuc* about everything except himself, and is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins, especially Pride and Lust.
He is badass, charismatic, and extremely funny because of how absurd of a character he is. And while being incredibly overpowered, he doesn't feel like a mary sue for a bunch of reasons, which is great because mary sue suck.
Other than him, some secondary characters are pretty cool and interesting in the first half. It's not as much the case in the second part, but not the point of being bad : one in particular has a lot of screen time and development. But Darsh is definitely the star of the show.
Enjoyment 10/10
Fun is the best word to describe Dark Schneider's journey. The fighting scenes are impressive, the show is very funny, its main character is super badass and very refreshing compared to MC you see in other shows.
Overall 9/10
The only thing you need to keep in mind with Bastard!! to appreciate it fully is to realize what you're going to read, because you're really not supposed to take this manga seriously. It is a completely unique and different experience from what you might have watch or read before. But as said at the beginning of this review, its cover and title make it fairly easy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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