Bastard!!: Ankoku no Hakaishin

Bastard!! is, for the most part, a typical kuso item. Meaning it's so hilariously, inexcusably bad it's actually good; essentially a parody on itself. Or rather, it depends entirely on your sense of humor!

Let's compile a small checklist of the bad. We have:
[x] cliche-ridden story;
[x] nonsensical amount of injuries (and blood loss) casually sustained by characters;
[x] pathetic sound effects;
[x] character design that is BOTH bad and forgettable (wow!);
[x] ridiculous screenplay and voice acting;
[x] vomit-inducing fanservice and attempts at ecchi humor;
[x] overpowered fighters and magicians beating the crap out of each other with trump-card techniques;
[x] the essence of MANLINESS furiously emanating from most of the male cast;
[x] the fact that most character/location/spell names are derived from rock/metal music bands. Yes, I'm being dead serious here. I'm not sure it's actually bad, but let's have it anyway.

If you're easily entertained by any of the above, chances are you'll like it and perhaps even regard it as one of the most entertaining OVAs ever. It plays all of these tropes completely straight, and the sincerity is what makes it so fun. Those with less developed sense of humor will rather think otherwise. Really, if you fail to be amused by Bastard!!, you most likely won't enjoy it in any other way. It's still an outstanding piece of crap from any serious standpoint, and don't blame me for not warning you beforehand.

And in conclusion, just to prove how delightfully bad it is to those who still aren't convinced, here's my favorite quote from ep. 2:

Yoko: What are you going to do?
(green slime starts pouring from walls)
Gara: That's right, it's slime. It will dissolve your clothes.

I dare you to come up with a better response. I double-dog-dare you, highbrow MAL readers.

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I love this anime because it was so bad that it was funny. It played on a lot of the usual cliches in a story and made fun of itself. I honestly thought that at some parts their lines were so obviously bad it was really funny. I also love how this anime points out that the hansom guy always wins. It kept me laughing. I'd recommend this for a laugh and something to watch on your off time since it's short.

Bastard: Ankoku no Hakai Kami
Even if i had high expectations about Bastard!! i don't know if it was bad or good maybe in the middle for many reasons and for the fact that it was absurd but it was enjoyable absurdity.

Story
The story is somehow interesting and even good because it's self aware of how absurd it is and because that was the intention of the creator of the original source material of making a lot of cliche tropes and put a million of rock/metal band names and songs (because he's a fan of heavy metal), which was somehow really absurdly good despite the absurd fact that even if the characters are about to die because of all the injuries they get or all the blood they spill, they are fine at the next moment like if nothing happened, that's hilarious (Gara and D.S. specially), and the fact that Dark Schneider is a Bastard and the most overpowered immortal (somehow) wizard of the world but not so when he has to face Yoko because he loves her and gets angry when something bad happens to her, yeah, despite all that the story is good but the ending is open.

Art & Animation
The art style is mediocre just like the animation for the fight scenes, some fight scenes are good actually but it was mediocre overall, with awful character design on the majority of the characters and i was surprised to see Gara, him and Guts from Berserk are 95%% similar, tho Gara came first in both manga and anime, he's Ninja Guts and Guts is Warrior Gara.

Sound
The music was ok and the ED song was very good, the VA was fine and mediocre at times, the sound effects were bad so in general the sound was mediocre.

Character
The characters are interesting at some extent, for example i liked a lot Dark Schneider not so his other personality/physical form Luche, but there's a good side on that form for his changed personality as Dark Schneider and not being the same Bastard that wanted to destroy the world and conquer it, he has a nice side towards people from his past; The other characters are fine too, they have a purpose and we get into their back story and how they met D.S. but not for the last one Kall-Su, who ends saying ''this is just the beginning'' but hey it wasn't for non manga readers. In general the characters were fine.

Enjoyment
I had a fine enjoyment from this because of the story and the absurd self aware comedy, although i hope this is rebooted or better yet, gets a proper adaptation soon because i'm somehow interested in Bastard!!.

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Our story begins in a far future where the world has been through an apocalypse that spawned all sorts of strange and evil creatures, leaving human beings in a precarious position. Things have gone back to a feudal era where sorcery, sword fighting, and armor plating rule the day. Four warlords of chaos get together to break the seals that hold back a creature of ultimate darkness, and as the viewer knows, this can't be good. At the same time...Yoko is best friends with Rushe, a little boy who follows her everywhere. Little does she know that buried deep within Rushe is a secret weapon, the wizard known as Dark Schneider. When the warlords' plans come to the attention of the free world, there's a realization that Dark Schneider is the only hope of defeating the threat.

There's only one problem. Dark Schneider is a freak.

Nevertheless, when your kingdom is under fire from the most powerful magic known to man, you resurrect whomever you can. With Yoko's kiss, Rushe becomes the legendary Dark Schneider. Now he's not really happy about the arrangement, since he was essentially imprisoned for a very long time. Eventually, he figures, why not? He'd love to prove that he's still the most powerful being on Earth, and if that takes defeating some of his old comrades in arms, so be it. As long as he can get his groove on, he's happy...but is a rusty white-haired jerk of a warlock going to be able to handle the job?

Bastard! really is a fun show, at least through its first half. Things move quickly and the artwork is great in the first two episodes. The humor is fresh and invigorating, too. If nothing else, when things get a little tired past this point, that start keeps you going. Now the third episode shows a little bit of problems, primarily because the artistic style takes a big left turn. A couple of characters are hard to identify at first because of the changes! But that's something that can be dealt with.

However, the second half gets a little snoozeworthy. Here's where Dark Schneider takes on his foes in humongous battles. Now I'm all for great melees, myself, but these just get old quickly. There's just not enough excitement to them and no sense of real danger--if a hero cannot lose, then a half hour of violence is pretty worthless. Now there is a surprise at the end of the fifth episode that some might find shocking, but it is negated in the sixth episode. So, for the last 90 minutes, we get a little antsy, particularly because the humor and life starts to slowly drain out like the water in a tub where the drain cap doesn't quite fit. It's not terrible, but unfortunate.

There's also a very real problem in that much of the show's humor is based around something that didn't get completely translated. In the original version, the various kingdoms, spells, etc. were all named after different 80s metal and hair bands. Because of copyright issues, a lot of these jokes didn't make it into the official US release. My best recommendation is to watch with the Japanese language track where at least the names are pronounced correctly and you can get in on the jokes. I mean, the funniest parts of the show are things like the "Stryper defense"!

So what's my position on this show? If you like violent, humorous fantasy shows with long battle sequences, this is something to run out and get as soon as possible. If your tastes are a bit more refined, then this is a questionable pick. I wish that the show had stayed on the funny, likable, yet action-packed track it set for itself in the beginning. It's not bad, but it starts off better than it finishes.

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