Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin

On a superficial level, the title is extremely fun, full of mostly naked chicks, muscular guys, epic level spells, ugly monsters, explosions that level mountains, girls hitting hapless men, as well as a weird mix of medieval castles and ruined high-tech cities. It comes off as someone has maxed out his JRPG characters and is now fooling around with mid-level fighters who think they stand a chance. So yes, it is like an isekai power fantasy. Only with very good production values for the time it was made and not the ugly CGI nonsense they give us today.

Fair warning, there is a plot, but it’s ... more of an afterthought. It comes down to a bunch of overpowered warlords fighting each other over who gets to rule the world, and everything takes place inside a hapless kingdom of mid-level fighters who desperately think they stand a chance in making a difference. They don’t; they are like the Z Warriors after the Saiyans went SSJ4. They are just there to gasp at the protagonist and his former henchmen blowing the crap out of their kingdom as they try to gather macguffins and resurrect the dark lord. And even then you will often forget that is what they are supposed to do since the focus is given on the (fairly shallow) drama Dark Schneider and his generals have going for centuries. Nobody is a cardboard, but it’s not like you can call them deep or something. It plays out like a satire of your typical heroic fantasy campaign, where every major fighter is deep into epic levels, very immoral, lawful evil, and permanently horny (there is constant sexual harassment and what many today would label attempted rape). It taps into your lizard brain and doesn’t let go. Oh, and it does it with actual effort and not the half-assed CGI nonsense of today.

Down to it, I liked it for how proactive the main character is. Yes, he is a perma-horny bastard who loves to molest women, but he is not your typical indecisive harem lead, not your nerdy pacifist, and not your typical boyscout protagonist who wants people to be nice to each other. He is the ultimate power fantasy, with none of the moral hypocricy that usually comes with shonen protagonists. Obviously, for the same reasons he can rub a lot of viewers the wrong way. You see this last bit mostly in the newer version where everyone was so triggered with his attitude. But there is a different review for that and it refers to a show that came out at a far more sensitive time. For a 90s OVA, Bastard with double exclamation point gets two thumbs up from me, for it’s the best thing they could offer you without a shred of hypocrisy.

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.