Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin
Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy

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I gotta admit that im surprised Bastard!! doesnt have many reviews since its a pretty well known manga. I am a Bastard!! fan so ill try to impartially explain why I find it such a good series.

1st of all, if you are to read Bastard!! you are either an adult or be prepared to see adult content. Because B!! is filled with it. Bastard!! is the story of Dark Schneider, the strongest dark wizard in the world which was sealed 15 years ago and is now brought back to face off against his former allies who are trying to ressurrect a God of destruction called ... Anthrax. That's all im writting about the actual story, since it has a lot of twists, and good twists actually, far better than the generic storyline shonen had back in those days. The story starts a bit slow like most shonens, but it picks up and is very well executed. The art is the same, it starts with usual old school shonen manga art, but it ends up as one of the best art you can find in manga. The characters... are quite special, DS is an arrogant bastard just as the title suggests, which actually helps a lot the story since he always makes the situation comical and entertaining. Most of the rest of the chars are also quite defined and quite likeable as well, like Gara, Arshes Nei, Kal Su, etc.
The fights in the serie... they start as your stereotypical shonen as well, but it escalates eventually into godly lvls.
The story however is heavily filled with adult content after it enters the Law of corruption arc, so you gotta be ready to see a few graphic details as I already mentioned, DS is as perverted as the author himself.
The heavy downside is that the series update schedule is irregular due to the authors health condition. However if you can stand that and want a good fighting serie, with funny and well defined characters and an actually good plot, then I definetely recomend Bastard!!
Fun fact: The author is a fan of heavy metal, so the serie is filled with references of said music genre.

A somewhat disjointed classic with an irresistibly charismatic lead. Loved this series, though it did start to drag on as it Gainaxed its way into oblivion at the end. Sad I'll never see it finished, nor the excellent anime continued.

Story: 7 due to it being disjointed and taking on fever-dream levels of madness toward the tail end. Time jumps, enemies become friends, the surreal backstory that is revealed in the later parts... there are other stories that do this worse, but this was WEIRD.

Art: 10 I loved it. I loved the design, the style, and it only got better as ... we got to all the angels and demons at the end and DS's own crazy S&M metal album gear.

Character: 10 DS is probably my favorite anime protagonist. He's just so damned cool, and it translates to the page well (I saw the anime first, so I can hear his voice in every speech bubble).

Enjoyment: 9 it lulled at times and of course we never got a satisfying finish, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

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.