While not perfect, LIDENFILMS have begun to redeem themselves from the trainwreck that was the 2016 Berserk anime. I liked BASTARD!! for similar reasons that I liked High School DxD as well as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's dumb. But it's dumb fun and catches you off guard with the sheer amount of 80's metal references it gets away with, even more and less butchered by the localization than JoJo, mostly being lawyered up by spelling changes and adding hyphens in the subtitles.
BASTARD!! runs itself on three rules: Rule of Cool, Rule of Funny, and Rule of Sexy. This is a double-edged sword for BASTARD!!. On one hand, it's hard to take the plot seriously when, most of the time, it revolves around Mr. Schneider thinking with the brain between his pants, most fights just revolve around who can out-asspull the other, and the Fourth Wall is about as existent as it is in Deadpool. However, the sheer amount of these asspulls keep the audience on their toes, as surface level of a technique as it is, and its often juvenile sense of humor got a chuckle out of me more than a few times.
It has a solid cast of characters, even if it is mostly composed of Dark Schneider, the women fawning over Dark Schneider, and the EEVILLL villains. Their motivations are kinda vague and most of the women (and my boi Ninja Master Gara) are won over simply by Mr. Schneider's gigachad energy, but they carry the plot nicely and are entertaining to watch. It is also very interesting to see the dynamic between ultimate sigma male Dark Schneider who gets mad bitches and his total simp side who is forced to respect wamen, mostly by Yoko, who is alright as a female lead and we get to see her fend for herself a fair amount of times for a muggle character, even if she is kind of a generic character that the female fanbase can relate to and mostly overshadowed by more interesting waifus like MY BOI NINJA MASTER GARA who steals the show with his charisma and has his fair amount of time in the spotlight even if he is sidelined late in the series as a live commentator for Dark Schneider, the other (actual) waifu that steals the show, Arshes Nei, has an interesting story arc late in the series and (while her backstory is a bit sus by today's sensibilities) the character is quite relatable for an anti-villain.
Overall, BASTARD!! is great dumb fun and has a solid ensemble of characters, entertaining well-animated fights, and I almost forgot to mention the ABSOLUTE BANGER of an OP by coldrain. This first season ends on a pretty abrupt cliffhanger but is mitigated by the fact that 1. you actually want to watch more, and 2. Netflix only is making us wait two months for season 2 instead of NINE DAMN MONTHS FOR JOJO I AM STILL MIFFED ABOUT THAT!
Overall, BASTARD!! is the guilty pleasure anime of the year. If you are a fan of silly dark fantasy stories I would suggest giving it a watch.
