Streaming: Netflix
Episodes: 24
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: 400 years ago, humanity reached the apex of its own evil, drawing forth the power of Dark to destroy the world. But before the human race could be destroyed, a huge creature in the form of a white dragon arrived via a pillar of light. The battle between these godlike entities caused several continents to sink into the sea. After it was all over, the remaining humans passed this story on over the years until the line between reality and legend blurred.
Now, in a world of dark fantasy, the country of Meta-Licana finds itself under attack from followers of the late Dark Schneider, a wizard who wielded terrible evil power before being sealed away. A young woman named Yoko, guardian to Lucien and daughter of the head priest, holds a special power – the power to awaken a force sealed away in Lucien. But when the situation looks grim and she unleashes this power, it turns out that Lucien was the reincarnation of Dark Schneider all along. Dark Schneider has plans to destroy the world, but Yoko may have more sway in preventing that from happening than she realizes.
Impressions: My early forays into anime fandom occurred in the 90’s, and while I’ve never seen the original Bastard!! OVA or read the manga, it was certainly one of those titles that was at least in the collective consciousness at the time. While I tend not to enjoy violence, I’ll do almost anything to escape from the toothless modern anime fantasy productions that have defined the last half-decade or so, so I was at least interested in checking this series out in that regard.
To be blunt, Bastard!! is pretty objectionable in almost every regard, which is honestly not surprising. Most notably it’s just shockingly violent, with blood and dismembered body parts being gleefully thrown around at many an opportunity. The thing about the violence in this series, however, is that it’s so completely over-the-top that it doesn’t give me the sort of visceral reaction that some of the more realistically gore-laden media I’ve seen has inspired. Several people are stepped on by giants. An evil wizard is burned to death using fire magic. It’s just so silly and unreal that I can’t really be too mad about it.
The relationship between Yoko and Lucien/Dark Schneider, however, is a bit more of a… challenge to navigate. Yoko is some kind of guardian figure to Lucien (though on a technicality not a mother or a sister – it seems Yoko’s father manufactured things so that it wouldn’t get into that territory) and yet their relationship has to get vaguely sexualized in a way that’s clearly uncomfortable for her in order to release the Dark Schneider power. The script kind of dances around the details, but it’s one of those things that, if you stop to think about it literally at all, it starts to feel icky pretty fast. It’s this aspect of the episode that I had a more difficult time dealing with, though just between you and me it’s honestly a refreshing change from the slavery isekai that’s somehow been a major trend recently. It’s all about perspective, I suppose. In any case, this is another potential squick factor to know about ahead of time.
There are a lot of folks my age and slightly older who seem to have a lot of nostalgia for anime OVAs of the 1990s, as if the era that birthed this and other ultraviolent one-shots was somehow better than what we’re dealing with now. I personally don’t buy into that, because what we currently lack in good dark fantasy series we’ve more than made up for with genre diversity and the sheer volume of different choices every season. That said, there’s a certain “feel” that anime media from the late 80’s and early 90’s brought to the table, and this new Bastard!! series does a decent job of capturing that.
Pros: There seems to be a running gag of sorts in that Dark Schneider is so powerful that his clothing often gets completely destroyed. I’ve been known to find this sort of thing funny.
The title of the series also tells the truth, in that there are multiple references in this episode to what are now considered classic heavy metal bands – I was able to pick out Metallica and Megadeth, at the very least.
Cons: I alluded to this already, but the relationship between Yoko and Lucien/Dark Schneider is something that tends to get worse the more you think about it. Not only is she essentially forced to kiss a person who she demonstrably sees as a sort of younger brother, when Dark Schneider is in full form she’s absolutely horny for him. Related to this, Yoko’s virginity is a major plot point, in that she can’t release Dark Schneider unless she remains a virgin. I’m just sort of… done putting up with this weird obsession over whether or not women have had a penis in their vagina at any point in their lives and how or how not that describes their value in various circumstances.
Content Warnings: Violence/gore (extreme – includes copious blood and dismemberment, people being burned alive, etc.), moments of questionably-consensual kissing, nudity (obscured).
Would I Watch More? – That’s a tough question to answer, but probably not. I think my time of being able to tolerate the sheer goofy violence of something like this is in the past beyond some very specific franchises. I’m glad that the anime fantasy genre is getting some more variety, but I think this one is probably better enjoyed by others.
2 replies on “Summer 2022 First Impressions – Bastard!! Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy”
Yeah, that Yoko is both Lucien’s babysitter and Dark Schneider’s kind of love interest is super skeevy, so I understand that a lot of viewers (even back in the day) will nope out. A couple of episodes later, we learn that the princess can also trigger his transformation (not really a spoiler, it’s clearly set up in the first episode) but that has its own problems.
And shortly after that, the virgin kiss thing goes away but is replaces by Dark doing a lot of dubious consent touching.