Jean-Karlo and Steve check in on the first half of this anime throwback. Buckle up for the might, magic, and mammaries of Bastard!! They really don't make them like this anymore.
This series is streaming on Netflix
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Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
Content warning: sexually suggestive content, nudity, mention of 'splooge'
Steve
I don't know about you, Jean-Karlo, but I've spent the past half-hour ingesting '80s metal videos on YouTube, and now I am fricking primed and pumped to talk about evil mullet wizards.
Jean-Karlo
I'm saying this from the bottom of my heart:
Fuck yeah.
All you potatoes sit down, the real handsome, dashing main character has arrived. This is Dark Schneider, and this is BASTARD!! - Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy-.
Couldn't think of a better subtitle myself! This is my first exposure to the series, but it all really fell into place once I read that the manga came out of Kazushi Hagiwara's love of both heavy metal and
D&D. That is Bastard!! to a tee.
BASTARD!! is a very special show for me. The manga, sadly on hiatus since 2010 (possibly due to Hagiwara's degenerative eye condition), is a joy to look at. And I loved Dark Schneider so much that I named a precious, beloved cat "Schneider" because Mom kept calling him a ba
stard (he was a stray born under our porch). Schneider didn't go around blowing up mountains and namedropping Dave Mustaine, but he was a big kitty (and probably laid as much pipe as his namesake did while he was at it, bless his unspayed heart). I was endlessly thrilled to hear it was getting a new anime, so imagine my excitement at getting to talk about it.
Lol that rocks. And so does Bastard!! Even on the heels of our prior column on Spriggan, which was also a blast from the past, I was very unprepared for how much of a time capsule the adventures of Dark Schneider would turn out to be. And in that respect, I'm glad this new adaptation doesn't try to modernize it. Not even a lick. It's all wizards and warriors and hot babes with fluffy mullets.
Hagiwara, like many artists of the 80s, had him some tastes. Guy loved heavy metal and Frank Frazetta-style erotic art, and that's exactly what he set out to draw. The anime misses a bit of the raw power of the manga, where so many of the spreads are just heavy metal album art done with beefy, muscled-out wizards and buxom half-elves. But the energy is there, and that counts. Heck, everyone keeps their fluffy hair—that's important for this show to really be a throwback!
Yeah, I looked up some of the manga volume covers, and it really speaks to the kind of story that is best told airbrushed on the side of a dude's van. And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.
Hey, post-apocalyptic Earth can have little a magic, as a treat. Most importantly, the legacy of the old world lives on in small but important ways, by which I mean nearly every locale, character, and spell is named after something related to a metal band. Some are more obvious than others, and some are just literally, well, see for yourself.
Yeah, so unlike JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, BASTARD!! mostly keeps its heavy metal references intact. There's a spell named Def Leppard and its incantation is listing the names of its bandmates ("Phil, Joe, Elliot, Allen"). There's actually a spell named "Dio" (as in, "Ronnie James", the guy that named the vampire in Egypt). I wanted to make a joke about them having to do the JoJo thing of renaming the "Venom" spell to an oblique reference like "Poison" or "Toxic", but "Poison" is just another band and I think they used a "Toxic" spell anyway later in the series. It's a lot of fun if you like old Metal bands, especially when they namedrop the more-obscure stuff like "Riot" or "Helloween".
It's extremely funny, and it adds a lot to the overall goofy character of the franchise. Like
JoJo's, Bastard!! clearly revels in its own audacity without a whiff of apologia. Hell, at one point, there's a loud vampire named Di-amon who sports the exact same face paint as King Diamond. The whole show is like this.
So that's who that was referencing! Coulda sworn it was just a weird tribute to Gene Simmons. Shows what I know!
BASTARD!!'s lack of shame extends to other areas, but we actually have to introduce the titular b
astard. Anyway: the kingdom of Meta-llicana is under siege by the Dark Rebel Army and its hordes of goblins, orcs and ogres—and this weird wizard-dude named "Osborn" (he's not important). The king and princess are driven to the wall, and the priestess Yoko is called upon to help with a secret ritual that might save them.
Having an immortal wizard for an enemy is a bit of a problem, so after temporarily defeating him years back, Yoko's dad took the initiative to seal the almighty Dark Schneider in the body of an adorable young lad named Lucien, who Yoko helps raise in a big sisterly fashion. Unfortunately for Yoko, there are some pretty hefty caveats to this arrangement, and to awaken Dark Schneider should the need arise.
Thanks, Dad.
Lucien is... well, no two ways about it, he's probably meant to appeal to the Ken Amada crowd. And Yoko has cared for him all his life, he's practically her pet little brother. All the more troublesome for Yoko because the ritual involves her kissing Lucien on the lips.
Eh, what's the worst that could happ—
Oh he could turn into a large nude man who wants to take over the world. That could happen.
One minute with Dark Schneider tells you all you need to know about him. He's loud, cocky, horny, evil, and frequently pantsless. He is, quite unquestionably, a bastard. He's our anti-hero. And he's endearing as hell for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that his name is Dark Schneider. It's the least intimidating title for a an all-powerful megalomaniac I've ever heard, and the series just runs with it without a hint of hesitation. Nothing but respect for that.
For the record, "Schneider" is German for "tailor." It's in reference to Dark Schneider summoning clothes to cover the bits Netflix is too cowardly to show.
Anyway, where Lucien is basically a puppy, Dark Schneider is... also a puppy, just less the kind that always wants to snuggle and more the kind that's always humping a pillow, eating your shoes, and destroying your furniture. He's still unfathomably powerful—his spell annihilates Osborn and his army without so much as a "how do you do," but he's also all id. He's helping less out of some desire to help the weak and more because (ostensibly) he wants to destroy Meta-llicana on his own, and maybe regain command of his Dark Rebel Army while he's at it.
These opening acts deal mainly with the Faustian bargain Meta-llicana made to protect itself, but the show pretty quickly shifts gears to focus on Dark Schneider's exploits with and against his former allies, and I think that ends up being the much better hook. Lucien's just not much of a character, whereas Schneidy is the world's premier Problems Clown, and he revels in every moment of it. Basically, the more he's around, the better.
The opening conflict is that Dark Schneider is the only guy who can bail Meta-llicana from their problems, and Yoko has to balance summoning Lucien (and bearing the embarrassment of kissing him) with keeping Dark Schneider under control. And given how worthless the rank-and-file are (and how lazy the nobles are), maybe it'd be better for Dark Schneider to stay in control? He's got more backbone than all of them combined.
But as time goes on, we deal less and less with Lucien—for two reasons. First, the writing realizes we're all here for Dark Schneider. Second, Schneider's powers are returning, and more and more he's able to will himself back from under Lucien's control by sheer force. Usually because Yoko is under threat.
Where it would have been fine if Dark Schneider just went about on his antics, there are depths to him—early on, it's established that because Lucien truly loves Yoko, and Dark Schneider has been merged with Lucien, by extension Dark Schneider loves Yoko. He'll make a show of flirting with other women, but ultimately Yoko has him by the ear. So what we have is basically Inuyasha and Kagome, only Inuyasha has fucked and is not afraid to say "fuck" (and will).
It's a dynamic that, as I watched BASTARD!!, I realize we haven't seen in a while: a dangerous, feral man chained to reason by a headstrong woman, and the hot-and-cold relationship they both share. Most folks would indeed recognize the dynamic from Inuyasha, but it was pretty common in the 80s and 90s—see Vision of Escaflowne and (to an extent) Fushigi Yuugi.
I mean, more generally, we don't see this kind of fantasy fiction a whole lot in anime these days. Or rather, isekai has soaked up pretty much all space in this niche for the past decade, and a show like Bastard!!, warts and all, feels like a cool breeze in comparison. I don't have the time nor willpower to get into all my issues with most isekai stories, but suffice it to say, Bastard!! sidesteps most of them just by letting its protagonist be an unrepentant shithead. In place of mealy-mouthed moral quibbling, Bastard!! just lets its characters look and act ridiculous and have cool wizard battles along the way.
I thought about that a lot while I was watching BASTARD!!. Plenty of folks have seen me raise Cain about isekai protagonists and the genre's thematic leanings and might wonder why I'm so soft on Dark Schneider. Best way I can put it: it's the difference between Hideo Kojima hemming and hawing over how we'd feel ashamed of our thoughts and deeds when we learned Quiet breathed through her skin and that's why her outfit was a torn bikini, versus Yoko Taro just admitting he likes violent women with white hair and 328-pound bubble-butts and if we'd please send him a zip file with all that nice 2B smut he'd be much obliged. It's shameless in a way that too many isekai just isn't: the virgin isekai protag wants to be hardcore and have his harem of slave-girls but wouldn't know what to do with a woman if one fell into his lap. Dark Schneider's been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and doesn't wear it anymore because one of his ex's took it after a messy break-up. She still wears it when she shows up for their occasional booty-calls-slash-hatefucks, and it makes Dark Schneider giggle every time.
I think it also definitely helps that Dark Schneider was actually designed to be hot. Isekai is a genre of potato-faced everymen. Dark Schneider is a mullet-slinging Adonis with huge muscles and a sharp grin. The show even goes out of its way to make him look as slutty as possible in some scenes. When he inevitably seduces every woman who crosses his path, it's at least believable here.
That said, this show would be ten times better if it let him hang dong.
Some pages of the manga don't even bother with covering Dark Scheider's little Rob Halford, they just slapped pixels on it and called it a day. You know Hagiwara drew every vein.
Bastard!! really deserves a full tits-out OVA. Maybe that's what the old anime was like, but this one doesn't do its raunchiness nearly enough justice.
If we lived in a fair and just world, we'd get a BASTARD!! OVA with no fewer than five show-stopping scenes with full-frontal female nudity (possibly animated by Satoshi Urushihara).
We don't live in that world.
At any rate, Dark Schneider and his three buddies (and Yoko) do have to deal with his old posse from 15 years ago, his Dark Rebel Army. As it turns out, Kall-su (Dark Schneider's second-in-command from back in the day) is trying to resurrect the demon Anthrasax in order to create the utopic Sorcerer's Kingdom. The four kingdoms house the seals to Anthrasax, and the first kingdom, Judas (hehehe) has already fallen. So after Osborn meets his maker, the Dark Rebel Army sends the ninja master Gara (no, not that one) to Meta-llicana.
Gara then proceeds to kidnap Yoko in order to lure Dark Schneider to his giant stone ninja fortress, which all ninja have.
This arc is the perfect exhibit to how shameless BASTARD!! can be: Yoko gets her clothes eaten away by a fabric-melting slime, and Princess Sheila (who is also a virgin and thus can also break Dark Schneider's seal) basically gets manhandled by the wizard until she's positively gushing for the man. Also, she has to suck poison out of a wound from him, which... I dunno, it speaks for itself.
It's utterly abhorrent, and I love it. Again, a little shamelessness goes a long way, and Bastard!! doesn't even have "shame" in its vocabulary. If you have the constitution for nonstop tastelessness, this arc is stuffed with fun stuff. Like, I know I just ragged on the anime's lack of nudity, but using the slime's eyeballs to censor Yoko's nips is truly inspired.
Hey, at least Schneider has his nipples! That's how you know this anime doesn't fuck around!
The essential male nipple is so important. I also love seeing Sheila and Schneider hold a contest to find out who can show off the most thigh in battle.
Schneider wins, of course.
In short order, Dark Schneider not only manages to overpower a demon from the Fire-elemental plane (with a fire spell, because Dark Schneider's got nards), but also Gara. They both lose an arm in the fight, sit back and laugh about the whole ordeal because they're just a pair of lads like that.
At the end of the day, this is still (somehow) a shonen manga, so any enemy is just a friend you haven't met yet. Or in this case, a former friend turned enemy turned friend again. That's just the bro code.
For the record, BASTARD!! ran in Weekly Shonen Jump.
Also for the record, BASTARD!! has a scene later in the manga where Dark Schneider (comedically) splooges all over a woman's face (albeit with some artistic licenses).
Shonen manga was... different... back in the day.
It's okay, turns out all he did was just bite Sean Ari's ear. Like we said earlier, Dark Schneider has Lucien's love for Yoko, so even though he talks a big game (and given how he leaps at the opportunity to snake his hands into women's shirts, probably still has it), he's doing his best to stay a one-woman man. Keyword: trying.
...He's sucking poison out of a wound, I promise. (Also, shout-out to Kayleigh McKee, she's amazing as Kai!)
I cannot believe Bastard!! thinks it can get away with the poison sucking oral sex simulation thing not once but TWICE. Yet it does, because confidence is everything, and Bastard!! is nothing if not wholly brazen.
That second shot in particular belongs in a museum.
I wanna take a moment to lament that the BASTARD!! anime doesn't take advantage of Dark Schneider's amazing face game from the manga—he's a lot more of a goofball when he's got women in his palms.
Also... they have a battle-god named "Yng Wie". As in, "Yngwie Malsteem." God, I love this manga.
Hey, Hagiwara knew his roots! Frank Frazetta would be proud!
I'd say "enough lechery," but we have to get into the next plot-point and it's even more lechery—but also kinda gross. So, one of the members of the Dark Rebel Army was Arshes Nei, a half-elf that Dark Schneider picked up after she was abandoned by her tribe. He raised her himself... and then they were lovers for about a century.
I won't say "wife-husbandry" isn't something a guy like Dark Schneider wouldn't do, but I will say it's nevertheless the actual grossest thing in the show and the worst plot point—especially since Dark Scheider is somewhere between "still has a soft-spot for Arshes Nei" and "still has a very turgid, veiny hard-on for Arshes Nei."
Kall-su and his subordinate, Abigail, also notice this—so to ensure Arshes's loyalty they use the Accused spell on her. If she betrays them (or otherwise fails to rip Dark Schneider's beating heart from his chest), she'll be ripped apart and turned into a toad. So with that on her mind, she attacks Meta-llicana castle with her goblins.
You would think having your body rent apart from the inside would be punishment enough, but nope. You get toaded too. No half measures in Bastard!!
And while Arshe's army is doing her thing, Schneider deals with her trio of lackeys by giving two of them tongue baths and turning the other one into a bat. As one does.
I will say that the actual fight against Arshes Nei—which takes place over the last three episodes of this season—is where the show grinds to a halt and gets to its worst, in terms of pacing. It feels like your bog-standard shonen fight with everyone on the sidelines commentating on the fight, when all of the previous fights were much faster and peppered with Dark Schneider's braggadocio. There's some emotion in there with Arshes's emotional turmoil with Dark Schneider, also Dark Schneider apparently having a history of gaslighting Arshes but still actually caring about her. But it gets rather beleaguered, when the series up until then had been so well-paced.
And the season ends on a cliffhanger—but what a goddamn cliffhanger it is: Dark Schnedier just fucking rips his heart out of his chest.
Like. Jesus. Have we impressed upon you the kind of show this is? Because I don't know if I can underline it any further!
What especially whips ass is they portend a couple episodes in advance that Dark Schneider is gonna get his chest cavity carved out, but him doing it himself was a wonderful twist. Like every other near-death experience in this series, I'm sure it'll ultimately mean nothing too, but the spectacle of it is worthwhile in and of itself. And that gross, gory, over-the-top spectacle is what Bastard!! is all about, really.
The BASTARD!! anime sadly leaves a lot of the manic energy from the manga on the cutting-room floor, which will always be a pity. But man, I cannot recommend this series enough. It's in bad taste and totally politically incorrect and with a title like "BASTARD!!", I don't even know how to talk about it in polite company. But man, you don't wanna miss this show. They just don't make 'em like this anymore.
Also, I'm very pleasantly amused to see that many artists, particularly women, have been reintroduced to Dark Schneider and are finding themselves drawing art of the guy. Dark Schneider was a bit of a husbando back in the day, it's nice to see he's still got it with the fandom!
I mean who could possibly refuse that toothy rakish grin of his? No wonder my man had a harem or several.
It's the male nipples, man. Guys gotta have the nipples!
Take it from Gara: male nipples are more powerful than any armor known to man.
Sure beats sand, yeah?
To round out this column, I wanted to address our readers in the audience for a bit. It's a bit more emotional for me to say now that I'm here typing it, but: this is my last This Week In Anime! column for the foreseeable future. Our lovely editor was extremely generous in inviting me to join Stevie Nick² (my private nickname for Steve, Nick and Nicky) back in November of 2020, and as I've told them in private: I have not regretted a single moment of working on this column. Ever. The outright-unpleasant columns, I can't even think of off the top of my head outside of... what, maybe two of them? The rest is the kind of opportunity most dream of, and I never thought I'd get. I got to kick off my tenure with this column with the one-two punch of covering Yami to Boshi to Hon no Tabibito (myself a tremendous fan of Carnelian), with a Dragon Quest: Dai's Great Adventure chaser (myself also being a fan of Dragon Quest since the days where it was still called Dragon Warrior). I've been exposed to wonderful, amazing shows I never thought I'd love like Horimiya and Fairy Ranmaru, and I got to gush like a schoolkid about favorites like The Ultraman and SSSS.Dynazenon. I'd always hoped that someone, somewhere would bring Tekkaman Blade to streaming so I'd be able to squeeze that in with the victory list, but that never happened—and that's fine, because what better way for me to round out my time with TWIA than with freaking BASTARD!!, a series that's had so much emotional weight to me?
I'll be filling Heidi Kemps' old position at This Week In Games!, whom you should all remember from our spectacular Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture column (which was one of my favorite columns to take part in). Chris will be filling in my place—be as nice to him as you guys were to me. It was always special to see people commenting on my stuff, saying "Wow, I agree with Jean-Karlo on [x]" or "Oh, I didn't know about [y] until Jean-Karlo mentioned it!". So thanks for being a part of making this happen.
Please look forward to the next This Week In Anime!. The folks here are real nice. つづく
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