バスタード!! 暗黒の破壊神

BASTARD!!

OVA

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
6
RELEASE
June 25, 1993
LENGTH
26 min

DESCRIPTION

The characters in BASTARD!! have forsaken technology and have traded it in for magic and the occult arts. The story revolves around a group of five magicians who set out to rebuild their world after a rampaging God destroys it and tips it into chaos. Driven by their leader Dark Schneider, Gara, Arshes Nei, Abigail and Kall Su set out to conquer kingdoms in the hope of rebuilding them into utopias, with each of the magicians having their own personal agenda in doing so. However, Dark Schneiders often reckless manner and short temper leads him to wreak havoc where ever he goes. He is trapped by a group of clerics in a baby boy, leaving the four without a leader.<br><br> Fifteen years later, the four still continue their quest but their motives have changed to despotic world domination, and it is up to Dark Schneider to show them the "error of their ways", when he is freed by the clerics who once imprisoned him, so that he may defend them against his former comrades. It has now become Dark Schneiders responsibility to track down each one of his companions and set them on the right path again, but what seems to be the once reckless and amoral Dark Schneider has changed over his fifteen year imprisonment within the boy, Lucien Renlen.

(Source: AniDB)

CAST

Dark Schneider
Kazuki Yao
Tia Yoko
Wendee Lee
Arshes Nei
Mary Elizabeth McGlynn
Sheila Tuel Meta-llicana
Bridget Hoffman
Gara
Steven Blum
Kai Harn
Yuuko Kobayashi
Sean Ari
Wakana Yamazaki
Kall-Su
Toshihiko Seki
Lars
Masami Kikuchi
Di-Amon
Shigeru Chiba
Abigail
Ryuuzaburou Ootomo
Lucien Renlen
Yuriko Fuchizaki
Geo Soto
Nobuo Tanaka
Efreet
Seizou Katou
Kevidubu
Masaru Ikeda
Bon Jovina
Takkou Ishimori
Obaba-sama
Seiko Tomoe

Episodes (6)

Episodes are being prepared. Check back soon.

RELATED TO BASTARD!!

Cover Art for Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy

MANGA ActionBastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy

ONA ActionBASTARD!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy-

REVIEWS

Swanmay
30/100
Bastard!!: A Show for People With The Worst Taste
Bastard!! is one of the most shameless anime I've ever watched. It is, very nakedly, a power fantasy for the viewer. There is genuinely very little to say about this show other than talk endlessly about what a horrible person the protagonist is, and not in an interesting way. It's bad. It's straightforwardly bad. It lacks positive qualities. It was a bad idea, badly executed. And yet, it is very popular, so we have to take seriously why.

Premise

Bastard is one of the most straightforward wish fulfillment shows you will ever watch. Dark Schneider ("named Schneider, yes. Please say the whole thing if you would? Yes, that includes the 'Dark'. Yes, Tom, every time.") is the most bestest toughest coolest hotest superwizard ever and he gets ALL the girls! He was defeated in the past despite his inability to be defeated during the main plot by sealing him inside a little boy, who is also reincarnated in somehow. But now, he has been unsealed through kissing underage girls and must now defeat the other evil guys threatening the land.

Characters

This gets into Bastard!!'s most fundamental problem, which is that Dark Schneider (every time!) is an unbearable mary sue. I dare say he is a contender for "most mary sue character in all anime", because this man is quite literally unkillable and has no weaknesses. Early on in the OVA, they establish that he can be resealed readily and only temporarily as his power exhausts. Only, he overcomes this rule by episode 2 or so, effortlessly, and this is going to be a reoccurring theme of the show. Any weakness this man has lasts exactly 15 minutes before he just...breaks the rules and the rules blows away in the breeze. He's also a massive piece of shit, with no redeeming qualities. Every scene is "Where is Dark Schneider? What is Dark Schneider doing?", and if anyone ever questions him they are either killed or ruthlessly mocked and then humiliated.

I cannot hammer this home hard enough. Dark Schneider is a character who intentionally withheld affection from his daughter to force her to submit to statutory rape. He is treated as a rogue with a heart of gold. I hate him so, so much.

The show will occasionally pitch it like he has a softspot for the female lead, Yoko, and will defend her no matter what. It's more like he considers her a beloved pet and will accept a few scratches. He does not consider her an equal or a person, really. Tia has a very boring, stock personality: she is a tsundere and haughty teenage girl. Nothing is remarkable about her, other than Dark Schneider's inexplicable attachment to her. She, for some reason, finds this man who wants to own her very charming and will not abandon her affection for him despite having no real reason to do so. If you understand her to be essentially a Bella Swan, this ssort of makes sense?

Also in the cast is Sheila. She is the princess. She does not have much going on, other than that she is also down bad for Dark Schneider.

Plot

The plot barely exists. In the wayback times, the world ended, and now we're in fantasy times. The post-apocalypticness of the setting is not going to be used at all. People are named after metal musicians. It is somewhat episodic, with the formula that Yoko-Sheila have to go to do something to stop the end of the world, Dark Schneider follows her like a puppy to the problem. The show feigns that Dark Schneider is not going to effortlessly win, one of the girls gets horribly raped, and then Dark Schneider decides to take the situation seriously and then effortlessly defeats their opponent. If the opponent survives, they immediately pledge their undying loyalty to Dark Schneider, The Coolest Guy.

This formula is profoundly tedious and sucks any drama out of any situation. No one really cares that the girls are getting raped, in fact get over being raped as soon as they have clothes on again. Eventually, things escalate until Dark Schneider has to commit suicide, which he still comes back from, because this guy is truly the mary sue to surpass all mary sues.

Occasionally an opponent will have a slightly interesting grudge with Dark Schneider, or have an interesting conflict about him. Schneider will fix it by beating them effortlessly when he gets serious. You start rooting for the villains to beat this piece of shit, which won't happen.

I hate it.

Animation

There's not much to report back on here. It looks....fine. For how animation gonzo the premise should go, it's not very well animated. You can tell the budget wasn't very high, and that AIC were phoning it in.

Sound

Ditto!

Closing Thoughts

The reason why Bastard is more popular appears to be that no one watched the OVA and instead read the manga or the second adaptation, which retains the more complicated plot of the manga. I can see how parts of this could be more interesting. Of course, I cannot fathom Dark Schneider ever being not the worst character ever, maybe they tone down his complete invulnerability, his childish behavior, his horrible crimes, and the sense that the director really wishes misses back when the age of consent was 13. I really need to emphasize because I've been harping on what an unlikeable shit he is, he is also intensely boring. He's not funny, he's not clever, he's not dramatic, there are no interesting twists and turns, he doesn't develop as a person. He is a petulant brat who always gets his way, and then the writer claps.

This isn't the literal worst show I've ever seen, but Dark Schneider may be the worst character I've ever seen. The 30 points this show got is entirely on the back of the two minor antagonists who are somewhat sympathetic and somewhat interesting, prior to their brainwashing by mary sue.
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