Nowadays, whenever I think of Bastard!!, I think of the time when I showed this to Schuster and Josh while we ate the cheap substitute of Taco John’s tacos and made silly comments…­ good times.

          I have no idea if this is the case, since I came up with this theory on my own and no one else who has reviewed Bastard!! has mentioned it, but I think this show actually takes place in the future.  Okay, I know there are monsters and magic and no ‘technology’, but from all the Cities named after ‘80’s hair metal bands and other clues I picked up that I can’t remember right now, I do think that this is a future Earth that has had magic come back to it.  Anyway, Dark Schneider was summoned back from his imprisonment by the good guys to save them from the bad guys who D.S. used to work with because he is/was a bad guy and is still an asshole.  Anyway, he comes back and wants to kick everyone’s’ ass and try to conquer the world like he almost did in the past.

          The first thing that surprised me about Bastard!! was that the animation was actually quite well done.  When I’d seen screenshots of the show before I bought it, it seemed to me that the artwork lends itself more to bad animation than good, I was very pleasantly surprised.  Most everything in Bastard!! is well drawn and very well animated, especially the spells.  This ain’t Record of the Lodoss War, where there are only 3 different spells in the whole world and they all are cast exactly the same way, in Bastard!! they do it right, many different spells and the casters actually have to cast them, not just point their finger and wiggle their ass.

          Another thing to note is that it seems Bastard!! got some of its ideas from D&D, as Josh, Schuster and I were able to name several monsters who, while called something different, were usually an exact match to a D&D counterpart.  Let’s see… the sound was well done and the music was, thankfully, not a bunch of hair metal crap, but… I don’t remember, but it fit.

          Yep, Bastard!! has great comedy, it makes fun of anime that likes to make a show of pointless boobies, has GREAT fight scenes, woggos (America 3000) magic action, a good story, good animation and artwork and is just well done overall, I give Bastard!! two fuzzy critters and a new pair of shoes for being as good as it is.

Genre - action/comedy/fantasy/fighting

Animation - I was VERY surprised at how good the animation and artwork was.  Considering how Bastard!! looks to be a basic fighting anime (not that it is), I expected crap animation and and the detail to be centered mostly on boobies.

Sub vs. Dub - If we're talking about the Japanese DVD, the the sub sucks ass, but if we're talking about the American release, then all I know is the dub, even though the sub was fixed.

the Good - Gara, the comedy, Dark Schneider, action, magic, animation, etc...

the Bad - hmm...  if I don't count the pointless boobies, slime that dissolves clothes and moaning noises (because I think they were there to make fun of those things), I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I didn't like about Bastard!!

Overall - Surprisingly good shit, best watched with silly friends.  (6 episode OVA)