The Fall 2022 Preview Guide

BASTARD‼ -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy- Part 2

Modern civilization and the world was destroyed by the God of Destruction, Anthrasax, in 7 days, and then is sealed. Hundreds of years later, the sorcerer Dark Schneider leads a group in an attempt to control the world. Dark Schneider, in the end, is sealed in the body of a young baby, Rushe Ren Ren. 15 years later, his group, minus Scheider, attempts the same mission by unsealing Anthrasax so they can redo the world. To save the Kingdom of Metallicana, a girl named Yoko releases Dark Schneider from her friend Rushe. Now, Dark Schneider fights his former comrades, but not for good; he fights to protect Yoko, and to have some destructive fun.

BASTARD!! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy- is based on Kazushi Hagiwara's fantasy manga and is streaming on Netflix.

MrAJCosplay
Rating:

We are just firing on all cylinders now aren't we? The second half of the metal band album cover-turned-anime has dropped, and it's nice to see that it doesn't really waste any time. We pick up right from where the dramatic action left off before, with Dark Schneider and his adoptive daughter whom he seems to have no qualms sleeping with (yea I know), and effectively set the stage for the final confrontation. All the while we're just gonna continue to hype the hell out of this chad and his overwhelming amount of “I don't give a damn” mentality.

BASTARD is definitely the type of show where you either love it for its overwhelming self-indulgence or dislike it because of its incredibly dated sense of identity. After watching the first season, it definitely won over and leaned me more towards the former. Everything felt like an over-the-top D&D campaign animated in a retro style with an amazingly aggressive soundtrack. All of that still holds true so far in the second half, but I think it has the makings to be even better than it was before. My biggest gripe with the show originally was that it felt like it didn't go far enough in its depiction of violence and sex. However, the body mutilation definitely appears to have been ramped up here, and the villains that started hamming it up a bit more towards the end of part one are getting plenty of screen time in the second half, especially when they think they've already won before being brutally humbled by the…charming hero?

That said, I feel like the self-aware humor can go a bit too far at times. There's one bit about Santa Claus that just feels a little too random even for this show. But aside from that, I'm itching to get back into this world and see where this momentum is going. If things keep improving, then maybe the show will end at the pinnacle of the promise it made to itself at the very beginning.