Basutado!! Ankoku no hakaishin

Anyone who doesn't have an enormous amount of respect and amusement for a story about an evil wizard/swordsman named Dark Schneider, who was killed 10 years ago and has been living in the body of a little boy ever since-- and who casts spells which seem to be named after 1980's hair bands (depending on who translated your rental copy)-- just is never going to get what "Anime" is all about.

Two animated thumbs up. I laughed, I cried, I fell out of my chair.

Anime purists may be annoyed that I didn't get every single fact or term right in that first paragraph, but while I may not be the biggest Anime freak in the world, it's just a testament to the greatness of "Bastard" that I love the thing so much, and wish more scripts-- animated or not-- could have this great a sense of humor, mixed with this amount of raw testosterone. Mm, baby.

Vote early, vote often. 10/10.

This series was inspired by D&D and Heavy metal music.This anime adaptation is from the manga.It one of the best manga's of all time.The series is taken from 40-50 chapters of the manga.This anime is made 1992, and manga itself started in 1988 (its still a ongoing series).The characters are extremely well done.The voice acting is especially is good.This anime is a gem from the 90's.If you are a fan of Dark fantasy and post apocalyptic world this anime is for you.This anime is a mix of both.Its just 6 episodes, yet this still managed to make it excellent. The manga started in 1988, and sold over 30 million copies by the time it was 2008.Check it out for yourself. 10/10.

Anyone who doesn't have an enormous amount of respect and amusement for a story about an evil wizard/swordsman named Dark Schneider, who was killed 10 years ago and has been living in the body of a little boy ever since-- and who casts spells which seem to be named after 1980's hair bands (depending on who translated your rental copy)-- just is never going to get what "Anime" is all about.

Two animated thumbs up. I laughed, I cried, I fell out of my chair.

Anime purists may be annoyed that I didn't get every single fact or term right in that first paragraph, but while I may not be the biggest Anime freak in the world, it's just a testament to the greatness of "Bastard" that I love the thing so much, and wish more scripts-- animated or not-- could have this great a sense of humor, mixed with this amount of raw testosterone. Mm, baby.

Vote early, vote often. Both the Japanese and English translation copies seem to have their own IMDB pages, so do what you gotta do. 10/10

This manga was actually written in the late 80s early 90s, which explains all the references to all the American hair metal bands that were popular at that time.

It was written by a Japanese artist that truly loved American Metal music culture and wrote a fictional story reflecting his escape into it. It's all original and brutally honest, Japanese style. Two sorely missed attributes to movies and tv shows that really ticks off insecure people today. If you don't understand the genre or even respect the age of American Hair Metal, then you will probably be offended. I applaud Netflix for airing it.

I've read a few user reviews where some people think it's just more Japanese smut, but it's got way more depth than that. Yes, beautiful women really did fight over hair metal musicians 30 years ago, and no, it wasn't considered sexist or detrimental to the feminist movement at the time. In fact, women used to be attracted to men and weren't afraid to admit it publicly. It's a fitting manga-style testament to a bygone era when MTV actually had music videos of something other than Hip Hop dancers rear-ends and poorly scripted reality shows.

Bastard is very amusing because many of names of things in the series are based loosely off of heavy metal bands. Seriously, I'm not kidding here. If you know your heavy metal bands, you'll be able to figure out when a certain band is being referred to. Example: A major attack spell is a loose adaption of the band Mega Death. There are nations named after Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. While the series is very graphic, it's not very serious at all and very funny to watch with friends.