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When I first watched Netflix’s new anime Bastard!!: Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy, I expected a melodramatic anime series along the lines of Record of Lodoss War. What I got was an unapologetically horny show about a wizard and his ever-growing harem of big-haired anime waifus. I loved every second of it.
Bastard!!: Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy, made by LIDEN FILMS, is a remake of the 1992 anime Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin. Bastard!!!’s elevator pitch in the Kotaku summer anime guide, which you should totes check out by the by, is that a wizard named Dark Schneider is resurrected to save the kingdom of, I shit you not, Meta-Licana (pronounced Metalicana), from evildoers. However, that description is just the tip of the iceberg for what this horned-up anime has in store.
You see, Dark Schneider used to be the baddie of the series. In fact, he was the head honcho of the series’ antagonists, the Four Lords of Havoc, prior to the events of the anime. While Schneider touts that he is the hero of this shonen anime—a fourth-wall breaking fact he isn’t afraid to remind viewers and other characters of —Schneider in actuality is the embodiment of early ‘90s OVA anime tropes of lecherous all-powerful wizards. I mean, dude was having Sense8-level orgies with his harem in between his conquest for world domination. But, like all overpowered beings, his hubris got the best of him and he was sealed away into the body of a mild-mannered boy named Lucien.
The Kingdom of Meta-Licana is forever on the losing end of a war against the Four Lords of Havoc. The Kingdom’s sole trump card is the resurrection of Dark Schneider from Lucien’s body. They aim to do so by having Lucien kiss the lips of a virgin woman. Wait, don’t close out of this tab just yet. I know, that’s a pretty eye-rolling premise. However, this show works because of how self-aware it is of its ridiculous premise. The spell-breaking virginal kiss to save the doomed kingdom is one of the many times that the show pokes fun at its absurdities every chance it gets. After summoning Schneider in the show’s first episode, for example, the kingdom asks to summon him again at the start of the second episode because it’d be easier than going through the effort of assembling their armies.
Read the full article on Kotaku
