Bastard!! manga review
Since the MFG forums were deleted--due to the lack of activity--and with its deletion it took with it my previous Bastard!! review thread I decided to make a new one. This decision was further enhanced by the quote bellow--which may or may not have been edited for the purpose of relevance.
Originally posted by NemeBroNoone cares about your opinion Astner.
The review will go over (what is supposed to be) the story, characters, artwork and general details. We'll start by examining the cover followed by the facets previously mentioned.
The aspect of the cover which will strike you first is the softcore hentai picture covering most of the cover and in the original Japanese version the picture is extended and not censored. A common reaction to this is "If anyone sees me reading this openly they'll think of me as a creep that reads hentai in public."
If it wasn't for the "parential advisory explicit content" tag covering Porno Diane's ass--provided by Viz translation--I wouldn't be allowed to post this.
The next thing you'll come across is the Legend of Zelda-styled title which has to be the most ridiculous and uninspired title ever published. "Bastard!!"--You wouldn't mind adding a few extra explanation marks and perhaps a few ones? Not only that, but the title sounds like it's more fitted for hentai than anything else.
The explanation for the excessive nudity and discrete hentai references is that the author, Kazushi Hagiwara, originally was a hentai artist. While there's nothing wrong with hentai (although I personally prefer real women) there's a time and place for everything. Torn clothes and a visible nipple here or there would induce a sense of realism, but having fifty babyfaced nude E-cupped harlots running around because they have nothing better to do is not good writing.
Under the title you have the segements "Heavy Metal" and "Dark Fantasy" which pretty much says everything there is about the details of the story. It's set in a crappy fantasy environment and everything is named after either heavy metal bands or songs and it's so horrible and redundant that you can't possibly hope to keep a straight face while reading it. The protagonist calls upon the power of Guns and Roses to end his foes.
At the back cover you'll find some poorly written plot exposition which ilk you'd come across in poorly written fan fiction.
This is only the beginning of the horror this collection of godforsaken tomes will bring about.
Story
The castle of Metallica--I hope you realize how absurd that sounded--is attacked by a wave of enemies sent by the generic evil group known as the "Four lords of havoc" who plans to free a god of death because they've been influenced by its evil seed. After the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of brave soldiers the underaged priestess is convinced to break the seal of the wizard who will save them by kissing a slightly younger boy. At first you might think that this is solely for comic relief (you know Japanese people and their odd humor) but that's actually how much the soldiers are worth. They're nothing but fodder and an army has never accomplished anything. Eventually Dark Schneider turns each and everyone of the evildoers into his friends--the emo who commits suicide is even revived--but then the evil god is released and the manga pages look as if they've been dipped in ink and the barably understanable pictures loses what little value they have. The evil god is defeated with ancient technology and the story ends--but the manga continues. The "great" plottiwst turns out to be that this is set in the future 2,000 - 3,000 years after the birth of Jesus Christ and 6,000 - 7,000 years after the creation of the universe and that all was only a part of "bigger" scheme to trigger the war between heaven and hell.
All and all it's a poorly designed D&D adventure with obvious distractions to keep you from noticing the hollowness of the story.
Characters
There are two types of characters in Bastard!!. The main character, and the ones who're there to make the main character "look" good.
Early in the manga it's noted that in his 400 years Dark Schneider has slept with 200 - 300 women which is suppose to come across to the majority of virgin readers as impressive--even though most porn stars and hardcore players beat this record in less than one year.
Then we have the fact that Dark Schneider constantly breaks the forth wall by reminding the readers that he's the main character. Each time he engages in battle. In other words, rather than pretending to be a good work of fiction it's insulting the intelligence of the readers by outright saying it.
Then there's the gay factor of Dark Schneider flaunting his censored penis in the face of the readers.
Typical turn-on for Bastard!! fans. Some even go as far as calling Dark Schneider "Darsh", which only his lover (Ashes Ney) is allowed to call him by.
Other than that there's nothing to the characters at all, no persona or likable quality. It's all a dick-meassuring contest "Haha! My spell is bigger than yours idiot" and the bigger spell they have the better character they should be.
Art
Despite the horrendous artwork some people--with no understanding of art--actually claims they like the manga with its out-of-body proportions.
Lets examine one of the "better" pictures.
As can be seen the character, Gara, in this scene seems to have been drawed by a elementary school student. But fans will point out the background and act as if mr. Hagiwara actually drew that rather than googled a picture of a tiger, used photoshop's monochrome effect on it and put his character over it to cover the fact that he can't draw.
However most of the art is crap with no sense of proportion like this one.
And at times you even find gems like this to remind you that this investment is money well spent.
General details
Despite the lack of details in the artwork, the lack of originallity in names, characters and plot there is more.
Scientific errors. I have no problems with small scientifical misconceptions in fiction, after all it's fiction. Bastard!! however on multiple occasions want to seem smart by explaining certain scientific phenomena. The problem with this however is that the explanations are wrong and at times the explanation given is the direct opposite of what would happen.
Take Kal Su's superconduction ability, where he freezes himself down to the critical temprature of human flesh so that he can withstand Dark Schneider's Hallowen--a electrical attack capable of killing millions, even though it's output is 10 MeV (which wouldn't be enough to raise the temperature of a cube inch of water with a billionth of a degree (C or F, you decide). Either way Kal decides to tank this massive electrical assult by becomming a "living" superconductor. Problem would this is that a superconductor have no resistance and would force all of the current through his body with shredding his molecules ultimatelly causing even more damage (the reason why carbon superconductors don't seem as effected is for the same reason ordinary carbon isn't affected).
This is of course only one (well technically 2) of countless errors in the manga.
To summarize in five words. "Bastard!! isn't worth your time."
