Bastard! Ankoku No Hakai Kami

With a name like that, it will sure turn heads. At least that is how Bastard! Ankoku No Hakai Kami got my attention. Well, thank goodness it isn’t one of those sleazy early hentai anime of the early 90’s. Yeah, with that kind of name it is easy to sometimes associate it with that kind of genre and material (although there are much more amusing porn titles out there). But this one is more about sorcery, revenge and power struggles. Oh yeah. Typical age old human conflict and greed that turns us all into bastards. We humans sure never learn.

Episode 1
The Four Lords of Havoc have just decimated the city of Judas. Doing so, they have got 1 of the 4 seals that would unleash the God of Destruction, Ansla-Sax. Now they set their sights on the city of Metallicana. Monsters led by the dark wizard, Kebidabu try to break into the city walls. While many knights are killed, a few civilians have fled into the safety of the inner walls. Among them include Princess Sheila, Tia Noto Yoko and a young boy, Rushe Renren. Geo who is Yoko’s father wants her to unleash the seal that was casted upon her a long time ago. You mean the seal that has her give some virgin kiss to Rushe? And for her being a virgin means the more power Rushe will have? Yeah, this is so screwed up. No wonder Yoko doesn’t want to do this sick ceremony. How embarrassing. Uh huh. Pride > kingdom and many others dying. But when the attack soon reaches into the city, I guess Yoko has a change of heart. She kisses Rushe. Nothing happens. Before you jump to conclusions that Yoko is no longer a virgin, please take note the effect takes a while. Rushe now transforms into his wizard form, Dark Schneider. The priests will give him anything just to kill the enemies. However Schneider refuses because he wants to take over the world! For that, he will kill Geo, one of the few people who imprisoned him 15 years ago. Geo manages to block Schneider’s fireball blast. But can he defend the next deadly one? That is when Kebidabu breaks in and brags his ass off. As Schneider got his face slightly cut from the debris, you bet his ass he is going to kill this scumbag. Kebidabu unleashes his hydra to kill Schneider but the explosive wizard decapitates all their heads before unleashing a spell on Kebidabu that turns him into nothing but blood. Schneider now turns to Geo but disappointed Yoko wants him to stop because this is not who Rushe is. Schneider assures her that he and Rushe are the same despite having different bodies and personalities. If one dies, the other will also die. He also likes what Rushe likes so since he likes Yoko… Schneider kisses her but this turns him back to Rushe. So the virgin kiss also seals him back, huh? So I guess Yoko has got to treat Rushe better now. No more slapping him for just seeing her in her undies…

Episode 2
Weird dreams from Yoko ever since. Or is it a nightmare? One night as she is sleeping, Gara who is one of the Four Lords of Havoc sneaks in to interrogate her on how she broke Schneider’s shield. Even if he knows the spell that killed Kebidabu is Schneider’s original, how did he know it was her who broke it?! Since she can’t say (because it’s too embarrassing), he threatens to rape her?! Suddenly Rushe wakes up. However this is Schneider talking. He regains some of his power when Rushe is asleep and tells Gara to hands off his woman. With Geo barging in, Gara kidnaps Yoko. Hence they go need to rescue her but how are they going to awaken Schneider? Oh right. The other virgin. Sheila. She kisses Rushe to turn him into Schneider. As usual, this cocky guy won’t do as he is told. He claims he can have all the woman in the world after conquering it. When he gets flirty with Sheila, she slaps him. Uhm, so that ended the charade? Go on the rescue mission now? Sheila and some of the knights led by Von Jobina accompany Schneider to Gara’s hideout. Meanwhile Gara continues interrogate Yoko. He tries to irk her that she is in love with Schneider. So you mean she tries to guess his question how many women Schneider has in the past? Not 10. Hundreds of them! Schneider is in fact 400 years old! You mean to look that shock, Yoko?

With Schneider blasting the front entrance (you mean no ninjas were stationed outside?), interrogation time is up so Gara sends slime to devour Yoko’s clothes. Oh boy… But Yoko more worried who unsealed Schneider?! Schneider works up the knights to fight the minotaur while he and Sheila move ahead. Nothing says die for your princess to get them motivated. Schneider then faces off with some eyeball monster. He gets injured but lets loose his fury to defeat it. Then Sheila spots a convenient sword to use and picks it up. Girl, it’s a trap!!! Schneider throws it away but gets poisoned. She is forced to suck it out. Why do I feel that they want to put in this ambiguous sucking scene… But then, Efreet the fire spirit that inhabits the sword pops up. He is going to burn Schneider. The easiest way to defeat Efreet is using a cold spell but Schneider does not have any. So how? This guy goes naked and charges straight at Efreet! OMFG! Then it the twisted sense of using fire to fight fire, he combines their fire power to make it even hotter that Efreet cannot stand! His first defeat! OMFG! Unbelievable! Now that Schneider has tamed Efreet and become his master, it is time to face off with Gara. Give back his woman!

Episode 3
Wow. All the ninjas just waiting for Schneider to come? Here he is! Instantly he fights Gara without giving him time to talk. He then powers up going Super Saiyan. Why so mad? Because Gara undressed Yoko, something he himself hasn’t done yet!!! WTF???!!! But after that power up, Gara beats him up. All for show only? He thinks Schneider has changed because he protects others and there are others who protect him. Is this the real Schneider? Schneider tells the ladies to just STFU and not get in the way of their fight. But before they fight, they reminisce that night 15 years ago. Then, Schneider was destroying kingdoms and so Gara sought permission from his king to fight Schneider alone. So the king was so impressed of his braveness and if he defeats Schneider, he’ll give him the Ninja Master title? Whatever. Gara snuck in to kill Schneider but the latter is cool as a cat and toying with him. Gara wants to know his intentions so Schneider says it is to kill all men so he can have all the women! No, seriously. What is your goal?! To conquer the world. Gara finds it strange. If he wants to rule the world, why go round destroying kingdoms then? Well, he doesn’t care! He’ll just take everything in the world! Wow. Yoko interested to know more what happens next? Too bad, the boys are going to fight now.

Both giving all their best strikes and when Schneider is in a pinch, he unleashes Efreet to help. Gara still can’t believe this is Schneider so he uses up his final ace up his sleeve to cut Schneider! HOLY SH*T! Schneider got cut in half?! Flashback continues. When Gara told him he wanted to save the world, Schneider laughed it off because that’s just futile. After Gara cut an illusion of him, that is when he realized what Schneider meant. No point in saving the world. I mean, he wanted to be the strongest man but that meant gaining power over others. Fighting wars while others starve feel pointless. So he understood the power Schneider had and though if he had it, he could destroy the world and start anew. That’s why he joined the Four Lords of Havoc. The weirdest yahoo from Gara as he and his ninjas bring out the table and wine to start celebrating!!! WTF?! Suddenly the place shakes. Schneider revives! He is going to show his true power with some extremely powerful earth shaking spell???!!! HOLY F*CK!!! In the end, everyone is okay?! Schneider protected everyone from it all with his barrier. So damn, Schneider and Gara just shrug this off and continued to be friends?! Gara was his disciple all along?! Yoko going to complain a hell lot so be prepared… Gara so impressed he admits he lost again.

Episode 4
Arshes Nei who is one of the Four Lords of Havoc is actually a dark elf woman and Schneider’s ex-lover. Now that Gara has deserted them, she is going to have to kill Schneider herself. Yeah, some flashback how they met and became lovers for 100 years but looks like their love isn’t going to be strong enough now. Because in this dream illusion, Schneider waltzes in just to tell Nei not to kill him but she says f*ck you and blasts him away!!! We see Rushe in the forest with a little talking dragon, Lars. We saw him last time as Gara’s pet but he is actually one of the old enemies Schneider fought 15 years ago and was imprisoned in this form. The other Four Lords of Havoc, Kall-Su and Abigail discussing if Nei can kill Schneider. If she betrays them, some ancient spell will kill her. And something about both have similar powers and their clash means one of them will die. Apparently Schneider is missing so Yoko and a few female knights go in search of him (Metallicana is ambushed by Kai Harn who is one of Nei’s generals and dumb Von Jobina gets easily owned!) but gets ambushed by some monster. Yoko runs away and falls off a cliff. Don’t worry. Water below. That is where she stumbles into Rushe and Lars.

They are then picked up by this vampire noble, Di-Amon who brings them back to his castle. Of course he is going to suck the blood of those virgin girls to stay young. I guess crosses don’t work, huh? Yoko of course is scared and is screaming to Rushe for help. How can she kiss him if he is imprisoned in that cage?! But seeing his woman going to get raped, Schneider tries to break the seal. Unfortunately Rushe’s fear is too great so he still can’t break. Until Di-Amon beats up Yoko for kicking his face. Then Schneider breaks out in his form! Nobody touches his woman! Even bold enough to declare Yoko will bear his children one day! Schneider makes a fool out of that dude by fooling with his senses so Di-Amon kills his own men instead of him. So he just f*cks it and kills everything just to take out Schneider but our hero tells why he cannot win: Because stupid ugly macho guys can never defeat handsome smart main characters!!! OMFG!!! Schneider breaks the fourth wall?! Also, he breaks the wall so the sunlight kills Di-Amon. Not quite. He turns into a bat and since he is still cocky, Schneider finds it too amusing just to kill him so he casts a spell on him that if he ever disobeys him, he will turn into a toad! Oh sh*t! Fate worse than death! With the threat over, Schneider tries to flirt with Yoko (licking her wounds?!) but gets beaten up. Not now! Meanwhile Kai Harn is making advancement into Metallicana. Geo fears the worse but a soothsayer sees a vision of Schneider dead and his heart ripped out. But first, you can tell that Schneider is back when he unleashes an ultimate destructive spell that only he can pull off outside Metallicana. He’s back. Nei looking scared?

Episode 5
Looks like Nei also has that same toad curse. So you bet she is going to kill him rather than turn into that ugly amphibian. Immediately she goes to fight Schneider. I guess this means Schneider’s women (that’s you, Yoko and Sheila) to get out of the way while he settles his fight with his ‘daughter’. Yup, their relationship isn’t just lovers but also father and daughter. Complicated. As they clash swords, Efreet pops up to help but it’s just a cue to have both monsters in their sword (Nei has some Nue in her thunder sword) destroy each other so that they won’t be used again. Not that I actually remembered Efreet to be useful anyway. What’s that again that the world needs Schneider? Nei strikes him dead but as we know, he revives soon after. She tries to work him up by saying that she never saw him as her father. More power fight. Schneider dies again. Oh boy. Sheila and Yoko worried. But Yoko believes he will come back because some lesson she taught Rushe to pay back his debts. So that’s the significance of lending Schneider her coin before the fight?! WTF???!!! Of course Schneider revives and laughing like an ass. Nei goes in for the strike again but this time he plays dirty by saying I love you. Time to hesitate. He asks why she is trying to do this. Something about building an ideal world where there’s no discrimination, blah, blah, blah. I’m sure she can relate to all the bullying and torment as a child. And then she was abandoned by her own race. How sad. But of course Schneider tells her that that’s why for the last 100 years, he picked her up and made it a safe space for her by his side. Wow. You gotta be kidding me.

With Nei’s determination grows weak, the curse starts to activate. So while we hear Nei spout tough lines of killing Schneider, we also hear inside her heart how much she actually loves him. All she wants is for him to stay defeated but Schneider being Schneider, he gets back up every time. Yoko almost gets hit and Nei’s heart sinks upon seeing Schneider concerned over Yoko and calling her name. Don’t worry. Yoko’s fine. Hence the final showdown where she challenges him to unleash their most powerful spell. If he doesn’t beat her, she’ll target his woman next. Wow. That enough to rile up Schneider! Let’s do this! Of course this is all part of Nei’s plan to be killed by her lover-cum-father before she turns into a toad. Both start chanting the same powerful destructive spell when Schneider hears Rushe’s voice. Could he not see Nei’s suffering? Could he not see he love for him has trapped her in despair? Damn, kiddo had to point that out before Schneider actually realizes what is happening to Nei. Then some powerful spell to negate it all. So Schneider is going to put Nei out of her misery. How? He rips out his own heart! OMG! Prophecy came true! As this means Schneider is dead, the curse on Nei is lifted. Oh no! This better be a joke! Schneider please revive now. Any time now… NOOO!!!! Too much drama for all his women to take for today…

Episode 6
The other 2 cities that seal Ansla-Sax, Witos Neiki and Iron Maydon have fallen after Kall-Su and Abigail easily obliterate them. Of course with Metallicana the last standing one, it is without a doubt the final seal is inside Sheila. Now that Schneider is dead and Metallicana’s army has been depleted, the king has no choice but to order to kill Sheila. What is one life compared to saving many others? If they don’t do their duty as royals, then when?! And all Yoko can think off is Rushe not returning her coin! Like, WTF???!!! With Abigail’s forces arriving outside the gates of Metallicana, Nei goes to fight them and eventually faces off with Abigail himself. However he encases himself in an immortal cyclops that is made out of tissues from Ansla-Sax. You’re so screwed. Nei is on the verge of being defeated but who is here to help? Not Schneider. It’s Gara and his 2000 strong ninjas! Meanwhile Sheila is squirming in pain. Geo is about to kill her when something is happening to Schneider. With Ansla-Sax partially revived, Schneider is also reviving?! You mean he is reacting to Ansla-Sax’s revival?! Oh damn, see his heart regenerating from thin air!!! That quickly ended when Kall-Su casted some spell. Yeah, his heart fell apart.

We return to Gara and Nei’s fight against the cyclops. Because we can’t let them see their victory off screen, right?! Time to ramp up the drama as Gara sacrifices himself to save Nei. Then his ninjas die like flies just to rescue their master. Woah. Gara so mad that he goes Super Saiyan and transforms into a demon?! He manages to cut through the cyclops but only kills 1/3 of it?! WTF?! Nei so sad that she can only call out for Schneider’s help. Don’t worry, his heart regenerates faster this time! But he is still asleep. How to wake him up? Yoko slaps him up! Hey. That’s not going to- IT WORKED???!!! And here comes Schneider into the battlefield. Abigail’s flabbergasted face so priceless. Time for the final battle. Since Schneider is casting some long winded spell, Abigail thought he managed to rip out his heart for real. Too bad this is just a body double. Schneider then blasts away the cyclops along with Abigail. So did Schneider really finish him off because Abigail saying he’ll be back next time… Anyway, our heroes are victories and Nei so glad she can’t wait to hug him. But here is Yoko. So is our dark hero going to kiss her? Nope! He returns the coin! Oh yeah! Didn’t forget that, did you! The threat for now has passed and Ansla-Sax returns to its slumber. Kall-Su as the last surviving baddie vows to make Schneider pay for this.

Bastardized & Busted!
Oh dear. That was fun but at the same time it was also dumb. Dumb fun if I should say. If the ‘ending’ felt somewhat incomplete, that is because originally there were meant to be 8 episodes in total but the final 2 didn’t get pass production. I can see why. The overall feel of the story feels a bit dumb so I guess it makes no sense to continue making the final part. Oh wait. What’s that? I read somewhere that the producer got arrested and hence the production for the remaining episodes were halted for good? Oh well, you could say Ansla-Sax revived and destroyed this series. Hahaha! Oops… So I guess we’ll never get to see the final fight between Schneider and Kall-Su. At least on TV. If you’re ever so interested, you can continue over the manga.

Well, as you can see, the whole quality, pacing and screenplay of the series is somewhat weird and amateurish. The kind of quality that would not fly by today’s standard. The plot feels a bit draggy and dumb. Even the dialogue feels amateurish in the sense that they didn’t put much thought into the story and just want to go all out with the violent action and explosive magic whatsoever. Of course this series was produced way back in 1992 so you can tell it is so dated from that era. You know me. Just because it is a retro show, I show more leniency and forgiveness. Boy, if it was a series that was released in this 2010’s decade, I would have fully lambasted how lame and inferior this sh*t is. Of course I got to admit that it is still bad even if it is by 1992’s standards but since I was laughing at how bad everything is, I guess I can forgive it. Yup. So bad that it is actually good. Hey, at least it is still way better than that 6 Angels crap I saw some time ago.

Anyway, the plot is relatively simple. Some baddies want to revive the ancient God of Destruction to destroy the world and only the baddest dude in the whole wide world who is also the main character happens to be the only one who can stop them. Basically they really drag out the fights as each episode is mostly dedicated to seeing Schneider or his comrade fighting off against a Four Lords of Havoc. Don’t think too much about the plot and just be here for the low quality violence, action and blood. Characters get wounded a lot but they shrug it off and make it look like a small wound that doesn’t matter… Then it goes away! Oh, nobody dies of blood loss too? And yeah, lots of magic explosions too. I guess we need to see how f*cking powerful Schneider is so that’s why we have to see him pull off trump card after trump card to best the enemy and tell us why he is still the most powerful mother*cker in the land. Sure, it doesn’t make any sense sometimes and some plots felt like just winging it or written as they go along. For instance the final episode just to f*cking revive Schneider. Like, how in the world?! How the f*ck do you even explain that?! So they just f*ck it and make him come back to life because, hell yeah, smart handsome main characters always drop in at the right timing, right? Oh yeah. Plot convenience privilege. That’s what Schneider definitely has.

As you might have known, this series is heavy and has a lot of references to the western heavy metal bands. The series’ author I read is a big fan of those music. Of course they are changed so as not to get sued. So it’s no surprise where Metallicana got its name from. Yup. Hero Of The Day. Anthrax = Ansla-Sax? Oh boy. The Devil You Know… Von Jobina is so obviously Bon Jovi. Yeah, royal knight captain never felt so useless but so lucky to have survived this far. You give such characters a bad name! Not only names of places and characters are named after these heavy metal bands but some of the magic spells too like Venom and Megadeth. Since I’m not really a big heavy metal fan myself, I think there are a lot of references I missed out. You can check out the Wikipedia site for some of its references if you are so interested. On a trivial note, every start of the episode is narrated in English (trolled me to thinking it was dubbed and not subbed!) about the setting of this world. Well, doesn’t sound like a heavy metal guy narrating but more of some lax chill dude after taking his drugs! Yeah, I was expecting some gar manly heavy metal voice but instead got this wuss. Heh.

And the characters, oh yeah, nothing really special either. They either exist to give some plot convenience or some pretty cliché stuffs. Like for example, Yoko and Sheila don’t really do much accept when the plot tells them to become damsels in distress or something freaking nonsensical that doesn’t make sense. And also some mild cheesy fanservice from time to time (slime dissolving Yoko’s clothes, Sheila sucking out Schneider’s poison from his lower anatomy…). You wonder why they wear so short skirts in dangerous battlefields. Otherwise their characters don’t really matter. It’s to also showcase that Schneider is some sort of dark playboy or something because he’s got a couple of babes by his side. Yeah, he gets mad when somebody else touches his women. Then he goes all the rage and gets beat down before making a comeback. Like, WTF?! I guess Yoko and Sheila love Schneider too. You can tell from their blushing reaction when they see him in action but Yoko being more tomboyish do not hesitate to beat that mother*cker up. So is this slapstick relationship what defines Schneider/Rushe-Yoko relationship?

Other characters aren’t fleshed out properly like Rushe. Who the f*ck is this kid and how did he become a vessel for Schneider? And that Lars guy? In the anime he isn’t very prominent but I read he was the prince of Metallicana who played a primary role in handing Schneider his ass to him. I suppose the series needed some animal mascot but he is so forgettable that you wonder why he needs to even appear. Gara and Nei have their own episodes in focus but their past and flashback are relatively short. That’s all you need to know about them. Now fight! Too bad Kall-Su continues to wait and wait…

Lastly, Schneider as the main character himself. He tries to be a cool badass but mostly comes off as a jerk. Because he is so powerful and no one can actually match up to him, it’s the reason why he does as he pleases. He literally doesn’t give a f*ck and only does so because his women got kidnapped or something. Hey, he is going to be the master of all the women in the world, so can’t have anyone defiling them anyhow! Basically this guy feels like an immortal because he somehow just keeps coming back after he dies. I guess we need to ramp up some drama when his women get worried sick when he dies or even the slightest being injured. It’s pretty lame but hey, at least he got his women! And since he is the only guy whom Metallica can rely on to prevent world doom, you bet he can do as he wishes. Because no competition obviously. Each time he speaks, I thought he was going to do One Piece’s Franky trademark. After all, Kazuki Yao is the one who voiced him so it feels like the early days of Franky before he turned into some pirate cyborg. Yes, I’m just pulling a fast one.

One of the most disjointed characters ever is Di-Amon. That episode itself feels like a filler and his character is so freaking comical, you wonder if they purposely made him that way so they can make a fool out of him. After all, he is voiced by Shigeru Chiba and that old dude has voiced many weird clown-like characters in his colourful voice acting life such as One Piece’s Buggy. Of course, the series itself sometimes tend to break the fourth wall like Schneider obviously being so vain by calling himself as the main character and Gara himself sometimes feels like he is talking to us viewers. Since Gara is somewhat Schneider’s disciple so it’s like he takes after his master’s joke or something? Yes, it’s not a joke that this series is also fall under the comedy genre! I kid you not! Bad jokes, huh?

Speaking of funny, one of the funniest aspects that had me laughing is the way the magic spells are chanted. They’re mostly gibberish. Uh huh. It feels like they’re pulling out from thin air on what to say on chanting the spells and the funny part is watching how the English subtitles try to make head and tell those words. Literally. Like, WTF?! Yeah, I couldn’t hear properly what they’re saying so thank you for providing those subtitles so I can exactly know what garbage they’re saying. Word for word.

The art and animation goes without saying that it is so dated and reeks of the early 90’s style. Call it low quality but I guess that is the best the production can do then. Some scenes that has close ups on the character’s face try to showcase how ‘detailed’ they are but it comes off more manly than anything. As for the character designs, I thought Schneider looks like a badass version of Inuyasha! But minus all the charms of Inuyasha! Oh well, Yoko is no Kagome and Sheila is no Kikyou but whatever. And what’s this? Gara looks like Guts from Berserk?! And Di-Amon doesn’t look anywhere your stereotypical vampire because he looks more like a cross between Lobo (that DC comic character) and a failed audition member of KISS. Really. This guy himself looks so freaking comical! Now, Abigail is the one who looks more like your stereotypical Dracula. Though oddly, he is the master of zombies. Whatever.

Overall, this series is filled with so much clichés and bad quality that it feels like it could actually provide you with some comic relief on a bad day! I guess mind numbing big explosive bloody action battle scenes with manly wizards taking on each other on an earth shattering scale can be healing therapy in some ways… Too bad with lots of heavy metal bands being referred, there are no visual heavy metal references (save maybe for that joker Di-Amon) like nobody has some heavenly electric guitar shockwave spell or something or a division Abigail’s army could look like KISS members. Heck, no heavy metal music too! Well, the series has a rock ending but it doesn’t sound so heavy metal like those western bands. It is unfortunate seeing the state of this series has become and it is not something that any ordinary viewers would want to pick up unless you’re feeling a bit ‘adventurous’ or in the loosest term, weird. Otherwise this rare retro series has already Fade To Black and only The Memories Remain… Sad But True…