Bastard 3
March 1, 2008
Oh man, this series really isn’t very good, but it’s extremely aware of this, so it tries to ride the wave of badness for all its worth.
I mentioned this before, but the comments made in the panel gutters by Hagiwara increase in frequency in this volume. It’s kind of like MST3k for manga, because he’s mostly making fun of the characters and situations when things get weird or over-the-top (example: a female wizard at one point is controlling a Cockatrice with a crystal. she’s wearing little more than a scanty cloak, and he asks where she was concealing the huge crystal). I’m not sure if I like it or hate it, but it definitely adds character.
Hagiwara refers to Dark Schneider in these comments and in the interview in the back as “Darsh,” which I really like. I wish it were used more in the dialogue too, instead of “D.S.” I’m not sure if the initials were used in the original version (I wouldn’t doubt that they were), but it looks more like space was being saved in the dialogue bubbles. It’s a little weird to read with the abbreviations in the dialogue like that.
I do like the extreme fantasy elements of the story, though. In this volume, in addition to fighting a wizard who is also a warrior, Dark Schneider also goes up against a Cockatrice, a Vampire, and a Werewolf. The Cockatrice and Werewolf battles were both short, but pretty cool. The battle with the Vampire was just cool.
This volume had a weird obsession with virgins. Of course, that could just be the series as a whole, too. For the sex and violence bits, there was an extremely filthy scene where Dark Schneider sucks the poison from a fallen foe, and people get blown up and cleaved into pieces a pretty good amount, so I was happy.
One last thing. For whatever reason, the Vampire had an assistant named Judoh, and whenever he spoke his name, it was always “JudohHhhHhh” where the “h” would be extended and wobbly in the text. I’m not sure why, but I laughed at that every time. It was easy to imagine how he was saying it.
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