Slightly Biased Manga

Here.  Because Pastel always makes other series look a lot better.

As messy as Bastard still is, there was a lot of significant story going on in this volume, and I can respect that.  The battle between Dark Schneider and Arshes Nei turns out to be much better than I had expected, and it had a really epic finale.  The armies pouring in to get the last seals to awaken… the evil being (whose name escapes me at the moment) put up a good fight, and there are some interesting fights and some other elements introduced.

Then something awesome happens, and there’s a big fight at the end of the volume.  I actually kind of liked it.  Maybe things will start picking up, but there’s at least the beginnings of organization here.  I do like this series, I have a hard time hating it for being bad… which is kind of is, at the moment.  I just can’t help but be fascinated, though.

Oh Jesus, this series is such a mess. I can’t even begin to make any sort of intelligent comments about this volume because it’s nearly incomprehensible.

Near as I can figure, the main feature was the fight between Dark Schneider and Arshes Nei. Gaara also fights Arshes a little bit at the beginning, but only Dark is a match for her, of course. Lots of fighting is done. Lots of really hard to follow fighting.

If fighting isn’t really your thing, maybe you’d be interested in some really bizarre and poorly-done character relationships. I want to like this series, I really do. I may actually still. But at this point, there really isn’t much to like. I hear it gets better though, which makes me feel happy.

As a heads up to anyone interested in reading this, I think the early volumes are going out of print. I had part of my order cancelled and had to get volume 4 and… 7, I think, from another source. That could mean anything, but I’m willing to bet that these volumes are old enough and not popular enough that it’s probably not getting a reprint if the original stock sells out.

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.

I forgot to mention that the full title of the series is Bastard: Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy.  Any series with the subtitle “Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy” should be something that appeals to me.  I was sort of wrong here, but again, I really want to like Bastard, so I’ll probably keep reading it.

Once again, only one adjective comes to mind after reading the second volume, but it changed: now it’s “vulgar.”  Now, it is vulgar in the traditional sense of being rather naughty (there is a really bizarre sex scene where… a second body intermittently appears and disappears), but it’s also just loud, annoying, violent, and over-the-top.  Unfortunately it doesn’t succeed as well at being over-the-top as, say, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, but it does it in its own way, and it seems to have gathered itself and started down its own path.

The plot this volume is that the kingdom of Metallicana is using Dark Schneider to head off an attack by a ninja clan.  He agrees only because the ninjas have kidnapped the main female character, his possible love interest at this point.  The volume focuses almost solely on the task of getting through the ninja hideout and confronting the head of the clan.  Many things happen here, including scenes where clothes are melted off and arms are severed.  Dark Schneider appears naked more than once.  I love it, but there’s still something really, really off about the pacing and plotting through this volume.   Also, there is no way character relationships could be more awkward and painful to read.  I think it’s getting better though.

I don’t quite understand the note posted about the art.  From what I understand, there is an “Ultimate Edition” of Bastard, which is probably not kazenban, but the artist redrew the art for it, at any rate.  It must have had a high page count, because there is a note in the back that mentions where “Ultimate Edition” volume 1’s art switches over to the original art for the series.  The most noticeable difference is character design, but it feels like things get cleaned up quite a bit too.  My question is… was only volume one of the Ultimate Edition available when Viz published their version of Bastard?  Was the art redrawn only for the first volume of the Ultimate Edition?  It’s just kind of weird that the new material only appears for the first volume and a half.  I guess there’s a few explanations that would make sense.

Oh… my.  Still not very good.  I want to like it though, so like I said, I’ll probably keep plugging away.

Would you believe I confused Bastard and Berserk when trying to buy the better series for my roommate? I mean, both are fantasy, both are violent, and both are for boys. Apparently it’s all the same to me since I read girly comics. Berserk is the one I wanted, but Bastard is the one I got. In my defense, they didn’t have Berserk in the comic shop I was in, so it’s not like I drew a volume-to-volume comparison and decided this one was better.

The only adjective I can use to describe this first volume is “shitty.” My apologies. As much as I want to like this series (the plot sounds awesome, which is why I bought this one thinking it was Berserk), it just isn’t done very well at all. The art, while kind of cool and really suited to the extreme fantasy setting of the story, can be hard to read and follow. Viz is doing its thing where it pastes huge translated sound effects over the original to cover the lack of art edit, which makes the action scenes that much harder to follow… and, quite honestly, nothing very interesting happened in this volume. We are introduced to Dark Schneider, he fights a battle, throws a tantrum until a girl beats him up and seals him back up, then is let loose again when the kingdom needs him to fight another battle. Of course, he throws a tantrum again. That’s… really all that happened. His seal is broken by the kiss of a pure maiden, and I could not get over how much time is spent on her rejection and embarrassment over this kiss through the entire volume. Perhaps it’s been awhile since I’ve read a series like this, but even in shoujo series they don’t spend that much time on it. Oh, also, there are some comments from the artist included in the gutters between panels. They are some of the lamest, most unfunny comments I have ever seen. I think Viz edited some of them out because they were far too stupid, seeing as how they were quite literally notes to his friends. I’ve read some boring author talk sidebars, but his brief blurbs throughout the volume put every single one of those to shame. Ugh.

That list of grievances aside, I really want to like this manga. A badass wizard who is unlocked with a virgin’s kiss, is super-powerful and super-horny, coupled with awesome 80s art (however unclear it is in parts) is something I want to support. I like Dark Schneider, he is a walking stereotype hero hard-on, and I want to read any story he may be a part of. I’ve also heard that the series gets progressively more and more… pornographic as it goes on, and I desperately want to see this transformation in a Shounen Jump series. I want to see it like nobody’s business. It helps here that he is naked every time he appears. That’s a start.

Oh Bastard, if only you didn’t suck. Maybe it’ll get better if I keep reading. Volume 2 was at least an improvement as far as story quality goes.