Anime Review: Bastard

The Bastard in the title is the powerful wizard Dark Schneider who fifteen years ago tried to conquer the world. Bastard takes place in a post apocalyptic fantasy world where mankind now lives in primitive conditions amid the high tech ruins of hundreds of years ago. People are ruled by the powerful sorcerers and monsters who control this futurist land. Bastard is a six part OVA with two episodes on the first volume. Bastard has been a popular import for years and is just now being released in an English language edition. One of the funniest parts of this series were the names it's kingdoms and spells. This has been changed in the English language version. Such spells as Megadeatlt Stayer, Poison, and place names as Ron Joivena and Metalica had to be slightly altered to avoid copyright violation with the heavy metal bands they were taken from. The story in episode one picks up when the Kingdom of Meta-Rikana is in danger from an opposing wizards army. Their last hope is to awaken the defeated wizard Dark Schneider. Will Dark Schneider be worse than the invading army? In episode two Dark Schneider must battle a fire elemental to rescue his Lady Love from the evil Ninja master, The only way to harm a fire elemental is with ice and cold spells. All of Dark Schneider's spells are fire based attacks. Can he defeat the fire monster? The English voice acting is fine, It is not bad enough to detract from the Anime nor exceptional enough to recommend the dub over the sub-titled release. All of the voices fit the parts well except for the voice of Dark Schneider himself, The original Japanese version had a very deep and intimidating voice for the powerful wizard. The English voice does not have enough base or power to sound truly menacing. Too bad James Earl Jones would not be available for the part (voice of Darth Vader from Star Wars.) He is the one voice actor that would truly be up to the part. The animation quality is excellent and the character designs are very pleasing to the eye. The setting is unique in that it is interesting to see the big fantasy battles taking place in the ruins of twentieth century cities. he music is very dramatic and lends a lot to the action scenes it accompanies. Pioneer advertised a future release of the soundtrack at the end of the tape. The packaged box warns that this tape is not for anyone below the age of sixteen. That rating seems rather harsh as there was no actual nudity or excessive gore compared to other Anime titles. PG-13 would be more appropriate. On tbe whole I enjoyed this tape. To anyone who likes fantasy Anime with high powered sorcery battles, owning this tape is a MUST!