There are various memes surrounding Netflix anime adaptations. With the release of the Death Note live-action adaptation, fans lost all hope. But with the release of anime like Devilman Crybaby and Violet Evergarden, everyone’s perception changed. So Netflix is now famous for its offbeat anime premises and Bastard is the perfect series for Netflix right now. Earlier during the 80s and 90s, anime used to be more gory and mature. But this started changing since anime became more popular in the west. And now streaming sites like Netflix are bringing back this flavor again. With Bastard’s comeback, we can get to see more such series.
The source material, i.e., the manga, started its serialization in 1988. Even though the series has very mature content, it came in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump. And the series’ writer and illustrator are Kazushi Hagiwara. Since the author is a huge fan of metal music, various characters and places’ names are band names. The series got an anime adaptation during the 90s. And now this series is making a comeback after almost 29 years. The original manga has been on a hiatus for some time. But we have enough source material to get some decent seasons. And now Netflix has officially released the teaser trailer of the series.
Premise of Bastard
The story is set in a dystopian world, and there are various warring states named after bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden. The source material has stunning visuals and epic fights. And one might think that this series is similar to Berserk or Kingdom. But it takes place in the future. And towards the first half of the series, it is a sex-comedy series primarily. The main character is Dark Schneider, who has taken over the body of Luchien Renlen, and he is extremely egotistical and powerful. In this world, one needs to know magic to survive against beasts. But the tone of this Harem series later starts taking itself more seriously. And here, we see various biblical references along with amazing fights.
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Staff Behind The Netflix Series ‘Bastard!!’
The official creators of Bastard!! are Netflix and Warner Bros.Japan. The official Twitter handle of Netflix announced this. The two companies have earlier worked together to release the much-awaited JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6. Liden Films is the producer of this anime. And they are famous for producing one of the biggest hits of 2021, i.e., Tokyo Revengers. Terra Formars director, Takaharu Ozaki, is the director of this adaptation. For the voice actors, the 90s cast won’t be in this adaptation. Kishō Taniyama will be playing the main character. Tomori Kusunoki will play Tia Noto Yoko. Hiruki Yasumoto will play Ninja Master Gara. And finally, Yōko Hikasa will play Nei among the main cast. Kazuhiro Inoue will be the art director of this show. And the 3D CGI work will be handled by Felix Film.
Details About The New Adaptation
The official website describes this series as a “heavy-metal, dark fantasy”. We will get a 24 episode long series. And this will be released in two parts. Along with this, some new cast members have also been announced. Among these is Kanae Ito as Lucien Renlen and Tomokazu Sugita as Abigail. Along with them, Nao Toyama plays Sheila Tuel Meta-llicana, and Kensho Ono plays Kall-Su. It would be interesting to see what parts of the manga will be animated as the original manga has several mature scenes. But knowing Netflix, there won’t be much censorship, hopefully.
Since the series has many band names, some character or location names will be changed. The JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise had a similar problem. It used various band names as character names. So it had to resort to changing the names in the subtitles. As the recent season is also called “Stone Ocean” instead of “Stone free”. Bastard will most probably have to make such changes as well. So some location and character names will be unknown to the manga readers as well. The manga has proven to be one of the best-selling mangas for Shounen Jump as it sold about 30 million copies in 2008. If the anime is adapted without much censorship, we can expect the next Shounen hit.
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