Bastard!
Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy (Japanese: BASTARD!! -暗黒の破壊神-, Hepburn: Basutādo!! Ankoku no Hakaishin; lit. 'Bastard!! The Dark God of Destruction') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazushi Hagiwara. It began its serialization in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1988, after debuting with a pilot one-shot in that magazine in 1987, and has continued irregularly in the seinen manga magazine Ultra Jump since 2000, with its latest chapter released in 2010. As of 2012, 27 collected tankōbon volumes have been released. The pilot one-shot was remade by Tatsuya Shihara and published in Ultra Jump in July 2023. The manga was formerly licensed for English release in North America by Viz Media; only the first 19 volumes were released.
Hagiwara is an enthusiastic fan of heavy metal music and Dungeons & Dragons, using ideas from both of these in the Bastard!! story. Many characters and places in the story, for instance, are named after members of Hagiwara's favorite bands.
The manga was adapted into a six-episode original video animation (OVA) series by AIC, released from 1992 to 1993. The OVA was released in North America by Pioneer in 1998. An original net animation (ONA) adaptation of the same name, by Liden Films, premiered on Netflix worldwide in June 2022. The second season premiered in July 2023.
Bastard!! is one of Shueisha's best-selling manga series of all time, with over 30 million copies in circulation.
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