So honestly this show completely slipped past my radar and I had no idea it even existed till Otakon. During the convention I went to a concert for Yaiba due to their work in Naruto and other shows. During the concert they played the main song for Bastard and I loved it so much I felt the need to try the show out. I didn’t even know by then they had all of season one done and already was about to release season two.

As for the story it takes place in a post apocalyptic earth where the evil of mankind led to the creation of a dark god that destroyed the world as they knew it but was stopped and sealed by a dragon, angel gundam looking creature. You can tell we don’t find out much about this in season one. The show stars Dark Schneider an evil wizard who was in the process of reincarnating in the middle of a battle and one of his enemies sealed his soul in the body of a young innocent boy named Lucien. However, 15 years later the forces of evil forced the citizens of Metallicana to undo the seal and use Dark Schneider as a weapon against evil. He oddly enough cooperates albeit reluctantly and claims he’ll conquer the world himself after he wipes out the competition. He then goes on a spree taking out his former allies to protect the woman that Lucien loves because turns out as a result of that Dark Schneider loves her too.

The story is about as cheesy, outlandish and flamboyant as you can get. Truth be told I really didn’t get it at first. In the first few episodes I was wondering why everything was so ridiculous because all of the characters were overselling their roles. Dark Schneider was spouting insults and groping women left and right as the people he was protecting were going from confident in their survival to sure they were going to be destroyed with each change of the tide of battle. I almost gave up during the first couple of episodes but it was around maybe episode three or four when I started to realize the charm this show was going for. It’s not the hyper serious dark fantasy the music made me think it was but a very over the top dark fantasy that blends a serious story with outlandish characters. It really starts to balance these two elements better towards the end when there was less plot development to explain who the characters were and more non stop action as the last half of the season was just a series of fights that were a spectacle to behold.

The show’s hilarity not only comes from the characters but the interesting inclusion of song lyrics and band names all throughout the season. You saw earlier the kingdom of Metallicana which is clearly based off of the band Metallica. You also get references to Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Bon Jovi, Dio, Black Sabbath and I’m sure I missed several but it was hilarious looking for how they managed to include these references in the most random places.

Dark Schneider is honestly a lot of fun to watch. His insults and comments are sometimes random and creative plus he gets himself into the most random of situations only to make some kind of random action that comes out of nowhere to get him out. It’s so cheesy you expect some sort of ridiculous application of plot armor to get a guy that otherwise would have died several more times than the times he actually did die which also happened. You would think that’s a spoiler but it’s such a mundane topic in the show that it literally parodies itself in the following episodes with quirky comments like saying that not even death can stop him. The other characters play overacted versions of common anime tropes. For example you have Yoko the leading love interest. I say leading because every woman seems to fall in love with Dark Schneider during the course of the show. The best way to describe Yoko is a love interest/babysitter/leading lady of the show. She is the woman that takes up the most screentime and keeps Dark Schneider contained, well as contained as possible. Often with threats and a failure to return any of his feelings until she has a cheesy monologue about how he’s either about to die and how she was too hard on him. Only to throw all of that aside once he’s ok and the cycle continues.

This is one of the reasons the show is hard to binge as these cycles come full circle a lot so while it’s an entertaining cycle I’m good watching it happen once then taking a break before going back and watching it all over again because while the antics change it repeats a lot of the same troupes clearly meant to poke fun at how often they are used in other shows.

The show will also occasionally break the fourth wall as it refers to itself as a shounen manga or one instance where Dark Schneider yells at a character who plays no importance to the story for hogging too much screen time and confusing the viewers. These are rare and consistently hilarious because you really can’t predict when they will pop up.

Overall I recommend not making the same mistake I did and taking this show seriously from the start. Once I realized it’s a show to look at in a more outlandish borderline parody perspective I grew to see the value the show had to offer. It’s an entertaining experience meant to captivate you with an over the top execution of an apocalyptic wasteland. For that reason I greatly enjoyed watching this show but the hook is a little much so I found it impossible to binge. I recommend at least giving it a try because if your sense of humor is entertained by this you’ll love it but if you prefer a more down to earth serious story I don’t see this being something you like at all because nothing about this show is down to earth. I was invested enough to keep going and I’ve already watched season two which I’ll talk about later.