"Bastard": Heavy-Metal Anime with Ridiculous Dialogue but Nonstop Beefcake

 

It's fall, so the ongoing tv series that we watch have returned with new seasons.  Mostly adult animation: The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, The Great North, American Dad, Rick & Morty.  But otherwise the streaming services are a vast wasteland.  There's been nothing to review on Netflix for a long time, so I just clicked on the first recommendation, a Japanese anime called Bastard.

Scene 1: People playing and lounging in a big city park while the narrator repeatedly insults humanity. "You're arrogant!  You're deceitful!  You fight each other!  You ruined the planet!"  And so on and so on. We're evil, I get it.  Then Darkness appears, in the form of a giant woman wearing a horn-helmet.  

While tanks and airplanes attack, she tells humanity: "I must free the world from the darkness that you have created.  The darkness that is your fault.  The darkness that you brough on yourself with your greed and deceit.  Did I mention that it's your fault?  That you have no one to blame but yourself?  That it's your fault?"  Get on with the punishment already!  

Scene 2: 400 years later, The Kingdom of Metal-llicana on the Metallon Continent.  A cackling person in Middle Eastern garb has unleased an army of muscular, shirtless Orcs onto the city (do you want me to fight or daydream?).  They break through the castle gates.  "Head for the Cathedral!" the head guard yells.  "We must protect Princess Sheila at all costs."  Princess Sheila?

The Princess's boobs don't want to leave the castle.  "Who is this attacker?" they ask.  "It's the Orcs created by the deceased evil wizard, Dark Schneider."  Schneider?  These must be lame translations of Japanese names.  

Meanwhile, a boy named Lucien is grabbing the leg of a muscular giant and crying.  His older sister Yoko's boobs criticize him for being unmanly.  He "efforts" (according to the subtitle) and manages a laugh.

Scene 3: In a massive white castle, a flabby wizard is teaching Yoko's boobs a "secret spell with the power to release a certain entity that has been sealed by a sacred power."  Who writes this stuff?   

He explains: "I sealed the wizard Dark Schneider inside your brother Lucien. He will awaken and save the kingdom if Lucien gets a kiss from a virgin maiden."  Guys don't count?  Darn! 

Sister Yoko is now named Tia.  She has to be the one who kisses Lucien, and her lips have to be virginal, so she can't ever date anyone.  Kiss her brother?  Gross!

Scene 4: Back in the present, Lucien rushes up and grabs the muscular giant's leg again.  Turned on by muscle, boy?  The giant growls at him, but Yoko/Tia's breasts defend him: "I am the breasts of Yoko Tia, daugther of the High Priest, and his guardian."  So not his sister?  Whew!

The Orcs are breaking down the door.  Lucien reverts to being scared, and Yoko/Tia's breasts revert to criticizing: "Why are you such a sissy?  Why can't you be a man?"  

Princess Sheila's breasts approach and ask Yoko/Tia's breasts to release the power that can save them.  She refuses.  But the Orcs burst in and start killing everyone, so she relents.  After a long close-up of her breasts yet again, she leans over and kisses Lucien.

Zap!  While we hear the entire story over again, Lucien morphs into the wizard Dark Schneider, a super-muscular guy with a 10-pack abs, a feminine face, and long white hair.  Wait-- Dark Schneider created this army, so why would he destroy it?  Is it a good idea to ask a dark lord, who almost destroyed the world, to help you defeat his disciple?

The castle folk flash back to his previous incarnation: In ancient times, Dark Schneider splattered the whole kingdom, until Prince Lars of the Five Knights fought him to the death.  "My brother," Yoko/Tia's boobs tell us.  Wait -- she can't be more than twenty years old, so this couldn't be in ancient times. 

Scene 5:  Back in the present, Dark Schneider reminds everyone that he is the sworn enemy of the kingdom, so now that he's reincarnated, he's going to kill them all (except Yoko/Tia, because Lucien is still inside him, and likes her).  I repeat: shouldn't you have anticipated that this would happen?

But Yoko/ Tia's boobs try their usual strategy of insulting his masculinity, and he relents.  

Middle Eastern guy doesn't believe that he's really Dark Schneider, so he orders his Orcs to attack.  With the magic words of "suki sushi," Dark Schneider/Lucien splatters them.  

The castlefolk are in awe: "He has such frightful power." "He is very powerful." "Indeed, his power is very great."  "He has awesome power." And so on until the word starts to sound funny.

Middle Eastern Guy has a final trick: he calls on Balmor, the Lightning of the Darkness (huh?), to zap Schneider/Lucien, burning him to a literal crisp.  But he emerges from the crisp, unhurt, and turns Middle Eastern Guy into a literal sword.

Scene 5: The crisis over, both Princess Sheila and Yoko/Tia make the moves on the hunky Schneider/Lucien, but he rejects them both, puts some clothes on, and leaves.  Yoko/Tia follows and asks what he will do now.  "First, I'm going to get revenge on your deceased father for locking me inside a kid. Then I'm going to conquer the world."  

Yoko thinks: "He's an evil megalomaniac.  Why am I so turned on?"  Well, she can't complain that he's a sissy anymore.

Schneider/Lucien reveals that he hates Yoko/Tia because she was always ordering him around and insulting his masculinity.  "So let's kiss."  Huh?  Why kiss someone you hate?  Well, maybe if they're hot.

Uh-oh, the kiss turned him back into Lucien!  He doesn't remember anything of his morph into Schneider.  So Yoko/Tia has the power of turning him on and off! The end

Beefcake: Constant.

Boobs: Both Yoko/Tia and Princess Sheila are primarily talking boobs.

Gay Characters: None specified.

Ridiculous Premise:  "We're going to shove Sauron's spirit into Frodo, so he can help us defeat Saruman."  

Ridiculous Dialogue:  Maybe it's suppposed to be a parody of pretentious high fantasy speech?

My Grade: C.  It would be F, except for the incessant beefcake among the boobs, and I'm actually interested in seeing what happens next.