Trivia / Bastard!! (1988)

• Channel Hop: Dark Rebel Armies arc started in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine before being moved to the seasonal Specials imprint beginning with Hell's Requiem arc in 1990. When the imprint discontinued in 1996, the series returns to the Weekly magazine for its third story arc Crime and Punishment. By 2001, Bastard!! found its new, permanent home in the monthly seinen magazine Ultra Jump, where it would run its fourth and currently final story arc The Immoral Laws.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Lucien is voiced by female voice actresses in both Japanese and other foreign dubs... with the sole exception of the Latin American Spanish dub of the 2022 series, when he is voiced by a male one instead.
• Creator's Favorite: Hagiwara makes it no secret that he loves Kai Harn. He admitted to have big plans for her during her debut in Dark Rebel Armies arc, which paid off comes Hell's Requiem.
• George Lucas Altered Version: This was the selling point of the kanzenban-styled Bastard!! Complete Edition released in 2000, in which Hagiwara updates the art to be more in-line with his then-recent art work; it started off simple with better looking backgrounds to straight up redrawing the characters in his new style. Parts of this release serves as the basis for Viz Media's release of the Bastard!! manga.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": The 2022 series is this for almost every country outside Japan and the U.S. when something related to the manga or anime is shown in their regions.
• Missing Episode: The arc that would bridge the gap between Crime and Punishment arc to Immoral Laws arc is this. Apparently the drafts for this arc were damaged/lost, so Hagiwara just move into the next arc via Time Skip. In 2000, Hagiwara published Bastard!!: Unused・Revised Edition, an art book which compiles what's left of this missing drafts. Then in 2010, Hagiwara expanded on these missing pieces and released the "completed" version of this draft for the (at the time of this writing) final volume of Bastard!!; Volume 27, released in 2012. Hagiwara officially titled this story arc as The Seal of Magical Power/The Number of the Beast.
• Newbie Boom: It's safe to say that the 2022 ONA adaptation has sparked modern anime fans' interest ever since its first teaser was dropped.
• Promoted Fanboy: In the Bastard!! livestream on Warner Bros. Japan's YouTube channel, Kishow Taniyama and Hiroki Yasumoto admitted that they were fans of the series long before being cast as Dark Schneider and Ninja Master Gara respectively. The Special Announcement livestream that announced the second half's release date also revealed that Tomokazu Sugita and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka were fans of the manga before being cast as Abigail and Lars respectively. Out of the four, Matsuoka is the youngest (he was two years old when Bastard!! first published) so he became a fan much later on compare to the rest.
• The Other Darrin: Let's just say pretty much every medium Bastard!! has been adapted to has a different voice cast in each one.
• Referenced by...:
  • Daisuke Ishiwatari, creator of the Guilty Gear series, has admitted to have been influenced by Bastard!! in regards to incorporating heavy metal and rock references in a fantasy setting full of magic and spells. Dark Schneider and Prince Lars also serves as the basis for Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske, respectively (especially Ky, wearing an almost identical garb worn by the prince).
  • Battle Chasers creator Joe Madureira have said that Bastard!! is one of his primary inspiration in creating his comic. When you look at characters like Garrison, who bares some similarities with Gara, it's not hard to see why.
• Series Hiatus: The manga has been on indefinite hiatus since 2010, and is still hanging on at 27 volumes to this day. It maybe because of Hagiwara burning out and wanting to branch out to other ventures, but the other contributing factor to this could be due to Schedule Slip.
• Schedule Slip: Hagiwara openly admits he has a bad case of this, which is why he often has to come up with things on the fly to continue the story as quickly as possible before hitting the deadline, thanks in no small part to his perfectionism. It's for this reason that Bastard!! got serialized in Shonen Jump's quarterly imprint Weekly Shonen Jump Seasonal Specials at an irregular schedule for much of The '90s; to give him more to time to work on the manga. After a brief return to regular Shonen Jump in 1997 (still on an irregular schedule), Bastard!! eventually made a jump to the Seinen-aimed Ultra Jump in 2000, which gave him even more leeway thanks to being monthly. And it shows in his art quality. Despite all of that though, the manga still ended up being published on, you guessed it, an irregular schedule.
• Studio Hop: The 1992 OVA was produced by AIC and the 2022 ONA was produced by Liden Films.
• Uncredited Role: It's unknown why Dark Schneider's English voice actor for the 2022 ONA (commonly assumed to be Kyle McCarley) went uncredited, unlike the rest of the cast (barring Sheila). Considering he's the main character, it's pretty surprising.
• You Sound Familiar:
  • Mami Koyama who previously voiced Arshes Nei in the first 3 Drama CD's back in the early 90's voices Anthrasax in the 2022 Netflix ONA.
  • Wendee Lee who previously voiced Tia Noto Yoko in the English dub of the 1992 OVA voices Arshes Nei in the 2022 Netflix ONA's dub.