Bastard!! Returns With New Series From Netflix and Warner Bros.

The dark fantasy manga Bastard!! will receive a new anime adaptation from Netflix and Warner Bros. Japan.

Netflix announced the series through one of the streaming company's official Twitter accounts. The announcement labels the series as "heavy metal, dark fantasy" and gives the new show a premiere window of sometime in 2022. The first image from the new anime was also revealed, which shows the series' main character, the edgy wizard Dark Schneider, and the priestess who resurrects him, Tia Noto Yoko.

The new anime will be directed by Takaharu Ozaki, who previously worked on Terraformars and helmed the controversial Goblin Slayer. The series is being produced at Liden Films, the studio behind the anime adaptations of The Heroic Legend of Arslan and one of 2021's biggest hits, Tokyo Revengers.

Bastard!! was created by Kazushi Hagiwara and began serialization within Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1988. The series is set in a dark fantasy dystopia inspired by Hagiwara's love of classic heavy metal and Dungeons and Dragons. The story focuses on Dark Schneider, a powerful wizard who once dreamed of taking over the world, until his soul was sealed within the body of a young boy. After a worldwide war breaks out that threatens to destroy all of humanity, Schneider is released with the hope that his powers will be enough to stop the conflict and prevent the unsealing of an even more dangerous, ancient threat.

Hagiwara's original manga was one of Shueisha's biggest hits of the late '80s and early '90s, selling over 30 million copies before going on hiatus in 2009. The new Netflix series will be the second anime adaptation of the manga: a six-episode miniseries was created by Anime International Company (AIC) in 1992 and released directly to video. AIC is best known for producing a number of the most popular anime series of the early 1990s, including Tenchi Muyo! and Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight.

The show is the latest example of Netflix's increased focus in the anime industry as a source of content for its streaming service. The streaming company previously partnered with Warner Bros. Japan to add the highly anticipated Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean to its library as an international exclusive. Netflix has also secured other high profile series such as Komi Can't Communicate and Pokémon Master Journeys: The Series as streaming exclusives to its service, in addition to producing its own anime adaptations, such as Baki and BEASTARS.

Source: Twitter