Bastard!! (1989)

[BASTARD!! -暗黒の破壊神-]

Volume 4

Author/Artist: Kazushi Hagiwara
Publisher: Jump Comics

Synopsis:
Abigail places Arshes Nei under the Curse of the Blue Nail to ensure her loyalty to the Dark Rebel Army.

Story/Characters:
We open with Abigail using Accused on Nei. Kall-Su doesn't see the need for it, but Abigail has no faith in her, being Dark Schneider's adoptive daughter/lover and all. Abigail then goes on to boast of Anthrasax's resurgent power. We cut to see Dark Schneider sending off Sean Ari and Kai Harn before he and Yoko make their return to Metallicana. In Metallicana, Gara and his ninja are busy fending off Nei's forces. Gara has to pull out all the stops to keep Nei at bay, but ultimately he ends up outclassed, though not before buying enough time for DS to show up. Now, Nei has to focus on her anger at "Darsh" because she's putty in his hands (hence it being a good call on Abigail's part to have the Curse of the Blue Nail as insurance). This doesn't work so well for her, so she pulls out for the time being, giving the Metallicana folks some time to recover. We have Yoko serving up chow to the castle's defenders and squabbling with DS as usual while Geo and Sheila consult with Baba over Dark Schneider's ability to break the seal on him without Yoko. Basically, through Dark Schneider's force of will and growing power, the seal has been weakening. They then see a vision of him dying in the near future. While Yoko is tending to Gara's injuries, he tells her that with two high-level spellcasters like DS and Nei, whoever's focus slips even a little will lose out. This prompts her to go to DS with her concerns, but Sheila has beaten her to the punch, only for DS to blow off the omen of his death with his usual bravado and mack on the princess. Cue Nei's return.

Sheila tries to stop Dark Schneider from going out to fight her, but instead he asks Yoko to lend him 500 yen. The idea is that she taught Lucien how important it is to pay back what you owe, ergo he isn't going to die before he can pay her back. Efreet manifests himself to help DS out, so we have his Fire Sword vs. Nei's Lightning Sword. I thought it was dickish of DS to kill Nei's griffin mount, but, as always, refer to the title whenever you want to raise an objection to Dark Schneider's behavior. Nei draws upon Nue, the spirit of her sword, so we end up having Nue and Efreet go at it and ultimately Efreet takes himself and Nue out of the equation to protect DS (as he considers DS to be necessary for the world). As the fight intensifies, we have some flashbacks to Nei's past as the harder she tries to kill DS, the more she subconsciously wavers and Dark Schneider continues to press her, reminding her of where she comes from and what he means to her (as if she needs reminding).

Art:
We get some nice big battle sequences, first Gara vs. Nei and then the two phases of DS vs. Nei. There's so much battling that you may actually start to feel a bit of fatigue from one big attack after another with the bystanders in the peanut gallery providing their commentary. This is a Shounen Jump battle series, after all, so it's par for the course. We get a couple instances of art devolution for comedic effect and one panel that Hagiwara didn't know what to do with.

Other:
We get a marginal 4-koma of Hagiwara slaving away on the manuscript, a little cheesecake illustration of Sean Ari (apparently due to her popularity), and renditions of Anthrasax by different artists.

Conclusion:
If you are invested in the character of Arshes Nei, this volume is pretty good for showing off her fighting ability and dipping into her backstory. If you're creeped out by the context of her relationship with Dark Schneider, it's not going to get any better for you. If I'd written this review earlier, I might have rated it higher, but coming back to it now, my interest has cooled a fair bit. If you're just here for the action, you should be happy enough, but I'm going to say take it or leave it.

Rating:
50/50