The Dark God of Destruction") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazushi Hagiwara.

Hagiwara is an enthusiastic fan of heavy metal music and Dungeons & Dragons,[5] using ideas from both of these in the Bastard!!

The manga was adapted into a six-episode original video animation (OVA) series by AIC, released from 1992 to 1993.

An original net animation (ONA) adaptation of the same name, by Liden Films, premiered on Netflix worldwide in June 2022.

Four centuries ago, Earth suffered a cataclysm caused by the demon Anthrasax before she was slain by the Dragon Knight, plunging the world into a new dark age.

In the present, the Kingdom of Metallicana is attacked by the Dark Rebel Army who seek to resurrect Anthrasax.

In time, Dark’s allies learn of his true nature and ties to the calamity that befell the Old World.

[8] The series was then switched to the Weekly Shōnen Jump Specials quarterly magazine, where it ran on an irregular basis.

The first volume updates Hagiwara's art style, improving backgrounds, screentones and includes redrawing of some characters.

Including graphic sexual scenes being censored, the major differences are the changing of place names.

The series names places, spells and some people after various heavy metal bands, such as Metallica, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Anthrax, Megadeth, Venom, Guns N' Roses, and Helloween.

[23][9][2] Fearing lawsuits, Viz Media (and Pioneer for the OVA adaptation) took the Japanese transliterations of these band names and changed them somewhat, then transliterating them back to English, e.g., Anthrax became "Anthrasax", Iron Maiden into "Aian Meide", and the main city in which the story takes place, Metallicana, was changed to "Meta-Rikana".

[6][29] A six-episode original video animation (OVA) series by AIC was released between August 25, 1992, and June 25, 1993.

[2] In North America, Pioneer Entertainment released the series on three VHS set tapes with an English dub between August 28 and December 8, 1998.

[80][81] An original net animation (ONA) adaptation by Liden Films was announced on February 3, 2022.

The 24-episode ONA is directed by Takaharu Ozaki, with scripts written by Yōsuke Kuroda, character designs by Sayaka Ono, and music composed by Yasuharu Takanashi.

[91] The series' first season was released on a Blu-ray Disc set in North America by Sentai Filmworks on January 21, 2025.