Ask John: Why Hasn’t There Been More Bastard!! Anime?

Question:
Why hasn’t there been any additional Bastard! anime since the 1992 six-part OAV series? I’ve read that Bastard! is one of Weekly Sh?nen Jump’s best-selling manga series of all time and is still running to this day with 27 collected volumes. With it’s popularity and plenty of material to animate I’d think it would make a perfect candidate for a TV series.

Answer:
The argument can be made that very long-running manga franchises do occasionally get new anime adaptations. A case in point is the 2008 Golgo 13 television series based on the manga that’s been ongoing since 1968. Another relevant example is the current Buddha movie trilogy based on Osamu Tezuka’s 14-volume manga serial published from 1972 until 1983. The primary reason for the development of new anime, however, is to encourage new and revitalized sales of print and novels, so in that regard Kazushi Hagiwara’s Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin manga is a bit of a unique situation. Takao Saito’s Golgo 13 manga is episodic. New readers can be easily encouraged to begin reading the manga at any given volume, so advertising for the franchise is perpetually appropriate and effective. Tezuka Productions or Sunrise can launch new Buddha, Black Jack, or Keroro Gunso anime at any time because the franchises are closely affiliated with the studios. None of the circumstances that surround these productions parallel the circumstances of the Bastard!! manga series.

Kazushi Hagiwara’s Bastard!! is a sprawling, ongoing epic, resulting in it having fewer obvious and accessible “jumping on points” for new readers. While the franchise is historically one of Japan’s best selling manga titles and is technically still ongoing, it’s not serialized regularly, and the most recent collected volume was published in March 2012. With 27 collected manga volumes currently in print, certainly the Bastard!! story has enough source material to animate. But from a producer’s perspective, investing in new Bastard!! anime isn’t likely to generate a big financial return. A new Bastard!! anime production may reinvigorate consumer interest in the manga franchise, but when consumers realize that there hasn’t been a new manga volume released in two years, and getting back into the story may require the massive time, energy, and financial investment of going back to acquire and read 27 volumes of manga, most consumers will immediately be discouraged and lose interest in the franchise again.

Select older or very long-running manga can get brand new anime adaptations either because new anime will actually result in new readers purchasing more volumes of the original manga, or because the original manga has a close affiliation with a particular anime production studio. Neither situation applies to Bastard!! Kazushi Hagiwara’s Bastard!! isn’t currently in regular weekly or monthly serialization and doesn’t have brand new volumes on store shelves to promote; a new Bastard!! anime would not result in large numbers of new readers suddenly picking up the manga because “picking up” the manga entails going back 27 volumes instead of just easily “jumping on” with the latest release; and Bastard!! manga publisher Shueisha isn’t also an anime production studio or doesn’t have its own anime production studio that would benefit from producing a new in-house Bastard!! anime. Bastard!! does have a lot of existing manga volumes that could be adapted into anime, but in that regard it’s just like hundreds of thousands of other long-running manga series that aren’t currently active enough to warrant promotional anime adaptation.