finished it. waste of my time watching it, and waste of time feeling that i've missed out on something because I haven't watched Bastard! 15 years ago.

the last two episodes were better, but it still seems like this would have been better with six episodes, half the characters, and gutting the whole thing down to something else.

side note: I hate the ending sequence. it sterile and pretending. all the women there behave like they are dolls, controlled, which removes their agency and the different kind of "love" they each have towards Dark Sheneaider, and makes them seems less of a character and more of a prop. add that to them posing like lingerie models and it gets off putting.

it reminds me the most of Samurai Deeper Kyo (which I didn't like), it has a similar structure, someone bad was trapped inside something weak and is bound by it, and then plot, but mainly fights which never end and don't go anywhere. it also allows them to behave as if there is a grand story while never conveying that to the viewer (RE: the war 15 years ago, what was that about?), and every fight is a twist "I have a more hidden secret power!" or "I have a more secret motive!" that it breaks characterization.

and this show had a shocking amount of battle commentators, like I'm watching prince of tennis again, I was hoping that anime being produced by netflix had better production values.