Bastard!! is written and illustrated by Kazushi Hagiwara. The series began serialization in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump on March 14, 1988, and ran on a regular basis in the magazine until August 21, 1989. The first tankōbon volume was published on August 10, 1988. The series was then switched to the Weekly Shōnen Jump Specials quarterly magazine, where it ran on an irregular basis. It was later published again in Weekly Shōnen Jump, on an irregular "monthly" basis, from 1997 to 2000. The series was transferred to the seinen manga magazine Ultra Jump, starting on December 19, 2000. The manga is published in the magazine on an irregular schedule. Its latest chapter was published on May 19, 2010. Twenty-seven volumes have been released as of March 2012. Shueisha re-released the series in a new kanzenban-like edition, titled Bastard!! Complete Edition, which updates Hagiwara's art style, improving his backgrounds, screentone and includes redrawing of some characters. Volumes were released from December 2000 to December 2009. In 2014, Shueisha released a nine-volume bunkoban edition from May to September. In North America, Viz Media announced the license of Bastard!! in July 2001. The Viz edition is based on Bastard!! Complete Edition. Viz edition differs in a few ways from Japan release. 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. 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 "Anslasax", Iron Maiden into "Aian Meide", and the main city in which the story takes place, Metallicana, was changed to "Meta-Rikana". Viz Media published the first five volumes in a left-to-right edition from August 2002 to December 2003. The volumes were later republished in its original right-to-left version starting from November 2003. The manga stopped its publication after the release of volume 19 in September 2009. Volume list Original video animation A six-episode original video animation (OVA) series by AIC was released between August 25, 1992 and June 25, 1993. The OVA cover the story up through the Four Lords of Havoc's battle against Abigail (volumes 6–7 of the manga). In North America, Pioneer Entertainment released