Blade & Bastard

ブレイド＆バスタード

Popularity #9673

Action
Adventure
Fantasy

Duration: Unknown
Aired: 2027 to ?
Status: Not yet aired

Synopsis

In the shadowy depths of an uncharted dungeon, an unexpected discovery occurs—a corpse that defies the natural order. Iarumas, who is inexplicably brought back to life, finds himself devoid of the memories from his previous existence. He now dedicates his time to scavenging the dungeon, searching for the remains of fallen adventurers in hopes of resurrecting them. However, the question looms: can their souls be restored, or are they destined to be lost forever, reduced to mere remnants on the altar? Despite earning a measure of respect for his abilities, Iarumas's pragmatic approach leads to isolation; he finds companionship mainly among the deceased.

Everything changes when he encounters Garbage, a fierce young swordswoman who is the last survivor of a brutal ambush. Together, they navigate the treacherous dungeon, facing off against formidable monsters and cunning traps, all while Iarumas seeks fragments of his forgotten past. His journey alongside Garbage not only challenges his views on life and death but also forces him to confront the weight of his choices in a world where the line between the living and the dead is perilously thin.

Otaku Consensus

As a 2027 title that has not yet aired, Blade & Bastard has no meaningful critical consensus or adaptation verdict to judge. Its strongest pre-release case is the staff package: Goblin Slayer author Kumo Kagyuu, Overlord illustrator so-bin, director Tomoki Kobayashi, and composer Hayato Matsuo give it a sharper dungeon-fantasy pedigree than its low current visibility suggests. The chief concern is not quality but uncertainty: with Xingfu handling production and only a small early footprint on MAL and AniList, the adaptation still has to prove its pacing, monster staging, and resurrection-heavy tone in motion.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Blade & Bastard if you want dungeon fantasy with a harsher tabletop-RPG aftertaste: corpses, recovery, traps, swords, magic, and survival logistics rather than a clean power fantasy ladder. The hook is the creative pairing of Kumo Kagyuu’s grim adventurer sensibility with so-bin’s character-design lineage, which positions it closer to the dangerous, attritional side of Goblin Slayer than the wish-fulfillment comfort of many isekai dungeon shows. Hayato Matsuo’s presence also points toward a more old-school fantasy sound than a purely modern action score. If you like party-based exploration, amnesia used as a character mystery rather than an excuse for exposition, and dungeon crawling where resurrection is treated as a cost-bearing system, this is one to track before it airs.

Key Characters

G
Garbage(VA: Tomori Kusunoki)
Garbage is the blunt-edged swordswoman role of the cast, and Tomori Kusunoki’s casting gives the character a strong pre-release hook for fans who follow intense, emotionally direct performances.
I
Iarumas(VA: Makoto Furukawa)
Iarumas is built around a colder kind of fantasy protagonist appeal: less chosen-hero momentum, more dungeon pragmatism, death-work, and identity unease.
R
Raraja(VA: Daiki Yamashita)
Raraja’s billing as a main character alongside Iarumas and Garbage suggests the anime is being framed as a party-driven dungeon story rather than a strict two-character survival piece.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The anime’s fantasy identity is unusually staff-forward: Kumo Kagyuu, best known to anime fans for Goblin Slayer, is credited with the original story, while so-bin, widely associated with Overlord’s visual identity, provides the original character designs.
2
Xingfu is the listed animation studio, making Blade & Bastard a title to watch for how a comparatively less internationally recognizable studio handles dense dungeon spaces, creature encounters, and swordplay-heavy action.
3
The creative team pairs director Tomoki Kobayashi with series composition writer Naruhisa Arakawa, a combination that puts particular weight on whether the anime can balance procedural dungeon crawling with the larger memory and resurrection questions.
4
AniList’s tag spread is evenly split across Amnesia, Dungeon, Dragons, Magic, and Swordplay at 20% each, which marks the pre-release identity as ensemble fantasy texture rather than a single dominant gimmick.
5
Hayato Matsuo is credited for the music, a notable fit for a series whose appeal depends on old-school fantasy atmosphere, danger cues, and the weight of ritual rather than only high-speed combat scoring.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Blade & Bastard is scheduled for 2027 and is still listed as not yet aired, so any definitive claims about animation quality, pacing, or adaptation cuts are premature.
Fun fact 2: Its early database footprint is small: the title sits at MAL popularity #9963 and has 25 AniList favourites in the provided data, making it more of a sleeper-watch candidate than a pre-release juggernaut.
Fun fact 3: The main Japanese cast announced in the data brings together Tomori Kusunoki as Garbage, Makoto Furukawa as Iarumas, and Daiki Yamashita as Raraja.
Fun fact 4: The project has no listed theme category in the supplied data despite carrying Action, Adventure, and Fantasy genres, which makes its identity depend more on its dungeon-crawling mechanics and staff pedigree than on a database-friendly subgenre label.
Fun fact 5: The production credits separate original story, original character design, anime character design, sound direction, and music: Kumo Kagyuu, so-bin, Rina Iwamoto, Kisuke Koizumi, and Hayato Matsuo each occupy a distinct part of the adaptation pipeline.