Translation
The version of Bastard!! released in North America differs in a few ways from that released in Japan. The major differences are the changing of place names. The manga and anime both name places, spells (and some people) after various Heavy Metal bands, such as Metallica, Judas Priest (even in the name itself, in this case; sometimes in the manga, a blank page with "BASTARD!!" written after the style of the Judas Priest logo can be seen), Whitesnake, and Anthrax, and the spells Megadeth, Venom, Guns N' Roses, and Helloween. Fearing lawsuits, Pioneer took the Japanese forms of the band names and changed them somewhat when they were put back in English: Megadeth become Megadeath, Helloween became Haro-Wing, Whitesnake became Whiteos-Neiki, Guns N' Roses was shortened to Guns-N-Ro, and Anthrax became Anslasax. The main city in which the adventure takes place, Meta-Ricana, is actually Metallicana. In addition, there is little swearing in the dub translation.