What are the Bastard!! novels and Data Book?

Bastard!!’s print life is wider than its 27 volumes. Shueisha’s Jump J Books novel line carried a set of Bastard!! prose novels (among them Black Rainbow and the side story Ninja Master Gara Gaiden), and Hagiwara personally supervised, co-wrote, and illustrated three of the line’s books, an unusually deep authorial involvement for licensed prose. The reference shelf is anchored by the official Bastard!! Data Book, a Jump Comics volume of world data, character files, and spell documentation: for a series whose magic system is a catalogue, the catalogue got its own book.

The audio shelf exists too: a run of drama CDs, including the three Gaiden volumes and a Wonderful Megadeath disc, tying the side bibliography back to the studio’s doujin flagship (see the studio page). For collectors, these are the attainable rarities: the manga’s first printings are contested, while the novels and Data Book still surface quietly.