Re: Berserk

[Enail]

If there isn't another season, I'm going to have to go back to the manga.

[Werel]

But...

I'll just draw and animate and color and voice the next season, it's fine, everything is going to be just fine guys

[Enail]

Looking sharp! Just make sure it ends happy...or else...

[Werel]

So who else is in the path of the you-know-what tomorrow?

Spoiler:

Homemade clay behelit: check
Insane sunk-cost ambitions: check
Desperation levels: high
Dog, boyfriend, and anyone else who happens to wander by: fucking doomed

Gonna have a completed PhD in my hands by 11am PST, folks

[Enail]

It's only partial here.

Spoiler:

Is it possible to partially slaughter everyone you know in a horrific nightmarish demonscape? Do I have to just, like, three quarters-disembowel them?

[Enail]

It's only partial here.

Spoiler:

Is it possible to partially slaughter everyone you know in a horrific nightmarish demonscape? Do I have to just, like, three quarters-disembowel them?

G-good luck on the PhD

[bomaye]

Put your grasses on
Nothing will be wong

[bomaye]

Fell down a rabbit-hole of a high-quality anime youtube nerd

[bomaye]

HA

Guts is Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star, a brooding wandering ass-kicker, Griffith is Oscar from The Rose of Versailles, a lady-knight who was raised as a boy.

[Enail]

...

[bomaye]

Awriiiight, started playing Berserk and the Band of the Hawk on PS4

[bomaye]

I think this is the first time I've experienced Wyald

[Werel]

I think this is the first time I've experienced Wyald

I hate-love Wyald, but his apostle form is one of my favorites.

[bomaye]

I ended up Platinum Trophy'ing the game B)

BTW, after the G1 Climax/New Japan pro wrestling's annual month-long tournament ends in a few weeks, I'm gonna read the manga version of things and then catch up on the story.

[Werel]

I'm behind by like two volumes. When you get to the end you'll get why I'm so excited that

Spoiler:

they have apparently finally gotten off the damn boat after T E N  Y E A R S

[bomaye]

Awriiight, herewego. Gonna smash through a Volume or three every Wednesday and Thursday, I think.

I'm following This Volume List

I don't think I'll have much extra to say for a lot of this.

Volume 1/Chapters 00a-00c [Future series spoilers/I'm commenting with future knowledge of the series up to the end of the anime versions and the end of the PS4 game in mind]

Spoiler:

- Start with sex and violence so everyone knows what they're getting into
- Definitely a lot more bloody and violent than any of the anime versions allowed for.
- It's super interesting how much of the end-game of the Golden Age/The Eclipse Miura already had in place by the time the first chapter ended. The brand, Guts' rage over what happened, his and Casca and Griffith's abortion-demon, his insistence on not being touched as if he's regressing to old ways or trying to emotionally distance himself from everyone who died by insisting they were just weak, and how he proclaims to hate weaklings and how he doesn't care about anyone around him but yet tries to stop people from getting hurt around him.
- I enjoyed Guts enjoying killing the shit out of the King of Thieves because that guy was one of the most aggravating boss fights in Band of the Hawk. But I also liked how cowardly and afraid the King of Thieves became as Guts turned the battle around and defeated him.
- Interesting that the Priest with God on his side can see Puck, and doesn't think of Puck as blasphemy or anything like that.
- UGHHHH stepping through wooden spikes in his nightmares
- I forget if the anime versions ever mentioned or played off that Puck was an empath. Every scene where Guts is fighting or angry, Puck is crossing his arms and crying
- Guts saying things like "If you're always worried about crushing the ants beneath you, you'll be afraid to walk" and Puck not really buying into it at all
- Hrm, I don't think this Chapter with Heretical executions was in adapted. Guts spitting in the face of a soldier and then tossing the decapitated head at the fat leader guy with the brand painted on it
- So the Inquisition was already ongoing in the Black Swordsman Arc
- Drawing in the guts of the guys Guts cleaves in two
- "Now we're even"
- Guts smashing the warhammer so badly that it rebounds, destroys Zondark's helmet and has shrapnel digging into his face
- Oh, it's The Count.
- Whoa whoa whoa, the freaky little Doctor person has a Behelit (was that the same person who gave Griffith the Crimson Behelit? I feel like I've seen that design before)

[bomaye]

Volume 2/Chapters 00d-00e

Spoiler:

- Oh right, The Count. This asshole was a decently easy boss battle but you could get stun-locked on him once in awhile
- I kind of like that the anime never really explained the Behelit to you unlike Guts explaining what it does this early on
- Puck trying to twist his face to look like the Behelit
- Zondark's attacks are too fast to see, but Guts is blocking them anyways, I really like how the action's depicted in this
- Smiling Behelit
- Miura seems to have fun with depicting Puck quite a bit, like standing next to the Fairy sign
- Guts talking about how there's a price attached to ambition, too high a price leads to self destruction and how Puck is doubled over in agony over Guts self-hating and destructive anger
- Puck squaring up to fight Guts
- Guts doesn't bother saving Vargas even Puck tries, seems to feel regret over it, gets haunted by the demon abortion for it
- Huh. The Count has a daughter who he's "ridding the world of heretics" for but she also won't him touch her without her yelling... yikes
- Aha, Heretics sacrificed the Countess to an "Evil God", and now the Count is an Apostle himself, hunting down heretics to the point where he's just killing people who aren't heretics anymore
- Theresia's happiness that Puck will be back to see her later
- Guts is being attacked by a dick-squid
- Guts seemed fearful that The Count told him that Divine Providence can't be thwarted by mortals
- He's unconscious after The Count tossed him around, but still gripping his sword tightly. He learned a bit after The Eclipse (even though The Count finally KO's him hard enough that he dropped it)

[Enail]

Spoiler:

Every time you write "The Count," I think "van, van vanderful Behelit, ah ah ah ha!

[bomaye]

Volume 3/Chapters 00f-00i

Spoiler:

- So they established early on that Demons are kinda sad beneath it all
- Puck holding the Behelit while flying and its facial features are getting pulled up by his grip
- Guts pulling Theresia in front of the charging demon-Count, that's cold
- Ha, he went Zoro-from-One-Piece style with the sword in his teeth (or the other way around since it came first)
- Jesus, Guts, stabbing the Count repeatedly in front of Theresia knowing that he won't die easily
- Oh shit, the Behelit activated
- Fucking wow, Griffith and the Godhand introduced this early
- The Godhand lol'ing at the idea that Guts could be their enemy
- Femto proclaiming that Guts' existence is beneath his notice, which was what originally separated the two, because Griffith couldn't call someone without ambition his friend
- The brand causes ever increasing pain based on the power of the demon its near, even death if it's the Godhand, god damn
- The Godhand is making The Count sacrifice Theresia, because only a sacrifice of something meaningful to someone will open up a deep enough fissure/wound in someone's heart to allow evil to pour in and take over
- "Do what you did last time." Figured he sacrificed his wife
- Welp, she was a Pagan goat-demon fucker
- The Count's original summoning of the Godhand only had four
- So the Godhand offers a life without pain to those ordained by fate
- And now threatening him because as a demon, he'll go to hell and eventually his indivudality will dissolve away
- Huh, The Count couldn't do it, and then Vargas soul was among those dragging him down to hell
- Guts last shot made Griffith make eye contact with him >: )
- Guts telling Theresia to kill herself, god dammit Guts
- "It's your life, do what you want with it."
- And then he ends up saving her from the collapsing floor
- Eyyyy Theresia's def gonna kill Guts at the end and then Mirua will give a cheeky wink and be all "I told you"
- Awwww Guts has a sad for some reason
- Baby Guts is Shisu's "toy to console her" after her pregnancy (that may or may not have been Gambino's) failed
- Sleeping with his sword as a child
- Ughhhh Gambino cares about his just enough that Guts is doing everything he can for recognition from him

[Enail]

It's interesting how much stuff there is to notice based on foreknowledge hat I didn't catch reading it for the first time.

[bomaye]

Miura said he was just making it up as he went along, but there's no fucking way, way too much is foreshadowed perfectly.

I would say,

Spoiler:

I think the anime got it right by leaving out the majority of the Black Swordsman Arc. The Behelit, Griffith's betrayal etc isn't explained, just hinted at, so you're left with this sense that something is going to happen in the future and "what is all this demonic shit lurking in the background signifying?"

[Enail]

Spoiler:

Reading the manga first, I didn't fully get the significance of the Behelit, and while you had a bit more confirmation of Griffith's betrayal, I didn't register any details or have enough to connect it, it all just summed up to me as vague demonic mysteriousness that didn't matter much to me yet so it didn't spoil as much as it sounds like it does already knowing more. I did pretty much just feel that sense of lurking demonic shit and an ominous terrible thing in the future even with the other info.

[bomaye]

Volume 4/Chapter 00j-00n

Spoiler:

- Didn't need to see the rape scene
- Guts would rather get revenge than believe Gambino would sell him out like that
- Gambino's truly the worst
- That first night under the moon after killing Gambino
- Never made the connection between Guts hating being called a Mad Dog, Gambino hating him for being a "lonely puppy" and the actual Mad Dog demon that he seems to become
- The amount of detail on the double-page spreads where sieges and battles are happening is crazy
- Bazuso's eye-popping out when Guts brains him
- Corkus is the idiot to blame for everything, if he didn't want to rob Guts, everything would've been fine
- Casca's realization that she's dead when Guts defeats her in battle
- I like how the first you see of Femto in the manga, Guts can't do shit to him, and then the first you see of Griffith in the Golden Age, Guts again can't do shit to him
- That nightmare Guts has about Gambino, the imagery and PTSD-ness of it was a lot more intense than the anime
- One of the last things Gambino, the only person Guts cared about, said to him was "I wish you had died." One of the first things that Casca, the person Guts eventually cares about the most, said to him was "I wish you had died."
- Guts making a point of noticing how youthful the Band of the Hawk is. Young people are more likely to get caught up in a Cult of Personality
- Guts asks Griffith straight out "Are you a homo?" after finding out that Griffith wanted him. But it's also Griffith with those freaky eagle eyes seeing through to someone's emotional weak point, I remember the original anime being really good at showcasing that
- Interestingly enough, Guts with the same attitude of acting tough and pushing people away as a youngster that he's again portraying as an adult in the Black Swordsman arc
- Also Guts hating Griffith's "damn superior attitude" which is something that made him angry about Gambino
- Griffith with his beautiful, flowing fighting style and Guts with his dirty, charge-forward, win-no-matter-what-it-takes style. When/if Guts kills Femto, he's gonna definitely do it dirty
- And Guts refusing to concede defeat even if it meant having his shoulder dislocated
- Guts ready to kill the shit out of Corkus and the ambushers, Casca again tells him to go die and whotf would want him, decides to sleep sitting up with the sword on his shoulder
- Another thing I'll say about the manga, you can really tell Miura has a massive hard-on for medieval Knights, battles and military tactics. In the animes they still talked tactics and such but it felt more like action-scenes-to-serve-the-plot, but in the manga, there is so much page-space used to depict knights in battle and show how they're accomplishing their battle plans

[bomaye]

Manga Vol 4:

-Griffith is so pretty, I'm wondering if this is going to turn out to be shoujo under all that graphic violence and despair

Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

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