Berserk has spawned numerous adaptations in different media, which cover various parts of the story and often substantially expand, compress, or change.
Manga
- Berserk: The Prototype
: A non-canon work created by Kentaro Miura when he was in college, this served as the...well, prototype for the manga. - Berserk, the original manga.
Anime
- Berserk (1997), the first adaptation of the manga, is a twenty-five-episode anime with animation production by Oriental Light and Magic that aired from October 7, 1997, to March 31, 1998. It covers the Golden Age Arc after starting off with a short prologue in the Black Swordsman Arc; the main differences are that Puck and the Skull Knight get Adapted Out, and the ending after the Eclipse leaves more questions unanswered than in the manga. Despite these changes and its Limited Animation, the way it managed to capture the characters and atmosphere of the manga has made it a classic for the fans.
- Berserk: The Golden Age Arc is an anime film trilogy covering the Golden Age Arc, featuring animation production by Studio 4°C. The first, second, and third installments came out on February 4th, 2012; June 23rd, 2012; and February 1st, 2013, respectively. The films generate mixed opinions, as they were relatively lavish on the production side, but relied on CG to animate large battles, and significantly compressed the plot and character development in order to fit everything into three movies.
- Berserk (2016), the first anime sequel to the Golden Age Arc, is produced by LIDEN Films with animation production by studios GEMBA and Millepensee. The animation is mostly in 3D, with passages of 2D mixed in. The first 12 episodes cour combines a bit of the Black Swordsman Arc with the second and third chapters of the Conviction Arc, while the second season covers the Chapter of the Holy Demon War. It is available for viewing on Crunchyroll. However, it is heavily disliked by many fans and considered the worst of the different adaptations of Berserk by a significant margin.
Video Games
- Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage, the first of two Hack and Slash
licensed games developed by Yuke's which featured the first anime's voice actors (in the Japanese version). The original Japanese version titled Berserk Millennium Falcon Arc: Chapter of the Flowers of Oblivion came out on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, while the English localization by Eidos Interactive re-titled Sword of the Berserk had its North American release in 2000. Sword of the Berserk is an Interquel utilizing an original scenario and characters created by Miura and set between volumes 22 and 23 of the manga. - Berserk: Millennium Falcon Hen Seima Senki no Shō, the second Yuke's video game, came out on the Playstation 2 on October 7, 2004. Unlike Sword of the Berserk, it was only released in Japan and Korea with no English localization. It adapts volumes 22 to 27 of the manga, covering the titular Chapter of the Holy Demon War, but also adds an original sub-plot where a child-like Apostle named Charles forces Guts to confront and fight apparitions of his fallen comrades from the Band of the Falcon.
- Berserk and the Band of the Hawk, known in Japan as Beruseruku Musō (ベルセルク無双 ), is a Dynasty Warriors-style video game adaptation produced by Koei Tecmo and developed by Omega Force. It covers the story from the Golden Age Arc to the Millennium Falcon Arc, and—as in the main Dynasty Warriors series—players can choose one of several characters and fight against waves of enemies while completing mission objectives on a large battlefield. It was released in Japan on October 27, 2016, for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and the PlayStation Vita; It was released in North America and Europe on February 21 and February 24 of 2017, respectively, for the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation Vita, and the PC via Steam.
Other
- The Berserk TCG, a Japan-exclusive Collectible Card Game published by Konami in five volumes between 2003 and 2005. The goal of the game is to seize control of 3 of the 5 cities in the game including the capital city or to reduce the cards in your opponent's deck to 0.
- The Berserk Official Guide Book, released in Japan in September 2016. An English version was released in fall 2018.
- Berserk: The Flame Dragon Knight, a Light Novel written by Makoto Fukaminote and illustrated by Miura which tells the backstory of the Apostle Grunbeld. It was released in Japan on June 23, 2017, and was published in English by Dark Horse on April 17, 2019.
