Put your grasses on, and prepare to CLANG: it's gonna be a loooooong boat ride.
Berserk has its share of Memetic Mutation. In fact, /r/berserk
has a whole playground for memes and trolling called /r/berserklejerk which has developed progressively more opaque inside jokes. Below are some of the more notable memes bandied about by the fans:
Please add entries in the following format:
- The meme[[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary[[/labelnote]]Explanation Like this
Berserk (Manga)
- This meme has been passed down through the Coborlwitz family for [arbitrary number] years!Explanation A parody of Adon Coborlwitz' Catchphrase, where he brags about his family's super-secret ancient techniques.
- "HERETIC!!!"Explanation The image of Bishop Mozgus punishing an accused heretic by breaking his skull with an iron-bound book of scripture while screaming "Heretic!" and making an insane expression caused his face to become a meme on 4chan, and Mozgus was even parodied in Excel♡Saga. One particular fan image changes his face to look like Doraemon.
- "Homoerotic water fight!" Explanation From the famous Ho Yay-filled scene where a naked Griffith throws water on Guts, which is described as such in Berserk Abridged.
- Guts is BatmanExplanation The Berserker armor has pointy ears, and when he's fighting with the help of Schierke's control the helmet looks like Batman's cowl.
- Kentaro Miura is actually Filthy Frank.Explanation Some fans see one of the few images of Miura circulating on the internet and think he looks a lot like◊ George 'Joji' Miller, aka Filthy Frank.
- "Franku is really Kentarou Miura? Hmmmm well berserk does have quite a lot of filthy things happen..."
- Potato Casca.Explanation "Potato" is a slang term for people with intellectual disabilities such as Down's syndrome, first used in the 2005 comedy film The Ringer in which con man Steve Barker says "I can count to potato" into the mirror while practicing pretending to be mentally disabled in order to compete in the Special Olympics, and subsequently turned into a meme. It's a joke about Casca's regression to the mental level of a pre-verbal child as a result of her trauma in the Eclipse, a state in which she had spent a very large portion of the series.
- Berserk Manga goes on HiatusExplanation Miura put the manga on hiatus numerous times, and fans would joke that he was trolling them by announcing a new hiatus whenever it looked like things would get moving again. This meme builds off the already memetic "card crusher" video from Tokai University linguistics professor Yun Himonya's late night TV show about making people angry, in which he disrespectfully crushes someone's business card in his hand. The Berserk version was made in response to the notification in December 2015 that the manga would go on hiatus until summer 2016, superimposing Miura's face over Himonaya's and replacing the business card with a piece of paper labeled "monthly releases". It become somewhat Harsher in Hindsight due to Miura's death on May 6th, 2021, (especially since he had already been dead for two weeks before the public was informed).
- "When will they get off the boat!?"Explanation Guts and his companions got on board Roderick's ship The Seahorse for the trip to Elfhelm in episode 286. Because of Miura's irregular publishing schedule, and the Two Lines, No Waiting structure which transferred the focus to Griffith for a while, Guts and co. were on the boat for seven years in real time. This went to the extent that many fans erroneously called it the "Boat Arc" and joked that their kids would be grown up by the time Guts and party got to Elfhelm.
- "Finally they're off the boat!"Explanation When Korean scans of chapter 342 were leaked showing the party making landfall on Skellig Island, the fan reaction was rapturous joy.
- "Are they still on Elfhelm?"Explanation A joke due to a hiatus until summer 2016 after chapter 343, not long after the gang left the boat.
- Three silver coins.Explanation Gambino let another mercenary named Donovan rape nine-year-old Guts in exchange for just three silver coins. Answering any question about price with "three silver coins" is an edgy form of Black Comedy, while Donovan himself is deservedly a Memetic Molester.
- Happy Mother's Day!Explanation Guts was born from the corpse of his mother after she was hanged from a tree, together with many other victims. Every Mother's day, there's invariably someone who will post a picture of the tree of corpses with the message "Happy Mother's Day!" for black comedy.
- Miura's addicted to The Idolmaster.explanation In the magazine that Berserk is published in, Miura often had little comments at the end of the episode. He normally mentioned movies he'd recently seen, games he'd played, or anything else really. In one of them, he mentioned that he had been playing Idolmaster recently and was having fun with it. And then some trolls took that and blew it completely out of proportion, claiming that he was addicted to Idolmaster and would rather play the game than work on Berserk. In reality nothing could have been farther from the truth, as Miura was a total workaholic.
- Rape HorseExplanation In volume 17, a horse possessed by one of the spirits attracted by Guts' brand attempts to rape Farnese. Fans turned him into the series' Memetic Molester and a symbol of how much Gratuitous Rape Berserk contains. Furthermore, Two Best Friends Play decided to make Rape Horse's official theme music Groose's theme from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
- Rape Horse is our lord and savior, and Moura is his prophet.explanation Rule number 1 of r/berserklejerk, Moura being a deliberate mispelling of Miura, and Rape Horse being one of r/berserklejerk's favorite memes. The phrase is a parody of the Shahada or Islamic profession of faith, "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet".
- "Adult Attack!"Explanation Shouted by one of Rosine's elf children while skewering another in the anus with his stinger during their game of "playing human", this line is sometimes quoted for Black Comedy.
- Bagzerkexplanation Due to Miura's apparent fondness for drawing lots of bags and pouches on his characters, fans created this Gag Sub of the manga where everybody is obsessed with bags, and there's a Running Gag where Guts insists that his "manly bag" isn't a purse.
- Griffith did nothing wrong.explanation Because of Griffith's status as Draco in Leather Pants and a Base-Breaking Character, some fans try to rationalize or justify his evil actions as Femto, which pisses off just about everyone else. Therefore, trolls like to use this phrase or something like it as Flame Bait to get people fighting on the forums, and it's also used ironically by people to make fun of both Griffith fanatics and the trolls pretending to be Griffith fanatics.
- Occasionally crossed with the Penpals' "nothing wong" line.
- "Hail Griffith."◊ explanation A crossover with the "Captain Hydra" meme which came out of the May 25, 2016 first issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers, in which Rogers shockingly reveals himself to have been a HYDRA agent. Fans were in an uproar, and turned the image of Rogers saying "Hail HYDRA." into a meme template which could be dressed up as the main character of any other fictional series saying something that betrays everything they stand for, such as Spider-Man saying
"Fuck Responsibility." The Berserk version has the Steve Rogers template turned into Guts saying "Griffith did nothing wrong", the joke being that this would be the ultimate form of Character Derailment for Guts. - Griffith says he doesn't remember the Eclipse because he was drunk, now chooses to live as a gay man.explanation This mock headline is a parody of actor Kevin Spacey's notorious response to allegations of sexual misconduct from Anthony Rapp in 2017, in which he apologized while stating that he didn't recall making sexual advances toward then-14-year-old Rapp because he was drunk at the time, and said in the same announcement that he was coming out as gay, which many commentators took as a cynical misdirection tactic. This reference plays up the idea of Griffith as a Depraved Bisexual while making a "Griffith did nothing wrong" joke.
- Gattsu! Pakku! Guriffisu!explanation The Japanese pronunciation of these characters' names, generally used on /r/berserklejerk when being facetious. Partly a reference to the terrible Band of the Hawk scanlations in which many of the characters' names are improperly romanized, and the general Spell My Name With An S difficulty that comes from trying to name the characters in English.
- "Don't lump me together with you faggot-ass monsters."explanation This is how the Evil Genius scanlations translated Guts' rebuke to Ganishka's assumption that he is an apostle in episode #275, a bit saltier than the official Dark Horse translation's "Don't mistake me for one of you freaks". Fans seem to love this quote as a case of Narm Charm, similar to Kallen's "Badass Mother" line in the dub for Code Geass.
- "It was much too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was like a heap of raw iron."explanation The original narration from volume 1 describing the Dragon Slayer, Guts' BFS, has been quoted and parodied in many iterations.
- "That thing was too big to be called bait. Too big, too thick, to heavy, and too rough."explanation Guts with the head of a fish and the Dragon Slayer replaced with a giant fish hook, a reference to Flame Bait.
- "His penis. It was almost too big, too thick, too long to be a penis, but it was a penis nonetheless."explanation This parody of the Dragon Slayer narration comes from a panel in a hentai doujin illustrating Guts with a monstrous Gag Penis slung over his shoulder in place of the Dragon Slayer, also showing Schierke's WTF reaction. Funnily enough, Miura once quoted Susumu Hirasawa interpreting the Dragon Slayer as a Phallic Weapon, and while he didn't explicitly state that was his intention he didn't contradict it either.
- Schnoz Dance!explanation This odd critter who appears in Qliphoth and basically consists of a head with legs and a huge nose (schnoz) is rather popular. This meme takes the part where Puck and Ivalera are playing around with him and animates it to look like he's dancing.
- Brethren before wenches.explanation Owen and Laban are famous for their bromance, and the Handshake Substitute that they use upon reuniting during the evacuation of Wyndham looks like a classic Bro Fist. The phrase is an archaic rap-style parody of Bros Before Hoes
- "Is this a Berserk reference?"explanation A meme borrowed from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fandom, in which it was originally an acknowledgement of how many Shout Outs JoJo gets but developed into sarcastic annoyance at overly zealous fans who immediately pounce on anything that seems like a Shout-Out to them, even if it's a real stretch. Berserk has developed a similar problem of certain fans being over-eager to see references where none exist, often pointing to things that are by no means exclusive symbols of Berserk but are relatively commonplace and appear in all kinds of fiction.
- Griffith ObservatoryExplanation On the 21st of August 2017 a solar eclipse was visible in America, and one of the main places to watch it from was the famous Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. In the anime and manga of Berserk, an eclipse happens where the Godhand picks Griffith to sacrifice his friends and become Femto before raping Casca. Fans of Berserk have joked that "People are going to die".
- The True Black SwordsmanExplanation Guts shares his moniker with Kirito, the protagonist of Sword Art Online, which is often panned among anime watchers but nonetheless remains popular. A massive Fandom Rivalry exists between the two Berserk and SAO because of it.
- "Muh dream, Guts."Explanation A variation on the "Muh X" meme used to mock fans of Griffith who think his dream justifies the numerous atrocities he's committed.
- Rickert The Badass/The SlapExplanation The internet quickly began to make memes about Rickert's sheer Nerves of Steel after he not only Took a Level in Badass but slapped Griffith, now a godlike being, in the face and got away with it. Needless to say, this feat earned Rickert a spot in the realm of memetic legend among many fans, with many joking about his strength and noting that he's gotten farther on Guts' quest than Guts ever did.
- "He died doing what he wanted, no matter what, right? I bet he was happy."explanation After the death of Kentaro Miura, fans immediately took to the internet and used this particular quote from Guts in memory of Miura, with it and its associated panel spreading like wildfire.
- Berkexplanation A bastardization of the series' title, often associated with an image of a noseless Guts, that has become a popular Fan Nickname for the series.
- What did Kentucky Mario mean by this? Explanation Kentucky Mario is an intentional misnaming of Kentaro Miura. The question is usually accompanied by edited pages, out-of-context pages or panels, or memes, jokingly asking input on the authorial intent behind them.
- Do not avert your gaze! Explanation Mozgus ordering Farnese not to look away from the brutal execution of refugees that were caught stealing from the Church. The panel of Mozgus' Kubrick Stare as he says the line is often used when posting "cringe" or "cursed" content
- "Put your grasses on, nothing will be wong!"explanation This line comes from the 1997 anime theme song "Tell Me Why" by the Penpals, entirely in mispronounced Engrish that manages to be both Narm and Narm Charm. The phrase has been adopted by fans to mean "play it cool" or "keep a positive attitude", and is often represented by photoshopping sunglasses onto Guts.
- "It's up 2 u!"
- "Tell me why, it's too late, it's too late!"Explanation Some fans who had their grasses on for the 2016 anime and felt let down by the quality of the first episode quoted this part of the song in a mournful tone to express their disappointment.
- Hai Yai Forces!◊explanation The chorus of Berserk's Bootstrapped Theme, 'Forces' by Susumu Hirasawa, indispensable for most Berserk parodies.
- Pokémon: The Series is the next season of BerserkExplanation A joke about how the studio that animated Berserk back in 1997, OLM Incorporated, also made every episode of Pokémon and relatively little else. Many fans find it a shame that they never continued with Berserk.
- "BAZUSO!!"
- "THE GREY KNIGHT BAZUSO?!!"Explanation Lines spoken by the extras recoiling in fear from The Dreaded knight Bazuso prior to Guts fighting him, which in the 1997 anime English dub are hilarious because of the melodramatic voice acting. Usually someone will post the first line or a Bazuso meme in a comments thread and everybody else will chime in with the lines that follow.
- "BIG DICK BAZUSO?!!"Explanation Fans have noticed that Bazuso's armor sports an enormous codpiece, and joke that he must be really hung.
- BAZUSOULSExplanation Thanks to the popularity of Dark Souls among Berserk fans and vice versa, as well as a common belief that Berserk partly inspired the Dark Souls franchise, some players produce tribute videos and parodies with their Souls character dressed as one from the manga. A popular one is Bazuso, who can be reproduced by wearing Caterina armor and wielding a battleaxe, so all you have to do is go around killing things dressed up as Bazuso while splicing in footage and/or audio from the '97 anime of Bazuso boasting about his invincibility, and you have an instant meme.
- "My love for you is like a truck! BERSERKER! Do you want to making fuck?! BERSERKER! ...BERSERKER!"
- "...Did he just say 'making fuck?'"Explanation An amusing anime dub outtake for the scene following Guts and Casca making love, this is a reference to the scene in the movie Clerks in which a character recites a Gratuitous English song by a Russian metal band which includes this line.
- Guts themeExplanation The theme that plays during emotional moments in Berserk (1997), which is Guts' theme, was turned into a meme often revolving around the song being added to videos of manly men getting emotional and starting to cry.
- "I do not wish to be horny anymore, I just want to be happy"Explanation A video of a Doge deciding to stop enjoying e-girls, with the Guts theme playing in the background, usually used for post-nut clarity.
- Berserk Skeletons/You should have died.Explanation A still image of a group of skeletons that originated from a scene where Guts has a nightmare about his adoptive dad. It became a popular reaction image in 2021, often as a response to something someone dislikes.
- "BOOGITY BOOGITY BOOOOO!!!"Explanation During the gag dub of Berserk Outtakes, Void's voice actor, Jon Avner, is preparing a serious monologue when the director informs him that, due to being the last episode, there's no need for the speech. [Jon proceeds to fight off security and asserts that he is indeed Void.
- Rubber Dragonslayerexplanation A shot used in the first and second PV depicts the Dragon Slayer deforming as an artistic technique to show speed, which fans were quick to mock as making the sword look as if it were made of rubber.
- CLANG!explanation This started out as an observation about how the sound effects made by the dragon slayer sounded cheap and unrealistic, producing a reverberating metalic sound even when cutting through soft objects such as ghosts or human bodies. It helped to produce the crowning moment of narm in the first episode—Guts chopping Collette's possessed body in half with a "clang" that sounded like smacking someone with a frying pan—and from then on CLANG took on a life of its own. One initial response was to photoshop a giant frying pan into Guts' hands; another was a series of video clips of people either purposefully or accidentally knocking over stacks of pots and pans with the Dragonslayer sound edited in (one highlight was Jack Torrance angrily knocking over pots in The Shining). Eventually, people were speaking of "the CLANG" as shorthand for all of the strange animations, camera angles, sound effects, etc. that contributed to the show being percieved as poorly-made and narm-tastic.
- It was too CLANG to be called a CLANG! Too CLANG, too CLANG, and far too CLANG! It was more like a slab of CLANG!
- Berserk Clang Dank Memes 1, 2, and 3 (contains spoilers for Game of Thrones)explanation A complation of clips from various shows edited so that any kind of strike or impact—whether it's a deer hitting a car or someone's throat being slit—has the same sound as Guts chopping Collette in half.
- Luca's Ultimate「CLANG」Techniqueexplanation For extra hilarity, see Luca spanking Nina's naked behind with the CLANG sound effect each time!
- Senior Editor CLANG.explanation A fictional member of the anime's production staff made up by Bruce— on r/berserk, said to be responsible for demanding that all the janky animations, nauseating camera movements, and cheap sound effects be included in the show.
- That's some damn good anime!Explanation A phrase taken from Cecilia D'Anastasio's first episode review on Kotaku, which many fans felt was overpraising it. The phrase has since been used sarcastically to poke fun at the anime, especially the CG.
- RIP Rabbit◊ Explanation A certain rabbit that Guts killed for food in the first episode has become a joke among the fans because the animation of his body when the knife hits him is hilariously wooden and unrealistic, while his face is totally deadpan.
- "Oh, Tonio! He was a good man..."Explanation The second episode shows a pair of Holy Iron Chain Knights mourning the death of one of their comrades with melodramatic cries of "Oh Tonio! He was a good man!" right when sad music starts playing, as if to dramatize the death of a completely Faceless Red Shirt. The line was also included for the episode's preview for really no reason. Therefore, one only has to mention Tonio on a forum for someone else to chime in that "he was a good man." The joke has extended to referring to him as if he were a major character and giving him a made-up backstory.
- Rape Horse! Best anime ever!!!Explanation Lots of fans who loved the Rape Horse meme were hoping that he'd make it into the anime adaptation, but there were also a lot of people who thought the show wouldn't have the audacity to put something so Crosses the Line Twice on television. These people are rejoicing that he made it into the finished product in episode 3, to the point where they're claiming that this single thing has saved the entire show from being awful.
- Why did they make Casca white?!Explanation Casca, who was a light Ambiguously Brown in the Golden Age trilogy, appears even more light-skinned in the opening credits and the flashbacks in the first couple episodes, which a lot of fans got pissed about. This turned out to mostly be the result of using a high-contrast bloom effect for some of those scenes, and she looks about as tan as she did in the movies when she is shown in the present, but the complaint still stands that they shouldn't have made her look that washed out in the first images we see of her. The artists actually made her substantially browner in the opening credits from episode 11 onwards, as if they had finally realized the problem themselves and decided to correct it.
- Max immersion level. Explanation Some hate the series and its visuals just so much that they'll go so far as to say that they're suffering as much as Guts did in the Eclipse, and use footage from the part of the '97 anime where Guts is Forced to Watch to represent their agony while watching it.
- Guts has hotdog arms.explanation While fans are somewhat mollified that Guts' face has been changed in season 2 to look more like the manga, they think he looks nowhere near as muscular as he should be. One shot from the hill of swords fight where he raises his sword has been singled out to show how there's no bulge in his biceps or triceps, just a kind of painted-on crease, and at that angle it kind of looks like a hotdog bun.
- Careless Griffissexplanation Given how engrained the Sexophone trope has become in audience expectations, viewers were rather amused at the soundtrack turning to a saxophone solo in episode 13 while Guts is thinking about Griffith having returned to the world, so a user named heezmagnif only needed to reset the scene to the memetically sensual sax riff from the George Michael song "Careless Whisper" to make fun of the massive Ho Yay this seems to imply between Guts and Griffith.
- "Gotta go fast!"explanation At the start of episode 21, Isidro is practicing his combat style by rolling around on the ground, eliciting comparisons to Sonic the Hedgehog. It kind of works in the manga because the format lends itself better to Art Shift and little sight gags that don't interrupt the flow of the story, but when put into animation—and rather crudely at that—it looks distracting and silly.
- We need Madhouse!explanation Fans dissatisfied with the dismal production quality have cried out for a better studio to make it, and Madhouse is the name that most people associate with quality. Even if others point out that Madhouse isn't the only good studio these days and that there are other options, most agree that anything would be better than the staff the anime has had so far.
- Pirate Captain is a nutcracker.explanation Captain Bonebeard in episode 24 is modeled and cel-shaded in a particularly poor manner, and viewers think he resembles one of those carved wooden soldier nutrackers with his stiff face and large teeth.
- They played the credits over it!? Now they're just twisting the knife!explanation The show makes a fairly frequent habit of rolling the end credits over an episode that continues instead of cutting directly to the end credits animation. Many fans felt like the few minutes of all-2D animation at the end of episode 24 was like a tantalizing glimpse of what the show could have been if it hadn't been poorly animated in 3D, but as if to add insult to injury, they made this relatively nice scene harder to appreciate by superimposing the ending credits text over it.
- This gif◊ has become quite popular among detractors of the show as a perfect example of how cheap and shoddy the animation can look at times. Many people who have not seen the show genuinely wondered if it was a fanmade animation for just how bad it looked. Also, people have pointed out that it looks like Guts's pecs look like abs. It can also be experienced with hilarious tiny legs◊.
