Berserk

At least we have a Musou game and a new season of anime to tide us over this time?

Will be looking forward to 2017. 2016 has just been a bizarre year all-around.

I liked how Farnese goes from an obsession with fire to washing people's clothes in her dreams. Really shows just how much she has changed. Also laughed a lot at how she hung the Dragonslayer over a clothesline.

My favorite part was the Stylistic Suck to represent Caska's broken mind. This is probably one of the absolute best chapters we've had in a while. I really was not feeling the comedic moments in the beginning with Puck and Magnifico but the rest of the chapter redeemed it.

That last page... Well, this will end in tears. I knew this would happen, but still.

I should have seen it coming but I wasn't prepared.

I pray & hope with all my heart that the girls are strong enough to endure whatever horrible shit they are gonna see in Casca's mind.

Looks like Wyald is gonna be the epitome of Narm Charm in this game...

Do we get to castrate him?

The game isn't complete until I chop off Wyald's 12 ft dick.

Now you too can play as a psychopathic mass murdering rapist, since one rapist wasn't enough. I don't like his voice at all though, it seems way too high pitched. I never pictured Wyald sounding like that. He sounds more like a cowardly minion than the living embodiment of depravity he is. This portrayal really narms him up I feel.

That said, he's still undoubtedly one of the biggest badasses in the series so as awful as he is it's still cool to play him.

I also tried watching the new anime and at first i was like, "It's not that bad?" Yeah they skipped a lot of stuff but it's got some cool moments and despite the utter model jank was tolerable...but then I hit episode 3 and the apostle...ugh. I watched RWBY fully as well as Egg of the king/Eclipse so model jank I can deal with but the apostle was so bad that I actually turned it off because it just felt insulting that someone thought, "Yeah this is okay." It just looked so bad to where it was ruining the episode for me and I just quit right then and there.

Conversely I thought the model jank was unbearable from episode 1. The series' rich aesthetic is one of the main reasons why I enjoy it, so the anime looking as crappy as it does is pretty much a dealbreaker in and of itself.

Yeah, the anime was a shit sandwich and I wish I hadn't defended it before I realized how bad it is. Almost everything about the production (directing, editing, sound design, music, modelling, colors, animation) was unacceptably low quality, and their choice of which parts to adapt was fundamentally flawed from the beginning. They shouldn't have skipped both the Black Swordsman Arc and the Chapter of Lost Children, and they neglected to show the origin of the Demon Child, which is pretty egregious because this is the first adaptation in which it's being introduced and it's pretty damn important. Compressing six volumes worth of background into those first three episodes—or rather two out of those three—was just more than they could get away with.

Honestly I'm scandalized that so many people liked it, the love/hate ratio among people who watched it on Crunchyroll and r/berserk seems to be about 50/50. I'm also wary of the second season that's been announced, since they're probably going to use the same lousy production team. This game had better be at least decent, and it looks like it's going to be the first one with some characters like the Count and Wyald that we've never seen outside the manga before, so I'm willing to get my hopes up a bit. My only concern so far is the way they use Casca's rape on the cover and in the trailers which seems kind of gratuitous and objectifying.

Also, can anyone read Japanese? I wanna know who Wyald's CV is.

edited 21st Feb '17 10:00:17 PM by TheBigBopper

Basically agreed on all accounts.

I mean, I don't really care that people like it since opinions are opinions but the way some people who have legitimate criticisms of the series are treated is pretty disappointing. Fans shouldn't have to be "grateful" for an adaptation they find lackluster on its own merits, never mind that that attitude acts like we should be desperate for any Berserk adaptation regardless of its actual quality.

Decided to revive this thread.

So I've been considering getting into this series, though I've heard it's an extremely disturbing and graphic tale. The most I can think of that I've seen that resembles it in regards to the imagery is Event Horizon (watch this clip, and you'll see what I mean).

(Seriously, Dr Weir is almost like Griffith/Femto, at least to the most of my knowledge)

What say you guys. What exactly can I expect from this series?

Hmmm....it is Event Horizon + A Song of Ice and Fire + Anime

edited 21st Jan '17 1:30:53 AM by MadSkillz

Just go into this series myself.

Let's see... gore, body horror, on-screen child death, rape... those are the main things that come to mind when I'm asked about 'graphic' content in Berserk.

Most of all, it's very much a story about the dark side of humanity, and all of its consequences and implications are portrayed somewhat realistically.

Doublepost for the purpose of bumping the thread.

I've just started collecting the Dark Horse volumes, being a new fan. I'm caught up to partway through Millenium Falcon, and so far, my favorite arc's gotta be Lost Children. Which makes the 2016 anime even more egregious to me, and makes me lament that Studio 4C was dropped.

White Fox would do great, since they are made up of the OLM staff that did the original Berserk Anime.

Naturally, getting some of the original animators for 1997 Berserk would be fantastic.

Because nearly anything would be better than what we got.

The most positive thing I can say about 2016 is that some people did like it, so it is getting the series some new fans. But that's also weird because 2016 is an odd entry point.

For my money I watched the first episode and then just walked away in disgust. I wasn't expecting it to be good and was a little weirded out that apparently people had any expectations for it, given that it was by some no-name studio with nobodies and who had never worked on anything like Berserk before.

People hoped man. This was the first animated adaptation that ever went past the Black Swordsman arc after all. They wanted it to be good so badly.

Looks like a completely new cast will be voicing the characters for the English dub of the 2016 series.

The dub will be on Funimation's Streaming Service starting next Monday.

Marc Diraison IS Guts, Kevin T. Collins IS Griffith, and Carrie Keranen IS Casca. It's not Berserk without those primary V As.

Much respect to the new cast, but I have much the same sentiment.

I'm perfectly willing to check out the dub, but it's just not the same anymore.

Yeah, that's a real bummer. I can understand not being available, but it's still a shame. Still, I'd rather have an adaptation of something different than yet more Golden Age, and in a slapdash game that recycles anime footage to boot. Fuck that game.

Though it's a shame for sure, I still hope this cast does a good job. Kaiji Tang in particular seems legit excited to be playing Guts, Sarah Williams as Puck I can get behind, and I'm looking forward to Ray Chase as Mozgus because that actually sounds like wonderful casting.