Berserk

@Sigilbreaker 26

Zodd is completely loyal to Griffith and the Godhald. He was the first of the apostles to join Griffith after he was reincarnated. He has defended him many times from Guts. He was even going to kill Guts once for insulting Griffith even though he wasn't physically there during that harbor siege arc. Saying that he joined the new Hawks for any other reason than out of loyally is blatant lying.

@ Demongodofchaos 2

Those series are not nearly as well known though and pales in comparison to the number of characters Guts inspired and his imitators inspired. Most well known manga in the West were made in the 1990s and after.

Exactly.

edited 9th Dec '17 4:23:18 PM by DocJamore

That's how influence cycles around. Guts was actually part of a trend in the 80's when american action movies tended to have huge, masculine shredded main characters played by actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, and manga started to feature similar characters. Guts' big sword was also influenced by this shoujo manga called Pygmalio, which nobody remembers anymore lol

Guts himself ended up being such a popular execution of that idea that he arguably started a character type of his own. It's probably correct to say that he popularized the concept of the hero having a big hulking sword (in fact, if you look closely there are some interesting parallels in Final Fantasy VII as far as the relationship between Cloud and Seph is concerned), and on top of that the number of direct expies he has at this point is pretty noticeable.

edited 9th Dec '17 4:20:42 PM by Draghinazzo

Well, nobody bisects people like Guts.

Like, seriously, closest thing I remember is Future Trunks vs. Cyborg Frieza, and that was more samurai-ish in style. Way too clean.

Guts turns you to paste, and slices stone columns along the way.

Who does that?

Heh, reminds me of this video.

…I'm really curious about that Pygmalio thing you mentionned though. >.>

Thorkel the Tall in Vinland Saga is pretty good at it, although he uses poleaxes. Askelad vertically bisects a guy once too.

edited 9th Dec '17 4:28:59 PM by Lyendith

@Doc Jamore Huh, you're right, I may be misremembering. (Though "blatantly wrong" would be more accurate than "blatantly lying" :P)

edited 9th Dec '17 4:30:00 PM by Sigilbreaker26

Pygmalio has been scanlated so you can just go read it if you're curious.

Guts also has a lot of aspects of Conan The Barbarian too, particularly the first iive action movie that was based on the Conan series that connects to the chthulu mythos.

In the interview from the latest guidebook which I posted a few pages ago, Miura actually explicitly names Conan as being an influence.

Hmm, actual flat out Conan the Barbarian might be pretty good anime material.

Further Berserks acquired, up to the end of The Golden Age.

Done with the Battle of Doldrey now. Definitely epic. I loved the Coborlwitz brothers and their various techniques that have been passed down for increasing amounts of years.

And I think it's around that time that everything starts to go to shit for the Hawks?

Anyway, an interesting essay on why a modern Berserk anime cannot work (according to the poster):

It's a fair point that the modern anime look is too smooth and polished to replicate the rough-looking art of the manga, but I don't think it's completely impossible to replicate that quiet, painting-like feel. I mean, recent shows like Made in Abyss, Children of the Whale or The Ancient Magus' Bride do a wonderful job at that, despite not quite having the asperities of their respective mangas' artstyles (except maybe COTW for the backgrounds).

edited 17th Dec '17 3:01:31 PM by Lyendith

If I had a criticism so far, I'd say Miura could've dialed it back on Casca being such a lightning rod for perverts and other sexist pigs. She always turns the tables on them, but still. Yes I know what happens to her later on.

Well, the problem is not only with Casca − in the first twenty-or-so volumes, it seems like any meeting between a demon and a woman must end up in a rape attempt. It's thankfully no longer the case after the troll arc (I think even Miura realized he went a bit overboard) but it's annoying nonetheless.

It doesn't help that Casca is the only major female character in the Golden Age arc (with Charlotte, kinda).

edited 17th Dec '17 5:20:26 PM by Lyendith

Victims do tend to defeat their abusers in the end in this series though, at least thus far.

If I want to be honest, the main feature about Midland is that it sucks balls. Anything bad that can happen in that world will happen, especially if you are a nameless peasant.

Gotta say Griffith already seems pretty damn evil to me. He's pretty blatantly a charismatic user who sees everyone else as a means to advance himself. Plus that terrifying Psychotic Smirk when he learns Guts accidentally killed a kid...

In the world of Berserk he's not that bad, until the Eclipse happens. Then I have to wonder why he decided to rape Casca.

I understand him becoming a God Hand, it's not 100% justifiable but considering how his body was tortured for a year it makes some sense. It was everything else he did after, that was just Griffith being a prick for the sake of it.

I think it was more about Guts, or about Griffith himself, than about Casca...

He seemed to me like he was basically confirming whether he really did get rid of those annoying "feelings". Like, "oh well, best way to find out is to do the cruelest thing I can think of to the person I care about the most... still feeling nothing? Great".

edited 18th Dec '17 7:59:00 AM by Cozzer

Unless he knew that he'd need to corrupt Guts and Casca's baby in order to later be reborn into the mortal world.

Not that that justifies it, but it does provides a reason beyond "lolevil".

It all depends on whether you think his knowledge of fate and causality and general omniscient crap got dumped in his head all at once or whether there was an adjustment period.

edited 18th Dec '17 8:14:08 AM by HighCrate

Sir Griffith responds to disturbing Eclipse allegations.◊

Finished v8. This is one of the most gorgeous-looking series I've ever read, particularly the backgrounds. Guts actually defeating Griffith was pretty epic, but there's obviously no way he's done with the Hawks.

If you think the series looks good now, just wait. IMO, Miura didn't really start hitting his groove until around volume 14 or so and the art has mostly only gotten better since then.

The winter scene panels in particular are pure artistry.