If there’s an image with a similar number and variety of characters I don’t know about it. There are plenty of group shots throughout the manga, but those are already being used on the sub pages. To do as you want, we would probably need to make a collage of our own.
Personally I’m satisfied with the current image, though if anybody agrees with Snailfish then by all means say so.
Curator of Berserk
Welcome all! Let us begin to discuss the issue of character portraits. Each character can be shown in multiple adaptations by means of drop down notes, but for each there needs to be a primary portrait. As the person who's fiddled most with the pictures in the past couple years, I have set the precedent that officially colored versions of Miura's illustrations—ones from the art books, volume insert posters, and collectible card game—are the best primaries. However, I have also tended to favor color portraits from different adaptations over character shots from the black and white manga panels.
Recently I have been messaging with phenomx13, who believes that whenever a character does not have an official Miura portrait, the primary should always be from black and white manga panels. This would establish consistency (especially for minor characters who don't appear in most adaptations), and also minimize the artistic changes that come with different adaptations. I honestly do not think that this change in policy is necessary, but recognize my own bias and think that we should debate it as a community. This is not merely a contest between two proposals, but is an opportunity to come up with the combination of features that a majority of people agree on.
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I prefer your take on matters. For example, I was never really fond of Gaston's old pic due to the angle of his face looking pretty weird (then again, he always did have a funny-looking face to begin with, but I digress, lol). Sure, his 1997 anime incarnation may have taken a few Adaptational Attractiveness or two, but it still looks clearer and more 'suitable' for a picture take. On the other hand, I really do prefer Miura's art style over everything else's. The ideal scenario would be if ALL primary portraits taken straight out of the manga's pages from now on be given the 'polish' treatment by fans, just like Jill's fan-colored portrait. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind at all if we continue to be flexible and use pics taken from adaptations, so long as the portrait looks good. Straight-outta-the-panel doesn't always look great, imo.
phenomx13 is particularly peeved by CG portraits from Berserk (2016). For Adolf and Collette that was the best I could do, and I thought they don't look so bad at that small size, but does anyone else think that even monochrome manga shots would be better than that?
Edited by TheBigBopper
Oh boy... sigh... more "That CGI sucks! I can't stand looking it!" type comments, eh? But you know, Collete and Adolf only appeared back when Miura's art was still at its roughest stage. I don't really see how replacing the CGI pics with those early manga shots would be all that great of a visual improvement.
Now now, phenomx is part of the discussion here so let's not be dismissive. I am a little pleased that somebody agrees with me, though.
Normally, the statement "This CGI sucks", would be a poor way to describe it. Unfortunately, the CGI here really does suck, much to my despair. The issue I'm more concerned with is that the intermittent anime and manga pics cause the character page to lose consistency and make it look like a mess. Colorized manga images would be ideal, but it would be impossible to find them for every character. Miura's art, even in it's early form is still superior in terms of design and detail to any CGI image.
I sent a bunch of invitations, so I wonder when others are going to show up?
Good news everybody, http://berserk-tcg.net/
has scans off all the cards from the Berserk Trading Card Game, and while frame removal and image quality are going to be issues, several look good enough to be new primary portraits. I've downloaded ones we can use for Charlotte, the King, Julius, Mozgus and his Disciples, the Tapasa, Rosine, and the Daka. Sadly there's none from the Black Swordsman Arc and not every character is represented, but I think phenomx might be pleased with the potential.
Yes! This collection is almost perfect! There are several really good character shots, including the King, Mozgus, and the Beast. Almost all the apostles are there, along with their transformed states. Editing will be an issue, but I can help with that. The Godhand aren't included though, except for a few shots of Slan. You'd think being the most powerful evil beings in the series would be enough to get color portraits.
Here's Charlotte, not the most royal of portraits but Tender Tears is appropriate for her in its own way, and this is the biggest headshot of the bunch.
I'd have preferred a more formal portrait, but this does show her character very well. One another note, does this image work for the Beast's portrait?
Yeah, that card is perfect. I'm a perfectionist so here's the same image with my own edits.
Silat, Rosine, Julius, and Mozgus' Disciples are now filled. Still nobody here besides Outworlds to vote on picture policies. So much for sending almost twenty invitations.
I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, though while I don't mind the CGI the movies and 2016 anime alter the appearance of some characters to varying degrees. Not enough to make them unrecognizable, but enough that it clashes with Miura's official art.
I don't really mind since I'm not actually a follower of the series, but I may still prefer Miura's art for the character pages, since it's the source material.
So the sense I'm getting from Arawn 999 is that for characters who are too changed from their manga designs, it would be better to use Black & White manga panels if there is no official colorized Miura portrait. That case-by-case basis approach is different than if we went with the phenomx13 proposal that the primary should always be artwork by Miura, whether or not a colorized version is available. It would require us too look at each character and determine a rule of thumb for how different is too different.
Let's take some specific examples. I had made Foss' primary an image
◊ from Berserk (1997), as I found it largely the same as in the manga, and it is in color. Phenomx 13 saw fit to replace it in precedence with this
◊ monochrome manga panel. On one hand, the '97 anime is in color, but on the other hand the coloring is a little flat compared to the level of shading in the manga and the TCG. The same issue with the Queen of Midland and Gambino: I would like to use Berserk (1997) and I'm guessing phenomx would say that the current monochrome manga portraits are still better. What would you have us do?
Let's take Collette as another example. In the manga she only appears in monochrome. In Berserk (1997) she is turned brown-haired. In Berserk (2016) she is blond, but only appears in cel-shaded 3D. My first impulse was to use one of the less-bad shots from Berserk (2016), and that's what we have currently, but phenomx13 would sooner replace it with monochrome. So do we use 1 which is black and white, 2 where her hair is the "wrong" color, or 3 where there's a certain amount of uncanny valley?
In some cases it only takes one tweak to make an image acceptable. For example, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc turns Gennon's beard white. It would be pretty easy to just take the image and recolor his beard black again, so if I could do that, would you rather leave his manga portrait there or replace it with the movie one?
I like the way most of the characters turned out in that adaptation, and would rather see those as the primary than uncolored manga panels; if there hadn't been a Berserk Trading Card Game portrait that colorized the King, for example, I would have rather used his shot from the movies than use an uncolored manga shot because I think it's pretty much the same, only in color. phenomx13 disagreed. The Berserk TCG solved some specific impasses, but we still have the fundamental issue of whether consistency of artist is more important to us than consistency of color versus B&W.
Edited by TheBigBopper
Also, let's talk about size standards. For tl;dr skip to the last paragraph; to see my arguments justifying my proposal, open the folder.
I find that if the width is standard, then scrolling from one character to another is very pleasant. The variation in height doesn't matter as long as one variable, width, remains constant. The constant should be witdth rather than height because humanoid characters are almost all taller than they are wide, and I find that they also vary much more in height than they do in width. Schierke, for example, is a little more than half of Guts' height, but the amount of horizontal space they take up in a portrait is not that different. Therefore, having a fixed width and adjustible height makes the most sense. That being said, the height of a character portrait should not exceed 1.5 times width; this
◊ is an example of a portrait that I think is unecessarily tall, as going too far in either extreme will be ugly. This
◊ shot of Serpico, a particularly tall character, represents the maximum height that a portrait should reach: you can see his head, torso, arms, and legs down to the knees, but a character's feet are almost never of any interest and it is better to omit them. In most cases I find it's actually better to cut off at the mid-thigh, like this
◊. The only context in which I think a head-to-toe portrait looks alright is a case like 91 Days where the original character designs against a white background are released; that way you can't tell where the edges of the picture are. When you have to actually take an image of a character in their natural habitat, 1.5 times width should not be exceeded as long as it is an entry for just one character.
I do not approve of very small portraits that don't let you see enough detail, but I also do not condone huge portraits that crowd out the text. 350 wide should only be used for the key visual of the work on the main page like this
◊, or for a particularly packed group character portrait like this
◊. 250 is a decent size that allows you to see the details of a character's face, but it is not grandiose and crowding either. Of course, the reason that the width rather than the heigh is restricted is that computers and smartphones both scroll up and down rather than side-to-side by default. You cannot view a picture wider than 350 on most smartphone screens, and not everybody has a mouse with a trackball instead of a scroll wheel. Contrariwise, vertical scrolling is what makes the Infinite Canvas possible.
I personaly like the regularity of square portraits exactly 250x250 pixels, which usually get in the character's head and shoulders. Space Patrol Luluco is an extremely successful example where we managed to fit every single character into a neat square. On the other hand it's best not to try and make something squeeze into a square if it doesn't want to; key visuals and color posters by Miura are so beautiful that it would be a damn shame not to reproduce them at full height, and in any case they never exceed 1w x 1.5h.
What I would like to avoid as much as possible is the "landscape" or "widescreen" portrait. It's one thing if you're covering a group of characters and the composition is actually filled; I made a specific exception to the 250 max width for Lucie, Pepe, and Fouquet here
◊ because they're lined up so nicely together for a group character entry and the composition is filled by their faces. It still shows them in considerable detail and at least width < 1.5 x height. This
◊ example from Arashi no Yoru ni is what I want to avoid; the beautiful scenery around Mei is pretty when you're watching the movie, but because it runs up against the site's maximum width of 350 pixels without taking advantage of the unlimited height, it reduces the amount of space his actual body takes up on screen, as if his portrait were only 169x169 square. If his portrait were a 250x250 grab of the same moment on screen, you would see a lot more detail and still be well under the max size.
To make a long story short, I propose that width should be exactly 250 p in 95% of cases, and that for character portraits height should be greater than or equal to width, but also less than or equal to 1.5 x width. Exceptions should only be shots with multiple characters, and in that case width should be less than or equal to 1.5 x height, in which case height would be exactly 250 p.
Does anyone agree to that?
Edited by TheBigBopper
I understand for the most part, but as a person with poor eyesight, I've grown rather fond of looking at big portraits like what the Persona 5 people are doing. There's also Skull Knight's glorious 260 visage, something I wouldn't change in any way.
That character page has certain factors to help big portraits work. For one thing, they have high quality official art with white backgrounds. I would consider big portraits justified if such art were more readily available, but with some characters it can be difficult to find a close up of sufficient resolution. It is especially annoying when the drop-down bars for the secondary portraits are of different sizes, which is less likely if we don't make the size of the primary too ambitious. Not that I don't appreciate your viewpoint, but I'm worried about practical problems that affect the aesthetics.
The only times I ever get annoyed is when secondary portraits are jutting out of the box, or when the size of the portrait(s) is bigger than the amount of tropes listed. I'm cool with whatever that's on view unless the differences between height/width becomes far too egregious. Still, if we're to implement a standardized size, I'm more visually comfortable around the 299-300 range, like in Kono Subarashii Sekai Ni Shukufuku O
Edited by 9thOutworldsMan
300 might not be out of the question. Let me see whether the originals are big enough.
I'm okay with 250px portrait images, but I would prefer 300 range if it's possible as a standard. As for the fundamental issue, I would like to reiterate that mixing drawn art with animated images really breaks consistency in the page. Case in point, the Antagonists page has portraits primarily from official art and manga, with images from different adaptations mixed in. Wyald's portrait is from the recent game and it makes him stick out like a sore thumb. Also while animated images have the advantage of color, I still prefer the original art (color or not) because it has a lot more detail and shows the characters really well. And the uncanny valley has to be avoided. I don't think anyone wants that.
Edited by phenomx13
Okay, since you're backing up 9th Outworlds Man and I'm warming up to the idea, we can consider redoing everything in 300 width. In exchange, can I have your approval for the 1–1.5 times aspect ratio rule, and a policy of as few landscape portraits as possible?
I understand your strong feelings about the art style issue, but Arawn 999 and Shiro Akuma were not very clear about what they are and aren't okay with so it's hard to tell who's winning.
In light of that, I'm going ask each person to read these statements and indicate in a survey whether their response is 1: strongly disagree; 2: disagree; 3: neutral; 4: agree; 5: strongly agree.
A. Almost all character portraits should be the same standard width.
B. 300 pixels wide is preferable to 250 pixels wide.
C. Character portraits should generally be in portrait format or square rather than in landscape format.
D. The the longer measurement of a portrait should not exceed 1.5 times that of the shorter measurement.
E. The primary character portrait—the one that is displayed by default—should always be a drawing by Miura, even if it is not in color.
F. The primary character portrait should always be in color if possible, even if it is not a drawing by Miura. This may or may not allow 3D images from Berserk (2016).
G. The primary character portrait should not be in Berserk (2016)' 3D under any circumstances.
My responses are:
A. Strongly Agree
B. Neutral
C. Strongly Agree
D. Strongly Agree
E. Disagree
F. Agree
G. Neutral
As far as I'm concerned, we are voting on these items one-by-one. If we don't get enough votes, we take this to the forums.
Edited by TheBigBopper
A. Neutral
B. Strongly Agree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Disagree
F. Strongly Agree
G. Neutral
Okay. Well then! Since we have a clear choice of options now, here are mine:
A. Strongly Agree
B. Agree
C. Agree
D. Neutral
E. Strongly Agree
F. Disagree
G. Strongly Agree
Edited by phenomx13
I have shared this discussion in the Berserk thread on the forum. I hope to attract more voters.
Yeah, this is like herding cats. Let's give it maybe three more days and then I'll open a topic on the forums.
Edited by TheBigBopper
Arawn 999 reasoned to my PM with these answers:
A. Strongly Agree
B. Strongly Agree
C. Neutral
D. Agree
E. Neutral
F. Neutral
G. Neutral
Edited by TheBigBopper
It seems that 300 p will probably carry the day, and I am ready to join you all in supporting it. At the same time, there appears to be no objection to my aspect ratio standard. I still support point F, but I am willing to at least partially agree to point G. For that I propose that we commission an artist to colorize manga images of Collette and Adolf, keeping the CG portraits up as temporary placeholders.
Before I vote, I'd just like to ask something: will the existing portraits be removed or not?
These standards will apply retroactively; most of them will be from the same artworks, just bigger and higher quality, but I eventually want to redo everything to meet the standard. What's more, I am willing to take personal responsibility for the majority of that work.
This just in from Ultra Wanker:
A. 5 Strongly Agree
B. 3 Neutral
C.4 Agree
D. 3 Neutral
E. 4 Agree
F. 3 Neutral
G. 4 Agree
Funny how people seem more eager to contribute when I just send them the questionaire. I'd better redo the mass mailing with the questionaire in the actual message just in case.
Edited by TheBigBopper
Progress! Hopefully more will come in. If we can get an artist to do colorized manga portraits, if would be perfect as it would solve the color vs consistency issue we have. On the issue of portrait redo, most of the original images lie in the 300p range, so it shouldn't be a major issue. I'm willing to help in the matter as best I can.
A 5 E 5 F 1 G 5
Neutral on the rest.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
i PM'd you my answers but since you said it was convenient to have them here too here they are:
A. 5 B. 3 C. 3 D, 4 E. 3 F. 4 G. 5
slimcoder says:
A. 4
B. 4
C. 3
D. 3
E. 5
F. 2
G. 5
Edited by TheBigBopper
Here I am, and I guess I'll throw in my two cents. Though I don't exactly mind shots from 2016, I'm a stickler for consistency as well.
A. 4
B. 4
C. 5
D. 4
E. 4
F. 2
G. 3
Edited by LatverianBadger "Shake the dust." - Anis Mojgani
Agent_B says:
A. 4
B. 4
C. 5
D. 5
E. 3
F. 5
G. 1
RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 says:
A4, B3, C4, D3, E3, F4
I'll throw my vote in response to the recent PM. Here goes nothing:
A. 5 B. 5 C. 5 D. 5 E. 3 F. 5 G. 1
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.
A: Disagree
B: Agree
C: Strongly Agree
D: Neutral
E: Neutral
F: Agree
G: Strongly Agree
Here is the poll up to now.
A. Almost all character portraits should be the same standard width.
14 for, 1 against, 1 abstaining. Passed.
B. 300 pixels wide is preferable to 250 pixels wide.
10 for, 0 against, 6 abstaining. Passed.
C. Character portraits should generally be in portrait format or square rather than in landscape format.
10 for, 0 against, 6 abstaining. Passed.
D. The the longer measurement of a portrait should not exceed 1.5 times that of the shorter measurement.
9 for, 0 against, 7 abstaining. Passed.
E. The primary character portrait—the one that is displayed by default—should always be a drawing by Miura, even if it is not in color.
7 for, 2 against, 7 abstaining. Passed.
F. The primary character portrait should always be in color if possible, even if it is not a drawing by Miura. This may or may not allow 3D images from Berserk (2016).
3 Strongly in favor, 4 in favor, 6 against, 1 strongly against, 2 abstaining. That's 50/48 if you add upp all the numbers and compare them to the number you'd get if everyone had voted neutral. The weird thing is that the contest between E and F wasn't zero-sum in terms of how people allocated their votes. If this were an isolated issue I'd call a runoff, but since it got so many fewer votes than E it's clear which one the community prefers. Failed.
G. The primary character portrait should not be in Berserk (2016) 3D under any circumstances.
8 for, 3 against, 5 abstaining. Pass.
I can leave voting open for a bit longer, but this seems to be the way things are leaning. I'm more or less satisfied with the compromise: I get my standard sizes, phenomx13 gets Miura art, and 9thOutworldsMan gets his big pictures. Nobody gets everything they want but we could do a lot worse.
Edited by TheBigBopper
True. This seems to be the best outcome of this discussion.
Edited by phenomx13
Ah goddammit, I'm Late to the Party! Oh well. Looks it's time to hang myself again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF9OHe9xLPA
(DISCLAIMER: Yes, this is actually a joke. Yes, I've had people take me seriously about comments like this even though I'd made it as obvious as I did here by posting a Ren & Stimpy clip.)
I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me.
I'm up to my armpits in schoolwork until May 6th, so these policies will probably not be implemented until that time. Anyone who has a serious objection to this preliminary result should speak up while they have a chance.
Shouldn't this discussion be closed now? We've reached a decision based on the votes and should start editing pages to meet the elected standards.
Agreed. I finally finished my coursework today, so I'm ready to get down to business with you. I want to make sure we use the best quality images this time, with high quality scans, levels correction, good composition, the works. Let's start with Guts, Griffith, and Casca.
While working independently is an option, I think it might be better to tackle this as a duo. Would you like to share Discord information or some other means by which we could chat/IM?
Edited by TheBigBopper
Not trying to cause a stir, but I was wondering if post-eclipse Casca would count as a particularly dark example of a The Ditz?
Edited by SomeNewGuy Shamelessly plugging my comics, Oh yes. Hide / Show Replies
Not really. You see, A The Ditz is stupid on his own, without anyone having caused it and isn't mentally retarded, they just have a low IQ.
A woman like Casca who has been raped, tortured and broken like she has been isn't a The Ditz. She hasn't always been retarded and she's just reduced to a baby-like state. She's more a case of I Know You're In There Somewhere
Edited by Alrune
Ok, thanks for clearing that up for me.
Shamelessly plugging my comics, Oh yes.
I have to confess, it's starting to righteously piss me off that Casca is still in that state. Not relevant, but still.
What I don't understand is the cryptic clue that she might not "want" to be cured. I do hope it's not an attempt to stuff her further into the fridge.
Credit to tree56uk for my Avatar.
I think that the implication is that she doesn't want to face her own pain, and she doesn't have to as long as she's in that state.
Yeah, I always thought it was a case where in order to get better, she has to come to terms with what has happened to her, maybe with a push from somebody who truly cares for her and knows her best (Guts). I never thought a simple potion or whatever was going to solve this lickity split.
Guts, Griffith, and Casca are all examples of different ways of dealing with trauma (anger,despair, and denial), guts fights it even at great cost, Griffith gave up, and Casca hid from it, essentially choosing not to deal with it, unlike Griffith that makes her capable of being saved. but its not supposed to be easy to deal with it, that is why even guts hid from it for a while by abandoning Casca.
Edited by Wolfhogbin
(whoops wrong topic, sorry, please ignore)
Edited by LatverianBadger "Shake the dust." - Anis Mojgani
I'm probably going to get lynched for this, but can we classify Griffith as a woobie (at least up until the events of the Eclipse)? Even Jerkass Woobie?
This isn't an attempt at Griffith apologism, but the guy shows most of the standard symptoms for both- he goes through hell after that affair with Charlotte, loses his friends, and has his own Despair Event Horizon. He's ruthless before the events of the Eclipse, but that hasn't stopped characters from A Songof Iceand Fire getting Woobie status, even if they're jerks and politically ruthless as well.
Obviously, it doesn't apply after the Eclipse and is really, really subjective, but he fits it sort of.
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Eh, as long the entry is clear that he stopped being a woobie at some point, I don't see why not.
Honestly, I don't necessarily think that the term "Woobie" would be inapplicable, even now. Yes, he's evil. Yes, he's done things that are inexcusable. But, hey, Sympathy for the Devil.
Those tropes are both designated as YYMV and should go on that page, and as long as its a trope based on opinion then nobody can tell you that you don't have the right to post it there.
Do you think that Bishop Mozgus constitutes as a Soulsaving Crusader?
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It looks like he doesn't fit. That trope looks a bit sparsely defined, but it seems what it's describing is a person whose actions despite their brutality have some justification based on how the afterlife canonically works in-universe. In Berserk it is shown that Mozgus has no idea where his powers actually come from or what the nature of the God Hand and the afterlife actually is, so there is no way that his efforts to torture and kill people for their own good could actually save their souls. Everybody he kills goes to the vortex of souls just like everyone else, so he is merely a Knight Templar.
I am new, but have been reading tvtropes for quite some time, and I was wondering about adding Azan either in Gut's Companions(Currently travelling along on the same ship) or just in Other Characters?
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Decided to try and start by adding him to Other Characters, depending on the answers I might move him to Guts' Companions.
I think that adding him to Guts' Companions is the right choice for the time being.
Say, is there a better image anywhere for the main page? This one just shows the characters introduced in the golden age arc(most of whom die).
"I am the lord of Purity, who tolerates no deviation." My first online story Hide / Show Replies