History Berserk / TropesAToD

** That's not even getting into the fact that just about everything and everyone will try to rape you at some point in your life. Yes ''literally'' everything and everyone will try to rape you. Debauched nobles and raiding armies are probably the least horrifying things that can get a hold of you in Midland when you compare them to whatever the hell else is out there. Trolls, the Daka, Apostles of all shapes and sizes, demonic gods, even a possessed ''horse'' have or have tried to rape someone in the story sometimes to death or [[FateWorseThanDeath worse]].

* ChestBurster: Nastier monsters such as the trolls of Qliphoth and Ganishka's demonic soldiers are born this way.

* DealWithTheDevil: What essentially happens when a Behelit is activated and the Godhand is summoned.
* DeadlyUpgrade: The Berserker's Armor?
** Also Guts didn't always have the Dragonslayer.

* DarkFantasy: Part TheEpic, part {{Tragedy}}, part SurvivalHorror, ''Berserk'' is the DarkerAndEdgier side of fantasy. A KnightInSourArmor AntiHero searches for revenge and/or redemption in a CrapsackWorld and fights sickeningly frightening demons along the way. Constant instances of human cruelty lend to the tone of the work. HumansAreBastards, AllMenAreRapists, and AristocratsAreEvil are in full effect. The church is either a CorruptChurch or PathOfInspiration (details of its founding are unclear) but regardless, watch out for the KnightsTemplar [[ChurchPolice Inquisition]]. TheMagicComesBack is portrayed as almost certainly a bad thing, as the only deity shown to be active in the world is a GodOfEvil. (More benevolent godlike beings are mentioned, but haven't shown up to help out.) The MessianicArchetype is a mass murderer and a rapist. And so on. [[spoiler:The kicker? According to a now partially decanonized chapter that was removed for spoiling too much, said GodOfEvil and its demons are merely the answer to humanity's desire for something to be responsible for their suffering (as opposed to it being random and meaningless). The Idea of Evil only exists because, in a truly warped way, people ''need'' it to exist.]]

* DancesAndBalls: Lots of dancing balls are hosted by aristocrats. Most of them end in incredibly violent ways.
* DarkFantasy: In spades.

* CallBack: Oh, a lot. Especially with Apostles. During the Eclipse, we see three Apostles from the first three chapters of Berserk - the nameless female demon that has sex with Guts (in disguise, of course), Baron Koka and The Count. Furthermore, the Lost Children arc is focused around Rosine and (to a lesser extent) her two [[EliteMook semi-Apostle insect henchmen]], who attacked Rickert's camp with the Count just before the Eclipse. And during the sequence where Griffith rescues Charlotte from Ganeshka, we see Borkoff, the Apostle who took Guts's arm. There are also several events in the story that give a sense of deja vu, as they happen in almost the same way or foreshadow events to come:
** Guts' fight with the Holy Iron Chain Knights in the woods is like a repeat of the Hundred Man Fight against Adon's mercenaries, with Farnese playing the part of Adon and Azan playing the part of Samson. The part where Guts dodges several {{Mooks}} with spears attacking him at once is a clear reference.
** The Viscount's son that Guts is forced to fight in chapter 330 is patterned after Bazuso, being a stout warrior in full armor with round eyeholes and a heavy weapon. The manner in which Guts defeats him, however, provides a contrast, as he uses technique to defeat the noble but raw power to defeat Bazuso. Martino also gives Guts flashbacks to Gambino, as in both cases he learned a lesson about not trusting anyone from an amoral mercenary mentor.
** The whole Lost Children Arc is something of a retread of the Count's Run, with Rosine in the same role as the Count and Jill in the same role as Theresia. Just like the Count's run, it closely explores the backstory of one apostle and their MoralityPet as well as Guts' attempts to both pursue {{Revenge}} and scare away said MoralityPet with his JerkassFacade.

** Guts' fight against Grunbeld slightly later is also much like Guts' first fight with Zodd, where he is facing a demonic BloodKnight who promises to destroy him if he does not put up a good fight.

* BadassAndChildDuo: Guts and Schierke are this.
* BadassCrew: The Band of the Hawk, baby.
* BadassGrandpa: Azan is well past his prime...and still kicks ass!

* BarBrawl / DinerBrawl: Guts makes [[EstablishingCharacterMoment his big debut]] in a BadGuyBar in the castle town of Koka in the first volume/episode by killing everyone one of the Snake Baron's mooks, except for one whom he spared as a messenger. In a later arc, Guts and his gang get into a beat down with some drunkard slobs who were harassing the girls while at an inn in Vritannis.
* BarbieDollAnatomy: Played straight initially -- Griffith is a Ken doll -- and averted later in the story -- some pages could easily be mistaken for {{Hentai}} -- though it's played as much to elicit [[FanDisservice revulsion]] as arousal.
** Not to mention Puck, who literally shows this trope off every time he appears.
** Oddly enough, men have genitalia in Miura's artwork but are drawn without nipples. This is remedied in the film adaptation.
* BathtubScene: Post-Eclipse Casca gets several bathing scenes that often contain BathtubBonding and LesYay with either Farnese or Schierke.

* BeachEpisode: Hey, even Guts and his TrueCompanions need a break at the ocean, what with all of the weird shit they go through day after day.
** Not to say the beach is any safer for them than anywhere else...

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The reason why grumpy ol' exiled Godo adopted little orphaned Erica. [[HappilyAdopted Yay!]]

* BeneathTheMask / SilkHidingSteel: The Count's wife. On the outside, she appeared to be a sweet, endearing, obedient, and devoted wife and mother (and she might have been in some sense). But behind closed doors - especially when her husband was out of town - she participated in hot, provocative, and scandalous pagan orgies. And even when faced with death by her own husband's sword, [[BringIt she practically told him to give it his best shot.]] She only lost her nerves of steel when [[spoiler: the Apostles came.]]

* BerserkerTears: This happens a lot during the Eclipse between Guts and Casca.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: ''Griffith.'' Do ''not'' stand in the way of his dream [[strike:unless]] [[FateWorseThanDeath even if you have a death wish]].
* {{BFS}}: The Dragon Slayer; originally done as a marketing gimmick, it's actually justified later in the series - it doesn't really have much of an edge, and other characters [[LampshadeHanging mock]] it as being "more a slab of iron than a sword", but Guts swings it fast enough to tear people in half with brute force.

* BicepPolishingGesture: Guts does this right before the Battle of Doldrey to show off how nicely his wounds healed with the help of the elf dust after his defeat of the 100 soldiers.

* BigOlEyebrows: Definitely Guts.
** And even more definitely Azan.
** Also General Boscone in the movie. The longer you look at them, the more they look like Batarangs.

* CoolOldGuy: Godo TheBlacksmith.
* CorpseLand: In an early story in the manga, Guts passes through the remains of an old battlefield with a priest and his family on pilgrimage and has to fight demon-possessed skeletons and other undead because of the Brand he bears.
* TheCorrupter: The Beast of Darkness inside of Guts.

* CosmicHorrorStory: It's not? What ''Berserk'' are you reading?

* DoesNotLikeShoes: The entire Kushan populace. Except Ganishka. Probably only when necessary, though.

* DiabolusExMachina: The ending to the anime. NO, OH GOD NO.
* DiagonalCut: Serpico's Wind Sword has this effect.

* DirtyBusiness: Guts left the Band of the Hawk partly because he was uncomfortable with being [[spoiler: Griffith's personal assassin and having to kill a child.]]
* DirtyCoward: Played with during the Tower of Conviction arc. Nina is definitely a coward, but Luca tells her that because of that, she might be the one who'll fight the hardest to live. She's also portrayed slightly more sympathetically than is usual for this trope, as she is deeply ashamed of her cowardice, and actually steels herself to pull off a HeroicSacrifice, only to lose her nerve (not unreasonably) [[ColdBloodedTorture when she sees exactly]] [[FateWorseThanDeath what would happen if she went through with it.]]

* DisturbedDoves: Happens when [[spoiler: Griffith appears after being reincarnated in human form on Earth.]]

* DomesticAbuse: Just another whiff of how realistically crappy life in Midland can be, sans monsters. Young Guts, Jill, and Rosine had it bad.

* DownerBeginning: The manga starts off at the point in his life where Guts is at his most hopeless, ruthless and outright evil. [[spoiler: Rickert later points out that if Puck hadn't teamed up with Guts at that time, he porbably would have lost his humanity completely.]]
* DownerEnding: The anime. And how!

** InterruptedSuicide: Casca tried to do herself in during her FreakOut by trying to jump off a cliff. It didn't work. Thanks, Guts.

* AccidentalPervert: Isidoro met Schirke. Isidoro triped. Isidoro's hands ended somewhere that they shouldn't. Isidoro was reverted to monkey state.

** Wyald, a lone apostle, slaughters dozens of red shirts and it takes Guts several chapters to bring him down and even then it's only thanks to [[spoiler: [[BidDamnHeroes Zodd coming in to save Griffith]] that they walked away alive. a few hours later Guts is murdering Apostles left right and centre when the eclipse goes down

* AllGaysArePedophiles: Paedophilia is kinda common in Miura's work to emphasize just how [[CrapsackWorld crappy]] a place Midland is and it's not just homosexuals like Gennon [[spoiler: who kept a harem of young boys hostage and had sex with Griffith]]. Just ask Charlotte. Or even better, [[spoiler: ask Guts himself why he HatesBeingTouched so much]]. On the other hand, we have yet to see an unambiguously gay character who isn't a rapist.

* DarkerAndEdgier: After reading this page, it should be obvious that ''Berserk'' is arguably the best example of the trope in manga.
** It's even {{Lampshaded}} in the American volumes, which bear this text on the back cover:
--> ''Berserk'' is the hammer of the manga forge, a white-hot amalgam of bruising action, breathless horror, and brimstone humor that separates men from boys, wheat from chaff, and heads from shoulders! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?

* DemonLordsAndArchDevils: The Godhand are godlike supreme demons who rule over the LegionsOfHell which include Apostles and evil spirits. However, it is implied [[spoiler:and confirmed in the missing chapter]] that they serve an even higher power, and their own knowledge and power is not necessarily absolute.

* TheBechdelTest: Can you believe it? In such a dark setting, with such manly values and violent surroundings, there ARE indeed times when two named women talk to each other about something else than men. Can be survival (Luca and Nina), feeling out of place among regular people (Sonia and Schierke) or just plain outlook on life as a woman in a CrapsackWorld (Farnese and Lady Vandimion).
** It's funny that Casca, the series' only genuine ActionGirl, only talks to a woman once - and it's about a guy. In fact, Casca talks a lot about the guys in her life (but being a [[{{Tomboy}} chick]] who is practically OneOfTheBoys, it's somewhat understandable).

* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: Without the Skull Knight the anime is left with a few plot holes, such as how Rickert survives the destruction of the Hawks' camp and how Guts and Casca ever escaped from the Eclipse. Also, it looked like Guts simply forgot to bring his sword and armor for the Eclipse. [[spoiler:In the manga he used the armor on a decoy to use on Wyald, while his sword was broken and left stuck in Wyald's neck.]]

* AdaptationDistillation / CompressedAdaptation: Given the fact that a twelve volume arc is being adapted into three one-or-so-hour long movies, the new trilogy focusing on the Golden Age arc falls into these. With TheLawOfConservationOfDetail in effect to save time, a lot of scenes (mainly battle sequences) were cut out in favor of the more important ones, and some scenes were meshed together with other scenes in the first film; hence, it will probably be expected in the upcoming films as well.

* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: Without the Skull Knight the anime is left with a few plot holes, such as how Rickert survives the destruction of the Camp and how Guts and Casca ever escaped from the Eclipse. Also, it looked like Guts simply forgot to bring his sword and armor for the Eclipse. [[spoiler:In the manga he used the armor on a decoy to use on Wyald, while his sword was broken and left stuck in Wyald's neck.]]
* AdultFear: No one is going to sacrifice their loved ones and turn into a demon in [[RealLife real life]], but this series gives you the unpleasant feeling that even your best friends and family members are just [[DespairEventHorizon one bad day]] away from [[HumansAreBastards stabbing you in the back]]. By the way: [[OhCrap YOU]], dear reader, might do the same as well. However, this is always a [[EarnYourHappyEnding choice]] you make, [[spoiler: as proven by the count who would rather go to hell than sacrifice his daughter to survive]].

* AdultsAreUseless: A plot necessity in the Lost Children Arc, for obvious reasons... Sans Guts, who's only [[YoungerThanTheyLook about 20-something]] himself, the adults present are totally abusive, complete morons, or massive cowards. The kids, whether they're apostles or not, are shown to be more ballsy than the adults around them.
* AerithAndBob: The Godhand is made up of the demons Femto, Void, Slan, Ubik... and ''Conrad''.
** Most of the names are from science-fiction novels. Void is likely from Frank Herbert's Destination: Void; Ubik is a book by Philip K. Dick; Slan is by A.E. Van Vogt and Conrad comes from Roger Zelazny's '...And call me Conrad'. Femto is either a prefix in the metric system for extremely small lengths (multiplied by 0.000000000000001, as a matter of fact) or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHEMT a technical principle]] (in which case it is spelled ''PHEMT'').
** The names are not radically different. The only reason Conrad seems strange in comparison to the others is because it's a real life name and the rest aren't.
** Furthermore, it's a foreign name in Japan, so it doesn't really stick out.
** How about this? We have Hawk members [[AwesomeMcCoolName Guts]], Griffith, Casca, Judeau, Corkus, Pippin, and Rickert. Then we have felled RedShirt members - ''Dan'' and ''Earl''???
*** In the manga, their names are a bit more "refined" for the period, and are called by "Dante" and "Errol".

** There is little besides wishful thinking to suggest that that the universe (or at least the Berserk-verse) is ruled by a just and all-powerful God who rewards good and punishes evil. The world is unjust and unfair, so bad things will always happen to good people for no reason at all. The excised missing chapter goes so far as to indicate that the human condition is that we want reasons for our suffering and create elaborate religious or metaphysical belief systems that get in the way of taking responsibility for our own lives and absolve us of the responsibility of trying to change it. However, there is also a strong AntiNihilist message to the story saying that people can make a difference. There were a lot of bad things Guts was unable to prevent, but he has saved people and changed a small number of lives because he had the courage to stand up to villains that no one else would oppose. Even Jill who recognizes that she's weak and fragile decides at the end of the Lost Children chapter that by going home and fighting her own small battle she'll be able to change something.

** The fact that a [[spoiler:naked woman]] appears out of nowhere [[spoiler:and attempts to seduce him]] doesn't help convince him otherwise.
** Otherwise often heard among people of the Berserk-verse in general, especially those that have no connection to the Astral World.

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The sword Godo offers to Guts after the Eclipse, capable of cleanly cutting through the blade of another sword and the tip of an anvil in a single swing. A merely ordinary sized sword of exceptional sharpness doesn't suit Guts' style though. [[WreckedWeapon It doesn't last a single fight]].

* ActionGirl: Casca, before... ''stuff'' happened.
** Happens in irregular spurts [[spoiler: after she's lost her mind, too. Trying to assault her when she's in reach of a sword turns out poorly for several bandits even while she's incoherent.]]

* ActionSurvivor: Mentioned briefly [[{{Badass}} below]], anybody who isn't a fully qualified badass but still manages to survive near-cataclysmic events for more than two volumes is basically this. That's good enough in the [[CrapsackWorld Berserkerverse.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: And boy howdy, do we mean ''ANYONE.'' [[MenAreTheExpendableGender Men,]] [[NoWomansLand women,]] [[InfantImmortality children and babies,]] [[InvulnerableHorses horses and other animals,]] [[SacrificialLion secondary characters]] - NOBODY is immune to dying a horrible and grisly death in ''Berserk.'' While we're at it, we mind as well add that being a main character does ''not'' exempt you from any degree of suffering, only getting by with a set of PlotArmor that mind as well be made out of glass.

** Religious fanaticism cannot save people or defeat evil, and a dogmatic religion will either be used as a [[CorruptChurch cover for corruption]] or lead to the methods of a KnightTemplar. The Conviction Arc features Bishop Mozgus' misguided attempts to purify his flock through inquisition, torture, and execution, which cause hundreds of innocent deaths. Even though he genuinely believes his actions are for the greater good, he is deluded and ultimately leads all his followers to their doom; The only ones who survive the collapse of the tower are those like Guts and Luca who took their fate into their own hands rather than waiting for God to save them. Schierke delivers an Aesop to a priest after fighting the trolls in Enoch village that it's okay to believe in the supernatural, but you have to be open minded about it and see the world beyond ours for what it really is instead of what dogma tells you to see. A small example of this is how Schierke was unable to see [[InvisibleToNormals Puck]] when she was serving the Church, but became able to see elves once she started opening her mind.

* BeAWhoreToGetYourMan: Discussed by [[StrawMisogynist General Adon]] during his first encounter with Casca, where he incorrectly assumed that she only became a general in the Band of the Hawk because she slept with Griffith. Really more of a "Be A Whore To Get Your Promotion" [[ZigzaggedTrope scenario.]]

* AllMenArePerverts: To be expected, with the manga's reputation and number of rapes attempted by numerous male characters (particularly in the background). There are some exceptions to the rule, though, which include Serpico, several members in the Band of the Hawk (original or otherwise), Silat, Azan, The Skull Knight, and several other miscellaneous knights, nobles, antagonists, etc.

* AllMenArePerverts: Given the number of rapes, orgies and just all around lewdness coming from male characters in the series, especially the background ones, the trope is played straight. Notable exception is Guts himself due to his faithfulness to Casca, even though he was seen doing it with the Unnamed Female Apostle in the very first volume. Perhaps a case of EarlyInstallmentWeirdness.