Berserk / Tropes U to Z

Tropes for Berserk
Tropes A to D | Tropes E to H (Famous Last Words, Fan Disservice, Foil) | Tropes I to P | Tropes Q to T (Shout-Out, Shown Their Work) | Tropes U to Z

U

• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife
  • The Count was a stout, bald guy before he became an apostle, while his wife was lovely to look at.
  • Jill's mom is reasonably attractive for a woman her age, headscarf and all. Jill's dad on the other hand.... His head looks really disproportionate to say the most among other attributes.
• Unbroken Vigil: Subverted. Guts leaves the insane Casca weeks after the Eclipse to pursue his revenge against Griffith after he sees no psychological change in her. This did not work out for the better, considering that there might have been a chance of Guts getting through to Casca early on in her recovery had he actually stayed to comfort her through the pain that they were both going through.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • Discussed when he and Guts were up against Rosine's elves for the first time, Puck said that they looked similar to elves such as he, but that there was something "off" about them, and was quite disturbed by their presence. Later revealed that the elves weren't real elves, but rather apostle spawn that were children that Rosine kidnapped.
  • Aside from the invoked example in Rosine's elf minions, there is Griffith in his reincarnated form. The guy is so amazingly beautiful that you know something is wrong with him. Maybe it's in his eyes, which still retain his eerie slitted pupils that his Godhand form, Femto, has and thus he always seems to be giving you the Kubrick Stare constantly; or maybe it's just the way that he carries himself now, nearly completely devoid of emotion and, at worst, empathy, making any smile that he gives really unsettling. Either way, Griffith is on a divine level, and if Judeo-Christian mythos rings true, we are not supposed to be seeing him like this. Unfortunately, whenever this trope is invoked by the characters, they see him in the direct opposite light.
  • Mozgus is a large man with a large face bearing sunken eyes, thin lips, and an extremely flat nose.
  • The Great Goat looks normal enough at a glance, but he has unnaturally long arms, a freakishly tall body, and six fingers on each hand.
• Underestimating Badassery: A fatal mistake that many-a-mook make when confronting Guts, thinking that he's tired or outnumbered. If anything, those conditions just make him kill better.
• The Underworld: All human characters who perish in the series (Apostles especially) end up being sent to the Abyss, a realm consisting of only nightmarish forms and a swirling ocean of writhing souls known as both Heaven and Hell.
• Undressing the Unconscious:
  • Guts wakes up naked and bandaged after his first fight with Griffith, with fuzzy memories of Casca also lying naked next to him. He's later told she was ordered to do so by Griffith since Guts body needed to be warmed and that is a woman's job.
  • Still in the "Golden Age" arc, Guts and Casca fall down a cliff into a river and he drags her unconscious body into a cave. He also has to strip her so she won't die of hypothermia. When Casca wakes up naked and realizes that it was Guts who took her clothes off, she punches him in the face and drives him out by throwing bits of their equipment and armor at him in a rather cartoonish fashion.
• Unfriendly Fire: After being raped by Donovan, one of Gambino's soldiers, as a kid, Guts murders him during the next battle.
• Unknowingly in Love:
  • The King of Midland's second Queen felt neglected by and unsatisfied with him, so she had an affair with the King's brother Count Julius. Julius was a man of few words while they were together, and on the face of it their relationship was purely physical. Nevertheless, she unconsciously fell in love with him, not realizing the nature of her feelings until after his death.
  • The King of Midland was also an example. He so loved his first wife that he couldn’t move on after she died, not even when he remarried. He neglected his second wife while becoming Married to the Job. Charlotte, his daughter from his first wife, was his only comfort in life. As Charlotte grew into a woman, she resembled her mother more and more. The King tried to keep her sheltered and pure, turning down many royal marriage proposals for her despite the advantageous alliances offered. He never thought his feelings were anything more than a father’s love for his daughter, but unconsciously he had transferred his romantic and sexual feelings for his first wife onto Charlotte. This would eventually have disastrous consequences.
• Unprovoked Pervert Payback: During the Millennium Falcon Arc, Schierke is wearing a Modesty Towel white trying to bathe Casca alone while Farnese is away. When Casca runs away in the buff in front of the guys Schierke is embarrassed on her behalf and tries her best to wrap a towel around her, only for Casca to tear off Schierke's own towel. Schierke proceeds to have a Naked Freak-Out and attacks the innocent Guts who just happened to be in the room at the time.
• Unstoppable Rage: Guts consciously seeks to black out all thoughts other than the urge to kill during emergencies, and the series is named after it.
• Unwanted Harem: Played for laughs during the Hawks' victory ball, in which Guts and Casca are both seen being marauded by admirers of the opposite sex. They resolve to escape the attention together and flee to the balcony.
• Ur-Example: Likely of the revenge fantasy genre of anime, where a troubled, brutal Anti-Hero exacts revenge against the depraved individuals who betrayed him and subjected him and his former comrades to a horrible death amidst a Crapsack World. The difference from something like The Rising of the Shield Hero is that, instead of a straightforward Hate Sink Villainous Princess, Guts's primary target is still a utterly depraved individual, but he still has some moral complexity to him, his enemies are much, more brutal, and there's no fanservice, fun and games, only Fan Disservice and grimdark.
• The Usual Adversaries: The Apostles. It can't just be a straight shot to Elfheim, can it?!

V

• Vague Age: The ages of the characters—and especially of the three main ones—has been a pestering question among the fandom since the character designs can be deceptive and the sparse information given leaves much to interpretation. Guts' age, at least, can be known at certain points in the story based on the number of years time-skipped since his birth. Unfortunately, although Casca says that she was twelve when Griffith took her in, she does not say how long ago that was and Griffith's exact age is not mentioned at any time. Everyone's guesses vary widely both on specific ages and on seemingly simple questions such as who is older or younger than who. An official guidebook released in 2016 included the ages of major characters as of episode 347 (Guts, 24; Griffith, 24; Casca, 24; Serpico, 20; Farnese, 19; Rickert, 19; Isma, 15; Isidro, 14; Schierke, 13), but this raises as many questions as it answers since it sometimes leads to Improbable Age, goes against a characters' appearance and relationship with other characters, and/or leads to contradictions in the timeline. For example, if you accept that Guts is 24 now, then following the timeskips backward Farnese would have been 14 when she led to Holy Iron Chain Knights to the pool of blood left behind by the Eclipse. Not only did she look older than that, but the dialogue in the later flashback to her childhood establishes that she was 16 when she burned the Vandimion mansion and got banished to a convent, the event which led to her being put in charge of the HICKs in the first place. That would mean that she was leading them two years before she even joined them. Because of this and other problems, including speculation that these ages may have been decided by some editor rather than Miura himself, there's a risk that many fans will simply ignore the official ages and continue to bicker just as they've always done.
• Vagueness Is Coming: in the Golden Age Arc, Nosferatu Zodd and the Skull knight each give ominous prophecies to Guts referencing the disaster that is going to befall the Hawks, but at this point, they can't spoil too much for either the characters or the audience so they have to keep their warnings both threatening and vague:
  Skull Knight: It begins. From this moment until the Eclipse occurs one year from now... you and your friends... right now are walking blindly to your doom!!
  • Zodd's warning is slightly more specific: he warns Guts that "if you think [[Griffith]] your friend, know" that when his ambition crumbles, Guts will face "a death you can never escape." At the end of the day, it's not much more helpful.
  • A Storm Is Coming: A literal example, as the chapter when the Eclipse begins to take place is called "Storm of Death."
• The 'Verse: Even though Berserk is a single epic with not a whole lot of spin-offs, so much goes on in this crapped-up universe that it's often referred to as a single body. It's usually called it the Berserk-verse or the Berserkerverse.
• Vicious Cycle:
  • The Eclipse, which happens once every 216 years and marks the birth of a new God Hand.
  • Another one: People's suffering and need for something to blame for it creates The Idea of Evil -> Idea of Evil creates the Godhand -> Godhand uses Behelits to turn people into demons and new Godhand members -> demons make life even shittier for everyone else -> people's suffering sustains The Idea of Evil... and so on and so forth.
• Villainous Rescue:
  • Zodd does this twice in the manga, first when Guts is about to get his head handed to him by General Boscone by throwing him a sword, and then the second time by stopping Wyald from ripping a crippled Griffith in two. He only does this in order to save the lot for the up-and-coming Eclipse.
  • Silat ends up rescuing Rickert because he needs an ally who knows Griffith's secrets.
• Villains Out Shopping: When Griffith isn't actively plotting world domination or crossing the Moral Event Horizon, he's been known to engage in such innocuous pleasures as sampling Princess Charlotte's sweets and attending tea parties surrounded by flowers and good company. The fact that the audience knows about the heinous crimes he's committed while his thoroughly good companions are blissfully unaware generates no small amount of humor.
• Visible to Believers: Fairies and elves. There's clearly a scene in which Puck is interacting with confused non-believers, who can't see him even though he's right before their eyes. Those who believe in fairies, however, can see him with no problem.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Isidro and Schierke constantly bicker and insult each other, but they grow to care about each other over time.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Frequent in the Lost Children Arc. Comes in the, um, smooth and liquid flavor for the most part (a special blood flavor in the case of Guts). Happens a few times during the Black Swordsman Arc too.
• Vortex Barrier: Any time the God Hand is summoned via beherit, an ethereal cyclone manifests to keep outsiders at bay. This phenomenon has been observed twice: once during the Eclipse, and later (in-story) during the Black Swordsman Arc.

W

• Wake Up Fighting: Routinely happens to Guts because of his brand, as seen in the episode "The Brand" when he wakes up from a nightmare to find an incubus attached to him, and stabs it as soon as he opens his eyes.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: After being rescued by the Skull Knight while still unconscious during the Eclipse Guts wakes up in Godo's elf mine.
• Walking the Earth: During the two-year period covered by the Black Swordsman Arc and the first two Chapters of the Convition Arc, Guts is a rootless drifter on a quest for revenge. His only goal is to find Apostles to kill using the signals of his brand and pick up the trail of Griffith, and he's left behind all obligations such as a home, steady employment, and dependents (namely, Casca) in order to do so. Each chapter takes him to a new Adventure Town, where he meets a new cast of characters, defeats the resident Apostle, and then moves on to the next one. That way of living changes at the end of those two years when he takes on a more focused quest and attracts a full adventuring party. One could also count the one year that he spent on his own after leaving the Hawks in search of his dream, which led him to travel the land testing his skill.
• Wall Bang Her: The sex scene between Guts and Casca in the manga's Golden Age Arc starts with the former holding the latter pressed against an obliging tree. This first part of their lovemaking takes place when they're caught up in the passion of the moment, but it also leads to Guts being too rough; an intermission follows, and when they resume it is in a different position that allows them to be more affectionate and tender.
• War Arc: This is the secondary plot line of the Golden Age Arc, with the Band of the Hawk being hired by the King of Midland to fight in the kingdom's ongoing war against the Tudor Empire.
• War Elephants: The Kushan Empire uses large numbers of war elephants in battle, equipped with armor and carrying platforms for warriors and archers. The exotic animals seem like unstoppable monsters to the soldiers of Midland, and we are treated to graphic depictions of hapless infantry being trampled beneath their feet, though Rakshas also demonstrates that they can be easily terrified and made to stampede over their own forces. As if the regular elephants weren't enough, Daiba and his sorcerers have also provided the Empire with bipedal elephant-headed monsters armed with equally enormous weapons. Ganishka certainly prizes elephants as a sign of royal power, since we see him riding to and from Charlotte's prison on an elephant, and he commands the siege of Vritannis from a palace on wheels drawn by no fewer than sixteen elephants and surrounded by an escort of elephant cavalry.
• Warning Mistaken for Threat: In the beginning of the Lost Children arc, Guts warns a small band of bandits that are messing with Jill that if they do not clear out of the cave, they're going to die. The bandits think that Guts is threatening them (since "you're going to die" can easily mean "I'm going to kill you"), but Guts is actually warning them about the demon-tree that is about to come to life and come after him because of the Brand he bears. Sure enough, the bandits promptly die when the tree attacks.
• Was It All a Lie?: While Corkus was busy asking if the Eclipse was All Just a Dream, Casca's inner monologue asked if everything that the Band of the Hawk went through was all just a grand scheme so that Griffith could throw them into hell for God knows whatever reason.
• Watching the Sunset: When Guts and his new group reach the ocean outside of Vritinnis, Guts finds a small amount of solace while watching the sunset, which he never really got to enjoy in his life, especially after the Eclipse.
• Waterfall Shower: Guts finds Casca standing under a subterranean waterfall in a soaked shirt after he wakes up following the Eclipse, which is when he finds out that she doesn't remember anything.
• Water Is Womanly: Schierke can summon the Lady of the Deep Water, who manifests as a female angel with dominion over the Undines. She was worshipped by the ancestors of the habitants of Enoch but was forgotten when the church of Holy See was built in its sanctuary. In accordance with an ancient oath, she is summoned to cleanse evil spirits, drowning monsters in a flood of water.
• Weapon Jr.: Guts is depicted using an adult-sized longsword in his childhood the way that an adult would use a great sword, foreshadowing his skill with disproportionately large weapons. By the time he's a grown mercenary, he's using a BFS that's massive by anyone's standards.
• Weapon Across the Shoulder: Guts loves striking a sword-resting-on-the-shoulder pose with his BFS, and it's safe to say that he isn't harmed when doing so, since his swords only do damage at a high speed because of their dull edge. One of the English outtakes for the anime parodies this by having Guts resting the edge of his sword on an unclothed shoulder accompanied by his voice actor screaming bloody murder, showing that in that outtake the edge definitely was sharp!
• Weapons Breaking Weapons: During Guts and Griffith's sword fight where Guts is fighting for his freedom from Griffith, Guts comes out the winner as his massive sword very easily cuts Griffith's sword in half.
• Weapon Specialization: Even when offered a magical axe to carry, Guts sticks with the more or less non-magical Dragonslayer since it's 'what his hand knows best.' (Schierke quickly realizes it's the best weapon for him anyway.)
• Weapon Tombstone: The Band of the Hawk are memorialized with a Field of Blades, each one forged by Rickert, the only member of the Hawks who wasn't there when the Eclipse went down.
• Webcomic Time: Berserk has been ongoing for over 25 years, but up to the Fantasia Arc only about four or five years - barring the flashback to Guts' childhood and the Golden Age arc - have passed in-universe since Guts was introduced slaying the Snake Baron.
• Weird Moon: You might have never noticed it, but Miura is as meticulous with the moon as he is with every other detail in the story, and he has captured all of the moon phases.
• Weirdness Censor: When concerning the less-antagonizing beings like elves, this was justified through Pucks explanation about exactly why normal people can't see beings like him. He says that even if a person is technically looking at an elf straight in the eye, they only try to remember what they can explain or the better parts of that event. Some experiences are a bit TOO much to handle, and that's when people snap out of it.
• Weirdness Magnet: Guts and Casca, because of the Brand of Sacrifice
  • The Original Band of Hawks had a tendency to run into the weirdest, strongest, and nastiest monsters, demons, and just plain fucked up people. It happened so often that Corkus lampshaded it here.
  • Griffith's Behelit was the cause. In order to bring him the glory he sought, they needed suitable challenges that bordered on the impossible to achieve the miracles needed to get him to within sight of his dream, so that fate could then crush it utterly to the point he'd give up ANYTHING to reclaim it. (The Idea of Evil tells him straight up that everything that had happened to them up to that point was all part of its plan to make him the man he had become.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Played with and zigzagged. Guts didn't epically betray the Band of the Hawk: he just sort of wanted to do his own thing with his life that could only have been accomplished with his departure, but some individuals didn't want that, and some very unfortunate events soon followed. After Guts came back, the Hawks are more or less happy that Guts returned - well, except Corkus for obvious reasons. Casca was more pissed that Guts only decided to come back just then when the situation was already shit-tastic and the effect that his departure had on she and Griffith (but she had already had her Love Epiphany, so she didn't stay mad). Rickert, being the crying kid of the Hawks, was more upset that Guts left and broke up their family but he forgives him.
• We Used to Be Friends: Guts and Griffith were the best of comrades when they fought together in the Band of the Hawk during the Hundred Years' War, risking their lives for each other time and again. Guts deeply admired Griffith for the ambition of his dreams, and Griffith held Guts in greatest confidence by sharing parts of his personality that he would never show to his other followers. However, Guts was shocked when he overheard Griffith say that he didn't consider any of his followers his friends because a friend to him was someone who would pursue their own dream even if it meant opposing him. After a lot of thinking, Guts decided to leave the Hawks and find his own dream so that one day he could stand next to Griffith as an equal. Griffith felt betrayed, leading to a Tragic Mistake which caused his swift downfall, and by the time Guts and the Hawks rescued him from his imprisonment, he all but despised Guts. Guts, however, still held on to his feelings for Griffith up until the Eclipse, in which Griffith's despair led him to commit the monstrous betrayal that would destroy the bond of friendship between the two of them forever. Now Griffith is The Heavy and Guts' Arch-Nemesis in the story. Guts hates Griffith with the malice of a bloodthirsty wolf who holds a grudge forever, while Griffith professes to have no feelings of any kind left for Guts or for the hundreds of followers he sacrificed.
• Wham Episode:
  • The first is at the very end of the fight against the Count. As Guts mocks Theresia and walks away as she vows to kill him, the audience is probably fully convinced that Guts is a complete asshole. Puck goes to admonish him for the terrible thing he just did... until he sees Guts on the verge of tears, making a painfully anguished facial expression. This is the first big hint that Guts is a more complex character than he initially appeared to be and that he does not take joy in the things he does.
  • The whole Eclipse is one big shocker, but especially episode 78 and everything that immediately follows. Because of the Foregone Conclusion at the beginning of the manga and the foreshadowing throughout the Golden Age Arc, the reader knows that something bad is coming, and that it's supernatural in nature, but nothing can quite prepare them for such a shocking betrayal and obscene bloodbath.
  • Chapter 307 was a pretty big wham in our face when Femto used the Skull Knight's Sword of Resonance to merge the supernatural world and natural world together, thus changing the world forever.
  • After waiting for over 20 years, chapter 354 ends with a panel that fans have been waiting for since 1997: Casca seemingly regains her mind!
• Wham Line: In episode 78, when Griffith pronounces the words of his Face–Heel Turn:
  Griffith: Among thousands of comrades and ten thousand enemies, only you... only you... only you made me forget my dream. I sacrifice.
  • From 362, finally confirming the long-standing theory about Skull Knight's origins.
  Skull Knight: What you bore witness to was the end of a foolish king… And the beginning of a dead man stalking the endless night.
• Wham Shot: For this manga, there are so many, it's more important to mention the top items...
  • Guts crying after he threatened Theresia. It is one of the subtle hints that even though the mighty Jerkass he might have been, all is not well with him.
  • The Eclipse.
  • In chapter 362, Guts witnesses a memory of Skull Knight's: the Skull Knight during an Eclipse, wearing the Berserk Armor, holding a lady who's been branded. He's facing down the Godhand. Not the Godhand we've known, but a different group composed of Void and four previously unseen members.
• What Does He See in Her?: Perhaps due to her lack of understanding of their past and from frustration from her own feelings for him, Farnese doesn't understand why Guts goes out of his way for Casca even when she fears and despises him. However, she dumps this on Casca - who can't really respond since she is mute and insane.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Guts gets called out on his rather assholish behavior post-Eclipse by Godo, which starts him back down the road to how he used to be. Trust us when we say he's done a lot to deserve said calling-out.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Said squarely by Guts in the non-canonical video game Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage, though it still applies to the main storyline: if you're a monster in any way, shape or form, Guts shows no mercy for you. Bummer. To be fair, most non-humans are actively trying to kill him.
• When She Smiles: Discussed by Guts in his inner monologue and played for drama. After he nearly strangles Casca in a possessed rage in volume 23, she begins to detest Guts, which drives Guts into more despair. He comments on how he only wants to make her smile but can't as she won't even allow him to touch her with tenderness anymore it escalates even further when the beast almost gets Guts to rape her. Seeing a smile on Casca's face is the only thing that makes Guts himself smile, next to hearing about the possibility of her being cured of her insanity for good.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: If you see Guts' eyes look like this, you should run. Fast, far, and never EVER turn your back, because if Griffith isn't in the immediate area, Guts is about to fuck you up if not outright kill you, which is much more likely. If he goes beyond this level and skips straight to Blank White Eyes, you will not survive the hour.
  • Even Puck, Guts's Morality Pet, knows by now not to mess around with this:
  Puck: Jill, when he looks like that, it's time for us to leave! Chapter 110
• Wife Husbandry: Played very disturbingly with the King of Midland's relationship with his daughter, who has the spiting image of her mother, the first queen.
• Win Your Freedom: Griffith played this very seriously when it came to Guts. Before he was comrade, Guts was considered his "property."
• Why Can't I Hate You?: Casca has this with Princess Charlotte during her Green-Eyed Monster moment after learning about the truth of what happened between she and Griffith. However, Casca admits to herself that she felt bad for hating on Charlotte since she was so sweet to a woman of her kind. That, and she already had Guts.
• Why Won't You Die?: In a series where the world is filled with juggernaut monsters and a determinator anti-hero who fights them, you'll get this a lot from either side.
  Guts: Amazing! No wonder you're higher than us humans — you don't know how to fucking die!
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: all over the place, as you'd expect given the title of the series (Guts is pretty much the poster child for "Berserker rage"). Zig-zagged with the disciples, some of whom seem corrupted by power and some of whom were already corrupt and just more effective about it after power was applied.
• Womb Horror:
  • Guts and Casca's unborn child is corrupted in the womb when Griffith, a Demon of Human Origin, brutally rapes Casca. After she miscarries the demonic fetus, it suddenly teleports away.
  • Trolls are seen to reproduce by raping human women, who are eaten alive by the fetus. Like other Qliphoth inhabitants, Trolls are formed in part from the darkest elements of humanity's collective subconscious.
  • The Kushan Empire uses demonic soldiers called Daka as shock troops. These are obtained by plunging pregnant women into vats of demonic essence, corrupting the fetus so it quickly grows and eats its way out of the mother's womb.
• Womb Level:
  • While running with Roderick and his crew, Guts ended up doing battle inside a giant sea monster.
  • Invoked when Guts and the Skull Knight battle Slan in the Qliphoth. She calls the place the "Womb of Darkness" and summons a seemingly endless number of ogres to keep the Skull Knight at bay while she keeps on torturing and dominating a heavily wounded Guts.
• World-Wrecking Wave: At the conclusion of the Millennium Falcon Arc, Griffith uses the Skull Knight's dimension-warping attack to fuse the planes of existence together, which is perceived by everyone as a wall of light expanding from the epicenter in all directions and washing over the entire globe so that it's visible from outer space. The Magic Comes Back all over the world, stirring benign and evil magical creatures in equal measure. While nobody is directly harmed by the wave, the world is thrown into chaos, and everyone who can begins migrating to the only place that is safe from monsters: Falconia, Griffith's Shining City at the foot of the World Tree.
• Worf Had the Flu: Casca became so disoriented when her time o' month came along in the midst of battling General Adon, and was fatigued for nearly two days because of it; she practically had to be saved and cared for by Guts who she had a rocky relationship with at the time and nearly got raped. But after her cycles passed, Casca wiped the floor with Adon so hard that he was more dumbfounded than usual to find out that her poor performance from their previous battle was only due to her being on her period. This led to hilarity when he announced it right in the middle of their fight, gaining the notice of every single soldier around them.
• World of Badass: In this world, it's absolutely essential for four out of five people to have some amount of badass in them in order to survive. There is badass littered EVERYWHERE in the world of Berserk. Even small, mysterious, silent children have badass in them especially if their implied parents are badasses themselves.!
• World of Snark: The predominant source of humor among the characters and seems to be the only thing that keeps spirits afloat in this world.
• World Tree: The concept seems to have been introduced in chapter 333 with the Helix Tree that is nearby Falconia. All of the plants and crops in its vicinity are flourishing... this has potential for catastrophe since the tree seems to be a remnant of Emperor Ganishka.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Apostles consider human as food or toys, or a combination of both. Children? No special treatment. If they are edible, they will be tortured, abused and then eaten.
  • Downplayed for Guts. He is not proud of the fact that he's sometimes harmed or endangered children in pursuit of his goals. In fact, he tends to be much more sympathetic toward children than he is toward adults because of his own abused childhood, and Jill is drawn to him despite the fact that he acts like a jerk in Lost Children because he's the only grown-up who's ever protected her at all. Just how much of a Kick the Dog it comes across as and how Justified it seems depends on the situation:
    • The first time in his life that he caused the death of a child was his accidental killing of Adonis during the assassination of Count Julius, and his reaction to this was a horrified My God, What Have I Done? that sent him into a Heroic BSoD. On the other hand, he didn't raise any objections to participating in Griffith's plan to neutralize the queen, which involved blackmailing Minister Foss by taking his young daughter Elise hostage, but Griffith kept his end of the bargain and returned her to her father unharmed afterwards.
    • After the Eclipse, Guts Took a Level in Jerkass and spent two years hunting Apostles in a very ruthless manner. In The Guardians Of Desire when he's losing a Curb-Stomp Battle against the Count, he only manages to win through the dirty trick of taking the Count's daughter Theresia as a human shield. When everything's over and her father's dead, he gives Theresia a knife and encourages her to kill herself, which seems like a Moral Event Horizon for him, but then it turns out that he's actually pulling a Zero-Approval Gambit to make her hate him enough to want to keep living.
    • In Lost Children, when Rosine and her pseudo elves show up and begin massacring Jill's town, Guts takes a little boy named Thomas who is running from the elves and uses him as live bait to lure them into a barn which he burns down with them inside. The poor boy is utterly traumatized, but Guts makes sure he's ok afterwards, and when the villagers come out of their houses and call what he did heinous, Guts shames them by reminding them that he actually saved Thomas' life while they were cowering behind locked doors. Things go From Bad to Worse when the burning corpses of the elves turn back into children, making Guts look like a child-killing monster, so Guts puts a knife to Jill's throat and gets the villagers to let them through. From then on he makes Jill stop following him for her own good, and alternates between saving her life and acting like he's prepared to kill her if she tries to get between him and Rosine.
    • Lastly, Guts is Justified in taking the gloves off when fighting monsters that used to be children, but which are now trying to kill him and other humans. Rosine in Lost Children, Nico in Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage, and Charles in Berserk: Millennium Falcon Hen Seima Senki no Shō are all Apostles who became Enfants Terribles after they were Driven to Villainy by the mistreatment they suffered from adults. Guts hates them as he would any other Apostle, and makes it his mission to kill them. It's not as if he doesn't feel any guilt, however, even if he tries to suppress those emotions behind his tough act: When he sees that Collette's corpse is possessed by an evil spirit in episode 2, "the Brand", he goes into a Heroic BSoD and doesn't strike her down until she's already stabbed him in the side. In Lost Children, when the elf children he burned in a barn came back as crying ghosts at night, he lets himself go Laughing Mad in order to get through the fight.
  • In the "garden" of the Nameless Apostle, we clearly see the cadavers of young children among that of adults, meaning that Mozgus himself wasn't above killing and torturing children. But to some fans, he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist...Sure!
  • Good 'ol Griffith. Not only rapes his former commander, but taints her baby and then uses said baby to reincarnate himself into the real world to further his own desires. Yeah. "Jesus loves the little children" my butt.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
  • Earlier in the series, Casca attacks Guts after he saves her, and he yells that if she wasn't a woman, he'd slug her. Considering that he was already developing feelings for her, it's just as likely he just said that because he was frustrated and angry with her violent reaction to his (well-meant) Intimate Healing, and to him, insults are the only acceptable way to express hurt feelings. Again, Guts really isn't the type to go around slugging women here and there.
  • While fighting Rosine, Guts is hindered a lot by this sentiment. After all: he is essentially trying to butcher a cute teenage girl...that has the combat abilities of a fighter jet, but still isn't entirely evil. He ends up holding back every time he can land the killing blow, taking in an insane amount of punishment himself. This makes Guts completely give in to his bitter hatred, officially giving birth to the beast of darkness. It never leaves afterwards. Counts as a total deconstruction. And then there was another time that this happened during Guts' Black Swordsman days when he hesitates to kill the resurrected corpse of the daughter of the priest that he was traveling with. He takes a hit because of it before chopping off her head. He vomits afterward.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Once branded with the mark of the sacrifice, you're branded for life. That, and it bleeds, so it's never completely closed up. Worse the brand acts as a beacon to ghosts and apostles so it's rare for someone branded to last more than a few days if they somehow survive being branded
• Wrecked Weapon: As if being beaten by Guts was bad enough for Griffith, but his sword was cut clean in half as well. Damn.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The Berserk Official Guidebook offers some questionable figures for characters' heights, weights, and ages that seem to contradict what we're shown in the manga.

X

• Xenomorph Xerox: The unnamed female apostle's true demonic form has a lot in common with a Xenomorph, such as a jet-black body, an oblong head, elongated dorsal tubes, and an Overly-Long Tongue.

Y

• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Guts of all people has expressed this trope for any comrade of his that's feeling especially under pressure, including Casca, Isidro, Farnese, and Schierke.
• You Are Not Alone: During the mock Eclipse, the Egg of the Perfect world spots the Child on a ledge, alone and depleted of strength from protecting his mother. Knowing how it was like to be alone and unloved, the Egg takes the child into him so that he could feel one moment of tenderness before dying. Though it is heavily implied that by doing so the child was reformed into the powerful mute child that appears to help Guts whenever the full moon is out. Maybe. Probably. It's mysterious.
• You Are Too Late: Doubly subverted toward the end of the eclipse. The Skull Knight did in fact save Guts and Casca from certain death... however, by the time he got there, the worst damage had already been done on the two (and the God Hand officially announced their reign of darkness after Skull Knight left).
• You Can't Fight Fate: A universe governed by causality constantly tries to pound this into Guts' head, ever since Nosferatu Zodd's chilling prophecy. But he ain't giving in that easily.
  • The Skull Knight says that he and Guts seem to be outside the realm of fate (though after accidentally merging the layers of reality for Femto/Griffith it's unclear if this is true) and that because Guts was born from a hanged woman's womb and bears the mark of Sacrifice it's easier for his will to effect reality
  • The God Hand, meanwhile, compare them to a fish in a stream. The fish can leap out of the stream and into the air, but it can't change the stream's course. So as far as they're concerned, they may have some small ability to affect their own lives, but not enough to seriously affect the God Hand's plans. Only time and Miura will tell who's right....
• You Can't Go Home Again: Guts couldn't return to his original mercenary band after he killed Gambino, Casca couldn't return to her village after she killed the nobleman who tried to rape her, and the whole Band of the Hawk got exiled from the Kingdom of Midland after Griffith got arrested. Guts and Casca have to find another safe place to live after Godo's elf mine got destroyed, Schierke's home went up in a blaze after Griffith sent his Apostles to kill Flora and there's a close bet that after that Kushan invasion, Farnese is out of a home too (but she only dropped by anyway).
• You Monster!: Another one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot between Guts and apostles. It's not just from the former either. Guts is badass enough and ruthless enough in his apostle-killing methods to even have the monsters or a witness saying this to him.
• You Must Be Cold:
  • Guts does this often with Casca, usually because she is lacking clothes at the time so he either gives her his shirt or cape to cover herself. One example is episode 174 when he does it to stop her shivering in the aftermath of the Tower's collapse. Deconstructed in volume 23, where Guts had a slight moment of being Distracted by the Sexy when he sees Casca's breasts peak from under his cape. Casca being an Innocent Fanservice Girl and Guts still yearning for Casca's intimacy, the Beast begins to tempt Guts from this point on.
  • On a cold night during the voyage on the Seahorse, Roderick joins Farnese in the crow's nest and gives her his coat to keep her warm.
• You Shall Not Pass!: A few times. Guts and Pippin singlehandedly facing down the Black Dog Knights to buy the rest of the Griffith rescue squad time to escape, until the bridge blows. Captain Azan of the Holy Iron Chain Knights, in his youth, holding a troupe of knights at bay until a wounded old man can cross the bridge. And for a villain example, one could say that the first encounter with Nosferatu Zodd invokes this trope, as he massacred at least fifty members of the Raiders in a long hallway while fighting on the side of Chuder, delaying what would have been an easy victory for the Band of the Hawk. More famously Guts buying Casca time to flee in which he earns the nickname a hundred man slayer which in-universe makes Guts as the Raid Leader of the Hawks a legendary figure
• Your Head A-Splode: Gaston's eventual demise.
• You Won't Like How I Taste: When left alone with Theresia, Puck assumes she's going to eat him and tries to talk her out of it:
  Puck: Uh... I'm not very tasty. E-elves aren't very good for your digestion, y'know, not to mention we're high in calories.

Z

• Zany Scheme: Magnifico wants capture the elves on Elfheim and sell them as pets to rich aristocrats on the mainland, and tries to persuade Roderick and Puck into helping him by promising Puck the position of King of the Elves. Not so sure if Puck takes him seriously, though.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: In the Black Swordsman arc, after Guts defeated the Count, he tells his young daughter Theresia that she mind as well commit suicide since she has nothing to live for now and he even throws her a knife. Instead, she gives him a nasty Death Glare and vows that someday she would kill him. With her vow of vengeance, Guts knew that the girl wasn't planning on dying anytime soon, so he knew that his plan for saving her had worked. His face afterwards makes it clear just how much he hates having to do this but that it is the only way he knows to save her.

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