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Description
From ANN: Gats, known as the Black Swordsman, seeks sanctuary from the demonic forces attracted to him and his woman because of a demonic mark on their necks, and also vengeance against the man who branded him as an unholy sacrifice. Aided only by his titanic strength gained from a harsh childhood lived with mercenaries, a gigantic sword, and an iron prosthetic left hand, Gats must struggle against his bleak destiny, all the while fighting with a rage that might strip him of his humanity.
Warning: This manga is for mature audiences only, since it has sexual content and graphic violence (gore, blood, rape, etc). Definitely not for the weak hearted.
The first chapters are one of the darkest things i've ever read, it keeps the adult content and then it goes for a more popular manga as everyone says.
Not everything is bad in that change as i like the comic duo Isidro/Puck. On the other hand there's some shounen content that diminish the quality, like tha "power ranger/batman" armour, totally shounen rubish, Guts goes down from a mad and complex avenger character to a sugarcoated uncle full of love for his little friends.... the apostles getting friendly with the humans, the lack of sex (adult content), and the excess of childish or weak characters (moes everywhere)
Even so this manga it's still one of a kind, the darknes goes down, but the quality keeps pretty much the same as always and sometimes you got your share of gore.
I always like to point out the things i don't like, so with all that said i still think this is one of the best mangas ever published, and i believe a lot of people don't give a chance to Berserk precisely because the first two arcs are unbearable for them, just keep reading because you probably would like more the manga once you get past the first half, it goes from the darkness of the abbysmal nightmares to be one of the finest pieces of fantastic literature out there.
You can't blame Miura for introducing "pointless" characters, knowing that Guts already is the strongest human on earth.
It is not the case that he wishes to popularize this manga by ruining it, it would be stupid. He drew this for 20 yrs, not thinking how long it takes toward the end, with increasing quality like no manga can compete, if he wishes to do things with lesser time, lesser mind, the first symptom is degradation on quality, sorry, i can't find this anywhere, it happens only in the opposite way. My interpretation is that if he is the kind of person who trades quality for anything, he may rather trade this stupidity for longer release cycle, that is why Berserk is still in the half-way after 20 years of work.
The underlying reason on having characters who are more stpuid than Guts, is that not everyone is Guts. Still, it would be more boring if Guts fights as a lone wolf all the time. I cant say i like the current plot development or defend anything, i just think that if you think about "what's for" all the time, you are not reading the manga.
First of all, I totally admit this work is very well drawn and the author definitely knows his art, he kinda draws this stuff the same amount of time that I live.
But apart from that, Berserk is absolute abomination, both literature-wise and art-wise. It's clear from the very first chapters that author wants and loves to draw gore. Berserk is filled with completely unnecessary gore from start to the very last chapters and there's no end to it. To be honest, I would ban from existence any manga which has mutilated women in it, and this particular manga is all about such a things. I don't care whether the author is a sadist IRL, but please do not feed the juvenile audience (rest assured it is) with such a shit. Just ask yourself: why do we ever need to look at all this horrible sights? And more than that, it's not just rape, it's gang-rape or homosexual rape, it's not just murder, it's tortures and murder or mutilation. And all of this is drawn in such a details that I'm sure that author just wants his audience to be like him: a heartless monster accustomed to atrocities. Story-wise, this is just a tale of revenge. Basically we have this for the freaking (almost) 25 years: a noname outcast gets into bad company
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
which turns to total monsters which raped (there's no such a thing like simple rape in Berserk so she turned to insanity afterwards) his loved one
and now he seeks his revenge by any means. Ones who've read the Berserk already can (probably) see that this spoiler does not even reveal anything useful! Story did not become anymore deep!
And the whole 332 chapters so far ALL we have is just Guts spilling the guts out of everything that comes for it. And yeah, while he does this, there's a bunch of people appeared which happened to stick to him by unknown reasons.
Honestly, just think about it a bit: this manga can be called a "masterpiece" only by the immoral people who loves to see a lot of gore and brutality, because nothing else is here!
In "Elfen Lied" we at least had the story of the horrors of xenophobia which lie in humans. Here we don't have even such a small amount of moral, there's just a absolutely disgusting world filled with disgusting deeds which author relentlessly throws at his audience. Bleh.
This is the best manga of all time and can only be rivaled by the works of William Shakespeare or Dante Alighieri. And i am stone cold serious. Together with the Grant Morrisons seminal run on Batman, this is the most fun i ever had reading a Comic/Manga/Bande dessinée.
Earlier I decided not to read it further after reading first 3 volume as they were terrible, but I am glad that I didnt followed my decession. The true interesting story starts after first 5-6 volumes. Its one of the best seinen I have ever read. The story is well framed,characters are really well characterised except for few and the art is really well drawn (not including the starting). So dont give up on it for it slow starting because you will surely regret that you missed such a masterpiece work.
There are a handful of mangas that are so good they provide inspiration for other mangakas to up their game and raise the quality of mangas as a whole. This is one of those mangas.
I would have given this a ten if some of the characters weren't missing some fundamental, human character traits. Of course, most mangakas make the same mistake, but I am more greatly dissapointed to see it here.
This manga so well rounded: We're shown struggle, strife And some awesome fights Then we see tender love: Big Damn Kisses and hugs. There are scenes of blood and gore Yet still we chant: more,more more Then glimpses of a young hearts' fight There and then my soft heart takes flight
See this manga is so awesome it makes me want to write poetry
When I read this story everything builds on everything else and although the oponets get bigger and badder the main character doesn't grow at the same rate. This is why I have unfailingly gave it a ten as their has never been a point when I questioned if this manga is moveing forward.
I feel odd saying this but it's refreshing to see a character die. Two bitter enemies don't magically see eye-to-eye after participating in a bloody brawl, nor does a friend live after receiving a fatal blow. Gats, the main character, takes after the first point as he tends be the unforgiving type. If you can't stand blood and gore then you should probably keep moving on, otherwise there is a reason Berserk has a Rating of 9 despite 74 1's.
Gotta say 2 things: first off to Callmebaboon : i dont get your characterisation about seinen vs shoujo. More likely what you describe is shounen vs shoujo cause seinen by definition is more mature than seinen and includes the tribulations of adulthood, the angst about real life issues etc that a teenage boy ( shounen) hasnt usualy to cope with yet. And seinen is all about nudity blood and rape? I think you should try find and read some non action seinen and get more aquainted with the genre (because the action ones tend to be more like a hybrid between shounen and seinen at times (as they indluge in action and hormone driven fantasies more than the maturity that tempers those in a real seinen somewhat). Second: to those who keep complain on it supposedly gone downhill... in what way? Way i see it action keeps exist plenty often and added characters met are interesting and progressively are flessed out and get depth and world around has changed plenty since golden age (specialy lately with pope etc ). Basicaly i m curious to see where this is going because way things go with griffith's plan realisation so far hasnt shown up to be so evil and that sorta clashes with what we seen so far of godhands ( not to mention apostles) and is interesting that it leads to a resurgence of fantasy creatures and concepts around this world ( but that doesnt mean he can be ever forgiven for the liberties taken with sacrificing band of hawk or raping casca.
(-22)
