This wasn't how any of us wanted it to go. Nevertheless, we must struggle onward...

#Hello! The following review was written prior to Berserk returning and as such is only a review for Miura's Berserk (up to chapter 363). When Berserk ends, this review will be updated with an additional review, focusing on Kouji Mori and Studio Gaga's continuation of the series.#
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#...Assuming of course I'm still writing reviews whenever that actually happens!#

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~This review is going to be a full spoilers review. For I cannot write a version of this review that isn't. I don't wish to ruin any moments of Berserk for anyone. So if you have not read Berserk yourself, please do not read this review. Additionally, since this is a Berserk review, there is for sure going to be images included of a whole bunch of fucked up stuff. So there’s your gore warning as well. ~

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#The Struggle#

This... was a review I thought I would likely never write. Certainly, I never hoped to write it so soon and via these circumstances. I, and surely many others, who have been fans of Berserk much longer than I, would have preferred waiting through a hundred more hiatuses than this be the way Berserk ended.

Kentaro Miura's death.

H2

At the time of this review, there has not been an announcement as to what's going to happen with Berserk. Whether or not if Miura's assistants will continue it for Miura, simply finish however many chapters he had progress towards/plans for, or simply allow it to rest now that Miura can no longer bring it to a close himself...

But however it ends up going down, I wanted to review what he left us with. 363 chapters... if Miura's assistants pick up where he left off and attempt to do him justice and carry the story to an end Miura had in mind or would agree with... then, well enough. I'll simply add on to this review if that day comes.

I don't envy them if they do that, though. For it will be nearly impossible for that damnable thought to not arise. "Ah... this is Berserk without Miura."

Don't get me wrong. If they do decide to continue it or if that is what Miura wanted, of course I'll read every single chapter they put out with as open of a mind as possible. But now that we've arrived at this point, as much as I wish this weren't true...

Kentaro Miura's Berserk is at an end. Even if it gets passed down. We've arrived at the end of the fight.

~~

Before we continue, I just want to note that this review is not going to be a gleaming or beautifully worded tribute to Miura. It's simply just going to be another Berserk fan talking about how much they liked Berserk and how important it was to them.

For that's unfortunately all I'm capable of writing. Not only is this a review I thought I would never even write, it’s a review a part of me hoped to never write at all. For I’ve always doubted I would be satisfied with it.

But alas, I'm going to try.

#The Black Swordsman#

Guts.

~~

I've always kind of downplayed how much I like Guts. Actually, let me put it a better way. If you had asked me like what my favorite part of Berserk was, or rather what my favorite piece, my favorite component of Berserk was, I would have told you it's the Apostles. Not even a specific Apostle. Just the concept of Apostles and how they work and how they're viewed by the God Hand...

But, who am I kidding? Of course the true answer, is Guts. For it all started with Guts. As a person who had only barely watched a handful of anime and had never ever touched a single a manga, I was just transfixed by Guts.

~~

The Black Swordsman. This asshole who seemingly cares about no one, nothing, not even his own life. He just wanders the land basically seeking to either die at the hands of an Apostle or find a way to gain revenge on the one who Branded him, the one who Sacrificed him, the one who betrayed him.

I'm sure as many fans as Berserk has, there's no shortage of those who pick up the first couple of volumes and go "oh, it's edgy." And then put it back down.

The Black Swordsman arc, or rather Guts during this arc, is extremely edgy.

But while some don't like this arc as much after reading the Golden Age and going through all of Guts' backstory, that only enhanced this arc for me. Because the first time I read it I was just fucking losing my mind

yo this is so fucking cool, this guy is just getting slammed to death by this giant snake man but he just won't die. And now he's putting like eighty fucking crossbow bolts into this snake man's head. Dude, I fucking love this series

And then I read the Golden Age and it just clicked. Oh. How edgy Guts was is completely and utterly justified. His entire life has been shit. The period where it wasn't shit was just a prelude to the absolute worst of it. As if some invisible hand was guiding him every step of the way. As if he had no control over even his own will--oh.

Like the moment at the end of it with him and the Slug Count's daughter, Theresia. As a result of encountering the truth about her father who sacrificed her mother to become an Apostle and the existence of the Inhumans in general, she is driven to despair and is goaded into almost committing suicide by Guts. But when the ground underneath her gives way and she seeks to live, Guts saves her.

And rather than killing herself, she vows one day she's going to kill him. Possibly for killing the shit out of her father. Possibly for destroying her life by indirectly causing her to be exposed to the truth. Either way, she's going to continue living... continue struggling... for the sake of revenge. Like... like Guts.

Oh.

Then after all the fucking character development he gets in the Golden Age, Miura was finally forced to have to tie it all back into the Black Swordsman. So in addition to seeing him first set out as the Black Swordsman with the Dragonslayer in hand, Miura reestablishes the Black Swordsman.

By doing the Black Swordsman arc. Again. Putting it that way though almost does it an injustice.

The Lost Children chapter of the Conviction arc.

~~

It's no exaggeration when I say probably a majority of my absolute favorite Guts moments comes from this section of Berserk. Miura's back to doing Black Swordsman shenanigans and not only has his art improved a hell of a lot since, he feels he has to outdo the Snake Baron and the Slug Count. Enter Rosine.

Not only is his struggle and battle with Rosine fucking brutal, all of her "elves" are actually corrupted children she's stolen from her village. So we get a moment where the corrupted son of Guts, a Demon Infant, decides to punish his father who frankly is kind of being a heartless asshole.

The Demon Infant does this by bringing the spirits of these Lost Children to Guts. So what does Guts do? He fucking starts slaughtering them.

And it's at this moment I'm just like "no yep, I love Berserk. Yep. There's probably never going to be any topping this, fuck."

In actuality, we've seen very little of those two years of Guts wandering as the Black Swordsman. But that doesn't even matter. So brutal are the fights he has with the Snake Baron, the Slug Count, Rosine... hell, even that Hound motherfucker that got his own anime original backstory episode in Berserk 2016 even though he's just the first Apostle Guts fucking slaughters with the Dragonslayer...

So brutal are those fights that your imagination can do the rest of the work. Yeah no, two years of this shit? I'd be on the verge of losing my mind to a personification of all my anger, hate, and desire for revenge that dwells in my mind and is perched on my soul just waiting for an opportune moment to take over too.

~~

Then you have that great scene with him talking to Godo, the blacksmith who created the Dragonslayer, one of the few characters of Berserk that are willing to just call out Guts on all of his shit. Oh, you're some big angry master swordsman that slays monsters. Yeah right. You just ran away from your trauma, you goddamned coward. And in the process of doing so you abandoned what's most important to you.

Again. That's why I love Guts so much. It's not just anger. It's not just that he's berserk. Even as early as the Black Swordsman arc when Miura probably didn't have the entire Golden Age planned out, it was established that Guts was just using all the anger and his desire for revenge as a crutch.

"You know, rather than having to deal with all this fear, memories of what happened, and the thought that when I die I'm doomed to be trapped within a swirling vortex of damned souls...

I'd much rather just torture Apostles to death."

Like even when he tries to shift directions after realizing that he fucked up tremendously by just abandoning Casca in a cave for two years... it's not just that easy. Because right after the Lost Children incident, the spirits haunting Guts make a certain presence known to him. Said presence isn't going to be too happy with Guts' suddenly rethinking his priorities.

"No human can just leave a village littered with the corpses of children and just keep going on being fully human."

Then when Guts gets his one "power up" of the entire manga... first of all, it's right after he just had a run-in with one of the God Hand. So not only is he tired and fucked up physically, his astral body got fucked up too, and then he immediately has to deal with this giant Fire Dragon man who's just knocking his shit around with a giant warhammer. And he's insulting Guts.

"Wow, you're the dreaded Black Swordsman? What a let down. You're a coward and not even worth killing with my hammer. Nevermind the fact that I'm an Apostle and thus means I sacrificed those closest to me to literally escape death. I'm Grunbeld! I'm such an honorable warrior I ate three people because I really wanted to be a cool dragon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah, I still really wish I hadn't read that light novel.

So Schierke reveals to Guts that there's this perfectly good suit of armor just lying around for someone to use. Although, there are huge downsides to usi--

Guts: "I can't even really walk at this point, get me in the suit. I gotta fight this motherfucker or we're dead."

So Guts dons the Berserker Armor.

His one powerup since getting the Dragonslayer. And getting that required an arm, an eye, most of his sanity, and pretty much everyone that was dear to him. Actually, if we're being technical, I guess he did get bombs from Rickert when he returned from his two year stint of mad Apostle slaughter.

What does the Berserker Armor do? Well, it makes him not feel pain anymore. By literally tearing into his flesh and forcibly putting his bones back together so he can kill more.

It also serves as a handy tool for the Beast of Darkness to possess Guts and try and steer him into the direction of his friends so he can slaughter them all. But wait, it gets better!

It's also causing him to gradually go blind in his one remaining eye. He's losing his sense of taste, his hands shake uncontrollably from time to time... hell, part of his hair immediately turns white just from the first time he uses the damn thing. If he continues to use it further it's going to literally kill him and turn him into something inhuman.

While being without a doubt the absolute strongest living human character of Berserk, at the current point of the story that we've been left on, he's at his absolute worst. He's forced to rely on the Berserker Armor if he wishes to fight, but given that after the last time he seriously lost control to it, Schierke needed to make sure Guts could still see...

He probably wasn't that far off from hitting the tipping point when they finally got to Elfhelm. Because as Schierke says at one point, even when she snaps him out of it, the armor is still actively tearing into his flesh.

So, through the entirety of Berserk, Guts just fucking goes through hell. What about the other side of the coin?

~~

#The Hawk of Light#

Griffith.

...

Did absolutely nothing wrong. Except he did. Except he absolutely did. Causality be damned, he literally did EVERYTHING WRO

Griffith is complicated. As much as I love Guts, I almost want to say as a character I like Griffith way more. But that only applies to the Griffith from the first thirteen volumes of Berserk. Yes, that includes Black Swordsman arc Femto Griffith.

Not even to say I dislike Griffith after the Conviction arc, he's just a completely different character at that point. Or rather than being a different character, we as the readers, have just pretty much completely been sealed off from getting any of Griffith's thoughts or motivations behind any of his actions.

Human Griffith is fucking wonderful. Because he's this gleaming hero, the leader of the Band of the Hawk. He leads this band of mercenaries into battles they absolutely shouldn't win, but does. And handily. Even more so after he gets his own personal Guts. But only on the surface is he this shining hawk. In actuality, he has no problem with dislocating someone's arm if that means taking their service by force. Hell, he straight up tells Guts "yeah I'm gonna fucking decide where you die one day."

And yet for some reason I'm still just going oh yeah, I like this guy. Even though, given the way Berserk is structured, you already know by that point that Griffith is going to take a serious fucking turn. Yet the first time reading the Golden Age, that didn't matter a bit. I just kept getting pulled back in because I liked Griffith so goddamned much. Even though ultimately, he's not that nice of a person.

He'll do anything to get what he wants. To get his kingdom. Whether it's letting his own band of mercenaries think he's dead so he can kill off the conspirators who act against him in one fell swoop, or setting out a pawn to murder a rival general and also accidentally his young son who was in line for the throne of Midland. But he has doubts, he even once fears that the person he values the most thinks his actions are cruel.

I like Griffith so much in the Golden Age because he's human. He's not fully capable of masking and hiding his evil. But once the Hawk falls to Earth and he makes his Sacrifice... and once more returns from the Astral realm as if he never even left in the first place...

I'm completely incapable of liking or siding with Griffith at this point.

I think Rickert put it the best. He's no longer the Griffith from the Golden Age. Yet somehow, he's moreso. Because he's literally discarded his humanity and fully embraced evil. But because his blood is almost entirely frozen, he can hide it perfectly. He is only Griffith, the Hawk of Light. Hell, in like the twenty or so volumes since the Incarnation Ceremony in the Conviction arc, we've seen him in his Femto form once.

"No, you see. I'm the Hawk of Light. I made a literal paradise for humanity. Just don't ask about the specifics. Where'd the horrific goliath of a monster that was going to end the world go? Look, that's not important."

~~

But... all the fucked up heretical cults... all the plagues and the famine... that's all because of the God Hand. Hell, the Emperor of the Kushan, the nation that is wreaking hell on Midland is a fucking Apostle. Griffith himself merges the realms. The physical realm, the astral realm, and the realm of the idea. Meaning, not only is the rest of the God Hand somewhere now, he has unleashed all of humanity's worst nightmares and mythical creatures upon them.

So odds are if you're not in Falconia, Silat's hidden Bakiraka village, or Elfhelm, you're probably just completely fucked. And as a result of how being around the God Hand and the Apostles work, if you're in Falconia, you're damned to the Abyss when you die. Sure, you'll be happy that you'll get to say goodbye to your loved ones when Griffith whips out your departed soul as a parlor trick, but then it's just straight to Hell.

The one thing I will say I fucking hate that we'll never get to see if Berserk is laid to rest now isn't even Guts fighting Griffith. I just desperately wanted to see the truth about Griffith be exposed. Rickert didn't do it because he fucking knew better. Somebody sicced Raksas on him just for even slapping Griffith.

"uh hey you're all barking up the wrong tree. The way the old Band of the Hawk fell was they kind of got sacrificed by Griffith so he could be reborn as essentially a demon god. His power is literally fueled by evil. Didn't the old Holy See prophecy say something about a HAWK OF DARKNESS???"

~~

Forget Locus, the fucking human characters would have killed Rickert. Charlotte and Sonia would have proceeded to stab him to death. Hell, Sonia was the one to snap at the human members of the Neo Band of the Hawk when they first saw the War Demons transform into their Apostle forms.

"woah what the FUCK, this is what we've been fighting along the side of this whole time??? what the fuck does that make Griffith if he's leading these monsters???"

They were so close to the truth...

#The Band of the Hawk#

~~

Another part of Berserk that I kind of didn't appreciate as much as I should have is the Band of the Hawk. Once again, given the structure of Berserk... you already know the original Band of the Hawk's probably not sticking around. But yet again, on that first read of Berserk, that did not matter.

Like even putting aside the named characters, there's just tons of camaraderie. The Band of the Hawk are fighting for Griffith, and they're the feathers Griffith are using to soar upwards.

The Neo Band of the Hawk... almost all of the humans now basically see Griffith as a godlike being. The War Demons literally see him as such, as the Absolute for he's the King of Longing, the Fifth Angel. A member of the God Hand.

Whereas I rooted for the original Band of the Hawk and wished to see them win battles and move up in status, I wanted to see the Neo Band of the Hawk fail. I fucking wanted Ganishka to beat them.

Ganishka's saying shit like "this world is bloodstained, corrupt, and terrible and that's exactly how I want it to stay" and I was rooting for him.

And that moment when Guts hears Grunbeld say he's a member of the Band of the Hawk is pretty far up there for my favorite "Guts loses his shit" moments.

I know there's a line about the humans being the ones who pushed Griffith to reuse the name but god damn... just straight up making a brand new Band of the Hawk is just on a completely different level to "I have absolutely no regrets about what I did."

Oh another thing I want to mention is, the first time I read Berserk, I fucking hated Corkus with a passion. As I'm sure probably the majority of readers did. But bizarrely, along with Godo, he is one of the few characters who calls Guts out on his shit and is completely right.

This is further driven home when Guts himself realizes oh shit, maybe I shouldn't have left the Band of the Hawk after all.

That's not even mentioning that the conclusion he arrived at after leaving the Band of the Hawk was that all he has is... swinging his sword.

...Wait, what? That's all you came up with? I mean you were always going to leave no matter what because causality and all that but like… you already knew that. Hell, Corkus called him out on it. "All you give a fuck about is swinging your goddamned sword."

~~

Like sure after he comes back, Guts is even stronger but... it really wasn't worth it given what followed and how much he ended up losing. "Cool, not only have I lost the only home I've ever had, my life is now a living nightmare and rather than even struggling to survive, I'm basically actively spending my days trying to die and failing."

Solely because he couldn’t bear to be buried in Griffith’s dream. I just can imagine Corkus looking down on Guts

not really because he’s actually swirling around in the Abyss

as he’s going blind in his only remaining eye and his armor is literally eating him alive and just going “I fucking told you so. We could have been living it up in Wyndham instead you had to fuck it up by sending Griffith off the deep edge. And you’re way less of an equal to Griffith than you’ve ever been. If you even get too close to him, you’ll literally bleed to death, you fucking idiot. Although, thank you for murdering the shit out of the Female Apostle.”

I didn’t really mention Pippin and Judeau because come on. Nobody dislikes either.

As for Rickert, I mean he’s obviously a lot better after the Golden Age. Considering he’s the only entity of Berserk who has even grazed Griffith after becoming a God Hand.

Ganishka literally had himself lowered into a knock off giant behelit and all he ended up doing was helping Griffith turn the world upside down. Rickert, the plucky inventor of the bazooka, he’s the hero we deserve.

~~

I somehow completely and utterly fucking forgot he blasted Raksas with a goddamned bazooka. I love Berserk so much.

#Apostles#

You know another thing I kind of really wanted to see happen before Berserk ended? I wanted to see the rematch of Guts vs Borkoff. Probably at least some of you are going who the fuck is Borkoff?

Well, he’s that motherfucker who bites down on Guts arm at the ultimate moment of the Eclipse.

I remember years ago there was like a big post on the Berserk Reddit that is just like showing all of the minor Apostles who appear in the Eclipse and how they are still kicking and are a part of the Neo Band of the Hawk. Like at that point I knew Miura was super detailed, but that just fucking blew me away.

Anyways, as I said before, the Apostles are one of my utmost favorite components of Berserk. I just absolutely love the idea of them. They’re not demons. They’re not otherworldly monsters. They’re humans. They’re humans who have just fully given in to evil.

But wording it like that is putting it lightly. It’s not even that they have to be horrific villains.

The Slug Count thought he was in the right. He was out doing his duty hunting heretics. But then came back only to find his wife hosting an orgy with her fellow heretics in his palace. Driven to despair and having a Behelit in his possession, they are summoned. The God Hand.

He sacrifices his wife and is reborn as an Apostle. His sacrifice of a person so dear to him allows him to discard his humanity and be given a form in which he can be dealt no pain.

Until he meets Guts.

He can simply spend his days happily torturing humans to death and eating them. But when Guts pushes the Count to complete and utter despair a second time, once more activating his Behelit, a very different result is met.

The only viable sacrifice near to him for Guts is merely an enemy and nothing more is his daughter, Theresia. The Count’s life would presumably have been replenished if he offered Theresia up to the God Hand. Yet he doesn’t. Whether he outright refused or agonized over it until his remaining life had already extinguished, he didn’t make the sacrifice.

So the Abyss is summoned, and the Count is dragged to hell with Vargas making good on his promise.

~~

It’s all humans. The God Hand, the Sacrifices (with at least one noted exception), the Apostles, the Abyss… it’s just humanity trapped in this endless repeating cycle of evil. I’m not even going to go into the lost Berserk chapter which if I recall correctly Miura wanted excluded from volume 13 because it gave away too much too early in the story.

Even though they’ve discarded their humanity, Guts is capable of not only fighting them but indirectly proving that they are still in fact human. Even despite becoming human eating monsters.

Overwhelmed by agony, the Snake Baron begs Guts to stop putting crossbow bolts into his face. Consumed by despair, the dying Slug Count wails as Guts purposely shows his hideous form to his daughter. A dying Rosine flies off into the distance as she wants to go home to her parents whom she sacrificed.

~~ <br> ~~ <br> ~~

And the God Hand cares not a single bit about the Apostles Guts is slaughtering. Because after all. As long as there’s humans, there’ll always be more.

Thanks, causality.

#The Eclipse#

~~

I first read Berserk on a friend’s recommendation. He had been recommending Berserk to me for years. But for many years I actively avoided anything anime and honestly, didn’t even know manga was a thing. Yet one day in December 2015, for some reason, I decided to finally give it a try.

Which was how I read Berserk under the absolute best circumstances. Namely, I had no fucking clue what was coming my way. You would think given the flow of the Golden Age, I should have expected something truly terrible was around the corner. But like Guts having just killed Wyald, I thought the Band of the Hawk’s circumstances couldn’t get much worse than they were.

And while I knew Griffith was going to Sacrifice, I didn’t realize the scale of the Sacrifice. Truly, it was a mad feast.

When I reviewed the 1997 anime, I didn’t even discuss the Eclipse. And it wasn’t even because I wasn’t trying to spoil it, but because… like I’ve seen it so many times. Between the anime, the movies, the video games, and all my rereads of the manga… I’ve at least seen the full Eclipse ten to twenty times at this point. Yet the impact of it has never faded from my mind. My first reread, I even contemplated skipping it altogether.

But I didn’t.

~~

Of course I didn’t. It’s the beating heart of Berserk. This one singular event. The entire purpose of the Golden Age is to build up to it. I just remember being bombarded with all of the hellish art of the Band of the Hawk just getting fucking devoured, and just thinking about how Griffith really did nothing wrong.

~~

Okay, maybe he shouldn't have made that night visit to the Princess of the Kingdom of Midland but...

He suffered a defeat that obliterated him and brought him down to Earth after soaring up high for so long. He was tortured for a year straight, his tongue cut out, his ligaments cut, his goddamned skin flayed… his dream crushed to dust. He even tries to kill himself, yet can’t. And then… the Egg of the King returned to his hand. Because that’s how it is.

~~

So when your life is just completely and utterly ruined, and you’re met with four godlike beings who offer a choice of either sacrificing all those who have endeavored to rescue you or accepting that your life is essentially over… you’ll never talk again, you’ll never wield a sword again, and you sure as hell aren’t getting that kingdom. And your buddy who kind of indirectly caused your downfall just gets off scott free. What do you pick?

Considering this entire time Griffith had been using the lives of the Band of the Hawk for his own goals anyways, there was only one choice he could make.

~~

As much as I hate it, Ubik’s argument is pretty fucking sound. Griffith’s entire life, all the lives cost by the Band of the Hawk's battles, all of the Golden Age, would have been rendered entirely meaningless if he had decided to repent. And thus from Griffith's viewpoint, he did nothing wrong. He simply chose to do the Griffith move and perform the Sacrifice.

…

...Oh, and then he raped Casca and had Guts forced to watch. Yeah ok, now he’s done wrong.

~~

I swear to God that was something Miura probably decided on in the process of doing the Golden Age. Like he realized since he had developed Griffith so much that there would be weirdos who would still actually not immediately be against him even after sacrificing the Band of the Hawk. Hell, even Guts wasn’t.

He even almost still addressed him as Griffith when he swooped down so then Miura twisted the knife and had him do the absolute most evil thing he could have possibly done as his first act as Femto.

And he fucking does it immediately as well is the thing without saying a fucking word. And the fucked up thing is his reasons for doing it are still to this day unclear. Sure, he could have just done it to shatter Casca’s mind and permanently bind Guts to him. Like okay, you didn’t want to be buried in my dream? Now you’re going to be devoted to seeking revenge on me for the rest of your life until you die a bloody death at the hands of Apostles.

But also as one of the God Hand, he immediately became able to see the flow of causality. So by doing this and corrupting Casca and Guts’ child, who he then turns into his vessel in the Incarnation Ceremony because the Egg-Shaped Apostle eats him, perhaps he can make use of it. Like… say… getting easy access to a far and hidden away community of magic users? AKA, one of the few things Griffith has to fear as a member of the God Hand?

~~

I don’t know. It’s not like Griffith was a schemer or manipulator or anything. It’s not like he could have killed Ganishka literally at any moment but then straight up told him “actually, let’s settle this in Wyndham. That way if I turn you into a giant magic tree that combines the realms, it’ll be at the very heart of the land and also I’ve had an obsession about that kingdom since my human days.”

Then you also have the whole can of worms of like maybe Griffith has a weakness now because the Demon Infant became a part of his vessel. As we were shown that singular moment of Griffith pondering why he felt anything seeing Guts fight Zodd at the Hill of Swords. Or why he bothered to save Casca after she had already given birth of the Demon Infant.

See, this is what I mean about the Eclipse being the heart of Berserk. Over half of the series is just the aftermath of the Eclipse. Guts is just having fun slaughtering Apostles and evil spirits and then he just sees something that just immediately snaps him back to that day. Like for instance say... Farnese about to get raped by a demon horse.

~~

Guts saying “this is the worst I’ve ever felt” is fucking saying something given his entire goddamned life.

~~

And then there’s poor Casca...

#Elaine#

Casca is another complicated character. Like it’s pretty fucking wild thinking about that for like twenty years, the main plotline has been “we have to get Casca somewhere safe” which of course eventually did morph into “hey maybe Casca can be fixed.”

Like I've turned around on post-Eclipse Casca. It's fittingly sadistically cruel that like after Casca's mind is just fucking shattered into dust as a result of her not being able to deal with what has happened to her... that she's still getting assaulted with the memory of it. Because she has the incredible misfortune of remaining in the world of Berserk even with a broken mind.

As she is almost raped again on multiple occasions and of course she immediately flashes back to the Eclipse and every single time it is fucking painful. And that's without mentioning the instance with Guts. Who at the time was possessed by the Beast of Darkness (who, again, is just the absolute worst of Guts given a form) who wanted him to rape her and then literally rip her head off.

~~

Miura no. Not like this. Miura please, you sadistic bastard no. I obviously can't include the rest of that page, but in my opinion, it's one of the most horrific out of all Berserk.

That short period where Guts is traveling with Casca with only Puck is wonderful. Because you have the Black Swordsman, this slayer of Apostles, genuinely struggling again. He can't just fucking let loose and slaughter. He has to protect Casca. And thanks to the presence of not one, but two Brands, the nightly evil spirits are even more numerous. And like Casca's eating Guts' food and trying to wander off on the rare occasion Guts does get some sleep...

This whole two years of swinging the damn thing around Guts had ignored the weight of the Dragonslayer.

~~

But with Casca in tow, he remembers oh yeah, it's basically just a giant slab of iron. Another part I really fucking love that's really similar is when Guts tries to catch Casca after she falls off the boat, but he does it with his false arm. Then later he's just like oh right...

It's just a metal fist I've attached to my stub of an arm so I can bash Apostles and sometimes humans to death with.

And then when they do finally fix Casca's mind,

for the record, the whole Corridor of Dreams adventure is without question probably my favorite post-Conviction segments of Berserk. The hellscape that is Casca's dreams, the Apostles and the incredibly phallic monsters, the Guts Hound and the Hawk of Darkness... and just like any of Guts' companions learning about any of his past at all. Let alone the Eclipse. It's all great.

in proper Berserk fashion, it's just not that easy. You can't just magically force something broken back together. And you can't just ignore the fact that your dearest person is a walking reminder of the Eclipse. Not only that, but as Elaine, she's seen Guts fight while he's lost control to the Berserker Armor. If anything, it's amazing she can even be in Guts' presence at all.

It says something though that in her dreams, she saw Guts as the Guts Hound rather than just straight up as the Beast of Darkness. So deep down she does know that he's still the Guts she knew, but like her, he's been through a huge amount of shit since. Granted, the way she saw herself was a broken doll in a coffin that the Guts Hound wouldn't stop dragging along with him.

As sadistic as it is, I really wanted to see how she would have responded to seeing Griffith again... on the Hill of Swords when he protected her, she tried to reach out for him but... as Casca said upon awakening, her memory only goes up to when she and the Band of the Hawk set out to rescue Griffith on that day...

~~

#Comrades#

I hate to say it, but I was partially one of those fans who... I won't say I disliked post-Conviction Berserk, but I definitely did miss Guts as the Black Swordsman. What I mean by that is of course that I missed when it was just Guts and Puck. But after however many rereads I've done at this point, I have come right back around to appreciating Guts' party.

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First of all, Guts would have ended up dying or killing Casca if he remained alone.

Secondly, it goes to show how far Guts had come from those simple days of slaughtering Apostles that he's willing to trust others with Casca. I don't count him leaving her with Rickert and Godo as that as that was him literally running off to go on a murder spree of Apostles.

And finally, it should be reminded that Miura wasn't so nice that he was just gonna let Guts take it easy forever. Granted, in an interview, Miura did say he didn't want to do a downer ending given how brutal the rest of Berserk has been. The Beast of Darkness literally tells him in a dream that it's better for him to have companions again because one day they're going to die because they're with Guts and then they'll finally go Hawk hunting again. Additionally, Guts has been carrying around a fucking ticking time bomb for thirty years.

Somebody among the group was going to end up using that goddamned Behelit from the Slug Count.

Additionally, with each reread, I've come to like Schierke, Farnese, and Serpico more and more. Isidoro's still a bit... too comedic relief, but I don't dislike him nearly as much as I used to. Puck I like whenever he's not a chestnut, although admittedly, non-chestnut Puck grows rarer and rarer after the rest join Guts.

The rest... apart from maybe Isma, they really hadn't gotten much development. Azan refuses to take his helmet off anymore, all Magnifico's done is comedic relief with Puck, and Roderick is just the guy who owns the boat. I mean I guess he does wage naval combat with the stereotypical pirates but eh...

That whole part with the Sea God and the pirates is still like the one section of Berserk I'm kind of eh on. Sure it's still fun, but even on this last reread, I was still thinking "let's just get to Elfhelm already."

Of course I immediately regretted thinking that, because then they did, and that marked the end of my reread...

#The End of the Journey#

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...This review's actually shorter than I thought it'd be. But I've talked about pretty much everything I love about Berserk. I've even talked about the stuff of Berserk I don't/didn't like as much. Still somewhat unreal to me that this day's come. This is in actuality the fifth Berserk review I've written. And three out of the five were almost wholly negative reviews.

That's kind of why I just indulged myself with this review. I'm not reviewing a poor quality unfinished adaptation, nor am I reviewing a piece of Berserk media that Miura most likely had little control over and thus is just absolutely horrible. I finally got to review just Berserk. And not just the Golden Age either. The whole thing.

Or... well, everything we got anyways.

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...

Thank you, Miura. That's all I can say at this point. Berserk is without question one of the most personally important pieces of fiction I've ever experienced. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I very much doubt I'll ever read something quite like it ever again. But there'll always be rereads, and for that, I'm thankful.

Kentaro Miura's Berserk is a 10 out of 10.

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