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Berserk |OT| - Big men, bigger swords, OFF THE BOAT - Berserk #344 24/6/2016

Gulz1992

Member
Season 2 teaser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImzOBnMhUho



0% improvement

I figured that there would at least be a slight improvement with the visuals since that was the most massive criticism of the first season and everything else wrong with the show (script, direction, pacing, sound) would stay exactly the same.

aa0.png
 

1upsuper

Member
I just finished watching the 1997 anime for the first time. I went into this show knowing very little about the franchise, only that it's depressing, awesome, and influential.

What the fuck. What the fuck.
Throughout the whole show I was waiting for something awful to happen that would lead to Guts' condition at the beginning of the first episode, but I didn't expect anything like what happened at the end of the show. I'm not sure I've experienced something with that much dread before. Absolutely horrific. And what a way to end the anime. Does that last brief scene with the blacksmith take place after the demonic ritual?

I've never really read manga before but I might have to now. I honestly have no idea where on earth the manga could possibly take the series after the end of the anime.

I just...I can't believe what I just watched.

Edit: so it sounds like I should now read the manga and avoid the movies/new anime like the plague?
 

Gulz1992

Member
I just finished watching the 1997 anime for the first time. I went into this show knowing very little about the franchise, only that it's depressing, awesome, and influential.

What the fuck. What the fuck.
Throughout the whole show I was waiting for something awful to happen that would lead to Guts' condition at the beginning of the first episode, but I didn't expect anything like what happened at the end of the show. I'm not sure I've experienced something with that much dread before. Absolutely horrific. And what a way to end the anime. Does that last brief scene with the blacksmith take place after the demonic ritual?

I've never really read manga before but I might have to now. I honestly have no idea where on earth the manga could possibly take the series after the end of the anime.

I just...I can't believe what I just watched.

Edit: so it sounds like I should now read the manga and avoid the movies/new anime like the plague?

Definitely read the manga. Start from the very beginning and make sure to read through the Golden Age because, while the 1997 anime is a pretty faithful adaptation, it does leave out some characters and plot elements that become important later on in the story.

Do not watch the 2016 anime. It is to Berserk what Silent Hill: Revelation is to Silent Hill; a horrible mess that tries to ride on the coat tails of the source material while failing on literally every facet of filmmaking.
 

Grudy

Member
Speaking of starting with the manga, I'm always wondering what people think of the Guardians of Desire arc if they never watched the anime beforehand. Does any of it make sense? I would love to hear anyone's thoughts at the time on what they felt about the interactions between Guts and Griffith, and how the golden age fanned out knowing how Guts and Griffith ended up.
 
I just finished watching the 1997 anime for the first time. I went into this show knowing very little about the franchise, only that it's depressing, awesome, and influential.

What the fuck. What the fuck.
Throughout the whole show I was waiting for something awful to happen that would lead to Guts' condition at the beginning of the first episode, but I didn't expect anything like what happened at the end of the show. I'm not sure I've experienced something with that much dread before. Absolutely horrific. And what a way to end the anime. Does that last brief scene with the blacksmith take place after the demonic ritual?

I've never really read manga before but I might have to now. I honestly have no idea where on earth the manga could possibly take the series after the end of the anime.

I just...I can't believe what I just watched.

Edit: so it sounds like I should now read the manga and avoid the movies/new anime like the plague?
Yes, the final scene takes place after the eclipse.

I highly recommend the manga. You can skip the movies, but the third one has Skull Knight and adds more where the anime ended. The 2016 anime is pure trash, so avoid it.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
And don't expect more then a handful of chapters before he takes another break.

Miura at least seems to have a steadier release schedule of sorts now. He's basically releasing new manga episodes for six months of the year, then takes a six month hiatus and repeat.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
So what's up with these prolonged vacations he takes. Just rolling in the dough? I wonder what's his work process like.

Not much is really know's much about Miura outside of the couple of interviews he's done. There's barely any pictures of him and most of them are fairly old at this point. I'm sure he's more than well off at this point but it sounds like he just likes to take his time on Berserk and has also probably been planning the endgame for the series which has no doubt been difficult with as long as grandiose as its gotten.
 

Gulz1992

Member
Speaking of starting with the manga, I'm always wondering what people think of the Guardians of Desire arc if they never watched the anime beforehand. Does any of it make sense? I would love to hear anyone's thoughts at the time on what they felt about the interactions between Guts and Griffith, and how the golden age fanned out knowing how Guts and Griffith ended up.

Well, speaking as someone who barley knew anything about this series before I binge read the entire manga a few months ago, my initial thoughts about the Black Swordsman arc were, "Wow, this is the most 90's edge-fest I've seen." Guts came off as a massive asshole for seemingly no reason other than the fact that's what was popular in comics at the time it was written and the story felt like an edgy monster of the week series. I also didn't understand what the behelit was. Mind you, this was all made worse by the fact that I was reading the infamous Band of the Hawk scanlations.

The fight against the Count and subsequent encounter with the God Hand is when I actually started to get invested in the story. Griffith seemed like a cool enough villain and I was interested in learning about his history with Guts and how it drove Guts to be the asshole he is in the early chapters. Than the Golden Age happens, and Guts becomes one of my favorite fictional characters ever. One of the best things about reading the Golden Age is that I already knew something terrible was going to happen between Guts and Griffith and I was waiting to see what it is. Than the Eclipse happens and it exceeded anything I could have imagined. The buildup to the Eclipse, with the appearances of the supernatural elements like the apostles and Skull Knight, stuff you already know exists in the series but the characters themselves are not yet aware of, is all done extremely well. I honestly can't think of any prequel story done better than Berserk's.
 

Grudy

Member
Not much is really know's much about Miura outside of the couple of interviews he's done. There's barely any pictures of him and most of them are fairly old at this point. I'm sure he's more than well off at this point but it sounds like he just likes to take his time on Berserk and has also probably been planning the endgame for the series which has no doubt been difficult with as long as grandiose as its gotten.
Did he ever express any feelings of being burnt out on the series? I imagine it must be taxing to remain enthusiastic about something he started back in the 80s and who knows for how long he planned for it before he started drawing.

I really wonder what he does outside of Berserk. He is working with Miyazaki on some game collaboration but Berserk can't be the only thing he works on for six months at a time.

Well, speaking as someone who barley knew anything about this series before I binge read the entire manga a few months ago, my initial thoughts about the Black Swordsman arc were, "Wow, this is the most 90's edge-fest I've seen." Guts came off as a massive asshole for seemingly no reason other than the fact that's what was popular in comics at the time it was written and the story felt like an edgy monster of the week series. I also didn't understand what the behelit was. Mind you, this was all made worse by the fact that I was reading the infamous Band of the Hawk scanlations.

The fight against the Count and subsequent encounter with the God Hand is when I actually started to get invested in the story. Griffith seemed like a cool enough villain and I was interested in learning about his history with Guts and how it drove Guts to be the asshole he is in the early chapters. Than the Golden Age happens, and Guts becomes one of my favorite fictional characters ever. One of the best things about reading the Golden Age is that I already knew something terrible was going to happen between Guts and Griffith and I was waiting to see what it is. Than the Eclipse happens and it exceeded anything I could have imagined. The buildup to the Eclipse, with the appearances of the supernatural elements like the apostles and Skull Knight, stuff you already know exists in the series but the characters themselves are not yet aware of, is all done extremely well. I honestly can't think of any prequel story done better than Berserk's.

Thanks a lot for your input. I can see how Guts can come off as extremely edgy in that arc especially with the way his facial expressions were drawn which I think were more on the sadistic side. I didn't really mind it though; having watched the anime first, his anger actually appeared genuine and real especially at moments when he was stabbing the count just to torture him. I still love the arc for it's ability to show so many different sides to Guts's personality in a short span.

By the by, since you mentioned the skull knight, I recently looked at his first appearance in the manga and it was done so much better there. I like the part in the third movie, especially SK's voice, but the part in the anime where Guts is alone is starts getting images of Zodd in his mind (I never knew he was so scared of Zodd back then, he really got to him) which was a really good intro for SK.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Did he ever express any feelings of being burnt out on the series? I imagine it must be taxing to remain enthusiastic about something he started back in the 80s and who knows for how long he planned for it before he started drawing.

I really wonder what he does outside of Berserk. He is working with Miyazaki on some game collaboration but Berserk can't be the only thing he works on for six months at a time.

That story about him working with From Software was totally off the mark and came from someone who misunderstood what they were hearing/seeing. Its not happening as much as people would like it.

He did a small miniseries called Gigantomakhia a few years ago as kind of a pallet cleanser before returning to Berserk. Other than that we don't really know all that much about him or his life outside of the small bits and pieces of info we get from interviews with him. He used to complain a lot about being very lonely and single at his age but it does sound like he is somewhat reclusive or at least not at all interested in the public aspect of being such a famous mangaka.
 
Is budget really the issue? I've heard it rumored that the 2016 anime actually had about the same budget as One Punch Man. So is it really a money thing, or is it the inexperience and/or lack of passion from the studio?
Wait what?!! That team wasn't broke as fuck? They have no excuses then.
 
One of the youtube weebs (super eyepatch wolf?) made a whole vid about berserk season 2 and what needs to be done etc. essentailly boiling down to the director is fucking awful. I imagine with the same budget they coulda made something great like the 97 anime



Also isnt Berserk like incredibly popular? why doesnt it have a huge budget
 
One of the youtube weebs (super eyepatch wolf?) made a whole vid about berserk season 2 and what needs to be done etc. essentailly boiling down to the director is fucking awful. I imagine with the same budget they coulda made something great like the 97 anime



Also isnt Berserk like incredibly popular? why doesnt it have a huge budget
I thought SEW only made his video based on the first two eps. Dude fucking hated it though.
 

Gulz1992

Member
Wait what?!! That team wasn't broke as fuck? They have no excuses then.

This post on Reddit does a decent job explaining it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Berserk/comments/4eek1w/the_new_berserks_budget_is_probably_2m/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=comment_header

Basically, the average budget of a 12 episode anime series is around 250-300 million Yen, which is about 2-2.5 million US dollars. Berserk 2016 supposedly fit into this range.

The chief animation director of One Punch Man has tweeted that OPM did not have a larger than average budget. https://mobile.twitter.com/kubo_chika/status/658611075936464896


Getting the right people is absolutely key to making a good show. When Uwe Boll makes a crap movie, nobody believes it's just because he doesn't have the money to produce something better.

Just to make sure, the Dark Horse editions aren't censored or anything, right?
Correct.
 

Kevin

Member
Is season one available for sale in the US on Blu-Ray? How about the original 1997 series on Blu-Ray? Any region free versions?
 
One thing that is incredibly annoying, outside of every other shit related to this, is the stupid elongated face they gave Guts. Dude looks nothing like the protagonist of the manga. At least try to stay faithful to the basic features of the main character.
 

Gulz1992

Member
One thing that is incredibly annoying, outside of every other shit related to this, is the stupid elongated face they gave Guts. Dude looks nothing like the protagonist of the manga. At least try to stay faithful to the basic features of the main character.

It makes this frame hilarious

h8te9riixwgx.png


because this is just an exact trace of the panel from the manga, and so Guts in this image looks nothing like he does in the rest of the show.
 

New002

Member
Is season one available for sale in the US on Blu-Ray? How about the original 1997 series on Blu-Ray? Any region free versions?

I've been waiting for this since it was teased ages ago, but no news for the US as far as I know. I'm also waiting for Funi to hopefully release an Outlaw Star BluRay set. UK got a set a few months ago.
 

Gulz1992

Member
Taken from SkullKnight forum, the names of the first 5 episodes:

#13 ほころぶ世界

#14 冬の旅路

#15 飛剣の御旗

#16 獣鬼の森

#17 幽界-かくりよ

Looks like they are gonna rush the shit out of the Millennium Falcon arc, with volume 22 being crammed into a single episode. I will be legitimately surprised if we don't get to Guts and Zodd's fight against Ganishka before this 13 episode season ends.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Taken from SkullKnight forum, the names of the first 5 episodes:

#13 ほころぶ世界

#14 冬の旅路

#15 飛剣の御旗

#16 獣鬼の森

#17 幽界-かくりよ

Looks like they are gonna rush the shit out of the Millennium Falcon arc, with volume 22 being crammed into a single episode. I will be legitimately surprised if we don't get to Guts and Zodd's fight against Ganishka before this 13 episode season ends.

This sounds like a fucking joke if that's anywhere near the case. Are they just going to high light entire scenes for 30 seconds then move onto the next? Or worse they're just cutting out huge swaths of the story.
 
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