Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Berserk: Volume 1

So the day has finally arrived. I love going back through this series and picking up on new things and seeing what I fell in love with! I'm going to just give a rundown of bullet points that happened and what makes them important. This takes into account you've already read the volume so I shouldn't have to worry about spoiling any of that content! If you haven't, make your way to Spectrum Nexus (I gave a link a couple blogs ago) and start reading! It's going to be easy to see why I fell in love with this!!

A brief history on Berserk and I though. It was back in 2005 I met Nate. Arne and I actually met him because he had tattoos working at Office Max, an entire sleeve of tattoos actually. We were looking for something to help with our WoRld of Warcraft and hit it off with him. So much so we got invited to his guild and started grinding with him. I remember watching the entire anime series because it was at blockbuster and Nate told me I needed it! I started watching and realized the series had an interesting dynamic because it starts in the future and then goes back to the main story and shows how we got to this point. This was a point many people didn't figure out and why people became disinterested with it...but our main tank in out guild was called Griffith (a shoutout to Berserk) and he told me a lot of guildies actually had a lot of things related to Berserk too! I even realized then that he had a Brand incorporated into his sleeve and that was the first point I realized I needed it tattoo'd into my flesh as well!!! There is a little more I have to say about the Brand, but that will come later in the series...

So the story starts with an introduction into the Blackswordsman Arc. The anime series starts the same way. He goes around killing apostles for something that happened to him, mainly involving the Brand. You get a sense of the chaos that surrounds his life and that he is never able to rest because evil is always lurking close by. The first few scenes involve Guts fucking a demon. He then literally fucks the demon to death and shows her that he is smart in letting her think she has actually trapped him...but he was the one doing the trapping and you see he has a strategic mind. He then makes his way into a town and we get introduced to Puck, a fairy. The anime starts at this bar scene, but instead of Puck (because he is never in the anime BUT he was shown in the new 3 movies) it's actually a bar maid girl he ends up saving. The scenes are quite similar and involve him unloading arrows from his crossbow and then cutting one of them in half with his sword, The Dragonslayer. I've talked about this sword in length and have even gone so far as to make my own! Just seeing it sends a tingle down my spine!! This bar fight gets the attention of the first apostle we are introduced to. He makes an appearance later in the manga and anime and remember him because he will return...but right now he eats an arm full of cannon explosives!!! Oh yeah, one more trick Guts has is an iron arm. This will be talked about later too, but just know that cannon fucking rocks!! The stand off between the apostle and Guts is great because you get a sense that Guts cares but won't let himself because he has to figure a way for himself to survive as well amongst all this chaos. When he actually defeats him he has a great dialogue that speaks depths about the human spirit! The apostle thinks humans are nothing more for him to snack on...when Guts strikes him down and before ending his life he brings it up once more: "Like you said, humans are weak. We die easily. But no matter how weak we are, even if we're being chopped to bits or stabbed to death, we still want to LIVE."


Yes. Very crude sketching. Quick little things I'm going to refine maybe at some point.



This manga does a beautiful job and you really get a sense Kentaro Miura knows really how to draw wonderfully! As an introduction to these characters, he really takes a second so you can take them in and see the weight that is given to them in this world!! Another thing that I noticed after watching the series is that he makes it a point to show his one eye. This is how I realized the series wrapped around on itself and I needed to know more about this wonderful story!! The second chapter introduces us to The Brand. We find out it attracts evil and alerts Guts to when evil is close by starting to gush blood...he runs into a priest and his daughter and they offer him a ride. He waves them off saying he is bad news for them but they insist. Puck is also traveling with them because Guts shooed him off earlier. The priest asked about his sword and how his nephew died by the sword. Guts appreciated the fact that he followed his own path and died doing what he had wanted to...



The battle scenes are quite beautiful too for being in black an white. So much detail went into these panels! The line about living by the sword an dieing by the sword resonates too because you come to find out that it's the only way Guts can live. The priests daughter dies and gets reanimated an kills her father...and comes after Guts and he wastes no time striking her down. He will literally cut a bitch that comes after him! It also shows that even this sweet young girl has a pretense for evil and what hope is there for humanity? Puck realizes Guts can only live in this world of destruction. The third chapter moves onto the next apostle and the anime and manga shoot off from each other. At the end of the last apostle fight with the Cobra Guy is where the anime and Guts go back in time where he is a mercenary for hire and much younger. This next apostle gives us a greater sense of what keeps Guts cutting down all these people...a behelit is introduced too and more will be spoken of that later too! Just a taste to wet your lips. Fighting, destruction, and evil. One man standing against evil and his path in this world...Volume 2 happens next week and we will go deeper into apostles with this second one we just got introduced to...
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