Light fanboyism to follow, and potential spoilers for the first 34 (or more) volumes of Berserk published by Dark Horse.
As a man of a certain age, I always thought my friends and I had been on the vanguard of late-'90s Geek Culture. "We were into it before it was cool." "We paved the way for you youngins." Blah blah blah. But I hadn't even heard of "Berserk" until this video popped into my YouTube algorithm a couple years back.
Even then I was slow on the uptake. When I finally noticed that the music in the video was from a series [[footnote: It's ridiculous how many times I revisited this video specifically for the music before I even thought to check its source.]], and that the series was supposed to be pretty good, I was in. Hirasawa's music. The ending. GRIFFITH!! Holy shit. A lot of the dialog is classic hyper-literal anime word salad, but that just adds to the charm.
I tore through the anime, and by happenstance the manga was recommended to me after I went apeshit over "Uzumaki," so I already had it in my treasure hoard. Thank god.
Now I can't stop. In fact, in the short time since I wrote the initial excerpt for this post I've read another 10 volumes. The way its developed has been really fun.
I was into the epic scale pseudo-medieval European vibe, and liked the riff on the Inquisition. I was pretty stoked about the transition to a full adventuring party, since the Man Without a Name trope was threatening to overstay its welcome. Adding sorcery and trolls was a neat twist, but is it seriously going full-on trad fantasy now?! Giants and dragons and goblins and moldering skeletons in misty graveyards are pretty fantastical. It'd be a massive change after thousands of gnarly images of phallic/yonic (often at the same time!) demons, but I'm here for it. Spoilers for the rest of the series: Oh okay, fantastical genital monsters and full-on toothy cock demons. Well-played, Miura.
Speaking of massive changes, I'm thrilled Miura eased off the gratuitous sexual violence. I don't assume he meant to glorify sexual assault, but the full-page hero shots of r*pe were gross. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but it was gross. It's still not perfect, but come to think of it, Edgelord Miura more or less vanished after the Conviction arc [[footnote: This actually parallels the story development, with Guts settling into a new found family, etc., so maybe it's a creative decision.]]. Whether or not that lasts, it's been nice.
I'll wrap this up. This post was just an excuse to gush a bit. I was sad to learn that Miura passed a few years back, before finishing this series. But then, an author living long enough to conclude their fantasy epic isn't very fashionable these days.
