Thread:Demonicjester01/@comment-26087580-20180326172055/@comment-28884330-20180328145146

On the surface, Berserk has the average edgy appeal that males in their early to mid teens claim to like only to seem cool, but of course, that alone is not nearly what's necessary to amass the massive following it has had for over 20 years. If I had to analyze and scrutinize Berserk for what makes it truly memorable, it would be how free it is. You can feel how Miura (the author) only says what he truly wants to say with his manga, without the editorial or fan pressure that very visibly plague many other series. In contrast to them, whether you like or dislike a particular device or even so much as an arc in Berserk, you cannot deny that everything in it is pure Miura, the author expressing himself in an unadulterated way. This can also be a detriment for some people since Berserk includes many things people find uncomfortable such as child abuse, child murder, rape, torture, etc.

A very important aspect to Berserk is also the art, which is only becoming even more impressive. Kentaro Miura draws characters, backgrounds and especially monsters so incredibly detailed that he almost feels like a superhuman. Just look at these two panels for reference.



And yeah, the monster designs and the overall "evil" designs for everything he makes are truly gruesome and gross-looking, in the good way. He was apparently inspired by medieval depictions of hell.

Now, when it comes to the story of Berserk... I don't know what to say. The plot, in and of itself, I don't find as particularly groundbreaking. It heavily depends on the characters to enjoy it, since Miura is much more talented at writing characters than writing plot arcs and he focuses on it, playing on his strengths as a good author should. If there's anything special about Berserk, when compared to modern anime and manga (the majority), Guts is heavily inspired by the 90's antihero archetype which is quite different from modern MCs, primarily in that while he's pretty much a superman, he's still vastly inferior to most of his enemies, and even more so to the strongest of them (also how cruel he can be in the first parts of the story).

Yeah... this is pretty much it for the Berserk review, lol.

Tl;rd Berserk is really good but also quite long, I recommend that if you read it, do it during vacation or free days.