Berserk

- A tale about a man and his sword




Story: 8

The story of berserk is centered, around Gatsu , a man equipped with a massive sword and his humongous strength. Destined to live a life of battle, and constant struggle.Gatsu discovers from young age, , that he can only trust his sword, and must fight everyday, just to stay alive.

From boy to adult, Berserk shows Gatsu's life though countless battles, as he grows from a simple mercenary to one of the most powerful and feared knights of the land.

Being a mature manga to the core,you can expect the world of Berserk to revolve around violence/gore, primal instincts, existentialism, faith, relationships, despair, loss, life, death and everything in between. These elements are constantly being used to give depth to the story and characters, resulting in dark and gritty plot.

For the most part, this is a good thing, the problem is that Berserk, tends to overuse some elements, that in my opinion don't enrich the plot or the overall experience, with the main two being rape and torture.
Somehow the author is a big fan of these and really likes to overused them. while in some cases they make sense, in others i couldn't help but feel annoyed to see the same character being a victim of rape for the seventh time, or every bad guy torturing random people .

Fortunately, despite all the violence, Berserk has a good amount of comic relief, offering some really silly humor that give a nice contrast, to the darker scenes.


Characters: 9

One of the things, that you can say about Berserk's characters, is how "real" they feel, and even though the story is set in a alternative historic setting, is hard not to relate to them in one way or another.

One of the reasons for this, is that besides Berserk's large cast, every character acts and looks differently, being instantly recognizable just after a few pages.And although some characters are weaker than others, they all share the author's attention to detail, having their own inner struggles and back stories.

In fact, most of them are given a little "screen time" to show what happened to them up to that point of the story, giving the reader insight over their motivations and personality .

And in my opinion this is one of the problems of such a large cast of characters, while for some readers, the back story information might be a nice touch by the author, to others that just want to follow the story of the main characters, is just to much information in what is sometimes a very convoluted plot, with so many things happening at the same time.



Art: 10

Berserk art is in my opinion simply one of the most detailed and impressive out there. Not very manga can reach Berserk's art quality in terms of fight sequences, violence/gore, to character faces, clothes, weapons and backgrounds, everything is drawn to almost perfection.


If there's one manga that deserves a 10/10 in terms of art, is definitely Berserk.


Enjoyment: 8

I could have enjoyed Berserk, a little bit more if it wasn't for the plot getting so convoluted at times, or the over repetitive rape scenes, other than that the action and the fate of the characters keeps bringing me back to this manga, even though it takes forever for new chapters to be released.

Pros:

- great action scenes
- top notch art
- interesting story, with complex characters
- great character development
- mature plot with lots of violence and gore
- great comedy bits(comic relief)

Cons:

- convoluted plot
- overuse of certain violent scenes, such as rape, torture, etc.

Overall score: 9