Berserk

The reason I started Berserk was because it seemed to be considered the greatest manga ever written. People were constantly going on about how it's a great showcasing of human will power or something like that. It's been #1 on MAL's manga list and will probably continue to be for a long time.

My advice? Wait another 40-60 years before reading this. The current arc seems to be moving slowly and couple with the fact that the chapters come out whenever the mangaka gets around to it, it doesn't make for the most stable reading material. It's been publishing for over 20 years and only has about 300 chapters with no end in sight. This is one of the mangas I wish I had put on hold reading until it was finished (if it ever is)


That being said, Berserk isn't a horrible story. The thrill of "will Guts live or not" wasn't there for the Golden age arc, due to it being a flashback but it was interesting to see Guts compared to Griffith. However, I will say that the human aspect of Guts became lost once he obtained the Berserk armor; the inclusion of magic altogether kind of ruined it for me. Art and characters are both good, very detailed and easy to decipher.

Honestly, it's a manga worth reading. Just not now. Trust me, the wait between chapters will kill you, especially when a chapter with little progression shows up as a teaser after 5 months.

An incredible piece. It is an accumulation of masterful art, story, plot and character development. The hype is real and a clear reason why it is ranked #1 on this website. This is one of the greatest, if not greatest mangas of all time. If you like action and fantasy this is a must-read.

The art is the greatest I have ever seen to come from a manga. I usually don't plan on buying mangas but Berserk is one of the few mangas that I will and I hope to obtain all the volumes.


The only negative is that it is constantly on hiatus. Very little chapters are provided in a year. However, each chapter is incredible. Even with the hiatus though it is a masterpiece.

Mod Note: This review was initially posted for the one-shot, Berserk Prototype, and was subsequently merged into Berserk.I've only recently started reading Berserk, so I've decided to check out the Prototype. I think that anyone who enjoys reading Berserk will find this interesting and worth reading. In itself it does not stand out particularly, and it really looks like another chapter of Berserk with some differences concerning the details of the story. (There are slight defferences in the treminology, and Guts is somewhat differently drawn.)
I found it worth while because it actually shows you that a rough idea needs to be refined and thought through to bring about something as good as Berserk is. I've read some mangas that were potentially great, but seemed to lack that period that the author of Berserk took to think things through between the idea and its actual realization.
So if you like Berserk, and if you're interested in the origins of the manga, you should definitely read the Prototype.

Berserk begins as an imaginative, gripping, emotional challenge that leaves the reader always wondering what could occur next. For the first time in manga history, we're with a protagonist who had indeed "gone through it" and yet as the story went on the value was slowly siphoned out of the characters we had come to know. It began as such a unique and engaging story that left us rooting for folks we usually wouldn't feel an obligation to root for in a setting like that. The art was incredible, the characters were believable, the writing was another level of sophistication, and even to this day, I've never read anything quite like the slow roll that was the first quarter of Berserk.

However, as Berserk continued, it all slowly deteriorated. I've got some gripes with the pacing and focus of the story, which is what I'll be focusing on.

I would have given Berserk a 10/10 if the story ended at the "You Know What" but it did not. I will still be giving Berserk a rather high rating outside of my overall score. However, despite how Berserk retained its life for another arc or two post-"You Know What" despite this though, I really cannot give it much credit. I reread it twice and had a hard time keeping myself attentive and interested in the aftermath.

I can't speak for the future of Berserk as a franchise, but as things stand right now, I can only give it an above-average rating. Best of luck to you if you'd like to read Berserk to its completion, I wasn't able to keep my enthusiasm, save for a few critical moments in its continuation.

I still very much recommend it for readers looking to experience something different, though longevity isn't exactly its strong suit, in my opinion.

Berserk is one of the best long-running manga of all time. Its story is very interesting and its characters are are unique. Although the Golden Age Arc is a little too slow as it is supposed to be only a prologue but still keeps you engaged nonetheless. The plot is full of unpredictable twists and you really start to feel the struggle the characters are going through. The artwork is highly detailed and only gets better as the series goes on. One of my biggest gripes I had with the series is that it sometimes tries too hard to shock the audience with its uncomfortable situations such as demons raping characters (yes you read that correctly), torture, etc. Needless to say, this manga is not for everyone. If you're one of those people who can't handle seeing gore you might want to stay away from Berserk because it does not hold back.

Berserk feels like two different series.

The first, the "Golden Age" arc, is where its acclaim rightly comes from- it easily stands alone as the single best Manga arc I've ever read. Deserves 10s across the board. Reading Berserk is *absolutely* worthwhile for that experience alone- superb, mature characters, fiendishly inventive plot twists, and some beautiful worldbuilding. The way it ends is absolutely heartbreaking.

Then, after the first ~110 chapters? There's, ah, the rest.

The post-Golden Age arc's still enjoyable- and the magnificent art style, if anything, has got even better. The problem's with the setting and pacing- it scarcely feels like the storyline has any idea where it wants to go anymore. The serious, heartfelt tone of the Golden Age arc's faded away, and been replaced with something much closer to a standard shōnen plotline. Guts and Griffith are still about, and the relationship between the two is still fantastic- but just about everything that made the Golden Age arc so distinctive's vastly reduced. The worldbuilding's still spectacularly creative, the sparse moments of actual plot development are interesting, and the characters from the original arc are still around, and develop in unexpected ways- but the feeling of close camraderie that made the Band of the Hawk's stories so wonderful to read about is just gone. What's in its place is a pretty, formulaic string of sequences- roughly summed up as "Guts et al wander into new setting, mysterious phenomenon transforms into eldritch abomination, the party thwack it with magical weapons for a few chapters, then Guts screams and gravely injures himself destroying the monster of the week". That's it- the overarching, beautifully written story of the Golden Age arc's been replaced by something that feels distinctly less... human? Berserk's become a story dominated by the spectacle, rather than the characters- which, unfortunately, has entailed jettisoning a huge part of what made it so wonderful in the first place.

The plot's meandered along at a glacial pace for almost two hundred chapters now. Given the slow rate of chapter releases (three hundred chapters over twenty years?), it's hard to imagine the plot getting anywhere soon.

Scored a "7" with a heavy heart. The Golden Age arc on its own deserves "10"s across the board- but the latter two thirds of the story drag the score down. The soul just isn't there anymore.

Read it, absolutely. Just expect to find the magic trailing off after a certain point.

While reading Berserk, I came to the knowledge that the saying "Good things, if stretched to the limits, always turn bad" is actually true. I'm not saying that the Berserk is bad, I'm just saying that it's no longer a Berserk that punched us in our hearts, trimmed our faces out of the smiles and made us hate an imaginative person more than anything else.

I give Berserk 10. I will always give it 10. Up to the volume 15-18 or so, this manga overshadows everything, absolutely everything. If it was concluded in the next four to five volumes, it would undoubtedly become something so masterful that could never be overtaken. But it didn't. Which is kind of sad and frustrating at the same time.
I needn't bother you with what's Berserk all about; there's a synopsis and hundreds of other reviews. I'm just here to point out some things I've noticed.

Back when I first picked up Berserk, I marathoned up to somewhere in the middle of the Golden Age arc (where Guts and Casca come closer to each other). That's where I stopped. Since I knew that Guts hated Griffith and that his sole purpose was the revenge, I was kind of afraid that Casca would die and that would be the thing that drove him insane. While thinking about it now, I think it would've been better if she had died. Sure, Retribution Arc had its moments, but regardless, Casca became a sheer burden - nothing more. I remember, during the Golden Age arc, never knowing who's going to die - what madness and what monster would appear next. Each panel had its own story to tell, never wasting any of it on some unnecessary stuff. While thinking about it now, even the ending of them all during the Eclipse would’ve been better. Why? Berserk used to be the most brutal and honest manga out there, never hiding from the horrific things that can happen, never ‘censoring’ absurd stuff, never being afraid to put it out, to make a character go insane, make him more evil than the things he’s fighting against – but what happened to that? I remember caring for the deaths of the supporting characters, even some monsters – but I no longer do that. It turned from ‘He … he could’ve survived’ to ‘Ah, whatever’ whenever someone/something dies.

I have no problem with the long waits. There’s too much to do in-between that I almost forget about Berserk and I don’t see any wrongs there. Take your time, I don’t care – but what I care about is this immense feeling in my chest that keeps on growing – some ounce of knowledge that this story, truly, sees no ending. Not an open one, not an epic conclusion, not a sad or satisfying ending – no ending at all. Story of Guts should’ve ended a long time ago. Guts used to represent this madman, a lone wolf hanging onto a last rope of salvation – the final revenge. What happened to that? Does he no longer care for the revenge? Well, to be honest, neither would I if I didn’t think about it for a long time. Revenge no longer seems as an appropriate reason to tag next to his name. The path of revenge should be short, driven to madness until the darkness consumes you or until you get what you want. And that’s why I think that Berserk manga is no longer what it should’ve been. Sure, everyone, undoubtedly, still wants and yearns for that final climax, but will it have the same impact as it would’ve had a long time ago? I don’t think so. Heck, I even forgot about my hatred for Griffith – I somewhat started caring more about him than Guts – and that’s something I never thought would come out of my lips/fingertips. I will read Berserk until it no longer has anything to tell just for the art. Panels can be empty, no word needs to be spoken, just those sheer detailed scenes, facial expressions will always be enough for me to read Berserk. But it’d be same as reading the book just because the font looks pretty. I’ll always recommend Berserk to those I know will appreciate it just for that infamous scene, nothing more. It's had more impact on me than anything else I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen some pretty fu***d up stuff, to be honest.

My only hope now rests in that brutal climax, the final showdown, the battle greater than anything else I’ve seen before. The final goodbye to probably the strongest character that ever came out of anyone’s imagination. Sure, he can’t burn the world with his di*k, but he can do pretty much anything you can imagine a man doing with a sword in his hands. And then double that. Guts and Berserk are iconic names, and, for me, Golden Age is an epitome of storytelling. I know this since I am ‘writer’ myself; these things do not fly by as you go, they are carefully thought of and the impact is planned ever since those things started. I wish Miura would go back to his roots, to the honest brutality, to the world where death waits everywhere and where the thirst for revenge is the only thing that keeps Guts alive.

one of the greatest manga i have been read
it's so sad how the manga is going these days ( we got about one chapter a year )
that manga has a lot of great arch , it contain everything u want from Seinen manga
the changing of the story and the style are something unique
the art is legendary with many details the action and fighting is something serious maybe after u read it u will feel bad about the fighting scenes from another manga
the author could create his own world with many secrets and cultures

maybe the only questions i had now is " is he able to give that great mange a great end ?" and " is that will be soon ?" because the progress of the manga lately is really slow ,but i think there are still 100 chapters or more for proper end
finally i hope this manga back as regular one with chapter each month or even each weak but i don't really think that will happened as the author didn't give any efforts to this manga lately

//Blatant spoilers because most of my Berserk talking points are either weirdly specific, or come up literally 150 chapters in, and context is required//

Okay, I see a sacred cow, and I have to fire up the barbecue once more. There was a time when I could say I loved Berserk, and would unquestioningly give it a 10/10, but now is not that time. Maybe I grew up, or something, idk. God, I'm so disappointed upon reading it again now, I barely know where to begin. Berserk is difficult to talk about, due to its complexity and length, but I'll do my best.

Berserk's Golden Age arc has been done to death in reviews, and it's amazing. We all know it. No need to say more. The homoerotic subtext between Guts and Griffith is *chef's kiss*. And we all know how it comes crashing down, due to miscommunications that are brilliantly baked into pretty much every character's fatal flaws during that arc. If I had to fault it on anything, I'd say Casca's scene during the eclipse was handled poorly in the manga, but more on that later.

For the minute, I'm here to talk about the absolute slog that is everything that comes after. The problems I see in Berserk are deep and structural, and have to do with Guts as a character. He's almost purely reactionary, because up to a point, he has no personal investment in the plot at hand beyond 'Casca in danger, me smash', or 'GRIFFFFIIIIIITH'. His interactions with others are limited. The man barely speaks, barely thinks about anything beyond the humanoid sack of potatoes that is Casca, or the man he hasn't talked to for years and hasn't made any moves towards doing so. He doesn't interact with either of his primary motivations past a certain point. His only other interactions basically amount to 'Hey Guts, don't do the stupid thing and overuse spoopy armor', and then Guts saying 'I won't.' before promptly using spoopy armor in the next boring shonen fight scene. Tell me how that is good writing, please. I hate to say it, but that's really freaking boring over the course of over a hundred chapters. Those chapters often go something like:
Alas, dickwolves have appeared and are menacing AREA OF THE WEEKville! Watch as Guts and company near-effortlessly mow down an array of dickwolves, but not before they menace poor, mentally ill Casca and tear off all her clothes with their dickpaws! Repeat. In the distance, Griffith accomplishes something of significance to the setting, like repelling an entire continent's worth of demonic Kushans, using a quarter of the pagecount.

It's as if Miura didn't know what he wanted to do with Guts and company after Casca's mind was fixed, so he dragged out their half of the story to an almost absurd degree, and I'd chalk up a good three quarters of the dragging to the incessant battle scenes.

But PushMe, I hear you cry! Battle scenes are awesome! Er, not when they lack stakes, emotional investment, and eat up an absurd amount of page count for their trouble. They don't have any technical elements that might make a shonen fight interesting, and the seemingly only allowed failure state is 'Guts dies/Girl is raped'. It's never a case of 'we need to run the fuck away', leading to a desperate fighting retreat using actual tactics, because then we wouldn't get ten more awesome panels of the dragonslayer effortlessly bisecting dickwolves. Any fight tension is displaced solely onto whether the armor will eat Guts' soul or not. Quiet moments that might be genuinely poignant(and were, in the Golden Age) are interrupted every other chapter by these near-pointless fights, as if the mangaka believes his audience will lose interest if the manga goes ten pages without seeing Guts screaming and covered in blood. He is, in some ways, like a parody of action movie tropes, his introspective, needy side subsumed into scowls and really cringeworthy one-liners. He harpoons any sense of atmosphere a scene may have, either by the dad jokes he utters when he opens his mouth, or by everyone suddenly pausing to admire his sword/technique/sweet ass. Whoever happens to be nearby will form an impromptu peanut gallery to remark at length on the oft-mentioned 'heap of raw iron', with Isidro at the helm, which gets repetitive fast and usually eats up a page or so per fight scene for its trouble. It doesn't make the fight seem any more impressive for its effortlessness, either. We know Guts = Stronk, and considering how slow Berserk is to update, wasting precious pages to reiterate this or have him engage in fights that don't further anyone's character is a general waste of everyone's time.

I feel that he needs actual emotional investment in the plot at large, something more than his revenge quest vs his companions. That was compelling back in Lost Children, at his lowest point, where whether or not he accepted Puck, or let Jill in, felt like it meant something deep and personal to his character arc. It was pretty obvious that if something didn't change, if he didn't let them in, he'd die forgotten in a ditch as a bitter shell of himself - a 'Gambino was right' ending, so to speak. By the time of the Fantasia arc, that theme is feeling pretty worn out. He exists only to protect his friends, which is a very well-worn path for shonen protagonists to travel (see also: Bleach, Naruto). And we all know by now how boring shonen protagonists who fall into this trap are. It's characterisation that began with him leaving the Hawks, and sticks around for an uncomfortably long time without significant development. He's too busy swinging his sword around like an angry Beyblade to notice. And to me, that's just not compelling, in the long term, as it lacks the brevity and poignancy we got with his internal struggles during Lost Children.

For the record, this was a problem as early as the latter half of Conviction, where Guts is trying to save Casca from dickmen/fire. His investment here is his guilt over leaving her alone for two years. That's interesting. Guts fighting with the beast of darkness over whether to abandon her was interesting. How does it play into the events of Conviction? It basically doesn't. Instead, we have Guts effortlessly killing stuff, Guts killing Mozgus and co. with some effort, and the themes don't really add up at all. Guts motivations in the scattered plot of Conviction do not matter one iota, and my investment in his fights literally hinges on me caring deeply, intimately for potato girl's safety. It's like... meaningless noise, past a certain point. There's no great ideological or personal conflict, and Guts doesn't have any meaningful internal conflict to make me care about his great and epic, ten page struggle with 'Masked Torturer #3, now with a side of wings'. It's the same storytelling mistakes, over and over again. Ultimately, Luca the fearless prostitute shines as the most interesting character in the whole arc, because her conflict with Nina is ideological and neatly self-contained, with both having clear viewpoints and a depth of character often lacking in members of the RPG party to this day. Luca doesn't need a slab of iron to save someone from a mob, and she doesn't need 200 chapters to give someone she disagrees with a stern talking to. Strong contender for best written female character in Berserk, in my opinion.

Speaking of women... something I never see brought up in discussions of Berserk is the way Casca's rape is portrayed in the manga. It's just... not horrifying, at least not to me. It reads, literally, like porn. The angles and focus of the panels are exploitative of Casca's body, with little focus on her face or the emotions that lead to her becoming a potato. If you disagree, please, compare the way Casca is portrayed to Guts' rape by Donovan, or the way Ganishka is portrayed as he stands menacingly over Charlotte's bed, or even the 1997 anime's version of the scene. Miura knew how to portray rape in a scary, realistic way, from the perspective of the victim. He just decided Casca was too hot not to draw like a pornstar for twenty odd pages. Really, it never quite ends, as Casca is drawn naked in poses clearly meant to be alluring with worrying regularity, when she's a goddamn rape victim, so traumatised she's lost the ability to speak. Her trauma also fluctuates in intensity. At one moment she can kill three armored bandits while butt naked, and in another she can barely run on flat ground without tripping over her own feet, so that she can drown the scene in Damsel In Distress tropes. Miura's inconsistency in his writing of these characters makes it hard for me to take the plot involving curing her of her brief porn career at all seriously. Or any other of the many times Casca (specifically) is threatened with rape. Combined with my above problem with Guts' later characterization, it severely undermines my ability to enjoy either of them as characters, because 'woman in danger, man save, you care' stopped being a compelling plot point by itself some five decades before I was born.

Griffith, for all the hatred he gets from fans for his role in Casca's disastrous career as a pornstar, is a breath of fresh air in comparison. He's about the same now as he was on rebirth, which isn't great, but Griffith has goals and he accomplishes them quickly, without fifty chapters of screwing around, which is more than can be said of anyone (bar maybe Farnese) in Guts' party. He tried to talk to Guts about what happened, and Guts wasn't in the mood, so now he's off doing his own thing and loving life. Griffith has uninterrupted quiet moments. Griffith's ultimate goals are nebulous, but he's efficient, and achieves small things towards that ultimate goal without taking up pages upon pages to messily bisect dickwolves we don't care about. Griffith is proactive, where Guts is almost purely reactive. Griffith vs Ganishka is, to me, a more satisfying section of the manga than anything Guts achieves in the same arc, and is over in roughly a quarter of the page count. The entire world changes as a result. Guts gets on a boat. Eventually. After acquiring spoopy armour, to make him fight good, for... reasons. To summarize, in my opinion, Guts is the least interesting character that the manga could focus on at the point where the plot has found itself, with seemingly little ability or interest in interacting with the setting, and yet so much time is spent focusing on him that it feels bloated and glacially paced. The result is... not exactly fun for me to read any more, now that I'm not wowed by him killing lots of stuff with no effort or personal investment.

God, I'm tired. The point of this rambling, sleep-deprived tirade is that Berserk had an amazing opening, then spirals down into a deep, deep pit of mediocrity, from which it has yet to emerge. The story almost feels stretched to the breaking point, perhaps a mirror for the burnt out author, with no resolution in sight. What happens on page is frequently surface-level, seemingly for the purpose of not advancing the plot while appearing to be doing something, anything, to convince its diehard audience that the manga is not dead. Guts gets stronger, Griffith builds his kingdom, Skull Knight is cryptic, and as a long time reader, it feels as if the wheels are spinning fruitlessly. The Golden Age was tightly written, plotted, and the tension was palpable that something horrible was about to happen. That was a long time ago, and I have to be honest with myself that Berserk likely isn't ever going to return to that level of quality.

I just want these two guys, who haven't talked to one another since the Hill of Swords, to finally talk out their problems that began with Guts leaving, and finally bury this zombie of a franchise. And maybe kiss. Just... end it already, Miura. We all know you want to. Only the dead can know peace from this Elfhell.

Before I begin, I want to say I at one point loved berserk. Everywhere I went, I only heard berserk this, berserk that, and the most famous quote within the fandom, "Griffith did nothing wrong" I decided to check it out one day and I hated it. I just though it was another overrated manga that was only popular because it was edgy. Later on, I started getting into SoulsBorne games and I heard that they took inspiration from berserk. I went back to read berserk and once I finished the golden age arc, I loved it. My mind was flooded with thoughts consisting of, "Where is the story gonna go from here?" then I finished black swordsman arc and I was crying. Kentaro is amazing when it comes to foreshadowing later events and is great at using character designs to tell a greater story, I realized this on my second read yet I haven't gotten caught up. Why is that, you might be asking? That's because after a Guts fights Zodd, the series feels like it's going nowhere. Every chapter used to be pumped out consistently and now berserk fans are lucky to get a single chapter in a year. My theory is that Kentaro doesn't know what to do with berserk anymore, it went from a very grim story, one filled with sorrow, to just your average shonen. I wouldn't be mad if it was a spin-off or something but everything that happens is canon which is honestly surprising because nothing feels like it's going anywhere unless you see Griffith. Before, I kept asking where is this series gonna go. Now, it's plain as day because Kentaro really doesn't seem to know where else to take berserk. I prefer to pretend that the newer chapters don't exist because that is not what berserk became known for.

Tl:Dr: I was sucked into berserk for it's dark tones, it's extremely human characters, and it's creativeness in story telling and concepts. Now, it's just a generic shonen that really isn't going anywhere unless you see Griffith.

I wanted to love Berserk. And to give it credit, I did, for the first two arcs. But after the masterfully done "Golden Age" arc, Berserk falls flat on it's face and as the pages continue to turn it becomes increasingly apparent that author Kentaro Miura has no idea what he wants to do with his story.

Berserk starts off pretty strong. The first arc, commonly referred to as "The Black Swordsman Arc" has a bad rep online, often being sited as the weakest of the five current arcs. But compared to the latter three, I think it's one of the story's best. It does have it's weak points, but after the first few chapters, the arc builds up a lot of momentum and leads to great moments with interesting characters, especially the villain and his daughter. Berserk was very promising after it's first three volumes, and it delivered. Everyone's already talked about how amazing the Golden Age Arc is, and yes, it's that good. It's phenomenal. A 10/10, a masterpiece that shows Miura at the top of his game. But unfortunately, after such a good setup to what could've been the best manga of all time, Miura drops the ball. And unfortunately for the reader, it's a long, mediocre descent.

I have a long list of complaints about the arcs that take place after GA. They're not absolute trash, but just knowing how great they could've been makes the pages feel so much worse. The biggest issue for me, besides the introduction of magic, is that Puck's character is not developed whatsoever. Puck was set up to be Guts' sidekick but is instead turned into a comic relief with no actual personality or power over the story. The group following Guts is boring and immediately feels out of place within the story. What made Berserk so great was the relationship between Guts, Griffith, and Casca, so why Miura decided to completely destroy Casca's character and the relationship between the three is completely beyond me. As it keeps going, especially with the introduction of magic, it doesn't even feel like Berserk anymore. It's hard to believe the same person that wrote the GA arc also wrote the infamous "Boat Arc" that was 50 chapters with one of the most generic, boring villains i've ever seen and a pointless island that adds another pointless character to the Guts' boring group. As I kept reading, it just didn't feel like Berserk anymore.

The overwhelming positivity and number one MAL ranking makes me wonder if I read the same piece of literature that everyone else did. I wanted to love Berserk, and i'm glad I was able to for the first 1/3 of the story. But after that, it fails to stay interesting, unique, and play on the aspects that made it so good in the first place.

ARC RANKINGS:
Black Swordman Arc: 8/10
GA Arc: 10/10 (Best Arc Ever)
Conviction Arc: 7.5/10
Falcon of the Millennium Empire Arc: 6.5/10
Fantasia Arc: 6/10

Story : Definitely the best of its kind and i absolutely loved it . First off people who read just the first 15-20 chapters and decided not to continue , turn back and go back . The golden age arc was out of the frigging world . Story developments are very intriguing and the way it builds up is very good , the arcs are adequately paced with new info . Overall one of the, if not the best story out there and the most disturbing and dark.

Art : The first few chapters are choppy but Kentarou Miura senpai makes up for it with what i would say the best art you will ever find , well that is in lieu of comparison with the likes of One Piece , Naruto , Bleach , Fairy Tail the combat is a bit confusing but Berserk's combat is very clear and you get every single move. Overall it is VERY GOOD

Character : Again the best character development , (not to be an OP fanboy) but i really loved One Piece character development's but this one has set a standard . Farnese's character development was fantastic and Guts and Griffith i don't even have anything to say .

Enjoyment : Yeah i enjoyed it , would be an understatement there were times when i jumped of sheer excitement and exclaimed because of the sadness , an epic dialogue or something like that .

Overall : I have read a lot of manga's this one is without any hesitation , simply THE BEST manga i have ever read. FMA doesn't compare to this and THAT is saying something . Extreme blood and gore , dark theme , lot of violence , incest, everything a seinen should have. Took me 20 days to complete it and well this manga is definitely completed thanks to Miura senpai's permanent hiatus. Every adult should read this it's that good .
10/10

Alright so... Berserk...
Doesn't exactly sound original but MY GOD does it suit! This ballsy, violent, sadistic fuck-fest scratches a region in my brain that itches with a red, pulsating lust for utter bat-shit craziness.

Although, it does have its calm moments to build up characters, which revolve mainly around our #1 man, Guts...or Gatts...or Gattsu-CHHAAAAANNN!!! Anyway, this story follows Guts through his hardships (and holy shit are they hard!) and quest to destroy a certain group of people.

Now I don't know if you've tried but Guts managed to survive in his own mother's womb after she died and freakin' gave birth to himself!... His willpower is so immense that he takes on wounds, arrows, grief and homoerotic obscurity and turn them into a strength that is truly awesome. He is obviously the most developed character (deeeeeerp!) in the manga and should be commended for his efforts.

Even so with all the epicness and hard-core, buff, ripped, manly sausage festivities that is "Berserk." Some of the characters and plot developments are rather dull at some points either because it stretched out for too long or because it just wasn't interesting enough and it was hard to pay attention as to what was happening. Although it did return the favor with awesome endings and the like, but it's just something about a man kissing the snake penis of a moose-headed person that just drew my attention to other things.

When greeted with other important characters however (I won't try to spoil anything) you feel the connection they have with GATTSUUUUUU!!! and as you're taken through this grand adventure in Midland, you'll be able to grow a bond that gets stronger and stronger-- UNTIL EVERYTHING TURNS TO SHIT AND YOU SEE EVERYTHING GET FUCKED RIGHT INFRONT OF YOUR VERY EYES!!!!!

Anyway that was my first ever review (ever!) on the legendary manga Berserk I gave it a 9/10 and I hope you liked it!

I just wanted to say that the beginning of berserk is amazing and that when you start berserk you will see that the story is amazing (btw there is a lot of nudity and quite a lot of gory and very disturbing sexual scenes) and that the art is even more amazing, lacking in nothing and oozing the essence of detail and not sparing anytime on making this manga and that you can tell why it took the creator so long to produce this manga and that it is supposedly still going to this day even though it started in 1988.

This manga has a hooking beginning and that the beginning gets you reading this manga and not wanting to put it down and that I think that is primarily due to the amazing character of Guts who is a 6'8 guy who can't even be portrayed as the good guy, but he definitely isn't the bad guy. I say this because, he is an absolute killing machine and that he does all of this because of hatred and the his sought for revenge (spoilers from this point on so it isn't even my fault) on his former friend (this friend was a general of the army he was part of) who went on the rape Guts' lover and the person Guts loved deeply (this is pretty ironic cos he found this girl when she was being raped as a twelve year old, so there is definitely some meanings behind that). The only reason he did this was because, he wanted to achieve his dream of being at the top and that Guts was a big part of his journey cos Guts was an extremely strong member of his army and was crucial to his victory, so when Guts wanted to leave the army and pursue his own dreams this guy (btw this guy's name is Griffith and he's the guy that rapes the lover) believes that he can't let Guts go so he challenges him to a duel, as he won against Guts in a duel a few years ago and is pretty confident (Griffith has a more hasty approach to a fight with a normal sword, whilst Guts has a more brutal way in battle, since he has a sword that is maybe a foot taller than him and he is 6'8 so this sword makes broadswords look like kunai's, also that this sword isn't even sharps, so its like hitting someone with a sharp hammer and it literally rips his enemies to shreds) and when they get into this battle Griffith is completely serious and has a mentality that if he can't have Guts no one can so aims to kill him if he has too. Griffith is planning out every move in this battle, as this means so much too him and when Guts goes to strike Griffith goes to deflect it and Guts broad broadsword just shatters Griffith's sword and stops at Griffith's shoulder so Griffith is completely humiliated as the battle ends in mere seconds, but also that he has been set back drastically in his dream. This leads him to the princess of this kingdom that he has befriended and he can tell she has fallen for him and plans to use her as his pawn to the top, (remember at this point he is desperate for some openings in his dream) so he sleeps with her and the king finds out and this is the king's daughter Griffith is messing around with and his daughter was sixteen and was supposed to be pure and a virgin at this point.

The king sees this as unforgivable and Griffith is captured on his way out of the castle and is taken to the most abhorrent place of torture and has things like his muscles ripped out and his tongue cut out by some deformed midget. When his army finds out what has happened it is too late as they're being hunted down by the government just for being commanded by this guy. They manage to escape and end up going from being a band of prideful warriors too a band of thieves. Two years later Guts hears of what has happened to the Band of the Hawk (which was what the army was called after they got like hunted down and are now thieves), and Guts eventually finds them and some are ashamed of him and some are happy that he's returned. With the power of Guts its possible that they could break Griffith out of his torture and have him be the amazing leader that he once was. They find where he is being held and that when they get there and see what's happened (mainly Guts and keep in mind the absolute beast that Guts is) Guts breaks the like 12 inch door that they had been locked into the room by (the deformed guy that was torturing Griffith follows them to the cell and locks them in the decrepit place), he then explains what he's done to Griffith over the years. After, the deformed guy is done on his brutal rant Guts loses it and puts his sword through the like 12 inch door when the deformed guy is confident that his efforts are petty and worthless he ends up being stabbed along with the door. Guts is greeted by like 50 men that have crossbows pointed at him and he still goes insane and they are all consumed by the fear that Guts instilled in them and they lose the will and freeze up and don't fire their crossbows to just end up being obliterated by Guts. He clears the entire place for his fellow comrades and they get outside.

Go forward a bit they're on the move and are all of a sudden enveloped by like a demonic cloud and are trapped in there and that is where some important demons come out and offer Griffith a lot of power (this would be achieving his dreams) and as a sacrifice he offers up the entire army and they are all branded so that the monsters know who to kill, a bunch of monsters come out and just slaughter the entire army except for the important characters who die later on in the battle, but Guts with his outstanding fighting ability manages to keep himself alive. His lover is caught by the monsters and like stripped (I swear we get to see her naked like 8 times and I'm only like a third into the manga) and almost raped by the monsters, oh but don't worry we've got demon Griffith here to save her (this is what I was talking about at the beginning), oh wait he's pulling his pants down, what? This can't be Griffith - it is. As you can expect Guts isn't taking this and goes, not insane, but like fucking plus ultra out of bnha.

If u read all of that ur legend

I have read many mangas from Berserk to Death Note to Akira to Real to Slam Dunk and so many more, overall Berserk is the best I have ever read. It's a masterpiece. I won't spoïl anything just you must know something : the first three volumes are the less good so do NOT stop there, the manga became great at the second half of the volume 3 when Golden Age arc begins. I'm at the volume 37 right now and it's impossible to me to stop.

The drawing, the story, the characters, just epic. Do not try to watch the different anime, it's good but not as great as the manga really is.

First things first.Berserk is the most awesome manga i have ever read.From the artwork of the enviroment to the story i gave a 10/10 to all.But I must warn you,this is unlike the most manga you have ever read this is one of the darkest,depressing and gore manga around.It also contains nudity,fiction and the age of the displaying evens are like those of the mid-century.It also has the "flavor" of romance between Guts and a woman named Caska.
The main protagonist is Guts,a fierce muscular man,with outstanding courage and stregth,known as "the Black Swordsman".He was raised by a mercenary and from young age many misfortunes had to be faced by him.When he was a teenager lone-wolf mercenary he meet Griffith,a young charming and charismatic man,who is the leader of a small group of young mercenaries called "Band of Hawk".Many battles follow Guts and his band,until the Eclipse phenomenon,that changes his life for ever.Due to what happend(i try to hide critical parts of the story as i don't want to spoil you so much),Guts has swore revenge and hunt down those who brought and continue to bring misfortune to the world.
Guts as an adult now is a fiersome monster,as i described earlier and hunts demon like creatures called Apostles.But he is not alone,this time his companion is a little cute fairy(it's called Elf in the series) called Puck,that makes Berserk series less darker and depressing.
In conclusion,I strongly recomment these manga series to those who found Berserk interesting from my or anyone else review.I also want to express my gratitude to the readers of my review and I hope in the near future to help anime and manga fellow fans to discover through my reviews very well made series!
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An incredibly blood thirsty take no prisoners style of manga where no one is safe. This title is incredibly violent and not for the faint of heart. This title is so violent that no one in the story is spared not even the elderly, the women and the children (all of whom share an equal amount of brutality) therefore this is definitely not for the squeamish.

The story is set during a medieval Europe style world and is divided mainly into three major arcs (for now at least since this is an ongoing series and will most likely have more major arcs in the future). Each arc is very different from each other for instance the earliest arc is comprised mainly of man on man combat and plenty of castle siege scenes so expect plenty of soldiers and dead bodies littering the pages, while the second arc focuses on Guts killing probably the most disturbing monsters in manga history.

The artwork is exceptional good considering this is a long running series that started during the late 80's. There are plenty of highly detailed scenes and this can be very disturbing since it is extremely graphic with plenty of severed heads, decapitated bodies and exposed intestines. It also contains plenty of hard core sex scenes which gives you the feeling that you are actually reading a manga title. Regardless of the shear brutality within these pages, the reader will be able to appreciate the amount of detail here such as the unique armor sets of individual soldiers, the grotesque individual details on the monsters and the extremely detailed environments that range from small villages to castle dungeons and the city sieges.

Characters are pretty well developed and mostly focuses on the main character Guts and his relationship with other major characters but the rest of the cast also share a fair amount of exposure. All characters have a dark side and it can be difficult to actually determine who the good guys are since the main character himself is sort of like a demon in nature.

For the enjoyment part, if you like a deep story and plenty of action then you'll love it. There are plenty of chapters that only contain battle scenes

Overall if you like an action packed blood thirsty manga with a monster fetish then this title is for you

WARNING! This rewiev is translated by google translate.
4-14. While the inter-skin comedy, drama, darkness, fantasy, fantasy of fantasy, subject, characters, in short, everything progressed almost flawlessly, the only problem for me was the failure of time lapse use and the last time they turned to comedy while the entire skin was completely focused on its darkness and drama. Of course, if the series was a story that always focused on the story, it was a series that worked on the tragedy, it would squeeze after a point, but it made me sad to have this balance very well until the 14th volume. Because their comedy doesn't just fail. Also we don't know like Puck. Their comedy over an unfamiliar character makes these scenes even more unqualified. After a while, of course, I got used to it when I spent time with Puck. More precisely, I was forced to get used to it, because the number of scenes that Puck is for comedy is so much that it doesn't just stay with puck. There are many characters that are newly added and used as comedy stuff. Let's say we got used to them. "So what's the problem?" If you say, comedy is not generally seated in this series. Our mangaka does not suit comedy even if it makes quality. A material that offers both comedy and comedy has made me lose my focus. When even the demons that came up after a while were used as comedy material, my passion for the series started to die. As a matter of fact, the number of combat-prone war scenes that killed this atmosphere is also quite a lot. Unfortunately, this is not the only bad thing.The fantasy genre enters the series enormously. Our first creatures are the first legendary warriors or something really impressive. But one day we encounter a Sorcerer while wandering through the forest and bam gets a gear upgrade for everyone. The next battles are incredibly easy and different. We start to need magic from right to left. In this sudden change series, the fantasy head that has been slowly injected into us for a very long time is such a fan that after a while many fantasy materials used by the series are left with air mercury. For example, the demons in Griffith's army or the monsters in the war we entered do not pose any danger. This reduces excitement. But I have nothing to take with the rest of the series. Of course, his characters are evil and they are the ones who are milking. But in a series with such a long and excessive character, I was very normal. Also beautifully written characters are so much that it prevents you from seeing these cheap characters. The story and its processing were very good. It's still beautiful. I think Mangaka really knows how to write: smile: I can describe everything I can say in your drawings in one word. But I don't want to praise so little. The drawing used is so deep that if you sift through each scene and touch it frequently, you will experience the climaxes of orgasm. Because it is so detailed and beautiful that it enchanted me. It was nice to sip my tea and examine the drawings one by one. In short, I think this series is very close to perfection. It will be a masterpiece with a few taps, but unfortunately I conclude my investigation with great sadness, saying unfortunately because it repeats too many tiny mistakes too many times.

Berserk is the best fantasy manga I've ever read. With that, I'm now going to start with the negatives. I love it, but it still has it's flaws.

- The first three volumes: before it gets to the hailed Golden Arc, the first 3 volumes are boring, edging onto cliched and while I was reading them, I was genuinely feeling disappointed throughout, as I had been given high expectations when reading some reviews on here. Thankfully, it gets better after those three volumes, but just be warned that they are not great.

- Nearly everyone is in love/is a fan of the protagonist. (That ol' cliche)

- Puck is irritating as comic relief (though he gets thankfully less and less screentime)

- Sometimes it feels like it's being unecessarily dark: you will see a *lot* of scenes where women are being raped by disgusting looking creatures and when scenes like this happen nearly every arc, it gets tiring and feels gross. This is more personal preference than anything else, it's not a thing I particularly enjoy reading about.

The last one is probably my main gripe with the series, the rest I can quite happily forgive because of the outweighing positives.


Story: The storyline is ridiculously engaging, and despite the manga being so long (a little less than 350 chapters as of this review), there are hardly any "filler" arcs. If an arc isn't focusing on Guts, it will be focusing on Griffith or it will be focusing on any other of the main characters. This is refreshing, compared to something like One Piece (which is a solid favourite of mine) which can easily dip into "filler" arcs every so often.

The world building is excellent and you feel like you understand the world that Guts lives in, without having to have a stupid amount of background context or story explaining everything. The reasons for the wars and the fighting makes sense and there isn't an overcomplicated political plot - politics are not hashed out constantly so the reader gets bored.


Art: The art isn't great at first - like with all mangakas - but it gets better and better. The recent chapters are beautiful to read and the amount of work that goes into complicated backgrounds shows. When things start to get fantastical, you get that coming through so clearly and magically in the manga and it is wonderful to read.


Character: Characters are really a strong point for me in Berserk, all of the main characters feel real and have their own distinct personalities and opinions, as well as their own flaws. To me, I would say that Berserk actually comes into its own not after the Golden Arc, but actually when Guts starts travelling with another group of characters later on in the story.



On the whole, Berserk is a wonderful fantasy manga that really grips you into reading. It plays around with the tropes of "light" and "darkness" a lot, but in a way different from most stories that I've read before and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of adventure/fantasy mangas. The way it deals with revenge is very refreshing and I have only praise for how it portrays such a vast and diverse group of characters.

The first time I was reading it, the art design of the beginning kinda deterred me. Not because it was bad (it's brilliant right off the bat and surpassing all charts of measurement after the 7th volume), but because it can be as realistically disgusting as a European medieval scenario probably should be.

However, overcoming that this manga is a masterpiece all over - up to the currently last arc, millenium falcon, sadly, where it just feels too mainstream, too arbitrary and too normal.

Whatever, that is just one story arc. Each time I'm re-reading a part of Berserk, my mind is just blown away and I hate myself for having rated Berserk down to "only" 8 temporarily because of a certain disappointment of the latest arc. Before that, it delivered over 25 volumes (!) of pure awesomeness. Every time I'm re-reading it I feel the urge of marking every second page as a brilliant highlight of arts nad staging, well knowing that the other 50% of pages will follow next time.

And also everytime I'm re-reading something, I'm understanding more of it. By no means Berserk could be considered a flat story only because it contains much action, gore and has no problems of displaying nudity. This story is deep, the character developements are complex but plausible and understandable, and the overall setting is more than epic.

Do you think that these are too many superlatives for this to be a potentially fair review? Dig through the first two or three volumes until Berserk catches you, and you won't be able to help yourself but to agree.