I’m re-reading berserk and…jfc miura really is obsessed with sexualizing casca. I’ve lost count of how many times i’ve seen her naked or semi-naked at this point. Seriously though the way he treats her character is sick

God it’s just the fucking worst isn’t it? And it’s so constant, both pre and post Eclipse, and so shitty, and often straight up tonally jarring lmao.

I actually recently wrote out a whole rant about how the depiction of Casca during the Eclipse isn’t just incredibly offensive but straight up objectively, qualitatively bad writing and bad art, but then I never posted it bc I got uncomfortably specific lol. But man, and it’s not just the Eclipse either, it’s everywhere.

Actually can I just (not cut for anything particularly triggering, just me going on a brief rant anyway lol. also tits)

image

imagine drawing this. You’re an artist and writer, you’re trying to depict a thematically resonant, significant moment that’s also very sad and emotionally touching, and this is how you choose to do it. Look at those metallic looking nipples. Do you think Miura even knows that nipples usually aren’t hard?

Why does he want the het male portion of his audience to be turned on during a sad moment that takes place after an attempted rape?

Or, conversely, why are so many men so awful that it doesn’t even occur to Miura or the majority of his audience that the image accompanying this sad text is inappropriately eroticized? That a mostly naked woman with those ridiculously (and kind of racistly lbr) bright, eye-catching nipples and gravity-defying tits actively fucks with the emotional tone you’re theoretically trying to convey? Because it’s just default to them: woman = naked and sexy as often as possible no matter what the context is.

Honestly it’s infuriating, and this example is nowhere near as fucked up as the Eclipse, or even the way Miura continues to eroticize Casca’s body when she’s traumatized and regressed to like mental infancy, etc.

xiyyh
replied to your post “yk tho as much as i theorize and hope wildly for a lot of stuff, at…”

standing ovation i wholeheartedly agree … i’d love to see theresia come back and rain hellfire too … (tho as much as i’d love that i feel like her rage was more of a parallel plot device that guts could relate with perhaps? and cracked his emotions open enough for readers to see he’s at odds with himself?) but damn would i love to see it … the women of berserk need loads of vengeance

Ty! And yeah I could see Theresia never coming back bc her purpose was served as a (really awesome imo) parallel to Guts that put his bullshit into perspective lol. But I’d still love to see badass vengeful Theresia.

But, when Golden Age ended, Griffith’s character became too prominent
and I wanted him to fight with Guts in his usual form.
Storytelling-wise, if he was in his normal, unchanged form, and then
changed into his powered-up form, the opposition would be easier to
understand. Also, setting-wise, as Femto, the dimension on which he
operates becomes more distant.

ok so I hate this, I’ve argued against reading the appearance of Femto at the end of the Millenium Falcon arc as an actual transformation a few times because I think it just straight up sounds stupid

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I’m willing to admit that despite framing Femto as a ~final form~ being silly to me, it actually works better for my purposes if it is a literal transformation. because it’s more easily comparable to the Beast of Darkness.

Like reading the appearance of Femto as just the way ascended Ganeshka sees him seems more natural and cool imo, but it also equates NeoGriffith and Femto in a way I’m meh about, and that was always the downside. If it’s a transformation, then Femto is like NGriff’s Beast of Darkness – a personified inner darkness made into a weapon that he can call up and use. Making Femto and NGriff kind of distinct, and backing up my idea that NeoGriffith is more like human Griffith rather than just Femto in a nicer outfit lol.

lmao fuck I really do vastly prefer this idea when you downplay the whole powered up form aspect and emphasize the comparison to Guts’ armour. Like, the Beast of Darkness is Guts’ Femto, that’s not subtle. If Guts loses himself to the armour, there’s gonna be more comparisons, and this could be a great part of that.

I mean lbr the only difference is that the armour doesn’t require a sacrifice to use and also it’s probs not as powerful as yk being a demon demi god. But it’s essentially a magical artifact created so that someone can use the power of their own dark side, the way apostles and the godhand in a more epic way can, without having to trade away a loved one first (/be ordained by causality). And the story has been very very clear about Guts’ dark side being v comparable to Griffith’s lol.

Like… the more I think about it the more I’m actually into this concept. Depending on how it plays out. I mean it still could just be as shallow and stupid as an upgrade for a fight. But yk, it has potential as part of a pattern of man vs inner monster, human volition vs bestial rage, etc, that we’ve been seeing a lot with Guts and various apostles, as well as hitting that equals theme.

Still can’t think of much worse than a drawn-out fight scene tho lol. I want to have faith in Miura’s ability to make things much better than they sound on paper, but there isn’t enough faith in the world for that.

sobadpink
replied to your post “yk tho as much as i theorize and hope wildly for a lot of stuff, at…”

Okay but please consider this: Theresia comes back and ends up being a huge endgame villain to Guts AND Griffith. Because she promised.

i would love that so much ngl. at the very least i really want to see her get some kind of hard earned revenge, and with the potential elfhelm timeskip in the works it’s possible we’ll see her as a badass adult at some point. I’ve got my fingers crossed hard

yk tho as much as i theorize and hope wildly for a lot of stuff, at the end of the day i think there are only 2 things i truly need from berserk:

1.
casca actively fucks shit up in a way that greatly affects the plot instead of getting back together with guts

2.
guts and griffith have an exchange of some sort that provides emotional
catharsis by addressing the fact that they were singularly obsessed with each other
and neither has actually successfully gotten over that obsession

i don’t give a shit about anything else. if those two things happen, I will consider berserk a satisfying story

xiyyh
replied to your post “hey if miura cut out the idea of evil chapter because it gave too much…”

ohhhhhhh … lovely, this is exciting …

i’m glad you think so lol

i’ve managed to convince myself that skull knight and danann are in shady cahoots and using guts and casca and now i jump on every possible piece of evidence for it tbh

i’ve got more theorizing along those lines here if you’re also into the idea, tho i keep waffling on a lot of the details lol

hey if miura cut out the idea of evil chapter because it gave too much away, is this

image

secretly ominous?

or not so secretly, considering it’s the page after this:

image
image

i’m hoarding every drop of ominous foreshadowing i can find rn, and flora asiding that god brought guts and his rpg group together right after she suspects skull knight is using them and skull knight excuses himself with “w/e fate’s gonna fate no matter what i do” seems kind of fittingly ominous

sobadpink
replied to your post “sobadpink
replied to your post “griffith and guts were like 17/16…”

All good points, I was really just trying to base off assuming Casca and Guts where around the same age (in order to guess Griffith’s age) but yeah, a 15 year old would probably not consider an 18yr old “the same age” since like you said, 3 years is a lot to a teenager. Unless even at 18, because of his very fair and slim build, an 18yr old Griffith appears to be around 15yrs old?
Though I DO like the idea of Guts being the youngest of the 3!

Yeah I mean you could make an argument for it. Until there’s hard and fast canon it all comes down to personal preference, or just going with the ova ppl’s guesses/decisions. I was just laying out my reasoning for assuming Griffith is close to the same age as Guts bc I see people say Griffith is 3 years older all the time thanks to the wiki taking the ova behind the scenes info as fact, but yk, it’s all headcanon in the end.