madchen
replied to your post “gutsbaratiddies
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post …”

oh i like this take i briefly considered something in this direction but i didnt miura would have a sophisticated enough perspective to want to say that? idk. it was going thru my brains built in gender theories filter at the time so it seems more reasonable put this way ig

yeah this seems a little beyond miura ngl but idk, i’ll grasp at any and every straw for the sake of hope lol, and tbf we were reminded that she’s afraid of guts by danann just a few chapters ago so it’s not like miura has completely forgotten

GOD casca is obviously your edgy twist on miki except casca is “your type” can we just have them move the fuck on already 

devilman lady ending when

kissing-monsters:

bthump:

a-girl-named-chester:

bthump:

a-girl-named-chester
replied to your post “355 spoilers[[MOR] ok i just saw a pic of sane again casca that…”

Holy shit so that’s what she used to look like. I couldn’t pin down what was wrong with her face, but it just unsettled me.
Maybe muira just needs a sec to get used to drawing Casca as Casca with~sanity~ (personality) again?

casca’s face in this chapter was seriously so jarring. i don’t think
it’s even really the proportions so much as the more feminine angle of
her eyes maybe?

this

vs

Wtf it doesn’t even look like the same person. It’s the angle and shape of the eyes and brows that’s doing it I think. Her eyebrows got done at a hella nice salon.

(she looks sort of elfish. Maybe elf magic is to blame, or (probably) he’s just forgotten how to draw her.)

lol yeah the eyebrows are super conspicuous too

i guess to miura’s credit he got a lot better at shading her lips, thankfully. so you win some you lose some.

she looks as neogriff looks to original flavour griffith which could just be art choices but is frankly SUSPICIOUS

image
image

hmmmm

(probably the art shift, but still. this is some ~i want to believe~ shit right here. gimme sinister came-back-wrong Casca)

madchen
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “I don’t think that was the real guts…”

oh im just banking on the ominous ruse awakening i think were in for no matter the context. but the romanticization was just weirdddd no matter what like i know its been a while but casca never really felt that way about guts pre eclipse either like. what.

to me it felt like either fanservice for the sole sake of subverting expectations, or miura buying into everything g*tsca shippers think without re-reading his own story first

and i’m definitely fearing it’s the latter what with the indication that she’s been wanting to see(/meet whatever the line is) guts this whole time while stuck in a dream, the teary look when his name is mentioned, the expectation of romance and casca immediately going along with it, etc.

like who is this and what have you done with casca

sure miura feminized her a lot when she started crushing on guts in the golden age but it was never this bad, and there has never been a true love vibe between them

so like yeah even if there is a twist it’s hard to explain away the characterization here

a-girl-named-chester:

bthump:

a-girl-named-chester
replied to your post “355 spoilers[[MOR] ok i just saw a pic of sane again casca that…”

Holy shit so that’s what she used to look like. I couldn’t pin down what was wrong with her face, but it just unsettled me.
Maybe muira just needs a sec to get used to drawing Casca as Casca with~sanity~ (personality) again?

casca’s face in this chapter was seriously so jarring. i don’t think
it’s even really the proportions so much as the more feminine angle of
her eyes maybe?

this

vs

Wtf it doesn’t even look like the same person. It’s the angle and shape of the eyes and brows that’s doing it I think. Her eyebrows got done at a hella nice salon.

(she looks sort of elfish. Maybe elf magic is to blame, or (probably) he’s just forgotten how to draw her.)

lol yeah the eyebrows are super conspicuous too

i guess to miura’s credit he got a lot better at shading her lips, thankfully. so you win some you lose some.

seisans
replied to your post “seisans
replied to your post “seisans
replied to your post “cut…”

no yeah i was talking about just casca, i know in my heart guts cannot and will not move on. at least any time soon. but i can’t seem to predict which way casca’s arc will go because miura writes women so incomprehensibly

oh yeah i see what you mean. and yeaaaaah casca is seriously an enormous blank spot because who knows wtf miura is going to do with her, i can really only begin to theorize about how she’s going to support guts’ story lol. tho imagine if she actually got her own motivations and narrative.

gutsbaratiddies
replied to your post “madchen
replied to your post “I don’t think that was the real guts…”

i agree that the moment she wakes up is rushed, things are too cordial and NICE. Tbh I almost expected her to wake up screaming. but the last few panels of the update suggest some dark shit is coming?? So maybe something is UP

@seisans said:
yeah i thought he was like fake, maybe danann knows more than she lets on and is trying to get casca to realise some things? idk

here’s hoping. i mean when you put it that way with danann pushing the romance but it turns out this is just like, magical therapy part 2, maybe the point is that g*tsca is a terrible idea and casca has to realize that lol

a-girl-named-chester
replied to your post “355 spoilers[[MOR] ok i just saw a pic of sane again casca that…”

Holy shit so that’s what she used to look like. I couldn’t pin down what was wrong with her face, but it just unsettled me.
Maybe muira just needs a sec to get used to drawing Casca as Casca with~sanity~ (personality) again?

casca’s face in this chapter was seriously so jarring. i don’t think
it’s even really the proportions so much as the more feminine angle of
her eyes maybe?

this

vs

seisans
replied to your post “seisans
replied to your post “cut for not actually spoilers but the…”

yeah, it’s just like. regressed casca even had that moment when she was trying to touch neo griff but couldn’t, plus like the stupid fetus, and idk how the gremlin man (miura) thinks so i’m assuming the worst. but yeah you’re probably right

there is a shit ton of stuff that can and should be taken into account tbh, and that post was rly just a v distant overview. i think… idk there’s probably enough evidence to make a case for either scenario happening – guts moving on vs guts failing to move on. and like the fetus eg could figure into either of those scenarios, by maybe being a source of conflict between casca and guts, or maybe uniting them.

i think there’s also enough evidence to argue that guts failing to move on isn’t necessarily a negative/tragic thing either, tho i kind of framed it as one. like there’s a scenario where guts trying to “let go of his obsession” is essentially guts kidding himself and just burying and refusing to acknowledge his mixed feelings instead of confronting them, using casca as an escape

that’s my #1 hope rly.

but yeah at the end of the day this all kind of rests on the premise that when berserk is over it will overall be a good solid comprehensive story lol, and that’s based on what I’m picking up on as important themes, which is kind of itself a distant hope.

dendromancer
replied to your post “i mean i guess it’s always been the same question: is this the prelude…”

i think if the latter is the case then perhaps there will be a more light-hearted ending but… my preferences aside, from BS arc this manga’s theme is the quest for revenge, fighting against all odds etc. so i think that if this scenario occured then the manga will have kind of deviated..? not that it couldn’t be (objectively) a development, but still the ending would be all over the place instead of tackling the core elements, ie their relationship

yeah I totally agree. While I think you could argue that Guts forming strong relationships as a way of moving on from traumatic shit is in keeping with earlier themes, applying that to moving on from Griffith completely ignores the complexities of Guts and Griffith’s relationship, which is straight up what Berserk is about. Like yeah I’m super biased but I still think it would objectively be more narratively fulfilling to see their mutual obsession take centre stage again – it’s the difference between their intense relationship getting a proper climax and emotional catharsis versus being reduced to basically a bad break up that one dude couldn’t move on from.

It’s also a deviation in another way that I was considering tacking onto that post but didn’t, but now I want to talk about it.

But like imo if it is the case that Berserk is about Guts overcoming his obsession and moving on, then functionally Berserk is basically two different kinds of stories.

Everything from chapter one to chapter 129 is the story of a kind of fucked up dude with a lot of issues muddling his way through a very dark grey narrative and trying to do his best.

Everything from chapter 130 on is the story of a dude consistently Making The Right Choice.

Like, I kind of feel that those two stories are incompatible. In a narrative about a dude struggling with himself and trying and usually failing to make the right choices in a complex world where right and wrong barely even exist, which tbh is My Berserk, then it simply doesn’t work for the main character to then make the correct choice, ie focusing on Casca, and stick to it for two hundred and twenty chapters plus afterwards. If he eventually does make a genuinely good and correct and narratively rewarded choice, that should only happen at the end and it should be cathartic.

There are stories about protagonists doing the right thing the whole time even though it’s a struggle at times, and those can be fine stories, but it’s a giant downgrade from a story about a dude making a bunch of mistakes in a morally grey world, and an absolutely enormous tonal and thematic shift. It just doesn’t work as a complete story to me if that’s the case.

i mean i guess it’s always been the same question:

is this the prelude to a happy or tragic narrative shake up?

it’s just that now, thanks to how heavily romanticized that chapter was before the last couple pages, there’s imo v little doubt that happy = casca is soothed (whether it’s after a chapter or a volume) and romance ensues

and tragic = casca fucks shit up, romance does not ensue

if the former, the narrative is shaken up by guts’ party coming to a stand still and guts experiencing contentment and needing some outside motivation to continue doing anything relevant. maybe neogriff showing up, elfhelm in danger, something like that.

if the latter, the narrative is shaken up by casca taking the playing board and throwing it across the room, which, based on earlier beast-y foreshadowing, will likely lead to guts losing control of the beast of darkness, etc, whatever. Bad shit happens.

BUT there’s also another way of looking at it:

is berserk the story of two dudes who keep trying and failing to stop being obsessed with each other until some kind of climactic catharsis happens?

or is berserk the story of two dudes who were obsessed with each other, one of whom is ironically still obsessed despite going to extreme lengths to try to cut out his feelings, and the other of whom successfully lets go of his obsession and moves on?

(or, put another way, the story of one dude overcoming his obsession with another dude through the power of heterosexual love, while the other dude’s gay love is both what turned him evil and his only weakness.

And I swear to god if I
have to power thru guts’ hetero romance for the sake of griffith’s
doomed evil gay love i can’t think of something emphatic enough to
describe how i’ll feel.)

SO

Ultimately the question comes down to: is Guts’ focus going to return to Griffith, whether that’s through backsliding into revenge again or through re-examining his complex feelings and actually dealing with them instead of running away from them through the fix Casca sidequest?

or will Guts successfully overcome his obsession with Griffith, likely by saving Casca from herself through the power of love or w/e the way he failed to save Griffith before the Eclipse, leaving NGriff to drive the narrative and setting the stage for the final climax?

And if Casca fucks shit up and it turns out the fix Casca sidequest was kind of a terrible idea all along that leads to tragedy and darkness, the answer is the former. If Casca is talked down and love and companionship save the day, the answer is the latter.

So basically whatever happens is going to make or break Berserk for me lol. No pressure.

seisans
replied to your post “cut for not actually spoilers but the fact that i still haven’t shut…”

i haven’t looked at the new chapter, just the pics y’all posted & linked to, but with the feathers and casca wanting to see someone and “your wish may not be her wish” like i could see her using the behelit and joining neo-griff ….. but ………….. idk, has she remembered the eclipse yet? if not she’s bound to and that’s not gonna be pretty. also idk what the point of her joining griffith would be wrt guts ……
like i hate the idea of his own desire
to see griffith getting mixed with his “feelings” for casca you know
what i mean?

anyway if i remember
correctly i think your “casca uses the behelit” theory involved her
having her own revenge journey or something like that but yeah what if
this instead. i’m thinking no thank you mr miura

haha i would straight up murder miura if casca joined neogriffith. my, like, unlikely ideal is the three of them with their own individual power ups (incarnated god, apostle mb along the lines of ganeshka wrt power, berserk armour) all kind of opposing each other to some degree. eg ngriff wants his empire and also wants guts in some capacity that he doesn’t understand so maybe tries to kill him, casca wants to kill ngriff but guts wants to be the one to kill ngriff but also he doesn’t want to kill ngriff, etc

I think the feathers are probably more a reminder of her past as a Hawk than necessarily to do with NGriff. That’s what I was thinking anyway, but like, with the addition that that past is traumatic and they’re a reminder of Griffith who is the source of her trauma and therefore it’s ~ominous~

nico-jero
replied to your post “nico-jero
replied to your post “355 spoilers[[MO ok i just saw a…”

The backgrounds and details are very nice but the characters seems too cutesy for my personal taste. Even the monsters in Casca’s dream world lacked a visceral feeling besides being dick monsters. I am glad we didn’t see any rape but at the same time I think the drawings could of been rougher. I also wasn’t a fan of Casca’s magical girl dress. But maybe the translation will help… *Goes back to read Golden Age Arc*

@laraskadi said:
indeeeeeeeeeeeeeed I
feel this so much! I NEED her to look like Casca and act like Casca,
otherwise it just looks like a random person…? And in that dress no
less… Put her in some armor with a normal face and I’ll cry my eyes out

(putting this in one post bc it’s all about art)

Yeah mte. Like I won’t deny that Miura’s always drawn women with exaggerated eyes and tiny mouths, but she seemed so much more expressive before and idk, the exaggerated faces seemed less jarring with the flatter/cartoonier style of the golden age, as opposed to the current mix of hugely exaggerated features and realistic details? Plus the shape of her eyes makes a difference, she’s so feminized now :/ the dress is just the cherry on top of that really unpleasant sundae tbh.

And more for the first reply:

Yeah the art is a lot like, heavier and darker, thicker lines (more lines holy fuck) but it lacks the fluid visceralness we saw during, eg, the actual eclipse, in moments like this:

image

and like the sheer business of the art now means we don’t get evocative and terrifying contrasts like this:

image

And yeah the style in general seems less suited to monsters now. compare above to

image

like man I want to see the monsters, not just suggestions of them.

sareth-dorn
replied to your post “more spoilers ofc [[MOR] yesgabsstuff
replied to your post “ch…”

That necklace is the talisman she received from Flora. http://mangaseeonline.us/read-online/Berserk-chapter-236-index-2-page-6.html

oh lol i had no memory of this, ty!

all righty then the double helix isn’t so much suggestive of evil/darkness as spiritual stuff/od stuff in general i guess. which does fit better overall.

(has she been wearing it in plain sight the whole time and i just never noticed? or has it been largely under her travel dress at least lol?)

I don’t think that was the real guts tho, reasons why: 1) we didn’t see his reaction to danann’s message and his facial expression while approaching them was obscured 2) he came alone 3) danann made sure that casca was comfortable for the dream journey having guts stay behind since she sensed her fear of him. for her to just go “well you’re all better now go see ya man” without any kind of psych/emotional evaluation seems so out of left field

Yk I thought the scene where Guts walks up was weird, and it seemed really out of left field that the last time we saw him he was drinking with Serpico and Roderick and now we’re just casually informed that he got a psychic message and he’s here to meet her, (good point about Danann’s sudden 180 too) but I didn’t really consider it to be anything more than kind of rushed writing. But it is pretty suspicious when you put it all together like that.

Do you think it’s still a dream, maybe? Or is something else going on?

Why are you guys so pessimistic? I hope I am not offending you i just dunno why our impressions are vastly different. 355 completely subverted the expectations of g/tsca fans. Casca is gonna be angry, and I am sure she won’t get fair treatment by Miura but at least it will not be lovey dovey.. there are multiple ominous warnings and Casca was cheerful so far bc she didn’t remember. Also Guts is off revenge rn so the narrative *must* push him back to it. Which means g*tsca is cancelled imo

Nah, you’re right I am typically kind of a pessimistic person when it comes to continuations of things I’m into lol.

And actually thank you for this because it’s a good reminder that there are multiple reasons why g*tsca is not as sure a thing as lots of other fans think it is.

I have a lot more to say on this topic/the new chapter/etc lol, some hopeful and some still pessimistic, and today is going to be a day for it so I’ll probably answer your “why our impressions are vastly different” question soon (though idk if I’d say they’re “vastly” different), but I don’t want to here because this positivity is a good way to start the day lol.

more spoilers ofc

yesgabsstuff
replied to your post “ch 355, more random musing[[MOR] i s2g it’s like this chapter was…”

The. Fucking. Feathers.

thank you so it’s not just me thinking like

image

this is kinda suspect

also the helix in the necklace a la brand of sacrifice that i just noticed?

like i’m not saying danann dressed her in this to be secretly evil, but i’m thinking it’s subtle visual hinting re: the source of her trauma, hawks/sacrifice/griffith, and purposefully suggestive as a little added layer of ominousness

i mean i’d take it as coincidence considering it’s mostly petals in the dress, but those hairpieces, man

nico-jero
replied to your post “355 spoilers[[MOR] ok i just saw a pic of sane again casca that…”

I miss the old art. I can’t connect to this Casca. :’(

yeah same. idk i can’t judge the art on a technical level or anything, idk what’s good, but i do know that when it comes to personal preference I am really not a fan of the fantasia art. like to the point where if it had been the look the whole time I might never have gotten into Berserk at all lol.

ch 355, more random musing

i s2g it’s like this chapter was especially designed to fuck me personally up and leave me fretting for however long until the next one comes out, it has no chill it’s either my personal worst or best case scenario and i have no way of knowing which. mb this is premature since we don’t even have a full translation yet, but still. i’m stressed lol

and seeing all the skullknight fans pretty much just assuming that there’s going to be an emotional chapter followed by guts and casca hugging it out has me torn between thinking that’s a good sign bc it means miura isn’t using the ominousness as a fake-out, since it seems your typical berserk fan doesn’t think anything too bad is going to happen – the ominiousness is just plain ominiousness and if things go truly wrong it will still take people by surprise and be dramatically effective. but also what if it’s a bad sign because they’re just better at predicting berserk than me and more on miura’s current wavelength? 😦

also i’m eyeing that last image of the tree and how it looks similar to the falconia branches and various hearts of darkness

i’ve got my eye on you skellig

also eyeing the feathers in casca’s dress design tbqh

also guts looking scary and intimidating in that spread of him in the berserk armour w/ the eclipse scene behind him is good, and the more i look at the last few pages, eclipse flashback + guts -> tortured griffith -> ominous looking tree the more i’m like, hmmmmmm

as soon as we get a translation i’m re-reading the entirety of the skellig stuff so far to see if i feel like it all fits together in some way

cut for not actually spoilers but the fact that i still haven’t shut up about this idea is kind of itself a spoiler i guess

4kduranzo
replied to your post “355 spoilers fair warning this is v rambly and stream of…”

she’s branded tho how can she use the behelit?

there’s nothing indicating a living sacrifice can’t use the behelit. we’re meant to believe that guts may be able to use it after all – flora wonders if it’s his or if he’s carrying it for someone – and he’s branded too.

the godhand do say that someone who’s already been sacrificed can’t be sacrificed again, which might be what confuses people (i’ve had other people bring this point up too other times i’ve mentioned my behelit theory).

355 spoilers

ok i just saw a pic of sane again casca that someone edited to look more like miura’s older art style and immediately started tearing up, so i’m hereby blaming my current lack of emotional investment in this whole thing on the art

i’m a visual person, it’s the difference between going ‘hmm yes this development could either lead to good or bad things storywise’ and going ‘omggggggg im crying rn i missed you so much casca!’