Tag: Anonymous

Please tell me you saved all that sweet sweet Berserk Meta

Hey, was wondering if your blog is in danger with the nsfw news about
Tumblr, and where we can find you and your gud meta if it comes to that.

(combining 2 different anon messages into this one bc I can answer them at the same time)

lol ty for the concern, I actually did back up this whole blog like 2 days ago after logging on and seeing everyone in a panic, so I have everything available to me in case bthump suddenly disappears, though I doubt it’s that likely to happen.

I’m also looking into maybe importing bthump onto wordpress just in case, because apparently that’s a thing you can do, and it would save me having to go thru a million meta posts and pick and choose what’s worth crossposting to like, ao3 or something lol.

If/when I do I’ll link it, tho it might not be for a few days/weeks bc I’m on a vacation right now lol. And I might end up posting some meta to ao3 anyway, depending on whether posting panels from the actual manga to illustrate points is like, allowed under their tos. I have an empty account there I might as well start using.

what are the cringiest parts in the manga in your opinion?

Cringiest as in like, specifically second-hand embarrassment inducing?

tbh off the top of my head I can only think of one scene that isn’t yk, bad or offensive or w/e in a way that bores me, annoys me, or makes me angry, but is genuinely awkward and painful to read in an embarrassing way, and that’s the rape horse scene.

Or to be really specific, the way it cuts to an Eclipse flashback lol. Like if it was just the horse I’d be like, okay this is ridiculous and terrible but the whole Conviction arc is campy as fuck and it kind of fits the overall silly tone so w/e. In an arc with a spanking scene, a baby eating heretic orgy featuring a snake dick, Mozgus’ entire existence, etc, it would barely stand out. But trying to make it emotionally impactful by shifting to Eclipse flashbacks physically pains me.

Idk for the most part I can roll with Miura’s occasionally awkward tonal shifts, but this is an exception.

oh ok so i found the interview i think and looool my bad miura didn’t even mention the mb but the demon child or talked about guts and griffith’s final confrontation. he said: “And also, the demon child that Casca gave birth to is going to become something of a key point” and “And now it turns out that the demon child is similarly going to snap very usefully into place” -> mangabrog(.)wordpress(.)com/2015/12/14/berserk-artist-kentaro-miura-interview-. sorry for the scare

lmao ty for finding it and clarifying! sounds like this and the 2017 guidebook interview where he talks about their final confrontation might’ve gotten combined in your memory maybe.

i think here miura is referring to the fetus becoming griffith thing. which i mean, might still be relevant and connected to the moonlight boy, but it def eases my mind if miura hasn’t directly said anything like that recently.

@xiyyh for peace of mind.

i can’t find the interview anymore but i did find this reddit post where someone made a summary of some of miura’s interviews and they mention that “Kentaro has stated that he has something in plan for the Moonlight Boy that will make the final confrontation between Guts and Griffith more exciting” -> reddit(.)com/r/Berserk/comments/9ds7vz/the_next_big_step_for_berserk_kentaro_miura/. if i find the interview again i’ll send you the link. anyways fuck the mb and eveything he represents

Ty for the link! I’ve read everything they’ve referenced, so hm, idk. “More exciting” lol my dude if you don’t have faith in your ability to make a climactic confrontation between two dudes that has 300 chapters of intense emotional build up exciting without adding some magic baby bullshit, why are you even writing this story?

xiyyh replied to your post  

“i remember reading an interview where miura said the moonlight boy is…”

i don’t even have words but i’m going to be living in fear until this plays out now                    

same lol

i
mean tbf i’ve always had a fear that post-eclipse berserk is
going to ultimately end up completely sucking depending on where miura
goes from here, this just adds a little bit of weight to it.

But idk this is all so vague it could mean just about anything. MB could still even be a red herring, just one that yk, has an impact.

Can Guts read

I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that ever indicates he can read, and I def headcanon him as illiterate. Like, unless Griffith gave him lessons I don’t see where he would’ve learned.

On the other hand we’ve seen Casca reading and she didn’t have much more opportunity for formal education than Guts. And there’s no indication of where back alley peasant kid Griffith learned to read and write either. So who knows?

i remember reading an interview where miura said the moonlight boy is gonna play a big role in guts and griffith’s final confrontation and lemme tell you that’s enough to make me shiver in fear

D: D: D:

Shit I’ve never read that, really? I tell you, I will drop this manga instantly if that means anything other than “Moonlight Boy turns out to be a trick to manipulate Guts and/or Casca or Casca sacrifices it to become an apostle and in either case the fall out is Guts going full Beast of Darkness and fighting Griffith.”

Now I want to know the exact wording. You sure he specified Guts and Griffith’s final confrontation and not just climax of the story or smthn? I s2g if the idiotic timeshare of Griffith’s body theory is the correct one I’m going to scream.

Characters you dislike/are indifferent to that the fandom loves?

I’m a little too out of touch with wider Berserk fandom to judge which characters are most popular, but I immediately thought of Schierke. She seems fairly well liked but I do not care about her in the slightest and would probably be happier if she was written out entirely. She brings nothing I enjoy to the table and adds things I dislike a lot, like maintaining Guts’ hold on his humanity, like her crush on him (plz stop), like all her interactions with Isidro, like positioning Guts as a vaguely responsible adult, etc.

Moonlight Boy of course. Again with saving Guts from succumbing to the armour, the ~hope for a future happy family~ shit, invoking Casca’s maternal feelings despite the fact that she doesn’t even have a personality rn, like you’re telling me her mind was basically wiped but she still has some intrinsic instinct for motherhood or w/e?? fuck off. I guess tbf MB isn’t exactly a character lol, but I hate what he seems to represent.

Who else is popular? Ooh, Skull Knight. I don’t hate him, but I don’t like him either, and I’m really really hoping/predicting he ends up betraying Guts. I would find that a million times more interesting than this bland mysterious protector thing he’s got going on.

I kind of want to add Judeau too. I actually do like him, but I read him v differently than most of the fandom does – like I get the sense that Berserk fandom in general sees him as the cool perceptive friend who gives good advice and wants his friends to be happy, while I see him as a dumbass ruining lives with terrible + somewhat manipulative advice because he has self-esteem issues. And I like that about him, but yk, I think he’s very flawed in a way that complements the main characters’ flaws and contributes to the big Golden Age fuck up.

So yk, I don’t hate him, but I think he’s way less admirable than most of fandom does, probably.

i love the contrast between how completely unfazed guts is when possessed naked farnese comes on to him and how much delighted he is when serpico attacks him afterwards. he even licks the blood from the scratch serpico gives him. tdlr guts is gay af

So I just re-read the chapter and damn, you’re so right. I’m half convinced it’s purposeful innuendo lol. I mean come on we start off with an ode to repressed (violent) lust, followed by possessed!Farnese grinding on Guts’ sword, followed by a joke about Serpico being a masochist (Puck pointing out his nosebleed after Farnese slaps him), followed by an exchange of glancing blows that imo reads suspiciously like a tease.

Anyway regardless of how much I wanna read into the innuendo here, Guts is objectively way more interested in Serpico than Farnese

vs

i miss guts being a sad messy edgelord who kills and endagers children and runs on like 1 hour of sleep per day and griffith having feelings and them being gay as hell and casca saying and doing coherent/relevant things and puck being a good character and the plot nor being a drag and everyone not looking like cutesy cat people and…i just miss old berserk ok. ugh

you are valid

idk i feel like looking at black swordsman/golden age as its own self contained story and the rest as bonus material of varying quality is what makes me feel better about missing old berserk lol. like yeah it’s probably never going to be as good as it was during the golden age again, at least imo since that’s my favourite part, but there’s hopefully still more stuff worth looking forward to. if you can handle the cutesy cat people. and if it all sucks from here on out, at least it can’t erase the good stuff.

(this is uh…a bit impegnative ig so feel free not to answer) how would you rate each berserk volume on a scale from 1 to 5?

tbh I love doing stuff like this so I’m on board even if this will probably take a while lol, ty for asking.

Fair warning this is long bc I included brief comments.

Volume 1: 4/5

Excellent introduction to the story, I love the Black Swordsman arc. I love the simplistic first chapter that still ends with Guts being scarier than the evil apsotle, I love the growing yet enjoyably unsubtle complexity in the 2nd chapter, it’s all good stuff.

Volume 2: 3.5/5

Still great but the Count stuff mb gets a little draggy

Volume 3: 4.5/5

Femto’s appearance! Bitter ex vibes! Unexpected emotional downer climax instead of an action packed climax! First chapter of the Golden Age! What’s not to love?

Volume 4: 5/5

This is Guts, and Berserk, in a nutshell. The way his sad childhood transitions to meeting Griffith, and informs everything about Guts’ relationship to him, it all starts here.

Volume 5: 4.5/5

This would be a 5 if only it spanned from chapter 16 to chapter 7 instead of 15 to 6. But it nearly encompasses a perfect little arc of Guts’ that is a microcosm of Berserk as a whole – Guts feeling out of place, with Griffith at a distance, followed by Griffith closing that distance and making him feel secure in his sense of belonging.

Volume 6: 4/5

Guts spends the rest of the story trying to regain what he felt in chapter 7 on that rooftop. Excellent fall from a height, but it would be slightly better if it ended on ch 15 instead of 16.

Volume 7: 4/5

It’s good shit, I mean chapter 17 is one of the best, but it loses a point for the overlong rape attempt sequence during the 100 man fight and the beginnings of Casca’s “soft side” ugh.

Volume 8: 5/5

The end of the Battle of Doldrey to the end of the 2nd duel? All that and Tombstone of Flame too? Guts’ gay monologue about Griffith? Come on, it’s just about perfect. Griffith’s dream is in reach and then Guts destroys everything just by walking away.

Volume 9: 3/5

There’s a lot of good shit here (Griffith self destructing, Guts’ first night alone, Guts flashbacking) but also a lot of flaws and personal dislikes (the misogynist writing around Griffith’s night with Charlotte, gtsca in general)

Volume 10: 4.5/5

Almost flawless. Even sparks from a sword tip, which is the best chapter out of the gtsca ones bc it hints at the inherent problems with their relationship and Guts’ dream. There’s good worldbuilding stuff with the Gaiseric story, the reunion and beginning of Guts’ rampage, some horror with Festival’s Eve… all good stuff.

Volume 11: 3.5/5

There’s a lot I genuinely really like about the Wyald chapters, but obviously there’s also a lot I really hate.

Volume 12: 5/5

This is everything good about the Eclipse. And it’s so good. So, so good. It’s a nearly perfect ending.

Volume 13: 1/5

That whiplash, man. This volume has some amazing stuff, but boy oh boy is that good content eclipsed by the rape scene. It’d be like a 0/5 if it weren’t for Casca’s two chapters with Judeau and the vow of retaliation. Boo.

Volume 14: 3.5/5

Black Swordsman Guts is back! Yay! Unfortunately we’re past the Golden Age and very few volumes are gonna hold a candle to the good Golden Age volumes. 3.5 is a high grade now. It’s solid, but it just doesn’t contain most the elements that really elevated the Golden Age imo.

Volume 15: 3.5/5

See above.

Volume 16: 2.5/5

Rosine’s death is very emotional and touching and there’s that great chapter of ghosts taunting Guts about his growing inner darkness, but overall I’m not a fan of how the Lost Children arc ends and that brings it down.

Volume 17: 2/5

There’s some stuff I like, but man, this volume has the horse rapist scene. Plus I have very mixed feelings about chapter 130 in that I like it in isolation, but it also seems to be the point where Berserk shifts from a story about an idiot muddling his way through life and fucking up a lot, to a story about a dude Doing The Right Thing Even Though It’s Hard, and I’m not a fan of that shift.

Volume 18: 2.5/5

It’s fine I guess. Nothing stands out to me here.

Volume 19: 2.5/5

See above. Honestly I have a hard time remembering which parts of the Conviction arc are which.

Volume 20: 2/5

See above, but now add a long fight scene. It has some fun elements with the campiness, but enh.

Volume 21: 2.5/5

Overlong fight scene coupled with some thematic points that I consider fucked up, but then NeoGriffith shows up and hypnotizes Guts with his ass and saves it.

Volume 22: 4/5

Hill of Swords scene!!!! “The instant I saw him I’d forgotten my urge to kill”!! Serpico and Farnese’s flashback chapters are gr8 too tbh.

Volume 23: 2.5/5

Bad shit and good shit. Fuck the sexual assault scene of course, but I’m not going to pretend I’m not a fan of the way Guts’ attraction to Griffith is barely subtext here. The NeoGriffith chapters are actually pretty great imo, lots of interesting thematic stuff and the cool apostles. Farnese’s chapter bugs me though because it crams what could’ve been like 10+ chapters of good character development into a one chapter montage. Ugh.

Volume 24: 2/5

Trolls. Some good intriguing foreshadowing too w/ Flora and Skull Knight, but ugh, the fucking troll fight.

Volume 25: 2/5

Trolls.

Volume 26: 3/5

Mostly dig the Slan scene, and the fight on Flora’s lawn is pretty good in this volume.

Volume 27: 2/5

Boo @ the protector of the branded girl shit, and the beginning of an immensely annoying repetition of Guts nearly succumbing to the armour but being pulled back at the last minute. I like the NGriff stuff, but it doesn’t save it much and the Sleeping Princess chapter isn’t one of my faves on that side of the narrative either.

Volume 28: 1.5/5

Whole lot of stuff I dislike. First appearance of moonlight boy, beach fight, Schierke being awkward in the city. The highlights are her conversation with Sonia, Skull Knight’s ominous foreshadowing warning, and the RPG group casually talking about the Band of the Hawk while Guts grits his teeth, but it’s not enough to save this volume.

Volume 29: 4/5

Chapter 250 is actually one of my favourites and does a lot to prop this up imo. But in general I also like Farnese’s chapters at the Vandimion estate.

Volume 30: 3.5/5

Farnese stabs a giant tiger in the eye with a candlestick. Also the duel between Guts and Serpico, the encounter with Owen, all good. Gets a little draggy with the fights in the city tho.

Volume 31: 3/5

Long ass fight scenes. Some good stuff, but p draggy.

Volume 32: 4/5

Guts rides Zodd into battle. I cannot say no to an enemies teaming up plot ever and this was a really fun one. Plus Guts and Griffith’s eyes meeting across distant horizons, Griffith’s first meeting with Ganeshka which I like, and Griffith showing up the nobles is a gr8 scene.

Volume 33: 3.5/5

Most of Guts’ boat trip can fuck off but there’s good ominous Beast of Darkness content here at least, and some good Farnese content. And Griffith’s side of the narrative is solid as hell.

Volume 34: 4/5

The climax to the Millenium Falcon arc is honestly fantastic imo. Good stuff good stuff. Love ascended Ganeshka, love NGriff in his Femto outfit, love apostles and humans fighting side by side, love the light and dark thematic stuff.

Volume 35: 1/5

Get me off of this fucking boat.

Volume 36: 1/5

Seriously I’m in boredom hell. There is nothing of redeeming value here.

Volume 37: 3/5

More ominous foreshadowing and Guts’ flashback chapters save this volume.

Volume 38: 3/5

There’s some great stuff here with apostles and Locus, and Rickert’s confrontation with Griffith, but overall it’s not one of my favourites. And the art is really dragging the quality down imo, like the art actively hinders my ability to emotionally engage here.

Volume 39: 1.5/5

I hate Elfhelm. Some potentially interesting worldbuilding here, but it’s only potentially interesting until I get some payoff.

Volume 40: 2/5

Casca’s back and again the art destroyed my ability to feel emotions about it, honestly it’s tragic. It’s only a 2 on potential for everything to go horribly wrong. I’m downgrading it to 0 if it doesn’t, tho tbf I’d also upgrade it if it does lol. I mean lbr this volume is gonna be what makes or breaks Berserk for me.

I feel kind of bad giving so many post-GA volumes average grades but yk, we’re judging Berserk against itself, not against other stories, and compared to the heights reached by the 5/5 volumes you gotta downgrade some of them. Like to be fair a lot of those 2.5s would be 4s if they were competing against other stories.

what would you say to someone arguing that griffith sacrificing guts is proof that in the end he cared more about his dream than he did about guts + that fact he had to sacrifice the hawks too means guts wasn’t that important to him after all?

I’d say that argument is directly and unambiguously contradicted over and over again in the story, including by Griffith himself.

image

And like, literally the last thing Griffith thinks before sacrificing Guts is that Guts is more important than his dream. That’s why he’s sacrificing him. “You’re the only one who made me forget my dream.”

The main point of the Golden Age is to hammer home the concept that Guts is more important to Griffith than the dream, and it does it over and over and over lol. Everything revolves around that fact. And the sacrifice is a really clever (imo) culmination of that theme, not a weird last-minute contradiction of it.

Also I might try to add a quick explanation of my reading of the dream, ie it’s a defense mechanism/way for Griffith to escape his feelings, both guilt and the feelings for Guts that make him vulnerable and essentially destroyed his life, “the life of the person you loved the most and hated the most! you gave it to us so that you could bury your fragile human heart!” all that jazz. Which explains why Griffith chooses his dream over Guts even though he cares about Guts more (because he cares about him more). But idk if I could manage that without writing an essay, or more likely, linking one I’ve already written lol.

Wrt the second bit, idk what the fact that he had to sacrifice the other Hawks too has to do with it, it’s pretty clear to me that Godhand sacrifices are bigger and more epic than apostle sacrifices, but Guts still gets the spotlight even though there’s 30-40 others in the group. He’s the one Griffith’s last thoughts are directed to, he’s the one Slan singles out as a particularly excellent sacrifice, he’s the one Zodd directed his “prophecy” to and even makes sure to save so he can be sacrificed later (when he threw him a sword during the battle of Doldrey), while Rosine and the Count and Wyald killed a bunch of Hawks before the Eclipse without causing any issues. He’s the one Skull Knight singles out to give a warning to. 

I like that the rest of the Hawks are included because it proves that Griffith does in fact care very much about all of them. I mean Casca’s flashback already proved that, but yk, it never hurts to underline Griffith’s capacity for caring about others, because Griffith himself downplays it as much as possible lol, to say nothing about the fandom. But I don’t think it detracts from Guts as the most important sacrifice either. He’s still above and beyond. He’s the one who caused Griffith’s behelit-opening despair, and he’s the one Griffith sacrifices to escape that despair.

Idk man, the sacrifice is like half the reason I ship griffguts, so I definitely don’t think it downplays or diminishes Griffith’s feelings for Guts in any way, imo it emphasizes how they’re front and centre as Griffith’s number one priority and central motivation in an immensely satisfying way.

Thoughts on the berserk prototype chapter? Personally I find it meh, and I can’t take guts seriously in it lol, but ngl the whole thing about vuana and guts’ mom being killed by apostles rlly fascinate me. Like the fact griffith and casca probably don’t even exist in that universe changes everything, and I often wonder what’s the full backstory behind it (also lol @ fact miura apparently recycled frikka’s design for griffith)

I like it, but not really as a story so much as well, a prototype of Berserk. Like, it’s kind of cool to see basically the first scene of chapter one again but with Frikka instead of Puck (I wonder if the anime took its cue from it actually in how it changed its opening scene). And Guts is absolutely ridiculous lol, but in a way I find entertaining. I would not get invested in this version of him, but yk it’s still cool to see an early version of him before Miura refined his character and like, made him less shallowly obnoxious. Makes me appreciate the version of Guts we got more lol.

And there’s a lot of elements that find a new place in Berserk, which is cool to see. Like Frikka kind of has some of Casca’s backstory – taken by an evil nobleman, wagon attacked by bandits, saved by someone. Her interactions with Guts also remind me of Jill a bit. And I wonder if this Guts would’ve had a backstory closer to Theresia’s, if Miura had continued. Yk, maybe sacrificed by his father, since his mother was eaten by an apostle and he has a brand.

Also I think Frikka looking kind of like Griffith is probably accidental myself, like Miura just drew feminine faces p much the exact same way for the first few years of Berserk, they just both happen to be blond. Frikka looks most like a blond Theresia to me. But speaking of reused story elements, Frikka choosing not to run away because then another girl would be taken to the sinister implied pedophilic nobleman instead does remind me a bit of Griffith’s sex with Gennon to prevent more of his soldiers from dying in battle backstory.

Plus it’s neat to see what was a part of Berserk from the start – like Guts being more monstrous than apostles when he fights was part of the point from the very beginning. Or Guts having a soft spot but denying it. And I love that Puck was part of Miura’s conception of the story from the word go too. It is kind of weird to think that Griffith and Casca and really the whole concept of the Golden Age probably weren’t there from the start, but again like it just makes me appreciate what we got in actual Berserk more.

(Last anon) Tbh I liked castlevania s1, but s2 was a disappointing snooze, and I find some of the dialogue cringy. So idrk how to feel about those news, and also about americans getting on their hands on japanese stuff lol. Then again, they’re adapting a videogame series, not a manga, so most of the plot and dialogue are probably made up. And the producer actually seems to love/respect miura’s work (he even cited the “97 anime as an inspo). Overall I’d say I’m ok with them adapting berserk

Fair enough wrt season 2, guess I’ll see how I feel when I watch it. And yeah these are v good points. It’s not exactly uncommon for american studios to adapt japanese properties, but it’s an extra thing to be wary about for sure. But yeah I remember reading an article that went into Berserk as some of the inspiration for Castlevania back when season 1 came out so finding out the producer is a big fan who’d be into adapting it wasn’t too surprising.

Idk at the end of the day it sounds more like his pipe dream than something that’s actually likely to happen any time soon, so I’m not getting my hopes or my fears up really.

What do you think of the castlevania producer wanting to adapt berserk into a new anime comicbook(.)com/anime/2018/11/17/castlevania-anime-adi-shankar-berserk-manga-adaptation-how/

tbh i’ve only seen season 1 of castlevania and based on that I am pretty neutral in that I think this dude is perfectly competent but I have no idea what aspects of the story he’d choose to emphasize or what demographic he’d cater to most etc, so I can’t really yay or nay this hypothetical adaption.

I heard season 2 is good and features more interesting characters and complexity and I have plans to watch it soonish so maybe I’ll have a better opinion then.

Though actually just on principle it would be nice to have a full adaptation of Berserk that doesn’t omit important Griffith scenes and that’s all in the same animation style, and includes the Black Swordsman arc, just for vidding purposes lol.

Godhand using Griffith’s child self to make the sacrifice and not his adult self is very telling.

Yeah. I mean to be nitpicky I think that whole vision before the sacrifice was Griffith’s own like, perception of himself that the Godhand utilized, not exaclty something they created themselves, but regardless either way I definitely agree, it’s v telling.

Like, idk it seems so perfectly illustrative of Griffith’s… like, mindset. Towards his dream and Guts too even. Like, it belies how calculated he can be, because underneath all that he’s ultimately motivated by feeling like being an overwhelmed kid on a pile of corpses, and that’s the feeling underlying the sacrifice. It adds a certain undertone of innocence to the scene that’s just so fitting imo.

Idk if you’ve been asked this before, but do you think there’s any way Miura could fit Theresia back into the story? I liked her character but I know Miura most likely won’t bring her back :/

I think it’s possible for sure, though if we do see her again my money’s on it being more of a cameo than a super relevant plot point (tho a more central role would be amazing). But especially if there’s an Elfhelm time skip it seems like there’d be plenty of room for her to show up again in the future as a Black Swordsman-esque revenge-driven adult. Maybe as a contrast to Guts’ current self, or maybe, if he’s gone darker in the interrim, as a more direct parallel/comparison. At least I know I’d love that.

Honestly Theresia is one of my favourite minor characters ngl, and I love how she’s paralleled to Guts with her refusal to die despite being suicidal, and her vow of revenge. I want to see how that experience w/ Guts affected her and what she’s like as an adult and it would be a shame if we never saw that.

Guts and Griffith at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal lol

lol i know nothing about this but looking it up and there seem to be a lot of themed mazes full of actors in makeup and prosthetics. so now i’m imagining guts and griffith both badly trying to pretend to be scared so they can cling to their strong brave bf when someone leaps out at them with a chainsaw.

or griffith immediately getting into role playing in a zombie apocalypse and guts reluctantly starting to have fun with it too

elaborate tho if you want bc idk enough about this event to say anything particularly good lol. like which attractions do you think they’d like best?

do you have any horror-ish berserk/griffguts scenarios that you like? (watching netflix castlevania has got me thinking about a berserk au, but i also like the idea of au with vampire hunter guts and vampire griffith in general. or an au of the tale of bisclavret where griffith is the king and guts the werewolf. also for some twisted reason i’m obsessed with this fanart you rb’ed time ago and the potential scenario behind it lol: bthump(.)tumblr(.)com/post/160121437199/coolfreeringtones)

i love that art lol, there’s something so much fun in the idea of Griffith killing Guts and then just losing it and keeping his corpse around and surrounding himself with images of him.

also damn i love that gay werewolf story, and it seems v fitting. you don’t even necessarily have to go au to get something griffgutsy that’s inspired by it, if you don’t mind going like extra dark lol – say guts going full beast of darkness for a while, having killed his rpg group, and in a confrontation with neogriffith ngriff keeps him instead of killing him and the beast of darkness is yk, torn enough between love and hate that for a while longing and that sense of connection are enough to keep him ‘tame.’ And maybe eventually return his fully human consciousness.

i haven’t watched season 2 yet so idk about Castlevania specifically, but vampire aus are always solid. band of the hawk au idea? Griffith as a vampire who turns volunteers, until he meets vampire hunter Guts who’s trying to kill him, and can’t resist turning him instead of killing him when they fight.

hmm and right now i’m thinking about ways to make the canon fit a more traditionally halloween-y horror vibe. Like a sad ghost story – say, Guts keeps seeing images of human Griffith during his 2-3 years blackswordsmaning before NGriff’s resurrection, and he can’t tell whether he’s losing his mind or whether it’s some residual spiritual aspect of whatever human part of him got destroyed when he became Femto, or the ghosts that haunt him fucking with him.

or i know in one of the video games there’s an apostle that creates illusions. considering all the weird and varied magic powers apostles have there’s a lot of potential there in general. an apostle that can mess with people’s minds would make a good haunted… area story, wherever it happens to live. there was kind of a haunted house vibe in the video game i think. But yk like, sending people creepy visions, or visions of their personal worst fears, either to drive them away or just to fuck with them before they get eaten. Guts could get illusions of himself turning on his friends, or corpses of the old Band haunting him, and ofc Griffith maybe being alternately threatening and vulnerable and seductive, embodying Guts’ mixed feelings.

Like I’m kind of into the idea of Guts stepping into an apostle’s territory, seeing a vision of Griffith who appears and disappears, whispers in his ear and makes him jump and futilely swing at him, taunts him, brushes an insubstantial finger over his brand. maybe sometimes appears as a savaged corpse like how he’d look if the beast of darkness tore him apart, or femto, or post-torture Griffith, etc. That would be a lot of fun to play around with tbh.

and to go more actual like, monster au, i’m kind of partial to griffith as a siren. maybe with glamour, so he looks beautiful but underneath he’s got more of a monstrous bird thing going on. i mean that’s neogriffith and femto right there. and i can’t not associate guts with werewolves, that’s just obvious. So either of those would make a decent monster AU (both might be overkill lol). Siren Griffith who entrances people into following him, whether purposefully or not, and finds himself enthralled in turn by Guts. Or werewolf Guts who joins Griffith and fights for him, loyal and devoted and violent and bloodthirsty, and strikes fear into his enemies lol.

idk that’s about all i got for now. but if anyone else has any good horror ideas plz add to this. it’s halloween after all.

Do you ever think about how miura pulled the magic healing cock trope but with pussy lol? Like guts had sex with casca once and his csa trauma disappeared just like that

yeah that is such a huge issue i have with like, everything post eclipse.

i mean i feel like, idk there are a few moments that suggest that rather than just fixing guts’ trauma and then immediately replacing it with eclipse trauma, it’s more that the eclipse echoed his childhood trauma and compounded it. i feel like that might’ve been miura’s intent even. eg:

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And it absolutely was his clear intent during the Black Swordsman arc. But I feel like Miura let this just kind of, like, fall to the wayside, and totally failed to follow through on this idea through actual characterization, instead deciding to completely downplay Guts’ actual personal trauma.

Like there are so many moments that by rights should’ve referenced Guts’ csa trauma that glaringly ignored it. A big one I’m thinking of is when Guts assaults Casca. Like come on, he had a violent flashback during consensual sex with her and you’re telling me it’s not even on his mind after nearly raping her? Or maybe yk at some point during that arc right after the Eclipse that was all about child abuse and Guts becoming a monster. Or maybe during the actual Eclipse itself. At least show us that paralyzing fear that was strongly implied during the Black Swordsman arc instead of boring one dimensional outrage.

So yeah basically idk, I p much agree. It sucks.

what are the things you like and dislike about the ’97 anime and the films?

ty for asking, i’m just gonna write a few long lists lol

97 anime likes:

  • the animation, including the like, yk the more detailed stills they pan over in place of action or to punctuate important moments, i love it
  • the gorgeous backgrounds
  • most of the colour choices. red eclipse, femto’s blue eyes, casca’s skintone, griffith’s mauve clothes, etc.
  • how close it is to the manga. like, it’s a solid adaption just by virtue of making very few changes.
  • so like, most of it really, because i like the manga
  • special mention to the entire lead up to the eclipse from griffith’s reality break to the sacrifice tho, because i think that was all pretty damn perfect. it’s the most important scene and they did it right.
  • actually also shout out to casca’s flashback to griffith and the dead kid, gennon, the river scene, all that. another difficult v emotional sequence that they nailed imo.
  • griffith thinking about how he “loves” guts during the monologue
  • skipped most of the griffith/charlotte sex scene iirc which i approve of
  • the glimpse of black swordsman guts in ep 1. it’s not perfect but it’s way better than the ovas starting w/ 15 yr old guts
  • the opening and closing themes. fucking love both songs ngl
  • also the opening monologue. never get tired of hearing it
  • the score
  • the portrayal of griffith was honestly pretty solid imo. i have very few issues there. and lbr that’s important lol

97 anime dislikes:

  • not a big fan of griffith or guts’ character designs.
  • just about everything that isn’t identical to the manga is a change for the worse
  • turned griffith’s scratch marks into that giant unexplained scar
  • adding extra scenes where casca is secretly impressed with guts’ skills in battle in an attempt to build up their relationship better, which instead just made casca look unfair for still being a dick to him for 3 years and made guts stupidly gary stu-ish
  • obviously the straightforwardly romantic portrayal of guts and casca’s relationship
  • through several seemingly minor changes (eg, skipping guts’ night of self-doubt after he leaves, giving guts’ stay with godo its own half-episode, making guts inviting casca along super romantic rather than the incredibly casual and assholish way he does it in the manga, etc) it makes Guts’ dream seem legitimately noble and worthwhile, with none of the like… implicit critique the manga has. like honestly it completely fucks up what i consider one of the central themes of the story lol
  • the pre eclipse stuff also fails to sell guts’ sense of regret – through things like playing guts’ theme while judeau is telling guts to leave, not repeating guts’ statement of regret after casca tells him to leave again, the tone remains consistently in favour of guts’ dream. wrong and bad.
  • like it really reads like the suggested tragedy is that guts doesn’t get the chance to ditch griffith with judeau and take off with casca and the raiders lol
  • also fucks it up by never directly mentioning guts’ csa trauma
  • also fucks it up by losing guts’ self-destructive single-minded urge to fight monsters that we saw thru the wyald stuff. i’m not gonna say that losing wyald was a bad decision, but they should’ve at least moved erika suggesting that guts just wants to fight zodd again to the fucking waterfall scene in question, which they portrayed completely sans zodd discussion, completely sans implication of the self-destructiveness of guts’ dream
  • like in the manga he nearly gets killed by the falling logs and just laughs it off like a dumbass while erika is concerned and suggests that guts is driven by something irrational and not actually a ~noble~ dream, ie, wanting to fight zodd again (ie, going deeper, his csa trauma), while in the anime we get a 2nd scene where he successfully slices through the logs as a super basic symbol of growth and a narrative pat on guts’ back that shouldn’t be there!
  • honestly just fucking everything about the portrayal of guts’ dream lol it just takes it at face value in a way the manga consistently never did and always undermined and critiqued, and it bugs the hell out of me.
  • guts is just drawn in a way that makes him look angry way too often and he often feels ooc to me bc of it. like he lacks a lot of the warmth he has in the manga imo
  • showing that griffith is awake when guts says “i’ll stay too” even tho in the manga those words are placed over a panel of him asleep for a reason like, ffs
  • lots of other random nitpicky details that only i give a fuck about because my opinions and feelings about the story are too strong lol. like not showing griffith’s face when he asks if guts thinks he’s cruel
  • oh huge one: moving the scene where the torturer rips off griffith’s behelit from about a day after he was imprisoned to right before his rescue. completely trivializes griffith’s torture because it still looks like he’s been in there for a day at most
  • why on earth did it end where it ended????????????? who’s bright idea was that? the perfect ending is skull knight riding tf out with guts and casca and femto not killing them, but then they also cut out skull knight’s first appearance so idfk man.
  • oh some downplaying of griffguts, like i can’t complain too much about this because it was still p homoerotic, but things like omitting guts assuming griffith wants to fuck him right before their first duel. boo.

ultimately at the end of the day as much as i do genuinely like the anime, it’s not telling quite the same story the manga was – the story it’s telling is more boring and basic. but because it sticks so close to the manga the good story still shines through? it just means there’s inconsistent tone choices and stuff, like the aforementioned grievances.

it’s like, they kept casca’s diatribe at guts line for line while she’s screaming that griffith needed him and a man can’t live on dreams alone, but they don’t extend that train of thought to guts going off to pursue his dream, while the manga does.

anyway despite that giant list of dislikes i still think the anime is pretty fantastic overall. i just also like, blame it for a lot of wrong fandom takes lol.

movie likes:

  • character designs! honestly imo everyone looked pretty great.
  • they played up the homoeroticism and i appreciate that
  • illustrating griffith being torn between guts and his dream through that lovely moment when he catches guts when he nearly falls off the stairs right before he catches charlotte, and in a more romantically suggestive way
  • the whole scene where griffith shows up at charlotte’s window thoroughly improved on the manga, so hats off there. loved how completely out of it he was to the point where he barely realized where he was and immediately turned to leave when charlotte was like ‘woah dude wtf,’ love that charlotte was the one to ask him to stay and then physically move his hand back to her tit, love how emphatically griffith was thinking about guts during that sex scene, etc. like it’s still not perfect, but it is a vast improvement.
  • griffith showing up in person after the hundred man fight was a nice touch
  • it was cool that they got a lot of the same english vas from the anime dub back, and they all did a gr8 job. like it’s a pretty good dub imo.
  • i liked that they moved ‘the crystalization of your last tear shed’ to after guts’ post-eclipse breakdown
  • compared to the anime at least gtsca was more low-key and chill rather than dramatically romantic. still don’t want it there, and still not as… unromantic as the manga, but i’ll take what i can get
  • the animation during griffith’s transformation into femto, yk that whole sequence, was cool
  • slan’s english voice was super sexy
  • ummmmm i feel like they conveyed the whole dreams are stupid theme, and guts’ decision to leave being a mistake, better than the anime? like i got the sense that the ova ppl recognized that was a theme, at least. i’d have to watch them again to really be sure of that tho

movie dislikes:

  • GRIFFITH’S. NARRATIVE.
  • like holy fuck they completely destroyed his character lmao
  • i cannot believe
  • no backstory! no tombstone of flame! no ‘do you think i’m cruel?’ THAT WAS THE REASON HE MADE THE SACRIFICE FFS HOW DO YOU SKIP IT????
  • no dead kid angst, gennon only in vague implication, no self harm – oh no wait we saw self inflicted scratches, they were just completely contextless and meaningless to the point where we could assume charlotte’s nails made them
  • no torture chamber monologue
  • no guts monologue in the tavern either for that matter
  • no rooftop scene
  • again barely the implication of guts’ childhood trauma, both the sexual abuse and the general parental abuse. one vague flashbacky nightmare doesn’t cut it, it’s the cornerstone of the story
  • like i get it, it’s a movie trilogy, you have to cut some things, but goddamn, cut out gtsca. trim the hundred man fight. add 20 minutes to the first ova and take the insanely long rape scene out of the third. trim down the whole eclipse sequence. don’t cut out like… the story. like they cut out SO MANY emotionally relevant scenes and kept so many much less relevant scenes, idek.
  • and like let’s be real here, they turned griffith from an immensely interesting and complex character into a 1 dimensional dude who is torn between a vaguely evil ambition and being in vaguely evil love with guts, just for the sake of streamlining the least interesting aspects of the story
  • they don’t even try to pretend otherwise lol, look at his fucking hilarious evil smile here
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  • also while i’m looking at it, in general i think they failed at the whole eclipse sequence. looks, lighting, colour, build up of tension… there are a few minor improvements here and there (eg casca’s point of view shot of femto, femto telekinesising guts back a la the black swordsman arc which emphasizes his failure to act when he escapes), but overall it doesn’t work for me at all. like imo the anime has the exact same highs and lows as the manga, but while the ova avoids some lows it never reaches those highs.
  • they also had griffith overhear guts saying he wants to stay. i really don’t get why this happened twice lol, like… ok his face is kind of shadowed here but he’s still very clearly asleep? this is an important detail, guts’ interrupted words are even on that very panel, so why would you go out of your way to show that he’s awake and listening at that point.
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  • the pacing sucked. 3rd movie was too long, 1st was too short, and they skipped waaaaaay too many significant scenes that should’ve been there as emotional beats
  • honestly the movies are pretty, they’re nicely fanservicey in ways, they capture some good subtleties and nuances at times, but they’re a husk of the story
  • oh did i mention the music during the eclipse rape? incredible.

also i am actually generally positive about the movies too despite what it seems like here lmao. i’ve watched them all like, 3 or more times and i find them v enjoyable.

i just have a way easier time listing nitpicky flaws than positives honestly. the flaws stand out to me, the virtues pass me by because i’m just enjoying them and not dwelling on them

and lbr here at the end of the day no adaption will ever really satisfy me unless i somehow find several million dollars lying around and make my own lol. and that would probably be a flop anyway.

I remember when Casca told Guts to go without her and to abandon her and Griffith. Do you think it is foreshadowing anything?

hmmmmm yeah in a way I’d say so.

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cut to

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It is kind of an additional little suggestion that Black Swordsman Guts is in fact pursuing his dream, and is still motivated by his desire to be Griffith’s friend and equal, and have his attention on him (in yk kind of a fucked up way Guts doesn’t really acknowledge to himself). He does go off alone to fight stronger and stronger enemies, leaving Casca behind, and in the Lost Children arc especially the risk of Guts becoming a monster himself and joining Griffith again that way comes to the forefront.

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And in general it fits nicely with the sense that Guts leaving people and doing his own thing is bad shit, and Guts staying with people who need him is positive and good. Casca’s encouragement is misguided, leads to the Eclipse, and ironically fits Guts’ dumb actions post-Eclipse.

So yeah I’d call it forshadowing for Guts leaving Casca behind in the cave to pursue a version of his dream.

top 10 things you want to see happen in the manga?

ooh tough call. do they have to be plausible?

I’m gonna go in order from least to most likely I guess lol.

10. Guts has a sex dream about Griffith, fully canonizing his attraction.

9. Guts and Griffith admit they were and still are in love with each other, at least to themselves, and realize how hard they both fucked up their potential, and die together in mutual regret after a dramatic kiss and stab.

8. Guts kills Isidro in a berserk armour rage. Also like, Magnifico,
mermaid girl, Roderick, and also I’d add Schierke and her elf too. Maybe even Puck just to hammer home the point lol, just like, off half the
rpg group. Mini eclipse starring Guts going past his point of no return. And since this is already v implausible, it leads to an ending where Guts and Griffith do the not-so-different thing and get back together.

7. Guts doesn’t go Beast of Darkness due to Casca – not her dying (god forbid), not her going apostle, not her rejecting him, Casca just doesn’t figure into Guts losing himself to darkness regardless of what she does. Instead, Griffith comes to Elfhelm, and Guts goes Beast of Darkness during some kind of emotional confrontation with him.

6. Guts and Griffith drag each other to hell upon their deaths where they ~become one~ like lbr they’ve always wanted. also as an ironic call-back to their equality thing.

5. Schierke’s guardian spirit elemental beings and the Godhand are connected + aspects of the same shit, good and evil are two sides of the same human coin, and the Idea of Evil is not evil in and of itself, it’s simply fulfilling humanity’s wishes. Yk there’s no good spirit world vs evil spirit world, it’s all the same stuff it just looks good or evil depending on what you’re calling on them for and your perspective, because humanity contains multitudes.

4. The behelit opens, Casca makes a sacrifice, goes apostle, and gets to drive the narrative. Relatedly, there are griffguts parallels between apostle Casca and Farnese. Similarly to Rosine/Jill.

3. Danann, and Skull Knight, are using Guts and Casca in a plot against the Godhand, turn out to be giant dicks and Elfhelm in general becomes an antagonist. Also Moonlight Boy was a manipulation on Danann’s part. (And less plausible but along with that, when Griffith shows up at Elfhelm it’s right at the point where the audience, and Guts, wants to see someone fuck Elfhelm up, cleverly complicating the whole protagonist/antagonist scenario.)

2. Casca kills NGriff, probably while NGriff is having a breakdown after killing Guts.

1. Griffith does something stupid and irrational for Guts’ sake once again.

Bonus 0: the fetus is at least mostly a red herring and had nothing to do with Griffith’s heart beating when he watched Guts fight Zodd.

Quick question what are all the cited inspirations for Berserk?

From what I’ve seen myself in interviews I’ve read, Go Nagai (probably Devilman in particular wrt plot and characters, maybe Violence Jack too which I’ve seen other people cite specifically, and I’d suggest his art style in general), Rose of Versailles, Fist of the North Star, Guin Saga, Kaze to Ki no Uta, 80s Rutger Hauer films (lots of fans figure Ladyhawke in particular tho idk if he ever specified, there are a lot of similarities tho afaik), Disney movies (Puck = Jimminy Cricket lol).

Also I’ve seen ppl mention Pygmalio, Star Wars (which seems p obvious considering the Millenium Falcon shout out), Hellraiser, and Cho Aniki (referenced in the names Adon and Samson according to the dh translator lol. apparently there are a lot of little references like that even beyond like, puck’s obvious jokey refs, most of which i’m sure i’ll never know.)

There’s more on his tv tropes page and most seem legit, but ofc take it with a grain of salt bc it’s tv tropes.

Anyway saying half his inspirations were gay was a humorous exaggeration but there is a p significant chunk of gay and/or griffguts-y material there.

have you ever read kaze to ki no uta? it’s a shounen ai/shoujo manga that miura cited as an inspiration for berserk and the two protags and their relationship are reminescent of griffith and guts (also how hilarious it is that people keep denying the homosexual tones in griffith and guts’ relationship when this is a thing)

I read like the first few chapters before the site i was using fucked up and i didn’t go back to it, but mb i should. i’ve heard it’s only partially translated or smthn, which is why i just gave up, tho i could be wrong about that or it could be outdated info.

anyway yeah i can definitely see how it may have partly inspired berserk. i didn’t see enough of the protags’ relationship to really judge similarities there (though wouldn’t surprise me at all if there are some), but the whole concept of csa trauma influencing your life and fucking up your relationships is a p big thing in Berserk, and it seems like the main point of ktknu.

and lol i swear like half the stuff miura cites as an influence is textually gay. just one more reason i can’t believe the homoerotic overtones aren’t deliberate.