yeah I completely agree! She even specifically mentioned that Casca was afraid of Guts before the whole dream thing. Which is why I’m clinging to my theory that Danann sent Casca to see Guts with the intention of triggering her.
Like I mean, come on, right? Danann’s like, Guts you can’t join them in her dreams because I sense that she has a strong fear of you that would impede the ritual. Then as soon as Casca wakes up she’s putting her in a romantic dress and sending her on a happy reunion, which immediately turns dark when Casca sees Guts and starts having flashbacks. Oh no who could have forseen this outcome? Well, Danann.
like straight up it’s either purposeful or it’s v sloppy writing imo.
Ok like, to start, Griffith’s heart starts beating when he watches Guts square off against Zodd.
Which imo is very reminiscent of the very first time he saw Guts, after he took Basuzo out.
Guts fighting Zodd on the Hill of Swords is a demonstration of the very first thing that enchanted Griffith lol.
Guts fighting Zodd specifically also has this particular relevance to Griffith’s feelings:
Their first encounter with him was all about Griffith’s irrational feelings for Guts. It kind of feels right for those feelings to hit Griffith again during another encounter with Zodd, even if he’s now on the opposite side.
So yeah I absolutely think NeoGriffith is lying his ass off to himself when he blames his feelings on the fetus lol. If I was Miura I might even go the same route – like you can’t have inarguable proof that Griffith’s feelings for Guts still exist if you’re going to be coy and ambiguous about NeoGriffith’s emotional state for the next 150 chapters. You need a narrative scapegoat to keep things ambiguous.
And lbr it’s extremely in character for Griffith to deny his feelings lmao. Like, it would be out of character if he didn’t find an excuse.
And at the same time if it turns out Griffith’s right and those are the fetus’ feelings then… it will just be mind-bogglingly, soul destroyingly bad writing lmfao. I can’t handle the concept of a writer spending 70 chapters dedicated to showing how Griffith is torn between his dream and his feelings for Guts, having those feelings completely drive the plot and making them the central point of the whole Golden Age, having the climactic sacrifice be Griffith’s attempt to escape those feelings, reintroducing Griffith as an emotionless shell of who he used to be, then dramatically suggesting that those feelings may still be there… only to have Griffith’s beating heart be a total coincidence and his residual feelings for Guts be the totally unrelated feelings of a fetus instead lmao.
Even NGriff blaming the fetus for saving Casca seems unnecessary to me, like I’d believe that if some of original Griffith’s emotions survived the transition to NGriff then he would also automatically move to save Casca, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that specifically is a legit fetus-related thing. I mean Miura’s going somewhere with the fetus lol so w/e maybe it’s somewhat relevant, but I just can’t believe it’s relevant to NGriff’s feelings for Guts.
Yeah like imo I don’t think it’s really in question, there’s so much creepy suggestivity there. tbh, and I’ve talked about this before lol so I’m not going to go on another long ramble about it but in brief, I think the real question is why is it only implicitly discussed and not explicitly discussed? I mean it’s not like Miura has ever shied away from sexual assault before in image or in dialogue lol. Griffith’s got the distinction of being I think the only character who gets assaulted in subtext instead of text.
One could argue that it’s not overly relevant since in the face of a year of torture Griffith’s going to be fucked up no matter what specifically happened, but if that’s the case, why hint at it at all w/ the tongue licking and the husband and wife comment and the fairly prominently featured gynecological tool and the fixation on beauty? Miura kinda missed his shot if he was aiming for classy understatement lmao.
Anyway idk I think it’s a major writing misstep personally.
Yeah he rly is drawn in a v extra overly beautiful way. Though I think this is more Miura’s art style changing, rather than an in-universe change, mostly because of this:
I think NGriff is probably more perfect looking than human Griff, like if you took human Griffith on the best looking day of his life and gave him that perfection all the time, but I don’t think any of his features or anything have changed, even if Miura draws them slightly different – like curlier hair eg.
anyway, i am just rambling now but it is such a relief to see someone
closely examine b/erserk’s deeply problematic storytelling. going on the
usual forums like reddit shows that people will bend over backwards to
deny that griffith or guts ever had feelings for the other, and more
than anything i loathe that miura’s cheap pornographic rape scene makes
it that much easier for them to hate a character that, let’s be real,
they would have loved to hate regardless
i’m dying this is so nice and lovely and thank you for sending this you made my day <333 (also yeah ikwym about enjoying media bc of fan meta lol, it’s a big part of what i love about fandom, and I’m super glad you enjoy mine!)
And wrt the second part yeah it’s like, so frustrating. and lol you hit the nail on the head, the eclipse rape really just gives most of them an excuse to be self-righteous and holier-than-thou about hating a character they already hated.
Thank you! and omg I am stoked that you got into griffguts after reading my meta, I’m grinning ridiculously rn lol ty for telling me this.
And yeah for sure! I rarely read fics that aren’t recced to me myself lol so even tho it’s a small fandom I def haven’t read everything, but here are a few I rly enjoyed:
and i have a fic tag for fic on tumblr which is worth a look
also probably anything else berserk-related these authors have written, though I haven’t read it all myself bc the less fic there is for a ship the more I want to indefinitely save some to read later lol
lol ty! not so much meta as headcanon, but it’s fun to think about. and yeah like that’s another angle to explore too, though not one I was really thinking of. It’s a bit dark for fun porn, though if you want to go depressing and psychological it’s there.
Yeah I think this is a pretty common conception of Griffith tbh. I’m not sure exactly why you feel this way, but I’ve seen lots of people taking it as read that he’s like, power-obsessed, or a control freak, and that impacts how they see his character.
But I don’t see that at all tbh. I’m going to like, rly briefly summarize how I feel, bc I have a lot of long versions that expand on these points (eg here and here and ofc here if you want the nearly thesis length take lol) if you want more explanation.
Basically Griffith wants power for a reason. He doesn’t want power for the sake of power, he wants power to achieve a goal, a goal that he feels he needs to achieve because of guilt.
A significant aspect of Griffith’s narrative is about how being a leader, being responsible for lives, being distant from everyone who follows him so he can maintain an image, etc, is a burden that takes a huge emotional toll on him.
Griffith is kind of trapped in this paradigm of control and being controlled. He has to be in control for the sake of his dream, in control of himself, in control of others as a leader, but again like, a big point of his narrative is that it’s a burden on him, and at least subconsciously, he wants out. Being a leader who always has to portray the correct image isolates him, being responsible for lives lost fills him with guilt, and he’s stuck because his entire sense of worth revolves around achieving his dream.
And by being controlled I’m referring to the way fate absolves him of guilt, and how he learns it was his destiny and everything he’s ever done was puppeteered by God and he’s nothing more than a pawn, etc. This holds true even as Femto and NeoGriffith, kind of ironically – at his most powerful he is aware that he has no control at all. Like, most of NeoGriffith’s apparent powers seem to be just this intrinsic knowledge that whatever he wants to do is what he’s destined to do, and therefore he can’t be harmed or stopped or prevented from doing what he wants.
(There’s probably also something to be said about Griffith’s powerlessness post-torture, but idk that basically boils down to Griffith still being responsible for that mountain of corpses, but not having the power to follow through and justify it. control vs no power, vs say ngriff’s power but no control. idk this is too long already lol, vague musing on that is enough for now.)
Umm okay to get back to my point, basically imo Griffith is kind of pushed and pulled between the burden of having too much control and the paradoxical freedom of having no control, and his desire for an equal seems to me to be like, an escape from these two extremes. Someone whose life he doesn’t control, who pursues their own reason for being, who Griffith can’t order to their death, who Griffith doesn’t have to wear a mask for – and someone who would fight him if their dreams ever clashed. Valuable as a friend and as an enemy as someone independent of him, who he has no power over and who has no power over him – or who they each have an equal amount of emotional power over.
Lol okay this was all very theme-y rather than based on characterization. So as for like, actual depictions of Griffith wanting Guts as an equal, you have moments like asking him to kill Julius rather than ordering him, the water fight, “it’s funny… you’re the first person I’ve ever spoken to like this” after explaining his thoughts on fate and wanting to know what he’s destined for, “do you think that I’m cruel?”, refusing to rein him in during battle to Casca’s consternation, reminiscing fondly on the duel he almost lost, risking his life and dream for Guts, basically his emotional dependence on him in general.
And wrt his tantrum when Guts leaves, often cited as Griffith’s control-freakiness at work lol, it’s actually another instance of Griffith wanting Guts as an equal, but compilcated by knowing that the reality of their relationship is that Griffith is Guts’ boss, and moreover, he won his loyalty in a fight. He has a breakdown because he sees Guts leaving as a rejection and a statement on their entire relationship – he thinks Guts only stayed with him because Griffith won that duel, and it horrifies him and affirms his belief that he’s cruel, but also narrows his options down to “let him go or win him in another duel” lol, when what he actually wants is for Guts to choose to stay because he wants to stay. (Again, I’ve written about this at great length here if you want more evidence for this reading.)
so that wasn’t as short as I was hoping it would be lmao. But yeah basically the way I see Griffith is that being in control is a burden to him, and he wants an equal/friend because he wants someone whose life he doesn’t control to know him and freely choose him, not as a figurehead but as a person. And he wanted that someone to be Guts.
I’ve probably touched on it before but hell if I can remember where or
how much lol, and I like talking about this so I’ll totally share my
thoughts here.
I think the main reason, which I generally come back to, is because Guts doesn’t treat Griffith with the same awe and reverence the rest of the Hawks tend to treat him with.
Their relationship is very wrapped up in power dynamics – Guts joining the Hawks after losing a duel to him, Guts feeling inadequate after Promrose, Griffith stuck on a pedestal wanting someone to share in the aspects of his rise to power that he feels he has to keep hidden from the rest of the Hawks, Griffith proclaiming none of the Hawks are his friends because they aren’t his equals, “how long ago did someone I was supposed to have in hand… instead gain such a strong hold on me?”, Guts internally waxing poetic about how untouchable and perfect Griffith is until remembering moments where Griffith was extremely vulnerable w/ him, etc etc.
This is a moment when they both felt like they were equals. “Now we’re even.” Just two kids having a water fight.
Griffith distances himself shortly after this with his speech about his dream, but I feel like it kind of encapsulates them. There are all these artificial power dynamics standing in their way – leader/soldier, dude with a dream/dude without a dream, griffith trying to maintain an image/guts buying into that image after overhearing the Promrose speech – but at their core they’re just two people who have a strong connection.
This shows through when Guts treats Griffith’s orders as suggestions and gets chewed out by Casca, when Griffith asks him to assassinate Julius like a favour rather than an order, when Griffith risks his life and dream for Guts, when Griffith asks if Guts thinks he’s cruel, when Guts says Griffith can take off the mask since it’s just the two of them, etc. All these little glimpses of equality that can never last – and every time they fall by the wayside in favour of reinforcing the power dynamics, it leads to tragedy.
Like
But someone has to win the duel they insist on fighting.
lol I think I kinda veered off topic. But basically Guts is the one person who comes closest to treating Griffith as a person rather than a figurehead, and this marks their relationship as different, and brings them closer than Griffith is with anyone else. It’s why Guts is the person Griffith chooses to help assassinate people. You can even see this in Guts’ decision to leave – Casca hears the speech too and pretty much resigns herself to playing second fiddle, but Guts decides to do whatever it takes to become Griffith’s equal, misguided as his reasoning was.
Yk, rather than upholding the artificial dream criteria of equality, ignore it and recognize that it’s just getting in the way of actual equality.
Buuuut that explains like, why Griffith came to rely so heavily on Guts, and let him be the only person to see underneath the mask of perfection. It doesn’t explain why he was so drawn to Guts in the first place, or why he risked his life to save him the very first time, after only knowing him like a week.
Honestly idk lol. I think this was partially meant to be a little ironic, coming right after the Black Swordsman arc – showing that what fascinates Griffith about Guts is exactly those qualities Guts embodies to an extreme extent as the Black Swordsman, and which Femto claimed to have no interest in.
Overall I think it’s definitely the case that Griffith is enamoured of these traits of Guts’ – his stubbornness, his willingness to do anything to win, the way he faces danger head on, etc. I’m not entirely sure what that says about Griffith though, or even if it’s intended to reflect on Griffith’s character beyond that irony of how Guts is at his most “interesting” by this criteria when he’s Griffith’s enemy.
Though…
I wonder if it still kind of comes back to that equality.
The fight Griffith reminisces fondly about is the one where he got punched in the face and nearly lost because the other dude bit his fucking sword and pushed him off a hill lol.
Like it kind of comes down to Griffith being knocked off his pedestal, and Guts having the ability to do that?
Ooooh and that makes the second duel really interesting. Guts is the only person Griffith has lost a fight to, and that maybe straight up symbolizes his love. Like Guts walked away after demonstrating exactly what Griffith loves most about him.
Idk lol this has kind of devolved into me just like musing outloud, sorry.
And actually I do know I talked about the whole equality thing more here (this is the 2nd part of a very long analysis lol) if you feel like reading more of my thoughts on that lol. I kind of want to sit down and think about how the duels and Guts’ “struggler” thing fit in more now lol.
Anyway ty for the question and comments, and I hope you had a lovely day when you sent this lol, and are having another lovely day now!
I’m gonna block you, which is why I capped this message instead of responding directly, but I do actually want to take a sec and answer your questions first lol, because hey it’s an excuse to talk about this shit, responding to these basic attempts at takedowns can occasionally be useful as validation for other shippers lol, and the first one is actually kinda worth discussing.
first question
Guts and Griffith both ended up opening up to Casca about their respective traumas because she happened to be there at a point when they were both particularly vulnerable.
Guts didn’t sit down with Casca and consciously decide to tell her his life story, Guts had a violent flashback during sex, strangled Casca, and then rambled about his childhood in a daze while hardly even noticing she was in front of him until she touched him and he jumped and realized what he’d just said and done.
If he’d been hitting Griffith from behind instead of Casca the exact same thing probably would’ve happened.
And if Guts had been around back then and happened upon Griffith in the river after seeing him with Gennon the previous night, the exact same thing probably would’ve happened then too, give or take Guts’ response to the “am I dirty” question.
And neither of these dudes would’ve brought these subjects up without a catalyst to anyone, including each other. Griffith because he’s repressed about it, and Guts because it wouldn’t even occur to him as something worth sharing until he’s mid-flashback.
And Griffith did have an equivalent conversation with Guts, when he asked, “do you think that I’m cruel?” That also had a catalyst, ie, they just carried out some assassinations together, but it was just as vulnerable and intimate a question as Griffith’s “am I dirty?” to Casca.
So basically the answer is: just because Guts has never had a flashback in front of Griffith doesn’t mean he’s not comfortable with him.
second question
well for a start, here are a few:
Also the entirety of the Count’s backstory in chapter 7. And a bunch of panels I skipped because I’m lazy and I’ve already posted a million collections of Gay Berserk Moments.
third question
he hasn’t chosen to sleep with a man bc a) trauma, b) he doesn’t even consciously recognize his own feelings for griffith, his subconscious beast of darkness is the one telling him he’s longing for him etc, c) even if he did figure it out during the golden age he doesn’t think he’s worthy of griffith lol there’s a whole arc about that, d) he’s only had sex twice in his life give him a chance, e) most relevantly, he’s the protagonist of a story in a seinen mag written by and for presumably hetero men.
Oh man I’ve been harping on about Casca using the behelit for a while now, and that’s still my hope.
I think it’s actually relatively plausible as of the most recent chapter (I laid out a theory here) but what I’m less certain about is whether she’ll actually make a sacrifice and go apostle. That’s what I’m gunning for, but I think there’s also a good chance that either a) she’ll be talked down thru the power of love and friendship and I’ll be very disappointed, or b) Skull Knight will put his plan into action before she even gets a chance to decide and “conveniently” cut things short.
Never even considered Charlotte as a possibility. I think it’s unlikely since first she’d have to get the behelit, and her and Guts’ storylines haven’t intersected since the rescue mission. Plus her sacrifice would inevitably have to be NGriff, and NGriff being a sacrifice would be super interesting but if anyone’s gonna sacrifice him I want it to be Guts.
hooo boy ok long story short, it’s a coping mechanism. I personally think it’s likely it started out as childish whimsy, and when people started dying to achieve it (he became a mercenary leader when he was still a kid) it became an absolutely necessary goal because those deaths would only be justified if he achieved it.
I also think it’s possible that it just straight up started out as a coping mechanism, a dream of a paradise where he has the power to make whatever changes he wants to the world, to fix whatever plagued him as a child – poverty, nobles abusing their power, lives being bought and sold, whatever. Either way, the guilt as motivation came afterwards, and then consumed him.
It’s all there in his monologue to Casca in the river. I think Miura actually did a great job of fleshing his dream out, but it is largely between the lines, rarely outright stated.
like here we learn that people dying for money, on the whims of those more powerful than them, bothers him:
Here we find out that he has let himself be bought and sold for the sake of saving as many lives as he could, showing us that he has a personal stake in why people’s lives being treated as commodities and subject to the whims of nobility bothers him:
Here we find out that he feels like he has to achieve his dream for the sake of the dead:
Here we see the kingdom directly depicted as an escape from the darkness of the real world:
Here we find out that he wanted to do something, change something, with the power of the throne (the monster is war):
And knowing what we know about Griffith’s feelings of guilt, his disgust at nobility, and what Falconia ends up looking like, it’s reasonable to conclude that he wanted to have the power to carve out a place where people aren’t exploited by those more powerful than them.
And, as an aside, it’s largely talked about in a selfish and dark way because Griffith himself denies this deeper meaning. It’s personal, it’s vulnerable, it doesn’t fit the image of the perfect leader of the Hawks, and therefore we only see glimpses of how he really feels in his more vulnerable moments. He frames it to himself as just something he wants just for the sake of wanting something, because it’s noble to have a goal, but we’re shown enough glimpses through that misleading and shallow explanation to figure out the truth – that it’s a coping mechanism born out of guilt with a side of a deep-seated desire for a safe place where people are treated equally.
If you want the long version, I wrote this a little while ago:
speaking for myself I’m very done w/ reactions to rape in berserk that take away entire characters so I hope this doesn’t happen. losing casca for 20 years was enough, I don’t want to lose charlotte too from just hearing about it lol.
and ngl the last thing I want to see is Miura depicting Charlotte learning about Femto raping Casca. Learning NGriff is actually a demon now has potential, adding Charlotte trying to deal with her fiance/husband/whatever having raped someone is way too real and I don’t trust Miura an iota with that kind of character conflict considering how he’s handled the fallout of the eclipse rape so far.
Like I think it’s a little ridiculous that the Count got a chance to make two sacrifices, and it’s probably a case of early installment weirdness bc I don’t think that actually makes sense wrt what we know about how sacrifices work (like what was going to happen if the Count did sacrifice Theresia? He’s already one of the more powerful apostles we’ve seen)
But I do think it’s definitely meaningful that the Count falls into despair, and not just an accidental contradiction lol. The further on we go the more depth apostles get, from pure evil snakeman to three dimensional count who still has loved ones to sympathetic rosine to zodd and irvine getting the same thematic inner beast vs man stuff guts gets.
Not to mention Femto letting Guts escape, and lbr I know we’re all hoping this is going to come full circle wrt NeoGriffith.
Well I would love to see a terrifyingly vicious Casca. I don’t think it would rly make sense for her to have ptsd flashbacks as a fighting aid (then again what about Casca’s trauma does make sense? bc yeah that did happen once in canon lol so like w/e) but yk just generally channeling three years worth of repressed rage into violence would be extremely satisfying.
I’d never heard it before now, but yeah I get what you mean. Some of the lines def give me kind of a Griffith right before he starts the transformation into Femto vibe.
Well I mean it still could be either, the point is that it’s ambiguous – we see Locus’ extremely negative reaction to Rickert slapping Griffith to hint towards him – I just think there’s positive aspects in either Griffith or Locus sending Raksas after Rickert.
And I’m sorry I can’t really parse the rest of your message tbh, I’m not sure if you’re asking me if Femto is the real Griffith or if you’re just explaining your take on him? So feel free to rephrase if it is a question but otherwise I can’t really respond.
I wouldn’t call the whole souls of the dead thing propaganda, that’s just like, something he’s legitimately doing from what we can tell.
And yeah sure it’d be nice to see something happen with Charlotte. Probably won’t be leaving him at the altar all of a sudden with no build up but yk maybe someday she’ll run off with anna.
By mentioning Tokyo Babylon and X(/1999) in the same sentence, I can’t help but think that anon is referring at least partially to Subaru/Seishirou, which…how to explain it…in TB, it’s an age gap “romance” (16/25): young boy develops feelings for older man, older man is, shall we say, not the greatest person who ever lived…by the start of X, they’re both adults (not in a relationship) who stand on opposing sides of an issue (w/ complicated feelings unaddressed)
So I guess they’ve got the
friends/lovers/enemies flip-flopping that might bring up the comparison,
but I personally place them in a different kind of problematic bracket
than Guts and Griffith (though I don’t ship SeiSub so I could be
biased). They could also be thinking of Kamui/Fuuma from X/1999 who are
roughly the same age and whose relationship hits some similar beats…I do
like both TB and X though, although X is unfinished
ty for the additional info! idk if I’d ever get into this myself, but it’s good to know if I ever do. Seisub def doesn’t sound like my thing but the other ship you mentioned might be kind of intriguing.
Yeah I definitely see Femto/NeoGriff as basically an angel within the world of Berserk. The Godhand have been referred to as angels a few times too. I love the idea of him basically existing to fulfill humanity’s desires but his residual feelings for Guts are like a bug or flaw in the system that impedes God’s plans. Tho who knows?
Imo yeah becoming an apostle or a Godhand essentially strengthens your negative emotions and weakens/destroys your positive ones. “A fissure in your heart will open into which evil will surge,” Griffith explicitly losing his ability to feel empathy as he transforms, in the lost chapter Femto is described as being physically (well astral-ly?) made of evil, etc. So yeah, it literally changes you, but not necessarily into something completely new with no relation to your original self – it’s more like, an alternate version of you.
Are you asking me what Griffith wants, or just kind of musing outloud lol, I’m not sure based on your phrasing. But imo he just wants a kingdom/empire. I think NeoGriffith basically retained human Griffith’s ambition, but lost the very human reasons behind that ambition (guilt, despire for an escape from harsh reality, to feel like he has a reason for existing) in his transformation, making him kind of this eerie being who just exists to create a utopian empire.
But again, residual feelings for Guts in the mix can and should complicate that rly interestingly.
Hmmm Farnese would still lead the holy iron chain knights, but they wouldn’t have a 2 year pilgramage trailing Guts. They do guard duty too come to think of it… maybe Mozgus goes around to all the kingdoms under the Holy See to be creepy and threatening and ominously suggest they start their own witchhunts etc to prove their devotion to the church or w/e, and they’re his personal guards. Maybe there’s some tension brewing between kingdoms wrt religion and there’s threats of holy wars breaking out. Or, ooh, Ganeshka would still be a thing, maybe this is the holy see’s attempt to unite kingdoms against the Kushans, since Ganeshka is amassing a huge terrifying army and starting to move west. W/e.
So Farnese ends up in Midland for a while. Casca would hate her at first for being a stuck up rich noblewoman who leads an army of guards and can’t even swing a sword, and since this is Griffith’s kingdom now Casca would be his right hand woman while Farnese is Mozgus’, so they might have to interact and feign politeness at like, the hospitality balls and during tense meetings.
(also lmao @ the idea of Griffith dealing with this shit, he’d absolutely hate having to humour someone like mozgus)
Farnese might be kind of in awe of Casca, as someone who clawed her way to power instead of just being appointed due to birth status, plus she’d be attracted to her, and both those things would manifest in hate lol bc Farnese is a mess. Casca would also be kind of jealous of how Farnese had everything handed to her, and would also feel attraction which would piss her off.
Also imagine Farnese spending hours ranting to Serpico about how horrible Casca is, and vice-versa w/ Casca complaining to Judeau, and both Serpico and Judeau being like, hmmmm.
I’d want to manufacture a scenario where Casca has to save Farnese. Political assassination shit? Slooooow burn where this rivalry continues until they go to war together, somehow ending up within interaction-distance of each other lol? Something lighter maybe – a hunting expedition meant to encourage comraderie gone wrong? Anyway smthn happens and Farnese transfers her devotion from God to Casca, and starts listening when she explains how fucked up the inquisition is, and they start bonding and realizing they have things in common despite wildly different upbringings, like parents who didn’t gaf and latching onto causes to feel fulfilled and being sole women surrounded by men, etc.
Idt Farnese’s worldview necessarily has to be shattered before she loses her faith, like in canon, bc I think her faith is just a coping mechanism for loneliness.
Also I rly like the idea of Casca being the one to save someone, instead of needing saving, and that being the start of a romance.
Ok that’s all I can think of for now, this is probably a longer response than you were expecting lol but I just love that love/hate shit so much.
lmao right? also like, i’m js Akira’s insistence on total war against Satan after Miki was killed was pretty strongly portrayed as negative. the message is an unsubtle war is bad, and both Akira and Satan end up seeing the other’s pov and meeting in the middle in the sequel. but I feel like those same fans probably just see the ending as Akira righteously fighting Ryo the evil gay to avenge his dead not gf and then tragically losing the fight so like, w/e.
anyway at this point, with saga all kind of up in the air and no one knowing if ryo and akira are even related to the characters in it, the ryokira story ended with them teaming up to defeat god after banging in hell so
Nah I disagree, Casca’s a reasonable person when she’s not like, exhausted to the point of suicide by leading a band of fugitives. She’d be a little jealous, sure, but not sacrifice-all-her-friends jealous. She’s known at least since Promrose Hall that Griffith was gonna marry Charlotte, and she’s known longer than that that Griffith’s in love with Guts, and in general she’s been more than capable of dealing with it, and even found herself gaining respect for both Guts and Charlotte on separate occasions, despite her jealousy.
I think she’d be happy as the general of Midland’s flagship army and she’d eventually move on and find someone else. I mean hey it’s canon that she has plenty of admirers, js
ngl tho… i’ve been thinking about Godhand Casca in this AU lol, so I definitely don’t completely disagree, we’re actually weirdly on the same wavelength there.
I’d just want something other than jealousy to send her over the edge into despair.
Unfortunately I don’t. I would’ve said Devilman but you beat me to it, and I haven’t even read/seen Evangelion myself lol.
If anyone else wants to jump in and suggest something for Anon please do! My manga knowledge is way too thin to be useful here lol. And ngl I’m also v interested if anyone has recs.
For sure! And this is perfect timing bc it’s a super boring night for me, so ty!
Ok this is not including the moments that got on this list, so this is missing a few obvious contenders, but w/e. Also “do I need a reason” *significant sexy look* would be on this list but I’m counting it on the last list lol, even though technically it was a memory of that scene.
And I’m doing top 12 instead of 10 because there are so many good moments.
12.
This is still what Guts wants most, what drives him.
11.
Yeah of all the post-torture moments this might seem like an odd choice but I just love how fucking dark and hardcore this is, for Griffith’s sake. Like Guts’ whole rampage through Midland could be here but this is the best moment.
10.
It’s just… so blatant.
9.
Guts… buddy…
8.
No matter how many times I read it every single time I turn the page it takes my breath away lmao.
7.
Oh Guts, you could’ve had it all.
6.
Way to make your choice to save Casca all about Griffith. But also this is so good because it’s the clearest moment of regret, and also it’s Griffith’s heart, Griffith’s heart is what he had in the palm of his hand.
5.
The true relationship establishing moment. This is what they’re about and this is what I’m about.
4.
Can you believe. Like, that fucking close up of Guts… Femto… buddy…
3.
Holy shit dude.
2.
This could’ve been the turning point. This moment is everything, this is Griffith needing Guts more than the dream. This is the moment that makes Berserk.
you're the only one 