Tag: b

xoxoannimuxoxo:

bthump:

also new low-key horrifying detail i just noticed while grabbing that panel from chapter 39, which i can’t believe i hadn’t noticed before when like i read this stupid chapter a million times for my giant griffith meta

p sure the thing he’s holding that isn’t pliers is a fucking speculum

Wait but didn’t you recognize the speculum in previous posts?

lmao god this post must’ve gotten flagged and unflagged or w/e tumblr’s doing, i just checked and yeah it’s on the first page of my blog but it’s actually from 7 months ago.

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 do you think about the new Tumblr guidelines in regards to adult content?

comedically stupid. like by far the worst possible way of trying to deal with actual problems like porn bots and literal child porn. it could not be clearer that they don’t actually give a fuck about making the site better, they’re just scrambling to get back into apple’s good graces. I’m also worried because as much as I hate tumblr I hate twitter and discord more, those are essentially unusable platforms to me, and if the majority of fandom starts migrating to one of those I’m sol lol.

what do you think of griffith smiling when he hears julius and adonis are dead? i see lots of ppl use it as proof that he was ~evil~ all along

berserksideblog:

bthump:

Fucking love that moment lol.

image

glorious.

Like, this is a moment of Griffith’s inner darkness shining through. It’s perfect because it comes right after his long dream speech to Charlotte, as he’s learning that he’s achieved a particularly horrible step on the path to his dream. His dream just caused an innocent kid to be killed, and he’s smiling about it.

It’s a very strong way to equate dreams to darkness early on – and it’s great foreshadowing for Guts’ own descent too. This speech that ends with Griffith smiling over the death of a child – that causes that smile – is the very thing that inspires Guts to leave to pursue his own dream! Which ends up being the Black Swordsman arc.

image

Like compare Griffith’s evil smile to Black Swordsman Guts’ slasher smiles as he’s, yk, fighting “stronger and stronger opponents,” ie pursuing his own dream. Dreams are terrible all around for everyone and I love it.

This is also part of Griffith’s set up that’s very soon knocked down in a subversion of the reader’s expectations. Like I’ve talked about how Griffith’s narrative begins with an image and eventually peels that away to the truth – we start with Femto, then we get early larger-than-life knight in shining armour Griffith who would do anything for his dream, here w/ the assassination we get the darker aspects of that emphasized, and then only five chapters later we get our first full pull-back of the curtain style reveal of the real Griffith, in Casca’s flashback.

Compare Griffith smiling when a child dies on the path to his dream up there to:

image

and

image
image

It’s Griffith burying his guilt – getting much better at burying it through consistent practice lol – and demonstrating his willingness to do so in order to achieve his dream, which, ironically, he’s pursuing because of that guilt. It’s perfect.

I think I’ve phrased it before as like, after learning about Griffith’s dead child related guilt issues in Casca’s flashback shortly after, that smile when he finds out Adonis is dead can only mean one of two things:

either in the intervening years he’s changed so fundamentally that he no longer has those guilt issues, and therefore Casca’s flashback chapters are functionally meaningless and unnecessary to an almost comedic extent.

or it means he’s successfully buried his guilt so thoroughly in this moment as he’s pontificating to Charlotte about his dream that his reaction is pleased – he’s kind of like, becoming the mask, doing that good a job of convincing himself it’s all necessary for the sake of his dream.

And we see Griffith’s guilt issues crop up again in Tombstone of Flame
and again when Ubik’s convincing him to make the sacrifice, soooo we
know it’s not option one lol.

idk it’s a great example of the fucked up duality that comes from living in denial and eventually leads to choosing to become a monster because you already see yourself as one, basically, and it’s something I absolutely love about Griffith’s character.

tl;dr griffith isn’t evil, he’s interesting.

the end of this post also gets into my take on this scene, and it’s probably better said there lol.

also this post kind of illuminates more of my thinking wrt dark sides in berserk

Is it possible also that on one level he’s smiling specifically because Guts killed a child for him? Because he can take that as pretty strong evidence that Guts is loyal to him and more importantly won’t turn away from Griffith’s dark side or judge him for his darker actions? Like, on top of everything else that’s happening in his fluffy head in that moment.

Huh, interesting idea, I never thought of it that way before.

I’ve gotta give this a solid maybe, because I could see an argument either way. Like, I guess I don’t think it would be an intended reading on Miura’s part, mostly because of how completely sinister and creepy that smile is lol. Like I feel that if Miura wanted to convey a sense of Griffith being relieved in a way by Guts going the extra mile and killing a kid, his smile might seem more like… emotionally complex? Kind of tender?

I’m feeling a little deprived now because I’m imagining Griffith smiling in a more fond way rather than an evil villain way after hearing the news and I’m really loving that idea lol.

Anyway regardless of potential authorial intent, I really like this suggestion, in part because of how emotionally vulnerable and insecure he is in Tombstone of Flame, after another round of comparatively justified assassinations. I like the idea of Griffith maybe wanting to believe that Guts killing Adonis means he’s ride or die for him and won’t judge him for what he does to get to the throne, maybe letting that knowledge make him a little more secure in his relationship with Guts between Promrose and Tombstone, but still being terrified that it’s like, a really fucked-up example of Griffith dragging Guts down with him, and something that makes Guts want to run.

It adds another little layer to the rug being pulled out from under him when Guts does leave. Another action to add to his own self-loathing – it’s not that Guts killed a kid for Griffith, maybe indicating that they share a certain darkness, it’s that Griffith caused him to kill a kid, Griffith dragged him into the darkness, and Guts presumably hates him for it.

(Also there is something absolutely delightful about Guts hating himself after killing Adonis and seeing himself as a monster and unworthy of Griffith’s friendship, even as it makes Griffith feel more secure, more able to open up to Guts, and then later makes Griffith feel more like a monster dragging Guts down. Like, it fits right into the rest of their giant misunderstanding, and it’s the kind of fucked up scenario I live for.)

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

madchen
replied to your post “asia do u have… griffguts domestic married headcanons?”

whenever they have a fight they forgive each other like immediately. guts will be aggressively chopping vegetables for dinner and griffith will come up behind him and wrap his arms around his waist and press his face into his back
love the idea of
griffiths coworkers noticing he quietly got married (ring, he’s not
subtle lol) and wondering what his wife is like and then they meet guts.
griffiths the kinda guy who keeps a framed photo of him and guts on his
immaculate desk

lol yes they’d never be able to stay mad at each other. maybe they could sulk for a while if they’re apart, during a work day or like if Guts stomps out of the house to walk around the block and brood, but as soon as they see each other again all is forgiven

and yes to the rest. also griffith’s coworkers meeting guts for the first time would make a great outsider pov fic ngl.

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.

@wingsfreedom

not replying to the post bc in general i don’t like reblogging stuff just to disagree with op, but yeah that detail about Casca being Miura’s ideal woman skeeves me tf out. From the fact that I hate that a dude can get away with making his personal fantasy fodder a love interest in a serious story and no one considers that cheap or yk lacking in artistic merit while if a woman does the same her work gets automatically dismissed as chick lit/trashy romance, to the fact that Casca is sexually assaulted so often in disgustingly eroticized ways, to the objectifying descriptions emphasized there, it’s gross as hell imo.

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.

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it’s been a while since i read any of the lost children arc but i looked over some of it the other day and lol, there goes my assumption that Guts doesn’t actually know that a sacrifice has to be someone’s most important person/people.

and tbh I like this way more than Guts being in the dark and regarding the sacrifice as maybe a sign he wasn’t as important to Griffith as his dream after all. It fits Guts’ attitude towards Griffith better post-Eclipse, like the way he still knows that he was as important to Griffith as he wanted to be.

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And his pretty significant devastation when NeoGriffith claimed he didn’t feel anything anymore.

And while he was unconscious while the Godhand were discussing it during the Black Swordsman arc, and they didn’t really say anything that revealing that everyone could hear during the Eclipse iirc, it still makes sense for me to assume that Guts could put 2 and 2 together re: the sacrifice requirements based on what he does know. Like he missed “it must be someone important to you, part of your soul” but he heard “the life of the person you loved the most and hated the most” so, that’s still pretty indicative.

Plus it really adds a certain something to Guts’ revenge campaign.

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Like with the sacrifice as active proof of his importance to Griffith, it makes me wonder about what kind of complicated feelings that, say, the brand hurting in the presence of monsters might invoke.

(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.

Since I count on you to analyze and explain everything I’ll ask for your insight on Femto because this is something that I can never fully understand…why the purple ass lipstick and smooth ass cat eye? Really I was so shook about his emergence until I saw him upclose and I couldn’t take it seriously with those heart shaped muscles on his inflated rubber suit and his face. Why not throw in some bronzer, blusher, and Jeffree Star’s liquid frost highligher while they’re at it lol

i mean ik you’re joking but you’re basically saying it here, it’s p much just gay coding 101. make your male villains effeminate, especially in contrast to your hypermasculine protagonist.

(I feel like this answer could be a lot longer and more complex getting into like japanese vs hollywood stereotypes in media, miura’s stated influences, the context of the sexual text and subtext of the eclipse, etc, but yk that’s hard and this is my way of acknowledging that my answer is overly simplistic without writing a researched essay in response to a joke ask lol)

sorry for the radio silence for the last couple weeks, life has been life and i just haven’t had the like, initiative to post much recently lol

on the plus side i have now gone through my blog and tagged all my meta posts by subject

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.