i cant believe miura gave us real power bottom griffith imagery not only does he subdue guts by standing on his sword but he wins the fight by looping an arm around guts fist/arm and holding him there
yeah i feel this tbh. I haven’t watched the anime in its entirety for years but just from checking out a few scenes and episodes here and there i def get this impression, and I think it’s largely because of the character design/animation? like yeah cutting his rape trauma prob doesn’t help but I’m aware of that so it doesn’t affect my take on the character, but i’m still way less fond of anime guts than manga guts.
idk he just comes across as angrier, even when he has no real reason to be during the golden age, yk the happiest time of his life. his default expressions strike me as kind of dour and he doesn’t have that warmth i get in the manga ime.
like just to illustrate this w/ a minor example i picked at random (i was actually gonna look at the rooftop scene from the scene after but i didn’t actually mind the vibe guts gave off there):
doesn’t really have the same vibe, yk?
and i mean yeah you can cherry pick examples, like i mentioned there are scenes in the anime that i think they depicted pretty well, but this does seem to be a recurring problem i have w/ guts in particular, as far as I’ve seen.
i’ve pointed this one out b4 but
idk maybe it’s the angle of the eyebrows more than anything lol. he always just looks low key pissed off.
Swords/dreams as poor substitutes for human connection in Berserk.
yk the anime is a good guide to how to copy really gay scenes shot for shot and suck the homoeroticism right out of them
more examples bc i’m bored and bc the contrast also rly illustrates how well the manga sells it
You should have known. This is the man I am. You of all people.
Anyway this is Guts uncomfortably identifying with Casca’s worshipful admiration (which we are later told is a romantic crush) of Griffith. Like we get a …. shot of Guts looking broody every time Casca starts waxing poetic.
Uncomfortably because he wants to be Griffith’s equal and he feels like he’s looking up at him while Griffith is looking down.
And THIS is either Guts thinking Casca is wrong about how Griffith feels about him, or (more likely imo) being moody because he thinks Casca deserves her place at Griffith’s side more than he does, because she has a dream to live for.
It leads to the 100 man fight, which he spends thinking about how pointless it is because he’s swinging his sword for no other reason but to swing it, and gets Casca to escape because she has something more to live for than he does. Which then leads to campfire of dreams, where he concludes that everyone has a dream except for him, says compared to what Casca and Griffith have to live for nothing he does is important, so he’d better leave to find one so he can be worthy of standing beside Griffith.
Casca and Guts have been rivals for Griffith’s affections, that’s their main relationship up til now. But this is the point where Guts concludes that he’s lost the fight, and starts throwing them together while he prepares to bow out, at least til he can come back feeling worthy of Griffith.
consider: Berserk Armour vs Femto designs
versus
I just rly like how Femto’s exoskeleton can be drawn to either emphasize
Griffith’s face underneath the helmet or obscure it. It’s such a
good way to either depict Femto as a godlike otherworldly demon or a
petty asshole who can taunt Guts but can’t bring himself to kill him – or
like the bottom pic where after several epic godlike shots from
Ganeshka’s awed point of view, we see his face when he’s doing something
much more Griffith-esque: predicting what Skull Knight will do based on
logic and tactics rather than magic knowledge of fate.
Guts’
armour is more literal – when his face is hidden beneath the helmet,
he’s lost himself to his darkness. Femto’s is symbolic as his helmet
doesn’t change, only the angle we see him from changes, but imo it’s
really well-utilized to emphasize or de-emphasize whatever remains of
Griffith. And I think it’s definitely a trend – not 100% the case in
every panel, but overall when we see Femto’s whole face, it tends to be
in moments of weakness or pettiness, in moments where he’s demonstrating human feelings, however twisted they’ve become, and when either his eyes or his
mouth or both are obscured, it tends to emphasize his distance from
Guts, his godliness, his monstrosity.
Also, and tbf this I’m
less sure about bc I can’t remember every moment where Guts thinks about
Femto, but in general I think it holds true: Guts tends to picture
Femto with face partially or entirely obscured when he’s feeling the distance/difference between them and/or murderous rage
and face very visible in moments that emphasize Guts’ similarity to him, and danger of becoming him
idk i just think it’s neat
i love these moments because they all seem inspiring and badass but they all have those ominous undertones – guts’ rage stemming from fear that he is just like the ghosts who want revenge, the shot of the behelit, guts’ inability to let go of the prospect of revenge, and the way his “war declaration” puts him a step closer to being griffith’s equal.
it’s guts repeatedly refusing to acknowledge how very thin the line that divides him from ghosts and monsters and evil gods is imo
this is the equivalent of an ice cold shower
and it doesn’t even help all that much
So how about Griffith’s self loathing and his need to change the world to basically prove himself worthy of being a leader, or even just worthy of living with death on his conscience?
casca knowing what’s what
first and last glimpse
also speaking of comparing the torture chamber and griffith becoming femto:
idk seems like a fitting illustration of how by sacrificing guts, ie the light within him, a fissure opens up into which evil surges. even if it’s coincidental
This is extremely incomplete bc I’m only including stuff that is self-explanatory. No commentary from me. It’s still long as fuck tho so be aware that this is really image heavy when you click.
just based on guts’ first look at them, who would you guess is the love interest?
casca:
griffith:
Yes yes yes. This Exactly. I’ma little slightly not well I am excited right now so this might not make sense. But. They do this visual chemistry thing, the angles Griffith gets, the way his eyes are drawn, how they stand together, the light breeze running through their hair. How they fit together in the frame, bodies turned in. And you do this for 10 volumes almost with these characters and then suddenly do the same with Guts and Casca for one damn chapter and now we’re supposed to have that superimpose 50 chapters of the same thing with a different set of characters. Like chemistry. Where was this.
It’s like buying a bag of m & ms and finding Cheetos inside Like I don’t hate the Cheetos. But that’s not what I signed up or paid emotional investment for .
This makes perfect sense and ia, when it comes to visual language Griffith is pretty straightforwardly romanticized and eroticized from Guts’ perspective.
like look at Guts’ point of view shot right here
first thing he thinks of when he wakes up after sensing a naked woman in bed with him:
griffith looking vulnerable and in need of rescue with his hair splayed out
this which is even more eroticized than those first panels
actually don’t quote me on this bc i’d have to re-read to make a real judgement call here, but I think these kinds of shots (from Guts’ perspective specifically) actually peter out after the Promrose Hall speech?
which, if so, makes it even more likely to me that it’s purposeful bc that’s when his view of Griffith shifts from him being a guy he likes who likes him back to being a distant goal.
though Griffith remains beautiful, noble, larger than life, dazzling, pretty, etc just to throw a few words guts has used to describe him, in Guts’ mind:
and then all bets are off once guts starts thinking about neogriff.
(the waters get a little muddier once miura starts drawing griffith like a wet dream every time he’s in a panel but honestly this shot of guts thinking about him goes above and beyond to a ridiculous extent)
oh also i was gonna say that it blows that casca gets super diminished and girlier once she ends up slotted into the love interest role, like judeau even comments on it ffs.
you're the only one 