BERSERK - Manga Review (11/10)
OVERALL:
Kentaro Miura’s Berserk is a series that is extremely near and dear to my heart. Having discovered it in the 9th grade, I was too naïve and stupid to comprehend the weight of this story that I held in my hands. But even then, in that 14-year-old brain of mine, I knew what I was reading was something special. Set in a dark fantasy world, Guts is a swordsman on search for his purpose in life with a past so tragic that even mentioning the details might violate TOS. On the surface, Berserk blends in with every other action-adventure tale, filled to the brim with many double page spreads of Guts swinging a sword through every manner of fantastical creature. But venture in a bit deeper, and one finds a story of a delicate man, on the brink of death every day, who decides to pick up his sword again and again because he feels he has to protect the one person he ever loved. His journey leads him to meet his current traveling party, whose members travel with him not because the story demands they do, but due to the self-realization he brings into all of them. Reading Berserk is a mixture between gut wrenching interpersonal interactions and jaw-dropping visuals, both of which lend themselves to a tale well told. After all, manga is a visual-medium, and in my opinion, Miura stands at the top of it. Whilst some may consider manga’s black-and-white norm to be a limiting factor, his pen breaks right past it. Berserk lives in black-and-white, each stroke binding with a rest to crate a piece worthy of placement in the highest art museum’s in the world. Overall, as it may have become evident, Berserk is quite literally my favourite piece of work in the world. Nothing exists above it.
PROTAGONIST:
Going along with the series, Guts stands out as my favourite protagonist in a fiction. Throughout the story, we slowly piece together the man he is and how he become it. When we first meet him, he is basically a villain: he kills, tricks, and speaks like one. And this is a motif that carries through the entire series. He is many times drawn as a black silhouette, looming over the characters just an evil monster would, until you see the man under the armour. After a few chapters in the present, Berserk travels back in time to show the life he has led until that point. From his birth from a corpse, his abusive adoptive father, unspeakable violation of his body, life as a mercenary, to being able to trust the ones around him again and finally to ultimate despair. We watch him grow into a whole person in front of us. Since birth, he’s never really had to consider who he is: all that mattered was survival. But after he meets the Band of the Hawk (and Griffith, the antagonist of the story), he starts to think about who he is and what being a friend means. What does he want to achieve in his life? And can he do that while relying on others? He breaks free, only to regret his actions once again. For all its flashy violence, the way Berserk is able to convey the inner struggles of its characters becomes a stroke of genius. Even after he is able to become reliant on the friends around him, his inner demons remain: if they are around him, does that mean he’s more likely to hurt them more? This one page is not nearly enough to convey the perfection that Guts’ character is, but know that he alone contains more depth and nuance that many other stories as a whole.
ANTAGONIST:
A great protagonist deserves an equally well-written antagonist, and Griffith excellently delivers on that front. Born of low birth, he always dreamed of the castle in the sky, to be atop the world, but he was yet to realize the sacrifice he would have to make to build the bridge to get to it. When Guts meets him, Griffith is already the captain of a mercenary band, a successful leader. The beginning to their relationship begins in their power dynamics: Griffith says that he owns Guts now (after beating him in a duel), and he will have to serve under him. But slowly over the years this dynamic wears down for him. He starts to get increasingly attached to Guts, slowly losing his power until ultimately Guts leaves him in search of his own goal in life. Griffith realizes his powerlessness to stop him and shatters. The damage to his ego forces him back onto his own path and leads to his success: but at the cost of everyone who has trusted him. Guts is emotionally destroyed, burning a deep hatred for Griffith into his soul. This sets up a good revenge tale, but what complicates it is what Griffith does after. He becomes the “hawk of light”, a godly force who aims to build a utopia within the war-torn world. So, is it right for Guts to tale his revenge even if it meant destroying the potential for world peace? Would he truly be right? What is the extent a person is allowed to go to save the world? Does sacrificing the lives of your loved ones truly justified? These are but a few of the question his character is meant to represent. Though their foil serves a masterstroke of characterization, Griffith also stands independently, moving forward alone. Again, Griffith’s beauty is so that I am unable to convey its true depth in this short format, but he truly stands as one of the greatest antagonists of all time.
THEMES:
The theme of causality is quite prevalent in the story. The idea that things are meant to be the way they are adds a new layer of despair to the already depressing world. But this is also why Guts becomes special. He is known as “the struggler”, the one man who’s been marked as “outside the world” and thus can fight against destiny. But that is not an easy task. Every night he fights for survival hoping he lives another day, but his existence become easier when he slowly meets others that join him, showcasing the power of external support in the world. One does not have to struggle alone – good friends make that struggle a little easier. The “Beast of Darkness” and “Hawk of Light” (for Guts and Griffith respectively) adds another layer to the hero/villain dynamic. The hero has his demons that he must struggle with. He must stop himself from harming the ones around him. Whilst the “villain” serves as a messiah, a symbol of hope to the world. This also adds an element of parallelism between the two with the hero being painted in darkness (the “evil”) and the antagonist in white (the “good”). Each arc within the story deals with many different themes that separate them as their individual stories but are enhanced through their context within the entire story. For example, in the beginning of the “Golden Age”, Guts looks for only day to day survival, but slowly develops a sense of perspective and looks to become an equal to Griffith but then loses it all to come back to bare survival. Then, in later arcs, he has to find a sense of purpose once again, as in protecting Casca, and also deals with the idea of again hurting the ones around him. These are but a few of the major themes that work to create a story rich in narrative depth.
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