Kentaro Miura
Berserk

WARNING, BEFORE DIVING INTO MY "REVIEW", BE AWARE THAT THERE WILL BE QUITE HEAVY SPOILERS... AT YOUR OWN RISK

Berserk is a manga that everyone should know, not only experts, but also those who have just ventured into the world of comics. For years, I had heard about this title, and many spoke of it with conflicting opinions: there were those who loved it passionately, and those who hated it to death. Last year, 2015, around March, I decided to start it. It disgusted me quite a bit, the plot wasn't progressing and it wasn't engaging at all. After months of "abstinence," I decided to pick it up again, since my judgment had been too hasty: in November, my incredible experience with Berserk began.

The first image that Kentaro Miura offers us is of a man, with a metal prosthesis on his arm, engaging in a sexual act with a woman, who turns out to be a ruthless and cynical demon, luring its prey by pretending to be a woman of easy virtues. Before I even have time to react, the mysterious man slaughters this demon and resumes his path as if nothing had happened. This mysterious man is none other than the protagonist, Guts, a brawny, surly, arrogant, ruthless man bordering on bestiality, armed with an unusual weapon, the Dragonslayer, a block of iron so crude, heavy, and lethal that it cannot be defined as a simple sword. Another characteristic that stands out about this mysterious and ambiguous character is the lack of an eye, but even more, what strikes the reader is the brand he carries on his neck. Guts is thirsty for revenge, although up to volume 3 we are not yet aware of the terrifying past that has marked Guts’ existence. While searching for information on Koca, the cruel tyrant (and demon) ruling the city, Guts accidentally saves Puck, an elf who tries to follow him out of gratitude for saving his life. Guts, however, doesn't want him around and tells him to leave. Guts is captured by Koca's city soldiers and tortured. While in prison, he is continuously tormented by terrifying nightmares, without us, at the moment, being able to understand what is happening to him psychologically. After managing to escape imprisonment, thanks to Puck's help, he engages in a ruthless confrontation with Koca and kills him. Before dying, Koca recognizes the brand on Guts' neck and cannot understand why he is still alive despite being branded.

After defeating Koca, Guts meets Vargas, a doctor macabrely tortured by Count, a cynical and ruthless being, additionally a terrifying demon. Vargas shows Guts the Behelit, a familiar object to the Black Swordsman, which he takes with him. After a brutal confrontation with Count, Guts prevails, but the demon, before dying, uses the Behelit: it’s the crucial hour, Guts, much to his regret, encounters his tragic past again. The 5 members of the God Hand appear before him. Guts seethes with revenge against these entities, particularly against Griffith, the Hawk, but he cannot even get close to him. The 5 of the God Hand offer Count another chance to survive, which involves sacrificing his daughter. Count, although he had done so previously with his wife, refuses. Here emerges one of Berserk's major themes: the desire to pursue one's dreams without any hindrance. Count is inevitably killed and taken to hell along with other damned souls. The daughter is devastated and screams revenge against Guts, holding him responsible for everything that happened to her. Bluntly, Guts replies he will await her without any issues. Immediately afterward, Guts experiences a moment of weakness, still hidden for now. Berserk thus opens the doors for the most intense flashback in the entire Japanese comic, telling Guts’ life with epic strokes and outlining his complex psychology.

Guts is born from a woman, who dies hanging for heresy at the moment she gives birth to him. He is taken in by Sys, who raises him for three years. Sys dies of plague right in front of Guts, who for the first time experiences the cruelty of life. Gambino, Sys’s lover and adoptive father, decides to train him and instills the concept of killing so as not to be killed. Gambino, however, harbors resentment towards Guts because, according to him, the boy is nothing but a bringer of death. Furthermore, he will lose a leg, which will increase his hatred towards Guts. To "get back," he sells him for a night to Donovan, who sexually abuses the poor Guts, who cannot fight back. This event will profoundly mark his future. One night, while Guts is sleeping, Gambino tries to kill him and makes it known that on that night, he should have died next to the body of his hanged mother. In self-defense, Guts kills Gambino and is forced to escape from his life to create a new one. He becomes an almost unbeatable mercenary until he encounters the Band of the Hawk, led by the audacious Griffith. Griffith humiliates him and makes it clear that now he belongs to him, meaning he is indissolubly linked to him. This love/hate "bond" between the two begins precisely at this point. The Band of the Hawk is different from other mercenary bands, as everyone shows a sense of idolatry towards Griffith, the deepest desire of whom is to become a great sovereign of a vast kingdom. Griffith also possesses a Behelit, given to him by chance while carrying out his military activities. It is already foreshadowed how it will end. By chance, Guts encounters Zodd the Immortal, a ruthless demon, among the most powerful creatures in the entire world of Berserk. For the first time, Guts experiences the darkest fear. He cannot defeat him, and when Zodd is about to kill him and Griffith, he notices the necklace Griffith has with the Behelit. Understanding who Griffith truly is, he flies away, warning Guts to abandon Griffith while he still has a chance because he will lead him to death. And this is not the only problem plaguing Guts: Caska, a very loyal soldier in Griffith's service, is bitterly jealous of Guts, for Griffith considers him essential for his plans of conquest. Moreover, Griffith uses Guts as an assassin to kill his rivals for the kingdom. One day, however, the Band of the Hawk encounters an enemy army, the Blue Whale Knights, and Guts and Caska fall into a pit but manage to save themselves. Guts rescues Caska, and the following day, after a harsh outburst, she shows him her weaknesses: she is grateful to Griffith because he saved her from a world of prostitution to which she was condemned. Guts and Caska flee, and the future black warrior encounters a legion of 100 men. Needless to say, he takes them all out, ALONE... At this moment, I bowed to the majestic figure of Guts. Guts, has new plans for the future, does not want to hinder Griffith in his goals, and wants to travel alone, to find his own objective, to prove to Griffith that he is a true friend to him. After the magnificent victory of the Band of the Hawk in the conquest of the Dordrey Fortress, Griffith and his band are celebrated, but Guts remains indifferent to such honors, his future after the Band is more than clear. Griffith does not accept all this, and in an attempt to keep him with him again, he challenges him to a duel but loses. Guts is finally free, while Griffith, for the first time in his life, feels humiliated and alone. In a moment of irrationality, he prematurely engages in a sexual act with Princess Charlotte, whom Griffith tries to exploit to become king. He is captured, defaced, tortured, deprived of his tendons, and would never be able to move for the rest of his life. On his journey, Guts encounters the Skull Knight, an entity that warns him of his impending fate, and by pure chance, returns after a year to the Band of the Hawk, saving it from an enemy assault. Finally, Guts and Caska make love, but during this, Guts is haunted by his past that still assaults him. He relives the rape he suffered from Donovan. Caska, who has now realized she is in love with him, tells him not to fear, as together they can finally heal each other’s internal wounds. Guts wants to leave again, and since he is in love with Caska, he asks her to follow him, but she refuses because she wants to save Griffith. Guts agrees and, after many twists and turns, saves Griffith, who, however, resigned, invokes the God Hand: it is the beginning of the Eclipse, the most beautiful phase of Berserk and among the most imposing I have ever seen in my life. It turns out Griffith was destined to be a member of the God Hand. His "transformation" begins, the price of which comprises the lives of the Band of the Hawk. A desperate survival attempt ensues. No one survives, apart from Guts, who will fight with a ferocity never before displayed, who tries to save Caska as she is brutally raped by the New Griffith (now Femto). Griffith is born with the deep desire to become a sovereign and gives up his closest friends to achieve it. To stop him, Guts will give up his arm but will be immediately pinned down, forced to witness this macabre scene, without being able to intervene, while a demon pierces his eye. They are saved by the providential intervention of the Skull Knight, who shares his desire for revenge with Guts (for still unknown reasons), and hands them over to Rickert, a member of the Band of the Hawk who remained unaware of the events and not conscious of what just happened. Guts awakens, without an arm and an eye, still branded at the neck with the Brand of Sacrifice, and finds Caska, who does not recognize him anymore. The shock suffered during the rape has left her in a catatonic state. Guts goes mad, having lost everything, his beloved, his dignity, his friends, and his best friend has turned his back on him. His revenge starts, he has the fearsome Dragonslayer forged by the blacksmith Godot and receives from Rickert a steel prosthesis equipped with a cannon and a crossbow. The Black Swordsman is born, and the story can finally resume from where it was interrupted. Meanwhile, I found myself, on my 18th birthday, in a catatonic state from the overwhelming epicness achieved in those 14 volumes...

After defeating yet another demon, Guts returns to Rickert, and Godot maintains the Dragonslayer for him, but he discovers Caska is no longer there. A race against time begins to save her. During his travels, he meets Farnese, a woman in the service of the inquisition, Serpico, directly at her service, and Isidro, a boy intrigued by the acts of the Black Swordsman. Here Kentaro Miura presents the world of the Inquisition, whose rigor has brought only destruction, due to Religious Fanaticism. Guts manages to save Caska, although she is completely unaware of being saved by the only man who has always loved her. Guts, however, witnesses the rebirth of Griffith in human form. Guts is more incensed than ever and confronts Griffith, who wishes to greet Rickert: losing his patience, he demands explanations. Griffith plainly tells him that nothing has changed, and that he still harbors the unhidden and never forgotten desire to become a great sovereign. Guts is faced with a significant dilemma: to continue his vendetta or protect Caska? Now he wants to take Caska to a safe place,and Isidro, Farnese (seeking to change her life), and Serpico come to his aid, and they are joined by the witch Shierke (much contested for ruining Berserk by introducing fantasy elements. In reality, fantasy has always existed; Berserk simply had not shown it so detailed before). A long journey begins, rich in adventures, that concludes with Guts' arrival on the island of the Elves, a place identified by Puck as ideal for protecting Caska. Meanwhile, Griffith resumes his journey, creates a new Band of the Hawk, more powerful than the previous one, and defeats the powerful Emperor of the Kushan, and through a shrewd politico-military strategy, finds himself allied with the "Pope" and Charlotte, solidifying and increasing his power. The Kushan emperor, eager for revenge, attempts a countermeasure, sacrificing millions of soldiers, becoming an imposing being. Griffith defeats him with disarming ease and, foreseeing the intervention of the Skull Knight, manages to open the "wall" separating dreams from reality, creating a new era. Thus is born the capital of Griffith's kingdom, an almost perfect city: it is Falconia. Griffith has succeeded: he has realized his dream.

In these 37 volumes, Berserk presents an immense, infinite fresco where characters move: there are those who are cynical, ruthless, generous, and indulgent, but little changes. The essence is that good and evil do not exist in Berserk. There are only men with their objectives, and they carry them out to the death, right and wrong do not exist. Griffith is both the protagonist and the antagonist, just like Guts. It matters little. We can decide whom to root for, but eventually, the essence is that universal values are missing.

Additionally, Kentaro Miura has the maturity to wisely speak about various topics, such as the relationship between man and God, which can have multiple views: for Farnese, at the beginning, God is an entity to which one must obey; Guts seeks vengeance against the God Hand for ruining his and Caska’s existence. Furthermore, he contests the religious fanaticism of the Middle Ages, which brought only destruction, cruelty, desolation, and lack of sense, as in the case of the Holy Iron Chain Knights saga: what appears to us are visually devastating instruments of torture, representing the destiny to which those who do not obey find themselves.

In Berserk, there are those who want to impose their conditions, and those who do not obey, well, die...

Guts navigates this world, at times cynical, at times peaceful, at times sad and desolate, but he couldn’t care less. He has only one goal in mind, and nothing will change that. Furthermore, Kentaro Miura offers a personal vision of God, which pleasantly surprised me; according to which God would be nothing more than a creation of man, who wanted to find a justification and an answer to all his sufferings, and because he wanted to guarantee order. To repay man's birth, "God" offers men the possibility of redeeming their failing lives to build a new one. Some renounce and die suffering, while others abandon everything to move forward, showing to "God" and the entire world their weakness, typical of all men.

Berserk is such a complex manga that a single review would not be enough to describe its grandeur and the imposing nature of the topics handled with ease. Berserk is now an integral part of my life, as it is for millions of fans. It has made me understand that one cannot judge people by their actions since everyone moves with their own goals, dreams, and ideals, which are not necessarily like our own. It has also made me realize that all this cruelty is not so new and that someday, if we are not careful, we will be devoured, both psychologically and physically, by a world that has no mercy for anyone.

Berserk is a masterpiece within a masterpiece, partially reflecting our lives, depicting them with faces different from our own, capable of moving us, making us laugh until we collapse, but also provoking anguish, terror, hatred, fear, despair, sadness, and dark moments, where you feel the same pain Guts feels when he "loses" Caska, all thanks to the immense drawing of Kentaro Miura, who proves to be a great mangaka from a graphic point of view. Berserk also poses an important question with everything it shows: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO IN LIFE?

Some know, and others are still groping in the dark, some are insecure, some have hidden dreams they will never be able to show the world, while others do not stop at anything and are willing to do everything... even if Berserk seemingly shows the opposite, we are free to choose, even if our choices will overturn our paths. Berserk is all this; it has transmitted to me emotions I had never experienced before with other mangas, and after reading it, I felt a sense of nihilism towards a world devoid of strong values and full of hypocritical ones, lacking substance. Thank you, Kentaro Miura, for everything.

P.S: Kentaro, resume writing Berserk, otherwise, I will come to your house and shove the Dragonslayer up your a**.