I've re-read and re-watched Berserk and hey, man, this adaptation isn't perfect. But as I get older, a 10/10 score doesn't signify that for me. This adaptation just has a crazy effect on me. The music is phenomenal, the pacing of the story and the narrative itself is brilliant, just enough is given to the viewer to chip away at the depth of the characters with successive viewings and it's incredibly sad yet nonetheless satisfying to watch unfold. The relationships between Casca, Griffith and Guts are the heart of the show and the Manga, but what I find extremely compelling is how ambiguous a lot of the inner-mechanisms of each of these characters are. There isn't a one-hundred-percent true or real interpretation of why x character does y, and I love that. I love how Guts' character subverts anime conventions by having trauma as the root of his single-mindedness, and that realisation within him spurring the fires of a longing existentialism is really unique. The monologues, the backstories, the quiet moments make this anime such a standout considering how it chooses to emphasise facets of the human experience over the one million entertainment cruxes the story could have resorted to given the dark fantasy (and eventually high fantasy) setting.
There are flaws: the animation is old and looks mostly rigid, Pippin is underdeveloped, the anime makes a couple jarring changes from the Manga (not showcasing the Guts/ Donovan SA scene is wild considering it's extremely important for explaining his distrust for others, his fear of touch, as well as his inability to sleep without his sword - also, the change to the scene in which Guts kills a child is puzzling, before, it was accidental, in the anime, it's more ambiguous, which doesn't work as well given how this needs to be a turning point for the character) but to say they take away from the show's impact to a major extent would be lying.
There's just so much substance and understanding for the material at hand that a few changes and omissions doesn't hinder its impact, and it's a story that lingers continually on my mind. I listen to Guts' theme regularly, I wear a brand of the sacrifice necklace, my computer's homescreen is of the Eclipse - I love this shit. The most important message of the entire tale, is that despite our experiences, happiness is never unachievable; it's never too late for redemption. Sometimes the more important things in our lives aren't the ultimately hollow dreams we aspire to, but the people around us that can make ambitions as lofty as that of Griffith's seem arbitrary and regrettable when you're faced with the choice of continuing to pursue said goals versus embracing the genuine love you feel for your companions.
Overcoming trauma, as someone who has had lifelong experience of domestic abuse, is a theme that resonates with me deeply, but none other than Berserk pay credence to it in a way I feel is entirely effective. Too often media will brush aside the negative experiences of early and mid-life as a necessity to achieve something greater, or as something that wound up being inconsequential in the face of future personal development, which, in a way, reduces trauma to a commodity, something that is important only to the extent where a character is contemporarily affected by it, and then it's done, recontextualised, or cast off altogether. I find this disheartening. Berserk doesn't do that, though, it presents the traumas of its characters in the most guttural, gruesome fashion you could possibly imagine, so as to scar not only the characters, but the readers and viewers themselves, only to teach both to nurture those wounds until they are simply another mark on your body. The scars are important, they will never leave, and while they are permanent, the pain associated with them is not. It'll never heal entirely, as that as the nature of scars, but to dwell on such an intrinsicality is to neglect the remaining skin you have, untouched. You're not entirely broken, and in spite of everything, it is possible to overcome, to heal, and to find happiness within yourself and the people you love.
This is an extremely important anime for my life. It served as the window into the Manga, and further yet a window into a kind of healing I'd never dreamed possible before witnessing these characters overcome the atrocities displayed namely in this final episode. It's a landmark title for my life, and hey, it's a great show man. I wouldn't be the same person without it, and regardless of any critical pomposity and the idea of "objective quality", the effect its had on my life is enough for me to feel comfortable calling Berserk 1997 a 10/10. |
