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My own opinion is that I am entitled to defend it. If someone states a radical opinion, you should expect and even embrace reprimands. I think it is boring how most people tend to regress into the same attitude of "We have different opinions, now go my hippie and live in harmony" when faced with something they are unable to explain.

Tell me why Berserk is sexist for fuck sake. Tell me how, why, when, where. I still would not care if it was sexist though because sexism is just a term used by sexists anyhow. You as a female react strongly to something you perceive as condescending towards women, because it is a defense mechanism triggered by that you know that women has a gender role, and different physiological traits. Or I could be wrong. It could be that you just choose to jump on the bandwagon because of cultural impression with no logical reasoning.

However, the fact remains: You have not given me a sufficient reason as to why this manga is misogynistic or sexist. If you just want to share opinions, then do not reply directly to me, but I will butt in to anything unjustified you have to say about Berserk. I have a right to do so. You have a right to tell me to leave it at that. I have a right to ignore it. You have a right to say that Berserk is sexist. I have the right to rip the shit out of that statement. You have a right to say that I am insulting someone. I have a right to insult someone. Especially when they are that much misguided and illogical, I will insult someone.

You are also wrong in your definition of discussion. A discussion is an informal debate. Google is your friend.

I think you just Failed :)).
Lolz

I don't think Miura is misogynist, and I don't think Berserk is a misogynistic work as a whole, though it might have doubtful moments.

Casca does have a lot of terrible things happen to her, but her function in the story isn't just as an object of the reader's sexual gratification - she's a very complex female character, and I find many of the concerns and difficulties she has had in Golden Age arc to be plausible for a woman in war, eg being caught between wishing to be useful for Griffith and being in love with him, and having difficulties with physical exertion during her period, etc. So with Casca, Miura demonstrates a willingness to be sympathetic to women.



If every male reading Berserk gets the reaction ThangLong did, we won't be having this discussion. But:



It isn't Miura who is misogynist, but that maybe some of his readers are, and while cultural production like comics and manga are a place where we can find creativity and lofty visions, in the end it still has to sell. The question might be "Is Miura to a certain extent pandering to misogynistic tendencies in society?"

We have established that shit happens to everyone in Berserk and I don't dispute that. After all, Guts also gets raped as a child, and Griffith, while he wasn't raped, was at least selling himself to Gennon in an unequal relationship. Men ARE different from women, and since sexual violence usually raises women as the victim, kudos to Miura for showing that it happens to men too. Berserk marshals sympathy and a certain kind of admiration for Griffiths for financing his band by having sex with a lecherous old fool, and there is no sense that readers would have enjoyed watching it happen.

But the "camera" operates differently for scenes of sexual violence against women. I think the 23 pages of Casca getting raped, and when we see women raped by trolls in the more recent story arc, and when women are tossed naked into a…monster-birthing vat/pit, might be for male readers who do enjoy seeing sexual violence done to women, as cited in Ironkarma's quotation above. I just checked, and in Vol.25 Chapter 216, where there's a 2-page spread of women being raped by trolls, there's a panel that shows penetration going on and another panel of a bleeding breast. If the intent of the manga is to objectively reflect what happens to women during the Dark Ages, or to marshal sympathy for them, these two panels would be extraneous. After all, the visual storytelling for Griffith selling his body for money marshals sympathy without showing anything at all. So while I wouldn't say Miura is a misogynist, I do concede that the manga has disturbing pornographic moments.

I also do not think that "seinen" labels justify pornography, just that pornography would occur more often in seinen manga than manga that are not, so if there is any causality relationship between seinen and pornography, it works the other way. But I do understand that Miura is operating in a market where the readers expect certain conventions, and the number of previous respondents citing a seinen label as justification supports this. We can get into another whole discussion on whether scenes of rape actually makes men more disposed towards sexual violence against women in real life, but we're not equipped to answer that, as it would require a lot of social psychology and sociology research. Anyway, Berserk is a great manga, and hopefully the complexity of the story outlives scenes of trolls raping women.

Thanks for starting this thread! Controversy is the best.

Couldn't have said that better myself.
I appreciate the respectful response.




I gotta say, this a really good observation you made here.
Your points about the audience possibly being somewhat misogynistic is an interesting thought and sadly it seems true (especially based on Ironkarma's response and what other people have said about Berserk)

And what you said about how the camera operates differently for different scenes is EXACTLY what I was trying to express. It's not so much that there's violence or rape. That's fine. Those things put the "dark" in the dark ages, which is what other people were saying before. But a lot of the time there are some scenes - especially involving women - that come off as glorifying or even turning it into a fan service kind of thing. I'm glad you mentioned the whole Griffith selling himself situation. That's just one example of how some aspects of Berserk can evoke emotion, sympathy, or realism with without totally being over-exaggerated and gratuitous.

I like hearing everyone's opinions. Very thought provoking.

I'm sorry guys, but I do not come to the internet seeking to obtain a moral high-ground. I stand by what I said, this manga would fall apart without depravity, be it male or female, this manga IS falling apart due to the absence of shit like this going down. For far too many chapters now it has been "see this, kill that". The absence of rape killed the manga in many ways. I do enjoy it fairly, and I think Schierke is awesome and cute, but it can nowhere compare to the brilliance that was the golden age and eclipse.

Let us face it. There is no brilliant continuation to what was born in Berserk's early days. There will be no plot twist, no plan unraveling, no shocking new philosophy. That is assuming that Berserk will get to have an end. Anyhow the brilliancy of early Berserk is rooted in rape and depravity.

And the trolls you mention. That was the last case of anything sexual, except for the sacrifical pregnancy pot or whatever. It was actually the first time I have ever thought of trolls as sexual beings, so I laughed hell a hard. Trolls are a part of Norse mythology and we have a lot of fairy tales of them and the like. My point being that it was enjoyable. As I have stated previously, everything is misogynistic, and everything is misandric. Thus nothing is, in my opinion. However if you have to point your finger and shout "misogynistic" while defending it out of some noble sense of morality for drawn lines on a piece of paper, every man who is as morally broken regarding fantasy as me will shed a tear. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find something brutal that is actually good?!

@Radicaltee
Anything with women in this manga = Fan-service
Anything with men in this manga = Evokes emotion, sympathy, realism, but still stays simple, and other ways to romanticize things.

Oh look a boob = Its porn man, you are catering to the male masses, misogynistic!
Oh look, we find out that Griffith had an old mans penis in him to get money = Art at its finest, brilliant, genius



...

Not really sure where you're getting that from but whatever.

Yea I heard Berserk is pretty watered down these days and not as good as it used to be. But how can you blame that on lack of rape? That's pretty ridiculous. If the story is so good (which it is - or at least used to be) it would stand on it's own without "rape and depravity" as you call it. This just shows that the author is lacking quality storytelling at this point in the manga.

The ting is that it is very shocking right? but because it is shocking you get better in the manga it self. So for me it is very disgusting. But it also let you understand better that it are really fucked up monsters. That's is what i like about Berserk passing the boundaries and backing up the story which is amazing.

Why is rape exempt from good storytelling?

No. So far the body is leaning extremely to the men's side.

A LOT of very famous books, as well as some of the best fantasy/medieval literature out there features graphic description of rape and murder.

Is Kentaro a misogynist? Hell no. He drew young Guts being raped by a rather large and gruesome man. He never draws rape scenes with the intent of pleasure - Instead, every single rape scene has the same effect.

Pure and utter disgust.

It's shocking that anybody would even THINK that Berserk is a sexist manga when the graphic examples of rape are almost always presented in a manner that is meant to disturb the viewer. Meanwhile, you have tasteless shonen #9999999 with yet another accidental boob touch or up-skirt shot designed with PLEASURE in mind, for the viewer and maybe even the author.

Lets get this straight - Kentaro did not look at manga for influence when writing Berserk. He looked at a lot of English literature. Conan: The Barbarian, Highlander and so on. Would you go back and call these rather influential and important pieces of media misogynistic? Would you say they were written and made for misogynistic intent? No, they depicted something in a way that was both mature and brutal.

Berserk is incredible. For a graphic novel to really get across the disturbing side of rape and torture in the way Kentarou manages it is insane. Without these things, Berserk would not have half of the shock factor, and it would not be Berserk.

Berserk in the modern day is different for multiple reasons, lack of rape is definitely one of them. Berserk has shifted from quite a grounded medieval fantasy to dark fantasy that pulls no punches and now to high fantasy. As each transition happened, there was a huge shift of tone. The medieval parts during the golden age featured a lot less rape than the later scenes of the dark fantasy arcs beginning with Wyald, and the current high fantasy is based more around giant monsters and magic.

That's the best explanation I can give. I couldn't care less if Berserk returns to its roots in the future or if the rape and torture of old is replaced by cleaner high-fantasy fight scenes, with the odd flashback being the only window into the older times. Berserk is evolving with the times.

One thing I will say is that I hate the sneaky fan service of the past few volumes, such as Schierke's distasteful ass shot when she falls on Guts. It's only saved by Guts's painful reaction. Farnese and Casca seem to like their baths these days.

I honestly don't think that Berserk is sexist. Provocative? Yes. Misogynistic? Not really. The thing about Berserk that makes it work is that it's based in a more primitive era. Guts doesn't approve of Casca presence because he's raised on barbaric ideals that woman are to meant to only bear children and tend to the home. You could say that the writers of the manga read a lot of Frank Miller making every women in the series whores, but actually what you realize about the women is that they are smarter than most people think. They always tend to exploit the weaknesses of men. Even before Casca became what she is now, her role was to show the more weaker side of Guts.

Hence the reason why Berserk is fucking brilliant. Now about setting up a coherent schedule for the manga chapters...

Wow so many updates after one another, has hell frozen over?

As to the topic, ehh I don't think so for reasons above by other posters. At least he's working so I don't care if he's a saddist that beats puppies.