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This review covers the whole Golden Age Arc trilogy

To put it bluntly, this is not the best adaptation of the Berserk manga. The 1997 TV anime did a far better job at capturing the soul of the source material. Yes, that adaptation made several changes, but the hope, fear, ambition, friendship, betrayal and tragedy survived intact. I can't quite say the same for this one. The greatest flaw of this trilogy is that it mostly misunderstands what Berserk is about. The first two movies eagerly rush to the next large battle or major plot point, forgetting to pause and take a breath every now and ... then. The action and violence are a large part of the appeal of Berserk (I won't lie, that was what got younger edge-lord me into the manga), but the heart of the original story is in the quiet moments between the battles. Those moments in between humanise the characters and develop their relationships, but most are either rushed or left out entirely here. Additionally, the CG animation used is clunky and unimpressive to say the least, which defeats the purpose of putting so much focus on the big moments. It also misses the mark by being far too clean-looking for a tragic story about struggling against Fate in a brutal world.

As a result of always rushing to the next underwhelming spectacle, the relationship between Guts and Griffith suffers. These characters make decisions that destroy themselves and those around them, and what made the manga and 1997 anime both so magnificent was the justification the characters had for these actions. Guts and Griffith made bad choices, but they were the natural outcome of previous events, both big and small. With this version of Guts largely lacking a backstory and having his search for purpose (the driving force behind his actions) mostly skipped, and Griffith's regrets and empathy not shown at all, the story loses a lot of its complexity and emotional impact.
How can an acceptable conclusion come out of this?

Surprisingly enough, the third movie manages to provide exactly what the first two lacked. Visually, it's a clear step up in quality, and the art style fits better, making the hellish setting of most of the movie look suitably unnatural. Character facial expressions look more believable and convey emotion much better than before, making it easier to care about the characters. The build-up to the Eclipse, the event itself and the aftermath are given time to work their magic, unlike the rushed events of the previous movies. More focus is given to Casca and the Band of the Hawk, and although most of his more human side hasn't been displayed, Griffith's big "to sacrifice or not to sacrifice" conflict still has enough nuance to it on a philosophical level to stop the whole thing from being cheap shock factor. As previously mentioned, the Eclipse loses some of its impact because of the failure of the two previous movies, but the beginning of the third partially makes up for that with its slower pace and its attention to the more minor characters. It doesn't erase the mistakes of the first two movies, but it miraculously creates a solid conclusion despite them.

Can I recommend this trilogy? Certainly not to newcomers, as the 1997 anime is a far better starting point for anyone who doesn't want to jump straight into the manga. Fans of the manga, on the other hand, may find it worthwhile, but then there's no reason not to just skip to the third movie.

No Longer Human is a manga adaptation and modernisation of Osamu Dazai’s novel of the same name, following Yozo Oba, a young man who is terrified of other human beings and feels himself alienated from them. I see no problems in adapting the story to a modern setting, as alienation and fear and mistrust of other people exist in any time period. A story with these themes can be told well no matter when or where it is set, as it’s something everyone has likely experienced; but I find Furuya’s manga adaptation to fall short of Dazai’s classic novel in depicting that state of mind. ... No Longer Human focuses heavily on Yozo’s severely broken perception of the world and how he keeps destroying himself in mind and body (helped in no small part by his environment); and in stories like this, my expectation is that the character’s actions and mindset be clearly understandable. In this pursuit, the manga succeeds partially, but it could have done so much more.

The core of Yozo’s character is evident: he feels alienated and mistrustful towards most people, and he can only connect to them superficially, by behaving like a clown to make his classmates like him, and by having casual sex with women instead of forming fulfilling relationships. He goes through hell as he overreacts to his every failing and misfortune, beginning to abuse drugs and falling into a very dark place psychologically. The disappointing thing about Yozo’s characterisation is the fact that most of the time we’re on the outside looking in at him, instead of on the inside looking out at the world through his eyes, as in the novel. We have an objective view of him, not a subjective one heavily influenced by his self-loathing. Being directly inside Yozo’s head gives a much better idea of who he is than anything the manga does from a third-person perspective: the best examples of this are the passages ripped straight from the novel and displayed between chapters of the manga, which have the unfortunate effect of inviting comparison to the source. Now maybe I’m being unfair here, because novels by nature get inside a character’s head far more easily than manga, but it’s not like manga are useless at it. Solanin and Berserk are examples that prove that manga can express character emotions effectively: they build empathy for their characters through effective use of facial expressions and body language, as well as composition. Unfortunately, No Longer Human doesn’t do this nearly as well.

Occasionally, Yozo’s worldview will leak into the art: he’ll be depicted as a helpless marionette, or the people around him will be depicted as faceless beings incessantly staring at him; and one standout sequence shows Yozo drawing a manga, filling it with grotesque and horrifying images, venting his feelings through his art, clearly expressing exactly what’s going on that we don’t see the rest of the time. Although the manga’s artwork becomes more expressive as the story goes on, it is ordinary for the most part, and the occurrences I’ve mentioned are the exception rather than the rule, and arguably a case of too little too late. The artwork doesn’t do quite enough to communicate Yozo’s thoughts and emotions, leaving the rest of the job up to the writing.

Furthermore, Yozo is only given minimal backstory. His father is implied to be a major part of why he became the way he was before he was introduced at the beginning of the story, but the hinting at what happened is so vague as to be nearly useless. The novel, in addition to describing Yozo’s upbringing and early life, includes a brilliant account of his father offering him a choice between two gifts: a mask or a book. He wants the book but gives in to his father’s expectations and chooses the mask, symbolic of the façade he would put on for the rest of his life. Nothing like this is to be found in the manga, leaving us to guess at what turned him into such a broken person, which is unfortunate, as it makes him that much less understandable and relatable. Showing his childhood and giving more detail regarding how he grew up would have gone a long way in creating a more interesting character, and would have greatly benefited No Longer Human, which is first and foremost an exploration of Yozo’s character.

In conclusion, if you haven’t experienced No Longer Human in any form, then I advise you to read the original novel. While the story of alienation, betrayal, vice and self-destruction shown in this manga is certainly serviceable, and its strengths are hard to dismiss, many of the changes it makes cause it more harm than good, making it a decent manga instead of a great one.

Solanin poses questions I’m willing to bet most people above a certain age have asked themselves. The first is whether it is better to pursue an unlikely dream or to face reality and resign yourself to working 9 to 5 so that you can survive and enjoy your hobbies in your free time. This question becomes more difficult to answer when nothing drives you and you don’t know if there is anything you can be passionate about. The second is the question of when the right time is to leave your childhood behind and join the world as an adult, possibly giving up on unrealistic ... dreams. And so, this brings us to Meiko Inoue, our main character, who decides to quit her boring and thankless job for a while to chase something else and finds herself in a predicament of not knowing what to do with herself. She is joined by the friends she made in university, who, employed or unemployed, also find themselves in that same state of uncertainty.

Solanin doesn’t try to make grand statements about the meaning of life or what it means to be human, and it doesn’t need to. All Solanin aims to do is show the reader the lives of a group of people in their early to mid-twenties, lost, aimless and generally unsure of themselves and their futures. This is a story about a difficult transitionary phase of life and what people do when confronted with this situation. Most of the story, divided into relatively short chapters, is seen from Meiko’s perspective, but occasionally another character will receive a chapter to show a different side of the central problem, as well as whatever unique challenges and insecurities each character may face. This structure works very well, as each chapter is succinct and valuable, both on its own and as a part of the whole.

The characters don’t display immense growth over decades or anything like that; no, they simply experience life, just like you and me, and Solanin shows us a year of it. There is not a great deal of easily noticeable character development to be seen, but what subtle change is there is significant: that slight change in mindset for each major character involved learning a valuable lesson, making for a satisfying conclusion to the story, even if on the surface the characters’ personalities haven’t changed much at all. By the end of it, they are still unfulfilled, but have at least decided on a direction in which to head. That, in my view, is what marks the beginning of their transition into adulthood.

Meiko and the others may not be the most complex, but their reactions to the events that befall them, as well as the details of their body language and facial expressions, make up for that somewhat, and sell them as unmistakably human. This is helped greatly by the artwork: Asano doesn’t exaggerate character emotions in his art, but it is always easy to tell what a character is feeling in any moment. In addition, the large amount of narration present allows the reader an even closer look inside the mind of the perspective character for that chapter. All of this serves to add more realism and relatability to the story and its characters.

Those questions I mentioned at the beginning of the review never receive a clear answer. However, this is for the best; the dilemmas might have been cheapened had definite answers been provided, and there is no “one size fits all” solution. The closest thing to a moral or message that I could find was “appreciate the little things in life and where you can, do what makes you happy.” It’s a simple message, but no less valuable because of its simplicity. If any part of what I’ve described sounds like your own life, then I urge you to read it, because Solanin is a story that will resonate with anyone who is or has been in a similar situation.