May 19, 2014
Berserk feels like two different series.
The first, the "Golden Age" arc, is where its acclaim rightly comes from- it easily stands alone as the single best Manga arc I've ever read. Deserves 10s across the board. Reading Berserk is *absolutely* worthwhile for that experience alone- superb, mature characters, fiendishly inventive plot twists, and some beautiful worldbuilding. The way it ends is absolutely heartbreaking.
Then, after the first ~110 chapters? There's, ah, the rest.
The post-Golden Age arc's still enjoyable- and the magnificent art style, if anything, has got even better. The problem's with the setting and pacing- it scarcely feels like the storyline has
...
any idea where it wants to go anymore. The serious, heartfelt tone of the Golden Age arc's faded away, and been replaced with something much closer to a standard shōnen plotline. Guts and Griffith are still about, and the relationship between the two is still fantastic- but just about everything that made the Golden Age arc so distinctive's vastly reduced. The worldbuilding's still spectacularly creative, the sparse moments of actual plot development are interesting, and the characters from the original arc are still around, and develop in unexpected ways- but the feeling of close camraderie that made the Band of the Hawk's stories so wonderful to read about is just gone. What's in its place is a pretty, formulaic string of sequences- roughly summed up as "Guts et al wander into new setting, mysterious phenomenon transforms into eldritch abomination, the party thwack it with magical weapons for a few chapters, then Guts screams and gravely injures himself destroying the monster of the week". That's it- the overarching, beautifully written story of the Golden Age arc's been replaced by something that feels distinctly less... human? Berserk's become a story dominated by the spectacle, rather than the characters- which, unfortunately, has entailed jettisoning a huge part of what made it so wonderful in the first place.
The plot's meandered along at a glacial pace for almost two hundred chapters now. Given the slow rate of chapter releases (three hundred chapters over twenty years?), it's hard to imagine the plot getting anywhere soon.
Scored a "7" with a heavy heart. The Golden Age arc on its own deserves "10"s across the board- but the latter two thirds of the story drag the score down. The soul just isn't there anymore.
Read it, absolutely. Just expect to find the magic trailing off after a certain point.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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