Berserk: Ougon Jidai-hen I - Haou no Tamago

In the Kingdom of Midland, a mercenary named Guts wanders the land, preferring a life of conflict over a life of peace. Despite the odds never being in his favor, he is an unstoppable force that overcomes every opponent, wielding a massive sword larger than himself.

One day, Griffith, the mysterious leader of the mercenary group Band of the Hawk, witnesses the warrior's battle prowess and invites the wandering swordsman to join his squadron. Rejecting the offer, Guts challenges Griffith to a duel—and, much to the former's surprise, is subsequently defeated and forced to join.

Now, Guts must fight alongside Griffith and his crew to help Midland defeat the Empire of Chuder. However, Griffith seems to harbor ulterior motives, desiring something much larger than just settling the war...

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Guts Main

Iwanaga, Hiroaki Japanese

Griffith Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Casca Main

Yukinari, Toa Japanese

Judeau Supporting

Kaji, Yuuki Japanese

Nosferatu, Zodd Supporting

Miyake, Kenta Japanese

Pippin Supporting

Fujiwara, Takahiro Japanese

Rickert Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Corkus Supporting

Matsumoto, Yoshirou Japanese

Gaston Supporting

Yao, Kazuki Japanese

Bazuso Supporting

Kobayashi, Kendou Japanese

Kamagata, Eiichi Producer

Yonemori, Hiroto Producer

Ooshima, Mitsuru Producer

Shimada, Akira Producer

Reviews

Feb 3, 2012

jmoriarty84

Recommended

Just earlier this morning upon writing this review, I had the privilege of watching this movie in theaters in Japan. For the longest time, virtually everyone who has watched the original Berserk anime series have endlessly demanded more. And now that day has come upon us though not really in the most idealistic of terms. Many of us wanted a continuation of where the series leaves off, but for now, we have to settle a re-telling of the Golden Age arc which will eventually pave way for the rest of the manga to be adapted.

As for what it is covered, if you're already familiar ... with the source material you of course know what to expect and it's once again faithfully adapted (spoiler: there is no blackswordsman arc at the beginning). But I feel that for those already familiar with story, you want to see it with whole new animation which the original series was harshly criticized, then new animation is what you get and it's pretty awesome. But I suppose starting from the Golden Age, it can attract new audiences as well.

The action is very fluid and I feel that the postures and the weight of the armor and swords are properly depicted in the battle scenes. There are no still shots or any corner cutting. It really felt like an animated 300 but without all the trendy slow-mos and bullet time. What I really liked in the opening battle sequence is that the soldiers on both sides show fear in their eyes and that their arms and hands do shake when in battle knowing they could die. I like how more danger is more implemented with the battle scenes. Of course the battle scenes are violent, but I feel there is more psychology behind the battles as well. I like how Guts in his earlier days is portrayed as someone who fights off his experiences and instincts. When he's on that field, to him, it's just a day at the office.

I felt that the shaky camera angles you see in the Borne films was utilized too much. The panning both zooming in and out and the circular shots try to give it a live action feel. At this point, the fighting isn't drastically defying the laws of physics so the action does feel realistic.

What I felt somewhat upset that they changed the voice cast from the original TV series who were also used in the DC and PS2 games. I felt that the new seiyuu for Guts didn't have the same intimidation and that don"t fuck with me attitude that Nobutoshi Canna had. Sakurai Takahiro did capture some of Griffith's qualities but strongly lacked his charisma. Casca's new voice actress is nothing compared to the great Miyamura Yuko. If they could get those voice actors for the games, why not for something as big as this? Was this Miura's choice like masami's when they did the new Saint Seiya oavs?

Thankfully the music is once against compared by Hirakawa Susumu. To me, not having him for the music is like not having Kanno Yoko not doing the music for a Cowboy Bebop sequel and it would also be like Initial D without the Eurobeat. The style is still the same but brought to a whole new intensity appropriate for the epicness this project will bring.

For now, this movie does a great job of being just the beginning of what is to come. I understand this is supposed to be released internationally. I hope when it hits theaters or is on DVD wherever you are, you support this movie.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 30, 2012

Shadow67733

Mixed Feelings

For my review I will simply break things down by the rating system here and explain my choices. A little background on me.. I have been a Berserk fan since I discovered the series back in 2001. This is the series that originally got me into anime and eventually manga. I have owned and watched the 25 ep anime countless times and have read and own all the currently existing manga chapters. This is my favorite story series, bar none.

Okay, lets begin..

Story: The problem with the story is pacing. The movie leaves off way to many character building moments in favor of action ... and try to compress all of it in a laughably short time frame(88mins if I remember correctly). There is simply no time to make the connection with the characters and hurts immersion badly in my opinion. Many scenes were cut and not for the better. To be honest not many movies nowadays have such a short run time and it did not do this one any favors either. The movie needed another hour. Also, for those who expected something more "faithful" to the manga, this movie cuts out just as much, if not more, then the anime but keeps just enough to make sure the story can progress.

Art: To be honest the new style did not bother me visually as much as some other reviews I read have mentioned. I believe some said how.. "it made their eyes bleed" along with other colorful self mutilating descriptions of horror. I will say however, that it is hit or miss. Literally. There are some scenes that are beautiful and really well done but there are also a few parts that are awkwardly animated to say the least. For me it was not a deal breaker but something I did notice. The action segments were well done overall along with most of the still 2d scenes.

Sound: This will be quick. The original anime series soundtrack was better at carrying the mood and keeping a good theme. No contest, hands down, the end. I am glad Susumu Hirasawa was able to contribute "Aria" to the production(which is a fantastic track), but only to hear it once at the beginning intro and not as part of an overall theme was unfortunate.

Characters: I have to say, none of the voice acting wow'd me. Don't get me wrong, it was not awful but the original anime simply had a better voice cast with more versatility. Character design and shading was also funky at times with consistency. I have already mentioned the lack of character development so I won't rehash all of that again.

Overall: As a Berserk fan, its very much watchable. Sad to say though it was not what I hoped for when I was excited to see my series reborn. It could have been done so much better with all the story and material available to use from years of Miuras work. I'm also not sure their abridged version will attract the new fans they hoped which is a shame for a great series. I will admit one caveat, that as the entire movie series is not yet out my comments about character development may change depending how they handle key character and plot moments over the course of the next film. I do also realize how unfair it is to compare it to an anime which had way more content when this movie series is not yet complete. I am holding my judgement on the entire series until I can watch it fully.

My opinion with this movie: As Berserk fan its something you will want to see...but(and it hurts to say this) don't expect to much.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 24, 2012

Abs0

Not Recommended

Art: Where to begin with how much the art sucks? The fact that a movie released in 2012 somehow has worse 3D graphics than a computer game released a decade early? The fact that the same fucking "nameless soldier" model is used for hundreds of soldiers in every fucking scene regardless of whether if it's action or not? The fact that the models are ugly and plain as fuck even when used for close-ups and still shots? The fact that the faces are completely flat and not even shaded 90% of the time? Everything in the movie is undetailed, from the weapons, to the faces, ... to the armor, to the clothing - it's like everything was made out of Lego. The main point is that 3DCG is shit. You don't get the motion blur that you get with 2D hand drawn, meaning the action looks choppy as fuck. Where we would normally see the sword swing being blurred, in the movie it's presented as 2 discrete frames of the sword being in 2 different positions in air. It does not provide any illusion of movement. In the original 1997 series there was motion blurring of the sword noticeably in the assassination escape scene. In the movie (I watched the scene frame by frame about 10 times so I know exactly what I am talking about) there was exactly one frame that had a tiny fraction of the tip of the sword blurred. You can't even notice it. In the 1997 anime this scene was so well animated it was easily OVA quality. You could easily see the exact path of the sword with clarity even though it was played out in real time. The camera angle of the 1997 anime portrayed it perfectly, showing us exactly what happened. It was one of the few well animated bits of the series. In the movie we got a view from behind the two guards in front of Guts, so we got to see as little as possible of the actual action. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but it's little things like these that add up to make me think the director had really no fucking clue what he was doing. Corkus' helmet design seems specifically to avoid having to animate his mouth because he talks a lot. When he said "this bastard's the real deal", he's is supposed to look surprised - he didn't. The soulless CG models made it impossible to show any emotions. This is the same as when the two soldiers saw Guts killing Adonis - they were supposed to be outraged but the soulless 3DCG face just looked dumb. Adonis' death scene in the original 1997 series was 1 billion times more emotional than the death scene in the movie, and I am not exaggerating. Those of you who think I'm exaggerating - go watch the original series right now. Episode 10, 07:30. The detail on the artwork is, as mentioned before, far, far superior to the artwork on the new Berserk movie, the animation in that particular scene also happened to be one of the best in the series. The raw emotion in that particular scene (again, not saying the 1997 series was good, in fact it sucked, just that it had some good moments) is just incomparable to the soulless movie adaptation. You could actually feel the pain Adonis experienced, the guilt Guts felt, the guards' anger. It was all there. The movie adaptation was absolutely shite in this regard.

Animation: The animation was on the whole, somewhat fluid. However, the 3D movements looked wrong despite supposedly using motion-capture technology. I find it difficult to believe that people behave in such a jerky fashion during motion capture. Their limbs were constantly wobbling around and their heads constantly nodding about. Also during the fight scenes it looked like many of the soldiers were just waving their weapons around, not like they were actually fighting at all. If you can't be bothered to animate it properly because they weren't main characters, don't animate it at all because it looks fucking dumb. I can also go into how the depiction of the fights were not well done at all, not even compared to the 1997 series which was a low-budget barely animated piece of shit. The original anime showed the axe cracking when it hits the helmet from the top in slow motion, making it very clear that axe cracked upon hitting the helmet, whilst the same scene in the movie was shot from behind the helmet and few frames were used thereby making it very difficult to discern what exactly happened. The fact that the original anime, which was a low-budget barely-animated piece of shit, is still better than this movie, shows just how much this movie sucks ass. It's worse than shit.

Choreography: The choreography was a mixed bag. Let's start with the Bazuso scene. The movements of the guy who hired Guts for 7 silver coins' movements were completely bizarre and didn't look human at all. Bazuso's movements also looked completely ridiculous. There was too much unnecessary movement, Bazuso was bending his legs moving up and down, nodding his head back and forth for no reason apparently other than to show that this movie is, in fact, not very well choreographed. Guts' movement as he walked up to Bazuso was also fucked up, as in he looked like he was just shuffling and not really walking. His sword's movement also looked strange because the inertia was not portrayed well at all. A heavy sword like Guts' should have a ton of inertia and so cannot change direction like a plastic toy sword. When he swings the sword and abruptly stops it without slowing it down, that ruins the realism completely.

I don't think I explained why the Guts vs Bazuso fight was so badly choreographed. Okay, let's do it. Firstly there is the issue that Guts was only bashing his sword against Bazuso's axe handle for 95% of the fight. Why is this bad? Imagine someone is doing a downward vertical slash at you. That Bazuso, who is supposed to have slain 30 men, does not know how to parry but only how to block, I find incredibly unrealistic and insulting. I also find it highly idiotic that Guts would do the exact same attack 20 or 30 times in a row, attacking the same place with the same swing every time. His actions resemble a blacksmith hammering a sword rather than that of a skilled swordsman.


--------====Lengthy exposition on the physical and mechanical properties of Guts' sword and of plate armor begins====--------

Let's also leave aside the fact that Bazuso's axe must have been made of glass to shatter so easily, and that Guts bones must have been made of steel to withstand the enormous forces from accelerating what can only be called a slab of iron on a stick which must have weighed a ton.

Don't believe me? Let's do the calculations on the mass of Guts' "sword". Assumptions:

Density: 8 grams per cubic centimeter (steel).
Length: 120-150 centimeters (the blade goes up to Guts' chest level)
Thickness: 2 centimeters at thickest 1/3 of the blade, which means an average thickness of 1 centimeter for the other 2/3 of the blade, so the average thickness is 2*1/3 + 1*2/3 = 4/3 centimeters. (the blade is about 1/5 the thickness of Guts' arm at the elbow which we'll assume to be 10cm)
Width: 12-15 centimeters (the blade is as wide as the length of Guts' hand with fingers folded in)

Minimum mass = 8 * 120 * (4/3) * 12 = 15360 grams = 15.36 kg
Maximum mass = 8 * 150 * (4/3) * 15 = 24000 grams = 24 kg

Swinging a sword that weighs between 15 to 24 kilograms is no mean feat. For comparison a heavy duty sledgehammer only weighs 5-10 kg. The main reason the sword is so heavy is because of the thickness. Quote from wikipedia: "Frisian hero Pier Gerlofs Donia is reputed to have wielded a Zweihänder with such skill, strength and efficiency that he managed to behead multiple people with it in a single blow. The Zweihänder ascribed to him is, as of 2008, on display in the Frisian museum. It has a length of 213 cm (84 in) and a weight of about 6.6 kg". So in fact Guts sword is remarkable not for its length but for its thickness. Anyone who thinks 20kg is easy to handle should try swinging around a 20kg olympic bar. It's impossible to swing around an object like that with any degree of control. "B-b-but muh deadlifts!" you exclaim. Lrn2 leverage retard. It's easy to pick up a steel bar when you're holding two ends of it between your hands so that there is no turning moment and the center of mass is directly touching your line of gravity. You might find that medieval two-handed swords weighed a maximum of 6kg and on average weighed 3.5kg. There is a good reason for this - the center of gravity of a sword like Guts would have been 10 inches from the hilt and would have felt like wielding 2 sledgehammers on each hand.

Let's also not forget that medieval plate armor was designed to be impossible to cut with a sword and that people usually wore chainmail underneath plate armor which a sword also would not have been able to go through. In fact Miura showed that he understood this fact himself in Berserk chapter 330 by having Gambino mention that the armor worn by aristocrats was "impossible to penetrate" and the only way to defeat it is to force the enemy down. This is not technically true. A rigid sword can penetrate plate armor if used to stab rather than cut. Here's a relevant quote from wikipedia: "As armour improved, so did the methods of attacking the armour. It was quickly realized that cutting weapons were losing their effectiveness, so crushing weapons such as maces and axes were utilized. But thrusting weapons that could split the rings of mail, or find the joints and crevices of plate armour, were also employed. Long tapered swords could also be used as a lance once the lance was splintered. Thus was the estoc developed. The French word estoc translates to thrust." Simply put, a sword being used to cut does not have the sectional density as the same sword used to stab. Relevant quotes: "For illustration, a needle can penetrate a target medium with less force than a coin of the same mass. Similarly edge geometry comes into play- a steep angle at the cutting edge means that the sword has to displace material faster which 'bleeds off' energy more quickly as well- so a sword with 'bad' edge geometry will cut less well than a sword with 'good' edge geometry even if all other factors are equal." The problem with Guts' sword is that the edge angle is too steep to cut effectively. The point of having a sword is to cut, making a sword really thick and heavy defeats the point.


-----------====End of exposition====---------


But I digress. Let's move on to the next scene. Guts is fighting the man on horseback. The man on horseback attacks Guts. Guts deflects the sword and cuts the man by bring the sword over his head and then swinging from right to left. The action is hard to follow because it's too fast. The sword is depicted as bending severely under due to having to change direction from downwards to horizontal. Guts both stops the sword from swinging downwards and starts the sword swinging from right to left in what is essentially one frame of animation. That makes the action difficult to follow. But to say that it's badly choreographed would be stretching it. The idea of deflecting the horseman's sword is a good one, even if poorly executed. The main problem is that by the time Guts has deflected the horseman's sword, the horseman would have already passed Guts. The director apparently does not understand momentum. In the next scene the horseman with the spear throws it instead of stabs Guts with it for some reason. Guts moves to the side to block it and cuts the maceman's arm off. The arm should have continued to move forward due to momentum but it somehow stops in midair.

It's concerns like these that spoil the realism. These should not even be concerns in a realistic series like Golden Age Berserk which was based, on the whole, in the medieval era. Physics should be the same. A horseman's arm should continue moving forward after being cut off. This is a fact of physics. Again, not saying the choreography is all bad. It's much better than the choreography in the 1997 series, which was composed almost entirely of stills.

Probably the choreographic highlight of the movie was the fight after the assassination scene. Surrounded by soldiers, movie Guts always happened to be fighting them one at a time when the soldier behind Guts could have easily attacked Guts whilst Guts was fighting another soldier. You could actually see in the movie that one of the soldiers had raised his sword and was about to strike Guts when Guts was fighting another soldier, then somehow the soldier who raised his sword put it down to wait for Guts to kill another soldier before finally making up his mind to attack Guts. In the 1997 series, the anime avoided this problem by having Guts running from one side and the soldiers on the other side so that Guts avoided having to fight with enemies both in front and behind of him. Again, a small difference but it's the little things which add up. Also, when Guts jumped off the bridge, arrows were coming down from above his head at an angle which suggested that people from ANOTHER tower was firing at him from behind him, when the only crossbowmen shown thus far were on the same bridge as he was and therefore could not have possible fired from that angle. Again, extremely unrealistic and not present in the 1997 anime.

Conclusion: For a manga known by its great artwork, this anime adaptation was an extreme letdown. As I mentioned the 3DCG was undetailed as fuck and absolutely not movie quality, not even TV or video game quality. Because of the terrible art the was action unclear and difficult to follow. The soulless 3DCG created dumb flat-faced characters who looked retards and were incapable of expressing emotion. The choreography was probably better than the 1997 series but ruined by the inexpressive featureless art, by unnecessary movements, random wobbling, excessive nodding and spastic movements, and just plain bad directing in the form of poor choice of camera angles.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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