Berserk: Ougon Jidai-hen I - Haou no Tamago

Alternative Titles

English: Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I - The Egg of the King

Synonyms: Berserk Movie, Berserk Saga, Berserk: Golden Age Arc I - Egg of the Supreme Ruler, The Golden Age Arc I: The High King's Egg

Japanese: ベルセルク黄金時代篇Ⅰ 覇王の卵

Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Feb 4, 2012

Producers: Yahoo! Japan, Good Smile Company, Beyond C., Rialto Entertainment

Licensors: Viz Media, NYAV Post

Studios: Studio 4°C

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Military, Adventure, Demons, Supernatural, Fantasy, Seinen

Duration: 1 hr. 16 min.

Rating: R+ - Mild Nudity

Statistics

Score: 7.78¹ (scored by 98,482 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #851²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #871

Members: 152,871

Favorites: 728

7.78

Ranked #851Popularity #871Members 152,871

MovieStudio 4°C

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Episodes: /1

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Trailer English sub version

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Synopsis

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]

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Background

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Berserk
Alternative version:	Kenpuu Denki Berserk, Berserk (Movie Pilot)
Sequel:	Berserk: Ougon Jidai-hen II - Doldrey Kouryaku

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Guts

Main

Iwanaga, Hiroaki
Japanese

Griffith

Main

Sakurai, Takahiro
Japanese

Casca

Main

Yukinari, Toa
Japanese

Judeau

Supporting

Kaji, Yuki
Japanese

Nosferatu, Zodd

Supporting

Miyake, Kenta
Japanese

Pippin

Supporting

Fujiwara, Takahiro
Japanese

Rickert

Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako
Japanese

Corkus

Supporting

Matsumoto, Yoshirou
Japanese

Bazuso

Supporting

Kobayashi, Kendou
Japanese

Gaston

Supporting

Yao, Kazuki
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Kamagata, Eiichi

Producer

Kubooka, Toshiyuki

Director

Kanno, Toshiyuki

Director, Animation Director, Key Animation

Hori, Motonobu

Storyboard

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Opening Theme

"Aria" by Susumu Hirasawa

Edit

Ending Theme

"Blood and Guts" by Shiro Sagisu
"Utsukushikumono" by Ai

More reviews

Reviews

May 30, 2012

1 of 1 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 6

Shadow67733 (All reviews)

225 people found this review helpful

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.

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Feb 3, 2012

1 of 1 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

ParaParaJMo (All reviews)

172 people found this review helpful

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.

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Aug 19, 2015

1 of 1 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

_Megami (All reviews)

37 people found this review helpful

(This is a review for all three Berserk movies, but read more

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Jun 6, 2012

1 of 1 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

5camp (All reviews)

31 people found this review helpful

I first saw the original Berserk TV series about 2 years ago and thought it was pretty good. By 'pretty good' I mean I consider it to be the greatest story ever told, better than The Odyssey, Hamlet, Citizen Kane and Big Oiled Butts 3 combined. 15 years later they've brought out a Berserk movie. A trilogy no less, the first of which was just released in good old illegal format for all of us dirty foreign pirate scum to watch. Early impressions: They've changed a few things. Very few things.

The movie covered about 10 episodes of the original, from when Guts first meets Griffith to the part where the assassination attempts start happening in the royal court. They cut out a fair amount of scenes, the most noticeable of which being there was no naked water fight. Seriously, no naked water fight means you might as well not call it Berserk anymore. Not that the homoerotic subtext isn't there anymore. Forget subtext, Guts outright states that he'll happily be Griffith's whore. Berserk has always ridden on their relationship and how closely interlinked their goals in life are and how they define each other, so at the very least they got that part right.

The movie did cut out a lot of content, as I mentioned before, but the fact that the only content I can recall them skipping was the naked water fight goes a long way to showing how what they cut out wasn't vital to the story. It did feel a bit mechanical the way they jumped from plot point to plot point, making the movie feel disjointed like you could feel the gaps where the episode would normally end or the manga chapter would cut out, but perhaps this is only noticeable to me as a fan of the original. They still got across the importance of the relationship between Guts and Griffith, along with Casca's jealousy, which is all that really matters.

The main big change they made, apart from streamlining the story, was the animate the movie entirely in CG. As much as I hate to chime along with everyone else who talks about this movie, but the majority in correct in this case. The CG simply does not look good. It might look good compared to many of the other CG anime I've seen over the years, but it still looked awkward and unnatural. From the trailers I thought the character animation for the CG looked fantastic, but now having watched the movie I have to confess that those scenes I thought were great CG were actually just standard 2D animation. When they cut to the free-flowing CG stuff it looked plasticky and artificial.

The use of CG ties into something else bigger going on with the tone of this Berserk movie. The movie is going for a more high epic fantasy adventure rather than the gloomy gritty affair that was the original TV series. This does come with its own set of problems though. The fight scenes in Berserk are as bloody as hell, with characters heads being cleaved in two and arms flying around and the camera being smeared with blood. The original Berserk had all this as well, but here it felt gratuitous and immature, like you had some suger-rushing 15 year old boy off camera going "fuck yeah now cut his head orf yeah!".

The original Berserk was harsh and brutal. The level of violence fit the tone because it was a tough world they lived in and people die and have brown smeared over everything. By no means do I have anything against high fantasy, what with the Lord of the Rings movies being my favourite movies of all time. But with this mechanical look and bright colour palette, the gore feels out-of-place. I maintain that the best fully CG anime is Fireball, precisely because the fake mechanical look to CG works when the characters are all robots. It doesn't suit something that's as gritty and dirty as Berserk is. God only knows how they're going to handle what happens later on in the story when shit really gets brutal.

That brings me on nicely to my final point about this movie. This Berserk remake trilogy plans to cover the 'Golden Age' arc, which is exactly the same material the original TV series covered. It's still the same old Berserk story. That story may be fantastic. The duel between Guts and Griffith where Guts bites down on the sword is still an awesome scene, as is the washed up Guts standing on the stairs after the assassination and looking up at Griffith as he gives his speech about dreams. These are still powerful scenes that show Berserk is as great a story as it always was, even in this streamlined version. But it brings so little new to the table to Berserk that I don't get why it exists. What little it does bring, shifting the tone to a more high fantasy one, makes the darker and more brutal elements of the story seem gratuitous and silly. I'll have to wait to watch the rest of the trilogy to make some sort of final statement on this, but I don't think this is really worth watching. If you're a newcomer, watch the original TV series or pick up the manga if you're more of a manga person. At least those versions have the naked water fight.

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	Poll: Berserk Ougon Jidaihen I: Haou no Tamago Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) amirhoss - Feb 4, 2012	155 replies	by SpeedRoidGenm »» Apr 15, 11:16 AM
	Is this worth watching after having already watched the 1997 series? TheOnlyEnclave - Jan 7, 2019	1 replies	by Zoldra0 »» Jan 21, 2019 1:47 PM

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