How good is "Berserk"?

Interstice said:


Man if you can, delete this, because you are completely embarrassing your inability to read and understand a Manga.

First of all his name is Guts, what the fuck is a GATTS? In what official translation have you ever seen his name being spelled like that?

So not only are you not able to pronounce the name of he main character you also didn't name one direct example of what is supposedly repetitive. You admit to binging and then complain about characters you have not understood in the first place? I swear Mal is really filled with clueless people.

Each arc offers something new in the series, so don't even try to start the repetitive argument.

The Conviction Arc deals with the Incarnation ceremony and themes like escapism, paganism, religion, causality, the Beast of Darkness and much more.

The Millenium Falcon arc takes a deep look into the World of Berserk and develops the relationship Guts has with his new group while showing Griffith building his own demon arm ultimately resulting in the world transformation, an even foreshadowed since the end of the Conviction arc.

The Fantasia arc shows the consequence of the astral blast and has put Falconia&Elfhelm in contrast thus far as its still ongoing.

I could go on, but obviously debating the nonsense you mentioned is impossible, because you literally gave 0 examples of scenes and rambled misinformation which is mainly due to you not understanding what you read.

ryth1 said:
My friend told me that it is the greatest manga she ever read. Is Berserk really that good?

ryth1 said:
The anime clearly has lackluster visuals.

Loki0830 said:


That's a really drawn out way to say "I like the series so your opinion is wrong".

I put both versions of his name because I saw both of those versions used while binging. I know fans can sometimes be rambunctious about the most trivial things and I don't know where their loyalties lie so I put both to cover both bases. Your little outburst here really only validates that point.

I didn't cite many examples because I was trying to not spoil anything for the TC if he decides to read the series, and I don't particularly see the need to try and defend my personal impression of the series to a rabid fan with seemingly low self control.

I mentioned what I thought of the series already. Characters feel flat and 1 dimensional, fights and conflicts all feel relatively similar, too little happens for how long the series is, and after the Golden Age arc nothing the series presented me with was able to hook me. The infrequency of chapter releases also doesn't help my motivation for the series. If you disagree, neat. I don't really care. Taste is subjective anyways.

Have a good Easter Sunday. Cheers.

Interstice said:
Saying that you find the series not entertaining anymore is subjective, but saying things repeat themselves and then falsely describing the later plot is not. Thats just you missing the entire point of the series, which to remind you is a fantasy tale.

Loki0830 said:


That's actually a fair point. Though I also think you constantly insisting I'm just missing the point of the manga or have comprehension issues just because I'm not listing examples is a bit misguided. I already cited examples in my first comment, albeit in a generic way to avoid spoilers.

But I'll bite. Technically this thread is to discuss weather Berserk is worth reading. If I'm going to discuss this anywhere it makes sense for it to be here.

Minor spoilers below if anyone reading cares.

_________

One of my biggest gripes are the fights in this series: 90% of them are essentially filler panels that pad out the story. I get that the manga is trying to be somewhat gritty and realistic when it comes to fights, but when every single conflict is handled in the same way the novelty wears off fast. If there is a horde of small monsters, Guts one shots them over the course of several panels. Sometimes Serpico or Schierke have a panel or 2 of them also one shotting or nukeing the party. If there's a giant monster, Guts swings his sword around, hurts it, get thrown around, then swings his sword some more and the monster dies. That's it. That's 90% of all the fights in 359 chapters. And it doesn't help that fights happen pretty much every single chapter or every other chapter involving the main party. It's wasted space.

In fact there's just a lot of wasted space here. Anytime a monster shows up usually a third to half of the chapter is just establishing shots of the monsters and/or people reacting to them. Given how effortlessly Guts dispatches them it doesn't make sense for so much time to be spent focusing on such trivial aspects of the story.

The whole tentacle monster arc preceding the group getting to Elfhelm is also basically filler. Nothing important to the story happened for 34 chapters. If the siren girl is important to the story later on, she easily could have just been beached on the shores of Elfhelm and the same result would have been achieved. 8 chapters were dedicated for Schierke and Farnese fumbling around in Casca's Memory to awaken her (honestly Schierke could have been sufficient for telling that beat, or not needing them at all), and those are 8 chapters that easily instead could have been 1 or 2 chapters, or even been done in the background while other things were developed instead.

Looking at when the chapter discussion were posted on these forums, those 8 chapters took almost a year and a half to release. 17 months for filler content that didn't need to be shown. I could go on. Point is, there is a ton of wasted space that doesn't need to be there, and it's doubly insulting for how long it takes for a single chapter to release now days. That alone would be enough for me to not recommend this series to a new reader.

Character personalities are also a problem. This is more personal than objective, but they feel uninteresting for how much time we spend with them. Isidro added some life into the manga when he was introduced, but after the second arc his character devolves to being jealous of Guts and being made fun of by Schierke. He has a single moment fending off trolls during the third arc.

Puck is an anomaly, I have no idea why he's still here. He started off as the self-proclaimed comedic relief to offset the dark atmosphere of the manga in the earlier chapters, but he still had some involvement in the story beats of the beginning. However, after he suggested going to Elfhelm in chapter 181 (pretty much the half way point of the manga), his character is reduced to sticking around Isidro over Guts for some reason and being poorly drawn in the background doing dumb things or impersonations for "comedy".

Guts has a change in personality from being a loud and revenge-driven lunatic to a calmer, stoic man of few words. This change in him makes sense as its trying to exemplify his maturity and acceptance of his new friends, but for THE leading character of the story it feels misguided for him to be "a man of few words". In my opinion, Guts was a much more fascinating character in his introduction than what he is now.

Furthermore, there's very little interesting party synergy of the group. It's mainly the Isidro and Schierke show with the adults being disgruntled and stoic. And it wore on me quickly. When you look at the characters in other popular mangas like One Piece or Hunter x Hunter, the characters just feel underwhelming in comparison in Berserk.

From a story telling perspective much more interesting stuff happens on Griffith's side of the story, but Griffith himself is arguably the most boring character in the series who barely speaks or does anything after his revival. He's the main antagonist right? Then why is he so uninteresting? Again, look at Hunter x Hunter or One piece for comparison, since I keep bringing them up. The only engaging thing about his character is the fact he's possessing the unborn fetus of Guts and Casca's child and switches personas every full moon. But as of now, nothing has come of that. And it's not like the other persona does anything either.

Berserk just doesn't reward your time the same way other series do. While maybe contradictory to the tone of my post until now, but I'm not trying to say Berserk is a bad series. I still rate it a 7/10, which is above average for me. It just never hooked me. In its current state, with how slow the story is to release and with no end in sight, I wouldn't recommend reading it. I would wait for its completion first. it's not worth waiting month by month for what the series has given me so far. That's all.

Interstice said:
Stuff

Interstice said:
Saying that 90% of the battles is filler is just a nonsencial claim with absolutely no weight to it. Each battle as the series goes on offers something new. Guts went from battling Apostles, to astral creatures, to people who used magic, and besides his opponents changing, he changed to in terms of fighting style.

Interstice said:
And its not 34 episodes long, it spans 2 volumes and amounts to 20 episodes. From 308 to 328, another thing you got wrong. And don't get me wrong, but saying that was filler is a purely retarded statement.

Interstice said:
Hmmm, why is Puck still here? Maybe Puck played a detrimental part in Guts development? Maybe the crew was headed to HIS homeland? Maybe he is used to balance out the atmosphere of the world through small panels that contain jokes, something that existed since the first volume of the series? What did you expect to happen with him, just fuck off after he brought so much to the story?

Interstice said:
Also again, do you read the manga or skip episodes? How can you miss Guts relationship with Serpico, from their battles together to fighting each other. Serpico even threatening to ''kill'' Guts if something happens to Farnese.

Loki0830 said:


I'm starting to believe I'm playing chess with a pigeon. All you've done is indiscriminately praise every aspect and example of Berserk while immediately dismissing any criticism with "Oh you just don't understand this masterpiece" at every chance you can get. We have a word for that.

Fanaticism. And it's getting old.

And by the way, do you know what a story beat is? You keep claiming every aspect of the story is important because "something" happens in them, like Farnese using magic to defend the boat, but just because something happens doesn't mean it's important to the story.

Look at Fusion from the Buu arc in Dragon Ball Z. It's a neat concept that's a fan favorite, but nothing actually happened with Fusion. If you took out that inclusion the story would be exactly the same. That means fusion is not an essential story beat of DBZ. The narrative can be told just as well without its inclusion. That's what I'm referring to when I say nothing happens in Berserk. There's a lot of padding and filler, but not much of actual weight to change and develop the story.

Farnese learning magic is cool, but so far nothing has been shown where that is an aspect of the story that actually matters. The story could have been just slightly tweaked to not need her inclusion in the party at all. Just because she was able to evidently nab the party a boat or help out in Casca's Awakening doesn't mean the story couldn't have been written to not need those aspects just as easily. It's flavor. Not essential. Learn the difference already.



You're reaching. Hard. It doesn't matter if the things Guts fights change if the flow and consequences of those battles stay the same.



You're right here, actually. I forgot the chapters dealing with Rickert on Griffith's side of the story happened immediately after the "Sea God" arc. My bad.



I think you mean pivotal here instead of detrimental?

And I disagree, obviously. Puck was used as a character that could interact and react to Guts during the introduction of the story. As soon as other characters were able to slip into those shoes Puck immediately noped the fuck out of that role. And at that point he really didn't offer anything to the story besides that "comedy". He could have mentioned Elfhelm and then flew off never to be seen again and the story would be no different.



I didn't miss it. It's just not important. There's one scene with him after he joins the group where Guts and him have a conflict, and even then it's not that big of a deal. All other times they're buddy buddy. In fights he has a panel or 2 where he 1 shots or reacts to enemies. That's it.

Overall the group synergy is not interesting, not at all when you compare to similarly popular manga. Or at least it wasn't to me.

_________

If you respond again with nothing but fanatical praise then this will be my last comment here.

Cheers. It's been a pleasure.

Edocchi said:
It's bad. Don't waste your time

accelerate21 said:


it's okay to have a bad taste :)

Quazar said:
My issue so far has been the fairy guy. He is annoying and ruins the tone of the series.

wape said:
Almost as Sword Art Online.