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Thank you posting that video.

Humorous School Days review 🤣

I'm sorry to say that I haven't considered that view at all, but don't massive corporations do stuff with impunity in countries like the USA? I'll look up this guy.

I am impressed, especially with the last two episodes I watched and especially with episode 16, it's been probably the best episode so far. It was Kei's episode, explaining her backstory, putting her in a dangerous situation and resolving the conflict very elonquently in the span of ~20 or so minutes. While I can't say I've been especially impressed by the animation, there has been some series of shots that definitely leave an impression, such as when her former fiance wa about to walk her towards her old home. His presence obscures the camera, for a moment dominating everything on the screen, a very solid 3D effect. The ending is masterful, with Kei hesitating but only for a moment before she shoots to kill her villanous former lover who betrayed her and her family. Playing the role of her mother, she pleads Harlock to listen to the end of the music she played with her mother's shamisen. At the sunset, Arcadia flows nearby...

Of course, the animation has become dated and a lot of the heavy lifting is done by the great pacing set by the writing and the cinematography, compounded with the score. But the actual designs of the characters and world are very good, sort of reminds me of a retrofuturism of the 20s, especially the city landscape looked a bit like that German film "Metropolis". It's good to see that not everything was influenced by Star Wars.

Also, their dystopian future is definitely one of the more appealing ones. And realistic. We are heading to a somewhat similar future, but it seems like all of these sci-fi thought that the state would be the one controlling people's lives, when it's going to be massive corporations. The state can always be accounted for, corporations... not so much.

Thansk!!

Happy birthday! :D

Man, so many people get sick this time of year, it seems. I'm also ill and so are a bunch of people I know.

Bulgaria is, unfortunately, a country that has completely allowed itself to be at the mercy of greater powers since the end of the communist era. Or rather, since its beginning. While it can't be said that Bulgaria is as degenerate as the West in every aspect, it is heading towards that way, especially in the capital - where all degeneracy originates, actually. I personally know a transgender person, although I wish I didn't. He has a lesbian boyfriend bodybuilder.

I'm thinking of re-watching all of Hokuto no Ken. It's going to be quite the undertaking, though. There's still so many awesome stuff from the 80s and 90s I haven't watched. It's shameful, since I've been watching anime from the 2000s, but the number of anime I've watched is so low.

Pleven, it was once an important city for Bulgarian-Russian relations. A Japanese officer, Seigo Yamazawa, took part in the siege of Pleven/Plevna during the Russo-Turkish war 1877-1878.

Yeah, Hokuto no Ken is awesome, I watched it last time around 2014.

I'm Bulgarian. I've seen HnK years ago, I'm going to watch it again.

Please, don't say that, the actual narrative is tightly woven, without any loose ends, really.

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Interviewer: And with the introduction of magic, Schierke also joined the group.

Miura: Schierke's appearance is partly because of Isidro showing up, but there's a second-generation aspect, like with Fist of the North Star's Bat and Lin. So if nature takes its course, won't she and Isidro end up as a couple? Schierke is drawn next to Guts, but next to the girl longing for an adult man is the boy who does his best as he steadily grows up. I have a feeling that's things as they should be [laugh].
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This is from Berserk Official Guidebook Interview (2017), the sub-section is Guts Goes Up a Level with the Berserker Armor. I'm pretty sure this is where I made the connection, since I can't find anything else.

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The story is rather open, I doubt it would have ended at 400 chapters, but by 364 I think the course was rather clear after Casca was healed. It would have been Guts' ultimate goal to stop Griffith. Not to take revenge upon, but end his ploy to subjugate all of humanity. No doubt there would have been prolonged side-quests, had Miura lived on, though...

Also, thank you for reading my ramblings.

tl;dr

magic system is kind of dumb, Schierke is too stupid, I hate that she's important, Christianity-stand-in for evil organised religion = dumb and insensetive

I see, I guess I stereotyped you unconsciously, I apologise for that. I agree that those are probably the best parts of Berserk, but I'd include everything to episode 190 - "Fangs of Ego", as well, and the Flowers of Oblivion chapter from the Dreamcast game. These stories expand on the world of Berserk in a way I liked.

Before I share some of my gripes with Berserk, I would like to retort some of your claims:

The length of the story - we do not know the full extent of the epic Miura wanted to tell. Personally, I didn't feel like the story was anywhere near finnished. I would like to hear your thoughts on this matter in more detail and in what context. While the story of Berserk mainly follows Guts' plight, he is very much depicted to be only a part of the world he inhabits. Despite having prototypical and archetypical machinations of classical heroes, he is definitely not a messiah-type of character. Ironically, that's the villain - Griffith.

Griffith or Femto is a being of near absolute power compared to Guts who builds up his strentgh constantly through acquiring "war demons", saving Midlanders and ensuring their loyalty to him, etc. In a way, he is a mirror image of Guts, as Guts himself acquires valiable comrades throughout his journey. Griffith defeats, technically with the help of all of his followers, a god of destruction - the transformed Ganishka, and so does Guts destroy the God of the Sea, with invaluable help of his friends and allies. Griffith founds the kingdom of Heaven/ City of God of this world and Guts finds solitude in a remote elysium - Elfhelm, a refuge from the maelstrom.

This couldn't have been possible were it not for his new travel party, which thanks to it, allowed him to find or be found by Schierke and Flora, which in turn set them on their latest quest - the restoration of Casca's mind with the powers of the Flower Storm Monarch. And how to get there? No other way than with a trained crew of seamen. It's all tightly knit and everybody has a purpose.

Personally, I didn't really have any attachment to the Golden Age characters, aside from the Trio + Judeau, because they didn't have that many character moments in the storyline. We are led to believe they were valuable people to Guts, and assuredly they were, but the interactions we see between him and them are slim.

Advancement of the story - the story does advance. I'd say too quickly is the problem. Guts accepting help of former enemies who by all means were strangers to him is kind of jarring. What I'm saying is - it's not wrong for him to have allowed Serpico and Farnese, and I guess Isidro to accompany him, but he shouldn't have been so ready to receive help from them. I wasn't really convinced by his transformation after the troll battle for the village. You can't say the story doesn't move along, locations change, a new and important character is introduced - the Moonlight Boy. Frankly, I'm puzzled why he didn't work more on it, since the way the story was going it appeared more like a traditional JRPG. I thought he wanted to tell that type of story after he reached his "mature" age of his lifespan.

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That said, my huge fault that lies with Berserk is Schierke, the religion of the Holy See and the magic system. The magic system in Berserk is probably something that should have never been explained. It's clearly an amalgamation of Kabbalah/Hermeticism and Graeco-Near-Eastern esotericism and mysticism (+/- platonism and 19th century stuff, like Odinism). There is technically a seperate kind, of that used by the Kushan, but the story doesn't focus on it.

The religion of the Holy See is a stupid stand-in for a mix between Catholicism and Protestantism (completely neglecting Orthodox Christianity), and represents only a pulpish understanding of the doctrines of those churches. This in general is a fault with nearly every fantasy setting that takes stuff from our world. I might not have had a big problem if the setting of Berserk wasn't obviously a mirror-world of our own. When the Roar of the Astral world happened, you can seriously see the Iberian, Appenine, Peloponnesian and Anatolian peninsulas... only the British Isles look different...

Anyway, the religion of the Holy See has superceded the spiritual authority of the old belief systems of the various nations that the See has jurisdiction over. Somehow it has also completely annihilated superstition and thus the spiritual power of people themselves. In our world, Christianity had a more subtle take-over and it never outright discarded the "fictitious" machinations of the newly-converted. Instead, it found ways to incorporate them within itself. In fact, that's basically how we even know so much of the Ancient world and of the illiterate societies - Christians wrote down and copied manuscripts of what they knew of the spiritual aspects of a specific culture and people. Christianity also had its own esoteric movements, some approved, like hermeticism, some heretical - the many gnostic movements.

The manga is kind of preachy in a way and it is kind of annyoing to read that the stand-ins for Christians are mooks who don't follow their own doctrines, or obey only through fear, be it from inquisitors or from clergy, or fear from their own feudal lords who are supposed to keep them safe. It really depicts a severe lack of understanding of the Medieval world, which is shocking, considering how spot on some aspects of zeitgeist are so accurately depicted.

Now, the magic system - prayer is useless, like in all fantasies for some reason, while magic incantations, which historically required their own prayers, are obviously more powerful. The Od is the source through which the elemental spirits channel their power. It's basically the Force, but with an extra step. The most obvious thing in a manga would be for the main character to become learned in this amazing source of power. Instead, we get Schierke who is very unlikable. I admit, by chapter 364 I sort of accepted her existence, but I still wish there was some other way to tell the story, but she's so integral to it, it can't be changed, unless whole chunks of the story was re-written. Seems kind of a huge waste. I thought Guts was pararelling Skull Knight's life to some degree, and Skull Knight, who posseses a magnitude of power beyond Guts, should have been the one to guide him to a more approachable path to power.

And Schierke's just a freaking kid - I really dislike this trope, honestly. Who is she for? I read in an interview with Miuara - that she served a similar purpose as Rin from HnK. I'm not sure if that's accurate. And she embodies other generic tropes I dislike in the fantasy genre - magician superiority to commoners and warriors, even though magicians in our world depended on them heavily and animosity didn't really exist between those classes of people. She's never put in her place, even when she's annoying and downright mean, especially to Isidro.

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Anyway, those are some of my problems with Berserk.

I read your review on Berserk: Shinen no Kami 2. It doesn't seem like you hold the parts of the story after Golden Age to high steem. Why is that? I have some issues with them, and it partly has to do with the worldbuilding and how it ties into the rather annoying newcommers, specifically Schierke.

Great video and COOL profile, buddy. Greetings from Brazil.

He probably would have disliked school girl/ high-school stuff from Kinjite, though.