MINDSET:
An example of how old Anime will always beat newer Anime.
SYNOPSIS:
Guts, is the name of our protagonist, an absolute BAMF who is known as the Black Swords Man wields a gigantic sword that is just as tall as a tall man. He swings he's sword wherever he goes. Whether he swings it on the most well armoured generals, or this endless swarm of a 100 soldiers, he kills them all and lives to see another day as a mercenary. One day, he found a mercenary group known as the “Band of the Hawks” run by the founder known as Griffith. A majestic and woeful man of white, flowing hair comes beneath him. The two duelled to win their respects. Griffith won and Guts was forced to join the Hawks. An epic tale mostly centring around these two amazing leads, use there army to conquer the world begins.
REVIEW:
First off, it was rather strange to put the first episode some random time period in the manga which was after the Anime! I had the same reaction as everyone else who did not view the original source material, sure it introduces You to Guts, however, the fact that the first episode was put somewhere randomly in the time line does not make a great introduction. You maay just skip it if You would really want to, but it technically means that You didn’t watch the entire series... But for the sake of this review needing You to convince whether or not its worth Your time to watch this show, the first episode confusion scenario should be Your own debate. (but for goodness sakes that’s just one episode! So no biggie!)
Now to the Actual Review: It's more often in these older shows that they tend to have more complex, realistic, fascinating, and much less Otaku-idealised chracter casts, and basically Berserk has one of the most four and three dimensional character casts I have seen.
Guts, is one of the best protagonists I've ever seen from an Anime, You constantly have this feeling of fascination towards him, the fact that he wanted to be a mercenary was to simply swing he's, sword because he's life was a hollow shell that needed filling, and apparently just swinging he's sword around just keeps him satisfied. He has both this charm and a sense of bad assery with him that truly makes him a deeply fascinating and cool character.
Well, that was just one example out of the many more, however the show gives You just enough screen time to know what these people are, why are they here, there personality, and paces them altogether into a very great cast.
Through out the entire duration of the show You have this sense of a rather abstract yet obvious philosophy as the show is trying to discuss, it treats the audience with a lot of respect, as it never ruins the pacing like almost every 21st century Anime, it talks about the sinful nature of man and how it can't be controlled, how can is God just hovering above all of these people in such horrible times, the philosophy of wielding the sword. You conjure up the subtle imagery as the show really would like to fill the blanks.
Character wise, there were definitly some zero or one dimensional characters, that were just pieces of plot convenience to server the plot. Not saying that its an issue since You just can't have a massive cast that is 1,000 or more soldiers and You get to see an in-depth explanation of how each character is three or four dimensional in some way shape or form obviously. But thats just a tiny nitpick. There are some issues I can truly call them flaws.
The majority of villains are either completely one dimensional idiots, or just plain weird, like this gay noble man who has this weird obsession with Griffith's body, or how this general always boasts like a douche bag and an absolute pussy character. Sure, one would think through a deep moral philosophy and a sense of ethic of such shallow writing, however, at the end of the day, badly written villains are badly written villains.
I admit, the one dimensional generals can get annoying when the boast, like “This tactic was past on to the Banana Eater family from 10 centuries ago” is just cheap and corny. But even with that, there are some pretty good and deep sensing villains through out the show.
And when I mean good villains, there were not many, I won't spoil the best villain but I can say to round off such antagonists would be a slightly better cast of villains unlike the dum psycho characters we tend to get today.
When You get this sense and feeling that berserk is this epic and deep philosophical journey to conquer the world, it is just as true to say that you get this really great sense of character and story development, You see Guts killing of armies like 1HKO'ing them like flies, but as the show goes on, not only You get to see him as an even more powerful character, but you see more of he's way of life and (again) he's philosophy.
The animation is not so bad to fail the test of time, in fact, the gore of this show was damn well pleasing and made me very glad that it was completely uncensored, as I was awed by remembering the good old days when such a thing has never really been an issue, it is simply great to look at and not once did I ever felt like the Animation is ever going to drop in overall quality through out the entire show.
You get this sense of how old the show is, and is more than sufficent in getting the job done. What I also really love of the show, was that You see the actual war sequences! No showing still images and all of that BS, You see a war, You see it animated.
For the sound, lets say the OST simply fits the mood so perfectly, You have music that shows the dark and deep sombre of the situation. Fitting music for full scale battles. However, it is quite a let down for the OP has not aged quite well and the fact that they keep repeating the same song can feel quite boring. The ED is decent, though that is skip worthy. The OST, dos'nt live up to the shows narrative, but for what its worth, its there with some great songs. The sound effects are a bit cheesy at times, but that’s just a nit pick.
The ending was bad, like it left in a cliffhanger and it made me quite disapointed.
LEGACY:
Even after, two or three decades, Berserk is still going to be well remembered by a lot of the Anime community for how much it treats its audience with respect, and its great characters with plot. The popularity of the show will always remain throughout an extra number of years due to its great popularity as quality fiction, because of that, this show may live on to stand the test of time, for another 100 years or so... People are still going to admire it.
SCORES:
7.5/10 – For really a great and complex cast, with some shallow villains.
7.5/10 – For a great and deep plot that is presented in a very mature manner. (despite having such a bad ending)
7.5/10 – Uncensored animated 90's violence FTW!
6/10 – For some nice tunes that fill there roles quite nicely.
8/10 - As an overall great seinen that I deeply enjoy!
FINALE: 8/10 So watch it if You never watched it. (which are quite a few of You though...)
