When I first hear of this new anime adaptation of the extremely geourgeos manga of the same name I was super excited, I've been reading Berserk for 13 years now, then I watch the trailer... it looked bad yes, however, I said to myself " OK come on, it is CG I know, but the movies look good and those are CG as well, if they keep the beautiful CG from the movies there will be no problem" ... how naive I was.
lets start by the obvious this is a fantastical history, because Kentaro Miura's manga has an amazing history to tell, however, viewers need to know that this is a continuation of the first Berserk arc ( golden age ) hence, if you haven't watch or read the original arc you'll be completely lost here. Does the anime tells the history on a compeling and understanbable way? no...this awful anime's director doesn't know how to tell the amazing Berserk story. several important panels from the manga were omitted and that may be confusing for viewers not familiar with the source material. scenes just happen ramdonly without much context as to why or what is happening on screen. the way the director tell the story here is very confusing. however, it's Berserk, the amazing mythos created by Miura is still here... it's just not that polish as in the original source.
Let's talk Sound desing shall we?
"CLANK" if you watched the anime ( DONT DO IT ) you know what that means, The overall sound effects are awful or even worse ... non existing, it is awfully weird to see something in screen without its corresponding sound effect, for example: somebody falling to the ground without producing any sound, people opening their mouths just to not make any sound ( at least we do not hear it ) pleople grabiing things that do not produce any sound, makes the impresion that nothing exist or have weight withing this world.
Songs are ok...ish I guess, just one Susumo Hirasawa's song thou. and the opening and ending are very forgettable
Visuals:
Not much to say that hasn't been said ... yes, it is HORRIBLE, unappealing backgrounds, awful and weird animations that does not match the audio. almost non existing facial expressions, dead eye CG models even for the main characters, camera's movements that will make you eyes bleed diarrhea and so on. Definitely the worst aspect of the series by a large margin
It takes little to no effort to realize how bad this adaptation was crafted. It's painful to see one of the greatest manga of all time not being properly adapted to anime, let's be honest, 90's adaptation was not all that good but at least that one had the excuse of being made with the limited technology of the time ( which is not all that excusable because Yu yu hakusho, Gundam wing, evangelion and many other amazing looking anime were created round the same time) but it sure was better that this monstrosity...
