STORY: 6/10
Berserk starts off very poorly. A man with a ten foot sword and a robot arm kills a bunch of people and some gross looking monsters. Now I like gore just as much as the next guy, but there needs to be SOME sort of story or reasoning behind it. It seemed like the main character, Guts, just walked around and killed ugly things for the first few volumes just because he liked being covered in blood.
But then the golden age arc started...This my friends, is one of the greatest arcs in manga history. It almost feels like the mangaka walked away from his desk and let God himself write this part of the story. The characters become deep, the disgusting fights gain meaning, and basically everything is executed to perfection. Then, after about a hundred chapters, it ends. God gives the pen back to the original mangaka and he proceeds to make Guts kill billions of ugly snake penis monsters for the next few hundred chapters. 25% of this manga is pure gold. The other 75% is utter shit.
ART: 10/10
Berserk's strongest point, aside from the golden age arc, has to be its art work. I believe I mentioned disgusting monsters a few times in the first paragraph and trust me - they are DISGUSTING. They've got rows of razor sharp teeth, they're covered in dirty fur, they're oozing with slime, they're drooling, and they all have snakes for penises. The amount of detail put into these beasts can make you hurl...but in a good way. This manga provides a few debatable subjects, but its artwork isn't one of them. It is nothing less than perfect.
CHARACTER: 7/10
The rivalry between Guts and Griffith is legendary. During the golden age arc both characters are given ample development time in order for the reader to truly feel for these guys. In fact, most of the characters from the golden age arc are given enough face time for people to get attached to them. Unfortunately, all the non-golden age arc parts of the manga have minimal development for the male characters aside from Guts, and most of the female characters are rape-bait. The golden age arc was so good though, that I'm going to give characters a higher score than it truly deserves. Seriously, most of this manga is bad.
ENJOYMENT: 3/10
Just so we're clear, golden age arc enjoyment = 10. The rest of Berserk is literally the same thing over and over again just with different ugly monsters. Here is a brief rundown of every chapter of Berserk:
Guts walks into a city.
Mutant panda bears are raping 900 women with their snake penises.
Guts kills the panda bears with his man-sized sword.
Everything is depressing.
End.
OVERALL: 6/10
Drop it after the golden age arc. It doesn't just go downhill after that. It falls off a cliff and lands in a pile of dog shit barf...with snake penises.
