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Duranki (Manga) add (All reviews)
May 20, 2021
Preliminary (6/6 chp)
I came and read Duranki in the wake of Kentaro Miura's passing far too early at the age of 54 because I wanted to go through his entire body of work, with the future of Berserk being up in the air. Overall, I enjoyed Duranki, but I feel like it's held back by its short length (at least thus far) and the fact that it's a side project and shows. I'll try my best not to spoil anything past Episode 1, but no guarantees.



Starting with the obvious, the art gets a perfect 10. As far as I know, this was done entirely by Miura's assistants at Studio Gaga with Miura himself only doing the storyboards, and they do a pretty good job of emulating his style. I particularly like the spread depicting the birth of Usumgallu, which immediately screams at you that this is the legacy of Miura, something I feel is far more impactful now that the man is gone.



The story follows the aforementioned Usumgallu, an androgyne being created from the genetic material of two gods of wisdom as the last God Seed. Their "father" (the gods of wisdom are only genetic templates) takes them down to Mount Nisir, where they're eventually adopted by a human family. The rest of the series follows them just living their life, helping their parents as an incredibly resourceful child alongside Pan, our comic relief humanoid for this series.

Put simply, if you were expecting something with the dark tone and nightmarish abominations of Berserk, you're gonna be disappointed. At least thus far, it's been fairly standard, which is fine, considering we're only a few episodes in, but I just think a number of people will approach this series expecting something closer to Miura's other works and be disappointed.

Onto my issues, of which I don't really have many, and mostly touched on those I do have in my overall section. Firstly, Duranki was made as a side-project, and it feels like it. While the art is amazing, the story itself isn't up to the admittedly incredibly high standards set by the previous work of its creator. It also struggles with its characters (which I'll elaborate on when we get there) and suffers from its short length. As far as I know, this isn't something I can necessarily fault it for, the latest chapter (which, as of the time I'm writing this, is Chapter 6) seems to have come out around the time that COVID began to become an issue, but I feel it's an issue I still have to talk about, since I was actually pretty interested to see where this was going and now the series' future is up in the air.



I feel like the characters suffer from the same issue as the story, they're decent but suffer massively from the expectations of its creator's older works. You could give me any named character in Berserk and I would be able to tell you what makes them so great, who they like and dislike, and their reasons for doing so, something I cannot do for any of the characters in Duranki. Usumgallu also suffers from feeling a bit like a "Sue" character (I don't know what the genderless equivalent is.) They're probably only around 5 years old, and (SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 2) they come up with a crossbow for hunting and immediately know how to call for the help of spirits. I get that they're literally the sort-of child of two gods of wisdom, but explaining your sueyness doesn't make your character less of a sue.

Overall though, I still enjoyed my short trip through Duranki. Be prepared to walk into a side project, but definitely try and check this one out if you want to go through one of Miura's lighter works or want to see Studio Gaga working for themselves before whatever they do next in this post-Miura world.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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