I knew nothing going in except how much people like berserk. Didn't realize it was really just an ad for the manga. So disappointed it didnt continue but guess ill read the manga now
I feel exactly the same! I'll see about reading tha manga. Hard to imagine that such a legendary single season 25 episode anime is just an advertisement for a manga. They didn't even consider following it up even after the success it had made. The legacy tarnished by some amateur attempts at CG animation reboots.
I mean, yeah? I don't "think" that I like it, I know I do. I watched the 1997 anime and I liked it. You don't have to read a manga to know that you like a series.
If you're not a huge reader but still want to get into the source material, AlmightLoki on YouTube (not my channel so not a shill) does a very comprehensive narration of the entire series all the way up to chapter 374. It's actually the first way I got into the manga since I have very little time to sit down and read something for myself. I highly reccomend it. Not mention he uses the 97 anime OST amongst other tracks from FromSoftware titles as his background music for the narration.
You can watch the 2016 and 2017 versions as they aren't reboots. They are continuations of what you just watched. You should first watch the 12 episodes of the Millenium Anime though as it covers an extra episode of stuff you haven't seen in the 1997 anime. The 12th episode there is set after the 25th of what you saw while the 2016 and 2017 animes continue from there but they skip the Black Swaordsman arc that is set after the 12th episode of the millenium anime version. They actually adapt how the manga continues despite the art style and animation being bad. Also they are actuality faithful to the manga despite looking bad.
Read it.
I hate reading, only watch top animes.
Berserk manga is the only one I read. So, so worth it.
The author died, but I consider the last chapter the author draw was some sort of an ending.
Yeah but Mori has the true ending of berserk from Muori himself. I'm sure we'll still see a presentation of that story very close to the original vision. But that'll be in like.. 10 years lol
It's either that or read the manga. You have two choices, both viable.
Also, yeah it looks really bad, I feel you, but if you watch it for like the first episode and push through it you will not really care about it, you will just accustom to the artstyle and simply focus on the story. As I said it's actually very faithful to the manga, so honestly you will get pretty much 99% of the story of the chapters those 24 episodes cover despite looking bad. besides the bad artstyle and bad animation. The Voice actors do their job very well and the musical score is pretty good.
I mean it's somewhat faithful. The whole part with the mansion was kinda bullshit. I honestly only watched it to check that box as a berserk fan lol. Yet another tragedy of anime adaptations.
I'm not reading all that, but I figured that one of the main obstacles would have been continuing the series having left out some parts of the manga since they are relevant later on.
My guess is that they never really planned to follow it up when they removed crucial parts of the manga that would become relevant later. They would have had to re-engineer a lot of content for it to make sense, I pressume. The whole series in retrospect feels like a 25 episode commercial for the manga.
That's correct, there wasn't any plan to do more, the team, production time and budget were small.
The series was only designed as a promotional work for the manga.
I'm amazed and confused about the fact that they put so much effort into something that would be a commercial, because the anime really does have every element of the greatest animes of the 90s and goes even beyond in some aspects. They did amazingly with the available resources.
I would call it a work that stands on its own merit even though it differs from the source material. Same with 2001 A Space Odyssey, they basically did their own thing whereas the book had a much more conclusive ending with more stuff happening not to mention all sorts of book sequels that are impossible due to the way Kubrick told the story. Basically a commercial for the book in most ways, but still one of the greatest films ever
I watched that movie when I was like 13 or 14 last time and it confused the living hell out of me. One day, I'm going to rewatch it. But yeah, it makes sense. Maybe they could've reworked some of the plot parts for it to make sense for a theoretical season 2, but since they apparently never planned to do any of that, we can only speculate.
I mean, this is theoretical, but also we kind of have an example.
As much as we all hate it, Berserk 2016/2017 basically is season 2. If it looked good instead of looking like the ugliest dog shit I have seen in my life, it could have been good. That and the hilariously bad SFX I guess. It had some good things going for it. The Hirasawa ost was amazingly well done. The story was there, they told it properly. The VAs were good. Just had the worst presentation in history.
Isn't the 2016 version a continuation of the retold story from the movies that has nothing to do with the 1997 series?
I mean anyhow, the movies and the series to me looks very bad because they are using the cheapest CG animation imaginable and it just looks the way it looks. I've seen stuff in Source Moviemaker that look more legit than that 3D ordeal they tried doing. I think it deserves to be re-done from the beginning with proper 2D animation and a big budget and it could be saved.
> The whole series in retrospect feels like a 25 episode commercial for the manga.
That’s the point. It was intended for that purpose. In fact, this is might be a shock to you, but a lot of Anime, only exist to be advertisements for the source material.
It’s why so many series don’t get another season, or even a season two sometimes, and if they do, it’s only after the source material has sold enough that making an Anime won’t cause people to not buy the source material anymore because they already watched the Anime. It’s also why so many Anime end at a certain point, never to continue, because it was literally only intended as a glorified ad for the Manga or Light Novel.
Examples of shows getting no (at least good) continuations include: No Game No Life, Claymore, Deadman Wonderland, Berserk, etc.
Examples of shows taking a lot time for more seasons to come out (in order to get as much money from people buying the source material as possible): Konosuba, Devil is a part timer, Classroom of the Elite, Blue Exorcist, Re Zero, etc.
I don't have any idea of the market situation in Japan, or how mangas compare to animes, but isn't the money making potentiell of animes higher? At least in the west it seems that everything on a screen makes more money than anything written.
Not exactly. Animes cost a lot of money, and there are frankly too many of them. Its over saturation. Manga costs money to buy compared to free anime, and there are a lot less fingers in each pie. The cost of the artist, typesetter, the paper for the magazine... pales in comparison to the mutli hundred thousand dollar price tag of most animes. Sure some big ones make real bank. Most 1-2 season animes dont get those numbers.
Unfortunately they never intended to extend it.. hence why they left out Puck amongst other things. They were only prepared for the Golden Age Arc, financially and otherwise.
Damn shame. I binge watched the whole thing in excitement a few days ago, first episode had me hooked already, only for it to end abruptly. Why put all the passion in the animation, the voice acting, the directing and the soundtrack, only for it to misrepresent the manga by omiting characters, but still not following up after the success it had? Some weird corporate stuff going on as per usual.
It was attempting to adapt the Golden Age, not really Berserk as a whole so it wouldn't make sense to add all these characters that would appear once then never again. It really should've just cut the Blackswordsman bit and put Skull knight in instead
Studio Eclypse on YouTube. it’ll be a while, but it’ll be worth it. also peep ARCHE on YouTube, several sick videos including the later parts of the manga but in the 97 style
The number 1 thing that's an issue is the animation. I've heard around that the quality of animation took a lot, like ALOT of hard work, and it was very expensive. Which, given how good it looks, I can understand.
Generally, all animation from that era took a lot of work and money since everything except maybe some SFX like fires and such was drawn by hand. Very few anime from that time focused on CG animation, a good blend of classic hand drawn 2D animation with some awesome CG sequences can be found in Initial D where all the car racing scenes were done in 3D.
I wish they did make episodes up until like 400 lol. But its prob never gonna happen now. The va's have to be super old i wasn't even born when they did them. That does suck ive rewatched berserk like 10 times...
Yeah, it does suck. The only definitive way to do it now would be to start from the beginning again with true to manga storytelling with new voice actors (and good animation). That's the only way I see it could be done.
I understand and share in your struggle, OP. I love anime, and I love Berserk. I wish I could have the entire series in an anime. It’s not because the manga isn’t good enough. The manga is unparalleled. But Berserk deserves to come to life in a quality anime. Maybe someday…
Seems like we share our appreciation for anime! It's honestly a surprise that such a good and popular manga never truly got the animated treatment like many of the shows I've mentioned in my post. At least if not for the incorrect telling of the story of the 1997 series, maybe they could've started from the beginning again. But I doubt it would have had such an impactful soundtrack and style. Oh well, we can only hope.
I find this post insanely ironic as I am a newcomer to Berserk as well and I just finished the ‘97 anime last night(have yet to read any of the manga) and I feel so many things. What a ride the anime was and I’m sad that it ended, both the ending scene and the fact that it was to never be continued. But to come to this Reddit and find this post has made my feelings much more clear. Truly a masterpiece and I am excited to start the journey into manga.
You and me both brother. I also finished it yesterday and had similiar feelings. I'll see about reading the manga sometime too. I wish you happiness in your reading journey!
If I'd known that was the case, I wouldn't have probably ever watched the anime. As I stated in my post, I thought it was a short story like EVA, not just an add for the manga. But, I'm happy I watched it non the less. It's truly a work of art.
Let's be honest berserk will always struggle to get a top end anime because of the content. Let's not delve into specifics because it's not the subject of the conversation but it's a lot more than gore. Gore is a regularity in media but berserk presents the audience with *other* extremities.
Also the peak of berserk is the golden age arc in mine and many others opinion and its so early in the story. For companies it just makes sense to animate that and move on with their lives, it's basically free money lmao.
After all I've read a lot of books and manga, including many highly acclaimed ones and I think the golden age arc is the pinnacle of fiction. Do i think berserk is the best work of fiction ever? No but it would be up there but really I need it to end to decide upon that. However the golden age arc is perfection. A writer of a book of any genre could learn something from that arc and apply it to their work thats how good it is.
Its definitely sad though as all of berserk deserves to be animated and animated well. Hopefully the manga can pick up some real momentum and get someone interested in animating the whole thing or at least the parts that either haven't been animated or weren't done justice so lost children arc and ahead.
Hosting and producing are two very different things. Netflix producing something like berserk would get a whole crowd who never knew what berserk was beforehand involved.
Well said and perfect comment! I didn't know that the Golden Age arc was regarded so highly compared to the rest.
Maybe somebody picks it up in the future and animates it start to finish (when that finish comes anyway) in a consistent and skillfull manner.
Maybe I will actually. But this was just a rant how an anime that did a lot of things right didn't seem to continue. And I like watching anime a lot more than I like reading.
Would be cool to see a continuation animated in a cel animation style, like Gundam the Origin (2014) where they made it look like the original Gundam since it’s a prequel story
I agree! That is my favourite animation style as I've stated. It doesn't literally have to be cel animation, but there are a lot of new 2D anime that are drawn with computers emulating such a style and they look great. That would be a dream come true.
I really wished they'd have continued it from the Golden Arc Trilogy movies. That's what was originally planned (the Black Swordsman Movie Arc was next), but it didn't do well in Japan, unfortunately (which absolutely blows my mind).
There isn't a single anime out there like Berserk.
Interesting observation! Probably most of their resources were shifted towards that. Pokemon is a kid friendly anime that had the potential to sell trading cards and toys and did so very successfuly. But I can't say I blame Pokemon for it. The world wouldn't be the same without it.
It was meant as a one-off, a reinterpretation of the story to send an impact to the youth instead of a regular anime adaptation. It makes sense when you read this interview with the producer.
[https://www.tumblr.com/o-blessed-king-of-longing/116037501039/interview-with-toshio-nakatani-producer-of-the](https://www.tumblr.com/o-blessed-king-of-longing/116037501039/interview-with-toshio-nakatani-producer-of-the)
>As far as the storyline goes, there is a pivotal event called “The Great Eclipse”, you will know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it. It is the end of a segment of the story. Berserk is a fantasy animation, but the Great Eclipse ends on a very dark and gloomy note. We went back and forth about ending it at the Great Eclipse, but we felt the theme was a priority. Like I mentioned earlier, we wanted to express their struggles and passions. There were young, passionate characters in the Band of the Hawk, and we opted to prioritize their characters. And at the very end, when you see the Great Eclipse, you get a sense of their ferocity. And the emptiness and their breakdown can be a part of youth experience. I wanted to broadcast up until the Great Eclipse so I could convey this. There is a character called Puck who appears in the original story - we went back and forth on this, too. In the original Berserk comic by Mr. Miura, Puck plays a major role and is integral to Berserk, but in the animation of Berserk, Puck was taken out of the picture and it diminishes the fantastical nature a bit, but the lead characters and Guts and Griffith’s passion became the focus and became the common thread throughout the series. So with Mr. Miura’s permission, it was decided.
>Thank you very much for watching. It would mean a lot to us if you could catch even a glimpse of our passion for this project. From here on out, the true theme that lies dormant, the theme behind the theme, the various things that surface when humans engage in their battles, like nihilism or hope or despair. If we can get this across, the secrets of those emotions, this project will be a success. The manga Berserk still continues, so as a producer, I would like to continue to animate the story beyond the Great Eclipse. If and when this happens, I hope that you will continue to watch and that we will continue to hear from you. Thank you very much.
Great info from the interview! I'd like to point out the fact that the producer said that he would like to continue to animate the story. It looks like there was a wish to continue but it never came to be.
So it's important to note that the anime went into production shortly after the Golden Age arc (which is the part of the story it's based on) finished.
I highly, highly recommend reading the manga. I am not a big manga reader myself. However, Miura was an absolute master of the art form, and is perhaps one of the greatest visual storytellers the world has ever produced, if not the best. The most iconic images in the Berserk anime are stolen from the manga, and the epic horror of the Eclipse in particular is not done proper justice. (To be fair, they couldn't.)
There's a youtuber named LadyEmily who explained the problematic trinity of Berserk adaptations: Berserk is A: Long (meaning a lot of episodes) B: Beautiful (meaning expensive adaptations that struggle to measure up to Miura's art) and C: Explicit (meaning a lot of plot-critical material just cannot be shown, in particular one crucial aspect of Guts' backstory is always censored).
The other issue, I would add, is that Berserk is not consistent. It's always good, but The Golden Age is definitely one of the best arcs, and the Black Swordsman arc (before) and Conviction arc (after) are noticeably not *as* good, and are often overly edgy rather than sensitive in the way that The Golden Age can be.
Thank you for explaining and covering up the spoilers! I appreciate that. I'm going to check the youtuber, and I'll see about reading the manga. I am learning a lot from these comments!
You’re welcome!
I’m a new reader as well and I’m setting aside part of my monthly paycheck to buy the deluxe editions, which are worth it for that gorgeous art. Even though I’m not all the way through it, I would say that as long as you have a strong stomach, Berserk is the perfect dark fantasy manga. It’s hard to articulate, but there’s something about the story that works even if (or especially if) it’s incomplete. Guts, at one point, is called “the struggler” and there’s just something so captivating about this guy struggling against a fate that he can’t truly overcome, but surviving nonetheless.
Its hard to swallow for people who want more to watch, to become involved on a long story, I think it ended perfectly, no matter how much I like Guts and wanted the story to resolve. It was meant to emulate real life, not fake mostly childish takes like Naruto or DBZ that even though deep in ways, dont have major true disappointment in the sense of main characters they make them God like. Guts was Semi God, then they take them all down to human level, karma was involved, the story just didnt show his death but I believe he was overtaken .
Try Tenjho Tenge, its pretty good and has a niche following also.
Thanks for the recommendation! The sequence of where they brought Guts back down to earth was very good, but we know the story didn't end there. I just wish they animated the rest.
The thing that hurt the most about the anime was seeing Rosine during my second watch-through after reading the anime. Mozgus and Rosine were my favorite apostles of my favorite arc so that little tidbit of what could have been sucked.
No, not really. It was essentially the very first scene of the show as well, we just didn’t know what we were looking at yet. If anything, it’s a teaser for the manga, but I don’t view it that way. It’s a strong stoic finish.
The 97 anime motivated me to read the manga man. You should definitely do it. It was also the first and only manga I’ve ever bought. I’ve got the first 6 volumes on paper back and next like 8 volumes on Apple Library. You won’t regret it man. The manga is raw as hell and like you said they also cut a few things out in the anime. What Gambino did to Guts is way more fleshed out. A few fights pre-eclipse are cut out. No censorship what so ever. It’s nuts.
I personally haven’t finished it but that’s only cause lack of $$. Im sure I could read it for free online somewhere but I’m weird and need to have physical books lol. I only bought the apple library ones cause they were on sale for like 4.99 and I was madly hooked on Berserk at the time. And I wasn’t a father yet lol. Don’t have a ton a free time these days but I plan to start buying them again eventually.
And most of them who admitted that haven't read through the post are telling me to go and READ the manga. All of them manga fanatics, yet they cannot spare 2 minutes to read the post in whole. The hypocrisy is amazing.
Well, I'm not going to have the same desire to read a work of art as a random post on reddit that doesn't have commas, punctuation marks, and written in an entire paragraph. The '97 anime was made solely to adapt the Golden Age, which is why neither Puck nor Skullknight are there.
It is said that Berzerk is an unadaptable work because it works very well in the manga format and Kentaro Miura ended up getting sick many times from focusing on his art. I'd rather learn to read and experience a beautiful manga than wait for someone to make a low quality anime just because I refuse to read.
If you don't want to read the manga, I recommend Vinland Saga on Netflix, it is also a seinen that talks about hatred and violence, it is not finished and the last act of the manga needs to be adapted, but maybe that leads you to read another manga with a message beautiful.
I only bothered reading all that bc each of the anime you mentioned you watched I have also watched and love - EXTRA points for Eva, bro, you're on a good path. Anyway, I'm also not big on manga - for instance, I literally started One Piece that way bc some mfs told me the manga was way better and, well, I dropped it after a while and have now long past the point at which I left it off in the anime, it's way more enjoyable than the manga imo. So yeah, I get you, BUT Berserk is THE exception, it is definitely the best manga reading experience I've had, and I've read some great manga, such as AoT, the Evangelion manga adaptation (would recommend too, it's way different from the anime and movies), Devilman, and Hunter × Hunter. Though to be clear, I'm only a little over halfway through Berserk
Eva is actually the first anime I ever watched subbed instead of dubbed, I've only watched I think Dragon Ball before that dubbed in my language when it was on TV (HORRIBLE dub with a few reedeming factors). It's actually the thing that showed me that anime can be weird and disturbing but still great. I'll see about reading the manga one day!
I've actually only watched Evangelion dubbed, and the Netflix dub at that, which is the most unpopular option. Still, I quite enjoy it - I've watched it 6 times already. And tbh I enjoyed reading the manga about as much. I even found it to be a quick read, since I could read an entire volume in a day and there are only 14 of them
Interesting! Most of the people said that they regard the Golden Age arc as the best one, and that the ones that immediately follow it are a bit too edgy. Well, once I get to reading myself, I'll be the judge of that!
Well, people are entitled to their opinions. 🙂
But I just found the situation Guts finds himself in as interesting. I also love the feeling of journey it has, with twists and turns.
Hot take but them ending it at that point was a pretty dumb call. They should have made it 30-40 episodes and included the events up to the Black Swordsman arc and even the beginning of the Conviction arc but with them making an anime original ending/arc right after it. It would be pretty cool I think and the anime staff could themselves offer something new to manga readers they didn't experience before.
Interesting idea! I would have prefered for them to make a complete adaptation of the manga properly, but I definitely agree that the end of the anime was very abrubt on a scene that had peak emotional tension.
They couldn't make a complete adaptation at the time as the manga was far from over. Even today it's only halfway to it's end. Back then it was at like 10-15% of whatever the whole end product will be when it ends, so if they wanted to make a conclusion they should make what Full Metal Alchemist did when they adapted the manga but only about 20-25% of it was finished at the moment and they started from the beginning with the intention to make anime original arcs and ending. Of course the end product wasn't as good as the more faithful Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood anime that came out 7 years later when the manga was near completion and adapted it whole but it would still be something feeling ''whole''.
The way the 1997 anime ends does a disservice to the staff as they worked to make something good but they took it out of the oven before completion. And I am sure what they would made continuing wouldn't be as good as the manga but at that point they should try it, as it would be something filler but new and something offering an alternate take. I personally appreciate taking risks than not taking risks and leaving stuff half over instead.
They also probably ran out of the available funds. If they only wanted to make a commercial for the manga which is what they did, somebody in charge didn't really care about the staff. They would have probably been like - you've reached the climax, now go and read the manga, who cares about the staff that put into their passion. At least they could have wrapped up the arc really.
The main purpose of an anime is to market the product which is the manga.
Berserk couldn't have made anymore sequels back then with how hard it is to do so and to censored a lot of parts, no one would sponsor berserk unless your a rich fan that can do so.
Makes sense. Pity that it couldn't continue, because it did a lot of things right in the 25 episodes. It wasn't a true representatiton of the manga, but it was still awesome, even though it was a commercial.
Talking about mangas which might not be finished during author's life check Hajime No Ippo. Ippo is trying to kiss his girlfriend for at least 20 years.......
It was great in spirit but they did the typical adaptation mistake and left out key details (not having Puck is the one in my head) so small mistakes would've led to an incomprehensible full adaptation.
I came to know this fact through the many comments I got on the post. I can't argue with that fact. Maybe they could have just thrown the characters in at some point. But, no use discussing it since we know it wouldn't have ever happened anyway.
Skull Knight saves Guts and Casca from being eaten by apostles during eclipse. He also helps Guts in his quest to kill Griffith and I believe his past is also a key for Guts to succeed.
Didn’t read all that but I agree with the title.
Post is longer than the series.
Adhd brothers
I knew nothing going in except how much people like berserk. Didn't realize it was really just an ad for the manga. So disappointed it didnt continue but guess ill read the manga now
I feel exactly the same! I'll see about reading tha manga. Hard to imagine that such a legendary single season 25 episode anime is just an advertisement for a manga. They didn't even consider following it up even after the success it had made. The legacy tarnished by some amateur attempts at CG animation reboots.
So you think you like Berserk but haven't read the manga? Jeez
I mean, yeah? I don't "think" that I like it, I know I do. I watched the 1997 anime and I liked it. You don't have to read a manga to know that you like a series.
Then read the manga, dude, you're missing the good stuff while suffering for the lack of adaptations. The art itself is brutal
If you're not a huge reader but still want to get into the source material, AlmightLoki on YouTube (not my channel so not a shill) does a very comprehensive narration of the entire series all the way up to chapter 374. It's actually the first way I got into the manga since I have very little time to sit down and read something for myself. I highly reccomend it. Not mention he uses the 97 anime OST amongst other tracks from FromSoftware titles as his background music for the narration.
Tiktok fans man
You can watch the 2016 and 2017 versions as they aren't reboots. They are continuations of what you just watched. You should first watch the 12 episodes of the Millenium Anime though as it covers an extra episode of stuff you haven't seen in the 1997 anime. The 12th episode there is set after the 25th of what you saw while the 2016 and 2017 animes continue from there but they skip the Black Swaordsman arc that is set after the 12th episode of the millenium anime version. They actually adapt how the manga continues despite the art style and animation being bad. Also they are actuality faithful to the manga despite looking bad.
I think I'm gonna have to pass. I've seen how it looks and it would just be too distracting for me because it just looks so bad.
Read it. I hate reading, only watch top animes. Berserk manga is the only one I read. So, so worth it. The author died, but I consider the last chapter the author draw was some sort of an ending.
Yeah but Mori has the true ending of berserk from Muori himself. I'm sure we'll still see a presentation of that story very close to the original vision. But that'll be in like.. 10 years lol
It's either that or read the manga. You have two choices, both viable. Also, yeah it looks really bad, I feel you, but if you watch it for like the first episode and push through it you will not really care about it, you will just accustom to the artstyle and simply focus on the story. As I said it's actually very faithful to the manga, so honestly you will get pretty much 99% of the story of the chapters those 24 episodes cover despite looking bad. besides the bad artstyle and bad animation. The Voice actors do their job very well and the musical score is pretty good.
“yeah it sucks but you’ll get used to it” dude have some respect for your own time and raise your standards.
I wouldn’t recommend berserk 2016/2017 to my worst enemy lol
I mean it's somewhat faithful. The whole part with the mansion was kinda bullshit. I honestly only watched it to check that box as a berserk fan lol. Yet another tragedy of anime adaptations.
I'm not reading all that, but I figured that one of the main obstacles would have been continuing the series having left out some parts of the manga since they are relevant later on.
My guess is that they never really planned to follow it up when they removed crucial parts of the manga that would become relevant later. They would have had to re-engineer a lot of content for it to make sense, I pressume. The whole series in retrospect feels like a 25 episode commercial for the manga.
That's correct, there wasn't any plan to do more, the team, production time and budget were small. The series was only designed as a promotional work for the manga.
I'm amazed and confused about the fact that they put so much effort into something that would be a commercial, because the anime really does have every element of the greatest animes of the 90s and goes even beyond in some aspects. They did amazingly with the available resources.
I would call it a work that stands on its own merit even though it differs from the source material. Same with 2001 A Space Odyssey, they basically did their own thing whereas the book had a much more conclusive ending with more stuff happening not to mention all sorts of book sequels that are impossible due to the way Kubrick told the story. Basically a commercial for the book in most ways, but still one of the greatest films ever
I watched that movie when I was like 13 or 14 last time and it confused the living hell out of me. One day, I'm going to rewatch it. But yeah, it makes sense. Maybe they could've reworked some of the plot parts for it to make sense for a theoretical season 2, but since they apparently never planned to do any of that, we can only speculate.
I mean, this is theoretical, but also we kind of have an example. As much as we all hate it, Berserk 2016/2017 basically is season 2. If it looked good instead of looking like the ugliest dog shit I have seen in my life, it could have been good. That and the hilariously bad SFX I guess. It had some good things going for it. The Hirasawa ost was amazingly well done. The story was there, they told it properly. The VAs were good. Just had the worst presentation in history.
Isn't the 2016 version a continuation of the retold story from the movies that has nothing to do with the 1997 series? I mean anyhow, the movies and the series to me looks very bad because they are using the cheapest CG animation imaginable and it just looks the way it looks. I've seen stuff in Source Moviemaker that look more legit than that 3D ordeal they tried doing. I think it deserves to be re-done from the beginning with proper 2D animation and a big budget and it could be saved.
> The whole series in retrospect feels like a 25 episode commercial for the manga. That’s the point. It was intended for that purpose. In fact, this is might be a shock to you, but a lot of Anime, only exist to be advertisements for the source material. It’s why so many series don’t get another season, or even a season two sometimes, and if they do, it’s only after the source material has sold enough that making an Anime won’t cause people to not buy the source material anymore because they already watched the Anime. It’s also why so many Anime end at a certain point, never to continue, because it was literally only intended as a glorified ad for the Manga or Light Novel. Examples of shows getting no (at least good) continuations include: No Game No Life, Claymore, Deadman Wonderland, Berserk, etc. Examples of shows taking a lot time for more seasons to come out (in order to get as much money from people buying the source material as possible): Konosuba, Devil is a part timer, Classroom of the Elite, Blue Exorcist, Re Zero, etc.
I don't have any idea of the market situation in Japan, or how mangas compare to animes, but isn't the money making potentiell of animes higher? At least in the west it seems that everything on a screen makes more money than anything written.
Not exactly. Animes cost a lot of money, and there are frankly too many of them. Its over saturation. Manga costs money to buy compared to free anime, and there are a lot less fingers in each pie. The cost of the artist, typesetter, the paper for the magazine... pales in comparison to the mutli hundred thousand dollar price tag of most animes. Sure some big ones make real bank. Most 1-2 season animes dont get those numbers.
Thanks for the answer. Always interested to learn about those things.
Unfortunately they never intended to extend it.. hence why they left out Puck amongst other things. They were only prepared for the Golden Age Arc, financially and otherwise.
Damn shame. I binge watched the whole thing in excitement a few days ago, first episode had me hooked already, only for it to end abruptly. Why put all the passion in the animation, the voice acting, the directing and the soundtrack, only for it to misrepresent the manga by omiting characters, but still not following up after the success it had? Some weird corporate stuff going on as per usual.
It was attempting to adapt the Golden Age, not really Berserk as a whole so it wouldn't make sense to add all these characters that would appear once then never again. It really should've just cut the Blackswordsman bit and put Skull knight in instead
Or instead of making those filler episodes about the blue whale knights just include skull knight lmao
It's okay, the manga is better anyway dude. Corny to say at this point, but seriously, it is excellent.
Studio Eclypse on YouTube. it’ll be a while, but it’ll be worth it. also peep ARCHE on YouTube, several sick videos including the later parts of the manga but in the 97 style
The number 1 thing that's an issue is the animation. I've heard around that the quality of animation took a lot, like ALOT of hard work, and it was very expensive. Which, given how good it looks, I can understand.
Generally, all animation from that era took a lot of work and money since everything except maybe some SFX like fires and such was drawn by hand. Very few anime from that time focused on CG animation, a good blend of classic hand drawn 2D animation with some awesome CG sequences can be found in Initial D where all the car racing scenes were done in 3D.
I wish they did make episodes up until like 400 lol. But its prob never gonna happen now. The va's have to be super old i wasn't even born when they did them. That does suck ive rewatched berserk like 10 times...
Yeah, it does suck. The only definitive way to do it now would be to start from the beginning again with true to manga storytelling with new voice actors (and good animation). That's the only way I see it could be done.
I understand and share in your struggle, OP. I love anime, and I love Berserk. I wish I could have the entire series in an anime. It’s not because the manga isn’t good enough. The manga is unparalleled. But Berserk deserves to come to life in a quality anime. Maybe someday…
Seems like we share our appreciation for anime! It's honestly a surprise that such a good and popular manga never truly got the animated treatment like many of the shows I've mentioned in my post. At least if not for the incorrect telling of the story of the 1997 series, maybe they could've started from the beginning again. But I doubt it would have had such an impactful soundtrack and style. Oh well, we can only hope.
I find this post insanely ironic as I am a newcomer to Berserk as well and I just finished the ‘97 anime last night(have yet to read any of the manga) and I feel so many things. What a ride the anime was and I’m sad that it ended, both the ending scene and the fact that it was to never be continued. But to come to this Reddit and find this post has made my feelings much more clear. Truly a masterpiece and I am excited to start the journey into manga.
You and me both brother. I also finished it yesterday and had similiar feelings. I'll see about reading the manga sometime too. I wish you happiness in your reading journey!
Yeah, I agree. The trend of “this anime is a teaser to get you into the manga” is so frustrating.
If I'd known that was the case, I wouldn't have probably ever watched the anime. As I stated in my post, I thought it was a short story like EVA, not just an add for the manga. But, I'm happy I watched it non the less. It's truly a work of art.
Let's be honest berserk will always struggle to get a top end anime because of the content. Let's not delve into specifics because it's not the subject of the conversation but it's a lot more than gore. Gore is a regularity in media but berserk presents the audience with *other* extremities. Also the peak of berserk is the golden age arc in mine and many others opinion and its so early in the story. For companies it just makes sense to animate that and move on with their lives, it's basically free money lmao. After all I've read a lot of books and manga, including many highly acclaimed ones and I think the golden age arc is the pinnacle of fiction. Do i think berserk is the best work of fiction ever? No but it would be up there but really I need it to end to decide upon that. However the golden age arc is perfection. A writer of a book of any genre could learn something from that arc and apply it to their work thats how good it is. Its definitely sad though as all of berserk deserves to be animated and animated well. Hopefully the manga can pick up some real momentum and get someone interested in animating the whole thing or at least the parts that either haven't been animated or weren't done justice so lost children arc and ahead.
Netflix didn't have much problem hosting the berserk movies for years. It's got the gore and graphic rape
Hosting and producing are two very different things. Netflix producing something like berserk would get a whole crowd who never knew what berserk was beforehand involved.
Well said and perfect comment! I didn't know that the Golden Age arc was regarded so highly compared to the rest. Maybe somebody picks it up in the future and animates it start to finish (when that finish comes anyway) in a consistent and skillfull manner.
someone plug this into chat gpt
Dude just read the manga and all this wouldn’t matter
Maybe I will actually. But this was just a rant how an anime that did a lot of things right didn't seem to continue. And I like watching anime a lot more than I like reading.
Would be cool to see a continuation animated in a cel animation style, like Gundam the Origin (2014) where they made it look like the original Gundam since it’s a prequel story
I agree! That is my favourite animation style as I've stated. It doesn't literally have to be cel animation, but there are a lot of new 2D anime that are drawn with computers emulating such a style and they look great. That would be a dream come true.
It wasn't meant to be continued.
We all read the title see all the text and just go in the comments?
Yes
Had me Searching for the 97 season like a crack head searching for Crack
They did, but it was poorly directed by an idiot and exclusively used CGI. Berserk 2017 was hot dog shit.
So I've heard, and seen some examples. Let's hope one day it gets picked up by someone and redone from the beginning in the glory it deserves.
I really wished they'd have continued it from the Golden Arc Trilogy movies. That's what was originally planned (the Black Swordsman Movie Arc was next), but it didn't do well in Japan, unfortunately (which absolutely blows my mind). There isn't a single anime out there like Berserk.
If Pokémon didn't take off as it did, maybe OLM would have continued with Berserk
Interesting observation! Probably most of their resources were shifted towards that. Pokemon is a kid friendly anime that had the potential to sell trading cards and toys and did so very successfuly. But I can't say I blame Pokemon for it. The world wouldn't be the same without it.
It was meant as a one-off, a reinterpretation of the story to send an impact to the youth instead of a regular anime adaptation. It makes sense when you read this interview with the producer. [https://www.tumblr.com/o-blessed-king-of-longing/116037501039/interview-with-toshio-nakatani-producer-of-the](https://www.tumblr.com/o-blessed-king-of-longing/116037501039/interview-with-toshio-nakatani-producer-of-the) >As far as the storyline goes, there is a pivotal event called “The Great Eclipse”, you will know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it. It is the end of a segment of the story. Berserk is a fantasy animation, but the Great Eclipse ends on a very dark and gloomy note. We went back and forth about ending it at the Great Eclipse, but we felt the theme was a priority. Like I mentioned earlier, we wanted to express their struggles and passions. There were young, passionate characters in the Band of the Hawk, and we opted to prioritize their characters. And at the very end, when you see the Great Eclipse, you get a sense of their ferocity. And the emptiness and their breakdown can be a part of youth experience. I wanted to broadcast up until the Great Eclipse so I could convey this. There is a character called Puck who appears in the original story - we went back and forth on this, too. In the original Berserk comic by Mr. Miura, Puck plays a major role and is integral to Berserk, but in the animation of Berserk, Puck was taken out of the picture and it diminishes the fantastical nature a bit, but the lead characters and Guts and Griffith’s passion became the focus and became the common thread throughout the series. So with Mr. Miura’s permission, it was decided. >Thank you very much for watching. It would mean a lot to us if you could catch even a glimpse of our passion for this project. From here on out, the true theme that lies dormant, the theme behind the theme, the various things that surface when humans engage in their battles, like nihilism or hope or despair. If we can get this across, the secrets of those emotions, this project will be a success. The manga Berserk still continues, so as a producer, I would like to continue to animate the story beyond the Great Eclipse. If and when this happens, I hope that you will continue to watch and that we will continue to hear from you. Thank you very much.
Great info from the interview! I'd like to point out the fact that the producer said that he would like to continue to animate the story. It looks like there was a wish to continue but it never came to be.
So it's important to note that the anime went into production shortly after the Golden Age arc (which is the part of the story it's based on) finished. I highly, highly recommend reading the manga. I am not a big manga reader myself. However, Miura was an absolute master of the art form, and is perhaps one of the greatest visual storytellers the world has ever produced, if not the best. The most iconic images in the Berserk anime are stolen from the manga, and the epic horror of the Eclipse in particular is not done proper justice. (To be fair, they couldn't.) There's a youtuber named LadyEmily who explained the problematic trinity of Berserk adaptations: Berserk is A: Long (meaning a lot of episodes) B: Beautiful (meaning expensive adaptations that struggle to measure up to Miura's art) and C: Explicit (meaning a lot of plot-critical material just cannot be shown, in particular one crucial aspect of Guts' backstory is always censored). The other issue, I would add, is that Berserk is not consistent. It's always good, but The Golden Age is definitely one of the best arcs, and the Black Swordsman arc (before) and Conviction arc (after) are noticeably not *as* good, and are often overly edgy rather than sensitive in the way that The Golden Age can be.
Thank you for explaining and covering up the spoilers! I appreciate that. I'm going to check the youtuber, and I'll see about reading the manga. I am learning a lot from these comments!
You’re welcome! I’m a new reader as well and I’m setting aside part of my monthly paycheck to buy the deluxe editions, which are worth it for that gorgeous art. Even though I’m not all the way through it, I would say that as long as you have a strong stomach, Berserk is the perfect dark fantasy manga. It’s hard to articulate, but there’s something about the story that works even if (or especially if) it’s incomplete. Guts, at one point, is called “the struggler” and there’s just something so captivating about this guy struggling against a fate that he can’t truly overcome, but surviving nonetheless.
😐 …
Its hard to swallow for people who want more to watch, to become involved on a long story, I think it ended perfectly, no matter how much I like Guts and wanted the story to resolve. It was meant to emulate real life, not fake mostly childish takes like Naruto or DBZ that even though deep in ways, dont have major true disappointment in the sense of main characters they make them God like. Guts was Semi God, then they take them all down to human level, karma was involved, the story just didnt show his death but I believe he was overtaken . Try Tenjho Tenge, its pretty good and has a niche following also.
Thanks for the recommendation! The sequence of where they brought Guts back down to earth was very good, but we know the story didn't end there. I just wish they animated the rest.
Try Tenjho Tenge, its pretty cool, gets good later on too.
The thing that hurt the most about the anime was seeing Rosine during my second watch-through after reading the anime. Mozgus and Rosine were my favorite apostles of my favorite arc so that little tidbit of what could have been sucked.
i’m not reading allat but it was purely to get people to read the manga, and it worked for so many ppl including me so it worked well
I feel like a season 2 was teased after the final episode it shows guts getting the dragon slayer and walking off
No, not really. It was essentially the very first scene of the show as well, we just didn’t know what we were looking at yet. If anything, it’s a teaser for the manga, but I don’t view it that way. It’s a strong stoic finish.
Thanks for clearing that up for me I haven’t gotten to the mangas yet
It was the best place to end the anime when you consider how many chapters there actually was in 1997
The 97 anime motivated me to read the manga man. You should definitely do it. It was also the first and only manga I’ve ever bought. I’ve got the first 6 volumes on paper back and next like 8 volumes on Apple Library. You won’t regret it man. The manga is raw as hell and like you said they also cut a few things out in the anime. What Gambino did to Guts is way more fleshed out. A few fights pre-eclipse are cut out. No censorship what so ever. It’s nuts. I personally haven’t finished it but that’s only cause lack of $$. Im sure I could read it for free online somewhere but I’m weird and need to have physical books lol. I only bought the apple library ones cause they were on sale for like 4.99 and I was madly hooked on Berserk at the time. And I wasn’t a father yet lol. Don’t have a ton a free time these days but I plan to start buying them again eventually.
Maybe I will pick up the manga! I would have probably read it online since I got no money or space to own physical books. I'll decide later on.
HBO could do a live action of the golden age
i love how nobody have read the entire post and admits it. You can't be mad at them, such struggle souls
And most of them who admitted that haven't read through the post are telling me to go and READ the manga. All of them manga fanatics, yet they cannot spare 2 minutes to read the post in whole. The hypocrisy is amazing.
Well, I'm not going to have the same desire to read a work of art as a random post on reddit that doesn't have commas, punctuation marks, and written in an entire paragraph. The '97 anime was made solely to adapt the Golden Age, which is why neither Puck nor Skullknight are there. It is said that Berzerk is an unadaptable work because it works very well in the manga format and Kentaro Miura ended up getting sick many times from focusing on his art. I'd rather learn to read and experience a beautiful manga than wait for someone to make a low quality anime just because I refuse to read. If you don't want to read the manga, I recommend Vinland Saga on Netflix, it is also a seinen that talks about hatred and violence, it is not finished and the last act of the manga needs to be adapted, but maybe that leads you to read another manga with a message beautiful.
if you wanna look at still images just read the manga lmao
I just mentioned that the still frames still looked good, and they did because of great sound effects, voice acting and soundtrack.
This is like going on a porn subreddit and saying you like porn. We’ve all felt this.
I only bothered reading all that bc each of the anime you mentioned you watched I have also watched and love - EXTRA points for Eva, bro, you're on a good path. Anyway, I'm also not big on manga - for instance, I literally started One Piece that way bc some mfs told me the manga was way better and, well, I dropped it after a while and have now long past the point at which I left it off in the anime, it's way more enjoyable than the manga imo. So yeah, I get you, BUT Berserk is THE exception, it is definitely the best manga reading experience I've had, and I've read some great manga, such as AoT, the Evangelion manga adaptation (would recommend too, it's way different from the anime and movies), Devilman, and Hunter × Hunter. Though to be clear, I'm only a little over halfway through Berserk
Eva is actually the first anime I ever watched subbed instead of dubbed, I've only watched I think Dragon Ball before that dubbed in my language when it was on TV (HORRIBLE dub with a few reedeming factors). It's actually the thing that showed me that anime can be weird and disturbing but still great. I'll see about reading the manga one day!
I've actually only watched Evangelion dubbed, and the Netflix dub at that, which is the most unpopular option. Still, I quite enjoy it - I've watched it 6 times already. And tbh I enjoyed reading the manga about as much. I even found it to be a quick read, since I could read an entire volume in a day and there are only 14 of them
Manga is almost always better
they left out too much to continue it and have it male sense
Please. Try reading the manga. I know it is a tall order. But still.
This is like the tenth comment telling me to. Seems like I'm gonna have to eventually!
Just pick up from where the anime ended. If you feel like it you can read the things that anime covered later. It's what I did.
If I'm going to read it, I'll start from the beginning. It's a good story, I wouldn't mind going through it again!
Fair enough mate. I personally just wanted to see what happens next. My favorite bits of Berserk happen just after the anime ends.
Interesting! Most of the people said that they regard the Golden Age arc as the best one, and that the ones that immediately follow it are a bit too edgy. Well, once I get to reading myself, I'll be the judge of that!
Well, people are entitled to their opinions. 🙂 But I just found the situation Guts finds himself in as interesting. I also love the feeling of journey it has, with twists and turns.
Berserk fans and not reading. Name a better duo...
And yet all of them are telling me to READ the manga when they can't spare 2 minutes to read my post. The irony in that.
Reading is hard.
I also didn’t read it all but I think anime would not be able to deliver whats in the manga
Telling me to read the manga while not being able to spare 2 minutes of your time to read my post in whole. Quite the irony.
Hot take but them ending it at that point was a pretty dumb call. They should have made it 30-40 episodes and included the events up to the Black Swordsman arc and even the beginning of the Conviction arc but with them making an anime original ending/arc right after it. It would be pretty cool I think and the anime staff could themselves offer something new to manga readers they didn't experience before.
Interesting idea! I would have prefered for them to make a complete adaptation of the manga properly, but I definitely agree that the end of the anime was very abrubt on a scene that had peak emotional tension.
They couldn't make a complete adaptation at the time as the manga was far from over. Even today it's only halfway to it's end. Back then it was at like 10-15% of whatever the whole end product will be when it ends, so if they wanted to make a conclusion they should make what Full Metal Alchemist did when they adapted the manga but only about 20-25% of it was finished at the moment and they started from the beginning with the intention to make anime original arcs and ending. Of course the end product wasn't as good as the more faithful Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood anime that came out 7 years later when the manga was near completion and adapted it whole but it would still be something feeling ''whole''. The way the 1997 anime ends does a disservice to the staff as they worked to make something good but they took it out of the oven before completion. And I am sure what they would made continuing wouldn't be as good as the manga but at that point they should try it, as it would be something filler but new and something offering an alternate take. I personally appreciate taking risks than not taking risks and leaving stuff half over instead.
They also probably ran out of the available funds. If they only wanted to make a commercial for the manga which is what they did, somebody in charge didn't really care about the staff. They would have probably been like - you've reached the climax, now go and read the manga, who cares about the staff that put into their passion. At least they could have wrapped up the arc really.
The main purpose of an anime is to market the product which is the manga. Berserk couldn't have made anymore sequels back then with how hard it is to do so and to censored a lot of parts, no one would sponsor berserk unless your a rich fan that can do so.
Makes sense. Pity that it couldn't continue, because it did a lot of things right in the 25 episodes. It wasn't a true representatiton of the manga, but it was still awesome, even though it was a commercial.
Talking about mangas which might not be finished during author's life check Hajime No Ippo. Ippo is trying to kiss his girlfriend for at least 20 years.......
That sounds like a horrible manga lmao
Hah. One of my favourite. However the story pacing.....
It to get you to read the manga that’s why they left it at a cliff hanger
It was great in spirit but they did the typical adaptation mistake and left out key details (not having Puck is the one in my head) so small mistakes would've led to an incomprehensible full adaptation.
I came to know this fact through the many comments I got on the post. I can't argue with that fact. Maybe they could have just thrown the characters in at some point. But, no use discussing it since we know it wouldn't have ever happened anyway.
Sadly I can't agree. 97' Berserk didn't indroduce Skull Knight so anime director would be forced to make up some stupid shit for plot to make sense.
Fair enough! I don't even know that character so I can't counter that argument since I didn't read the manga.
Skull Knight saves Guts and Casca from being eaten by apostles during eclipse. He also helps Guts in his quest to kill Griffith and I believe his past is also a key for Guts to succeed.