Anime & Manga Berserk: It's like Anime but Good

[Shipmaster Sane]

This is a thread to discuss the world's "Strongest Fantasy Comic" when a new chapter comes out every year. We can also discuss the two good animated adaptations of the exact same arc of the story, the first video game that absolutely no one on earth played, and how Mozgus literally did nothing wrong.



No site can be complete without a place devoted to Japan's greatest (only) cultural achievement: Berserk by Kentaro Miura. Have at it.

 

[FriedCFour]

The only story I know of where a guy who looks like this.

Is pretty much the most unambiguously good and righteous man of the setting.

 

[Captain X]

I am so saddened that it just can't seem to get the anime treatment it deserves. I thought that back when I first saw the 1997 series and how lacking the animation was on that (not to mention that they apparently couldn't draw horses all that well). Then the movies came along and showed what some budget could do, only a lot of it was cringy CGI. And now with the current anime adaptation, they've gone full crappy CGI. So disappointed.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

I am so saddened that it just can't seem to get the anime treatment it deserves. I thought that back when I first saw the 1997 series and how lacking the animation was on that (not to mention that they apparently couldn't draw horses all that well). Then the movies came along and showed what some budget could do, only a lot of it was cringy CGI. And now with the current anime adaptation, they've gone full crappy CGI. So disappointed.

I have to strongly disagree in a limited context. I think that the original anime did a very good job with what they had. It wasn't a huge budget animation showcase, but they followed Miura's lead strongly and put together a beautiful and emotional portrayal of the source material.

I think the Film series also strongly represented the series, the least offensive use of CGI in an Anime I've seen, and they put over my boy Silat something fierce.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Question, does Kentaro Miura have health problems or does he put extreme amounts of detail to all the art that’s making new chapters slow?

Story’s very good, but it doesn’t have so many plotlines like ASOIAF & One Piece

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Question, does Kentaro Miura have health problems or does he put extreme amounts of detail to all the art that’s making new chapters slow?

Story’s very good, but it doesn’t have so many plotlines like ASOIAF & One Piece

He supposedly (I don't have a source) had long term health problems at one point, but I heard somewhere he said thats all in the past now.

 

[Gaouw]

Hoo boy.

Berserk is the among the first manga that make me leave other medium of entertainment like games and movies.

The detail of the art, the heartwrenching drama, the struggle against fate, what more can you ask? Furthermore, after I grow older, many a series that I liked in my youth looks so edgy and embarassing now. Berserk is one of the few series that somehow did not make me feel that. I mean, yes, Berserk is a dark, edgy series with mucho angst, but the way Miura tells it makes me feel that the darkness, edgyness, etc of the series is warranted. Unlike the hanging in the rooftop of the church scene that felt way too forced and edgy for the sake of being edgy, the edgyness of Berserk came from the natural interaction between character in a well developed world plagued by war and supernatural monsters in the dark waiting to rape, eat, and kill people for their own enjoyment (and oftentimes in order that may surprise you).

The story of a journey of a boy found under a Hanging Tree by mercenaries that found love, contentment, and friendship that devolved into a one man war against those that prowl in the dark is a riveting narrative of a classical hero taken with a dash of darkness that touches my heart. Of course, this is helped immensely by the detailed and beautiful art by Miura, especially his immense mastery of Human Anatomy (be it the inside or outside part) that shows the eery beauty of the natural and supernatural forces in his world.

In short, I loved Berserk. Too bad Miura only publish chapters once every Blue Moon.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I suggest you read Robert E. Howard’s works for if you want similar “Badass Normal” dudes who are only normal in that their bodies look to be human even though they’re physically powerful and resilient enough to fight supernatural beings and use mundane weaponry and aside from great “normal” fighting skill and power they can use their heads to analyse and improvise in order to win

It lacks the edge and amount of character depth though, that said the world or universe of REH is less of a Cosmic Horror Story(funnily enough it shares the same universe/setting as H.P Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos) and more of a world where “Yes, there are supernatural beings and even eldritch horrors out there and mankind is insignificant in the long scheme of things and that there are ancient civilizations that are long forgotten that had their own long forgotten ancient ruins around and the abyss of time when thought about is scary. That doesn’t stop guys like Conan from fighting and enjoying their mortal lives. Plus, even Eldritch Horrors can find that stone age or early bronze/iron aged cavemen are dangerous motherfuckers.”

They don’t use inhumanly and impractically large weapons though

 

[Captain X]

I have to strongly disagree in a limited context. I think that the original anime did a very good job with what they had. It wasn't a huge budget animation showcase, but they followed Miura's lead strongly and put together a beautiful and emotional portrayal of the source material.

I think the Film series also strongly represented the series, the least offensive use of CGI in an Anime I've seen, and they put over my boy Silat something fierce.

Actually I get rather nostalgic for the 1997 series now that I've seen some of the new one. It wasn't horrible or anything, but it's a shame it didn't get the budget its story deserved.

 

[Gaouw]

No site can be complete without a place devoted to Japan's greatest (only) cultural achievement: Berserk by Kentaro Miura. Have at it.

So, Tentacle Hentai, NTR, Maid, Slave Harem, Isekai is not Japan's cultural achievement?

The Internet has LIED to me!!!

 

[Iconoclast]

So, Tentacle Hentai, NTR, Maid, Slave Harem, Isekai is not Japan's cultural achievement?

The Internet has LIED to me!!!

If you guys like Kentaro Miura, I also wholeheartedly recommend Yukito Kishiro and Naoki Urasawa. Battle Angel Alita/GUNNM and Monster are two of the most amazing things you will ever read, I guarantee it.

You might’ve seen the recent film adaptation of Alita and thought “Ehh, it’s good, but...”.

The original manga is about ten times bloodier and moodier. It is jam-packed with cultural references you wouldn’t expect in a manga, from Judas Priest to Forbidden Planet (Yukito Kishiro is a Westaboo), everyone has glam metal hair, and it has such ridiculous things as a battle on a nuclear-powered steam train, and there’s...

Spoiler: Minor Spoilers

... a group of wasteland rebels who try bringing down Zalem with a fucking replica of an 80cm Schwerer Gustav.

Even the movie, with its millions of dollars of CGI, just barely managed to do BAA any justice. It is a hellacious read, and I mean that in a good way. The art is fucking fantastic.

I am so saddened that it just can't seem to get the anime treatment it deserves. I thought that back when I first saw the 1997 series and how lacking the animation was on that (not to mention that they apparently couldn't draw horses all that well). Then the movies came along and showed what some budget could do, only a lot of it was cringy CGI. And now with the current anime adaptation, they've gone full crappy CGI. So disappointed.

Even the cutscenes from the recent Berserk Musou game had better 3D than the fucking anime:

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I really wonder what’s with the obsession with using bad/cheap CGI over even computer animation

Seriously, I gave up on the anime for Kengan Asura both when I found out that it was CGI and that they cut out numerous parts

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

I really wonder what’s with the obsession with using bad/cheap CGI over even computer animation

Seriously, I gave up on the anime for Kengan Asura both when I found out that it was CGI and that they cut out numerous parts

Laziness, the root of basically all problems in art.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Laziness, the root of basically all problems in art.

Given that I’ve seen lots of people do regular animation for generic and boring series like Infinite Stratos, gotta say I think there are people trying to make CGI-Anime more of a thing

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Given that I’ve seen lots of people do regular animation for generic and boring series like Infinite Stratos, gotta say I think there are people trying to make CGI-Anime more of a thing

So generic fodder can get hand-drawn animation, but a classic that I'd actually want to see can't. Typical.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

So generic fodder can get hand-drawn animation, but a classic that I'd actually want to see can't. Typical.

Hand drawn? I’m pretty sure it’s still made with computers

You want hand-drawn? You’ll have to ask Studio Ghibli

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Hand drawn? I’m pretty sure it’s still made with computers

You want hand-drawn? You’ll have to ask Studio Ghibli

I mean in the style of hand-drawn, sorry. And Studio Ghibli is awesome.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I mean in the style of hand-drawn, sorry. And Studio Ghibli is awesome.

I honestly think the execs of companies like Netflix are dumb enough to allow and show mistakes many months ahead and never bother to correct them

Aside from Berserk, Kengan Asura deserves better treatment....then again the whole fighting-tournament-genre is pretty niche and the manga’s somewhat obscure and even barely gets talked about on the sister forums or even gets fanfics and fanart

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Given that I’ve seen lots of people do regular animation for generic and boring series like Infinite Stratos, gotta say I think there are people trying to make CGI-Anime more of a thing

Wasn't infinite Stratos before the CGI craze really took off though?

Also, some people not doing it while being lazy in other ways doesn't necessarily mean it isnt down to laziness.


The fact is that CGI is not inherently worse than 2d animation. We have the capacity today to make foto realistic CGI that looks phenomenal. But thats expensive and hard. So we get professional anime that look worse than your average Source Filmmaker porn.

 

[Iconoclast]

Hand drawn? I’m pretty sure it’s still made with computers

You want hand-drawn? You’ll have to ask Studio Ghibli

A lot of animation nowadays is hand-drawn, but they use pen tablets instead of traditional cel animation. There are all sorts of techniques that are possible with digital. You can do per-frame digital sketching and painting with the same drawing techniques as 2D cel animation, there’s vector animation (like with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which was animated in the Philippines under a very tight budget using craploads of reusable vector assets in Flash; the characters are pieced together like paper dolls), there’s regular 3D animation, cel-shaded 3D, and lastly, and perhaps most impressively, rotoscoping over a 3D reference, which produces absolutely stunning results:







There’s absolutely no excuse for lifeless “pseudo-2D” 3D animation like in the Berserk anime when one guy in his basement did that goddamn Star Wars short. It’s simple, too; use the 3D as a sketch and draw over it. The reason why it’s so handy is because it makes difficult perspective and foreshortening shots a cinch; the 3D reference is always correct to its surroundings for a given camera angle and “focal length”.