If you really want to love this plot and you wonder whats missing after watching the anime, you should first read the manga. The manga addresses every nook and corner of the plot leaving relatively fewer plot holes. Berserk The anime is riddled with a series of plot holes and confusion as crucial scenes have been removed all together.
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The 10 best manga to read in 2022, as recommend by Japanese bookstores
You need to have a good base first.
Going strictly off my own personal opinion, I would say:
If you really want to love this plot and you wonder whats missing after watching the anime, you should first read the manga. The manga addresses every nook and corner of the plot leaving relatively fewer plot holes.
None of the adaptions leave in everything important, and by ignoring the manga, you miss entire arcs, so you should read the manga instead. The most complete and most recommended way to experience Berserk, if you don't mind it, is the manga, by far.
Berserk is an absolute masterpiece. And Kentaro Miura is one of the greatest manga creators to ever do it. He has produced one of the most heartwrenching, one of the most profound, one of the greatest works ever crafted.
Berserk is easily a legend among anime series, but its manga is where the story really shines. Here's how the manga excels over the anime. The dark fantasy genre has seen sufficient representation in the manga industry, but none of the works in this genre can hold a candle to the brilliance of Berserk.
Miura is having a dilemma on how the remaining parts of story will be told. Probably he has too many planned endings and he is having a dilemma on how to end to series. He is taking his time to decide how to end the series.
Following Miura's death in May 2021, the final chapter that he wrote and illustrated was published posthumously. The series resumed publication in June 2022, under supervision of Miura's fellow manga artist and childhood friend Kouji Mori and Miura's group of assistants and apprentices from Studio Gaga.
Perhaps this is why, to my mind, Berserk is the greatest fantasy anime franchise of all time – in any form, it presents a fascinating story with strong characters and pure emotional themes of rage, revenge and redemption which can only told in a brutal and uncompromising way. In short, it has guts.
18+ ratingIt definitely earns the 18+ rating that its English publisher, Dark Horse Comics, gives it. Over the course of his journey, Guts encounters a myriad of foes ranging from humans, creatures of myth and folklore, demonic entities, and even some demi-gods.
Berserk is known to be one of the darkest animes, exploring a wide range of topics from human nature and morality as characters struggle to maintain their humanity or succumb to murderous rampages, to betrayal and revenge.
Berserk is known for traumatizing its readers, and Casca's fate during the Eclipse is the manga at its most terrifying and heart-wrenching. Instead of devouring her, the Apostles brutally assault Casca before handing her to Femto (a.k.a. a reborn Griffith), who then repeats the process, except worse.
The series debuted in 1988 and is still running, despite Miura's notoriously long hiatuses. It also has been adapted into anime 3 times, the best example of which is the 1997 series following the "Golden Age" story arc. While it is a fairly faithful adaptation, the studio still made some major changes.
The Anime covers Volumes 1 (Chapters 1 and 2, though fused into Chapter 1 along with reference to later Chapters in Volume 2), the end chapter of Volume 3 (where Gambino discovers Guts at a tree of execution), Volumes 4 through 10 and then Volumes 12 and 13 in the manga.
To give you a primer, here is a rundown. The Berserk manga is one of those manga series that keep you hooked. One of the story arcs, aptly titled “The Eclipse” is similar to the “Chunin Exams” arc in the Naruto anime. Similar in the sense that they both keep you hooked until the very end.
As much as I dislike Naruto for it’s straight up non-existent character development despite the Naruto fans glorifying it, the only reason Naruto is popular is because it has an actual anime. Berserk’s anime has always sucked ass when compared to the manga and is honestly a joke.
In any case, we don’t even need a Berserk anime since the manga is already a masterpiece. Personally, I’m of the opinion we should instead adapt mediocre stories in order to give them a second chance at becoming a masterpiece; since Berserk is already perfect as is, it doesn’t need to be adapted. As you can see, the manga is utterly gorgeous.
Undoubtedly, the manga looks better than the anime. Just start with the manga, you'll simply love it. There's this old anime adaption which aired in the 90’s. I would suggest everyone to first read the manga completely and then watch the old anime because that was adapted fine.
Generally, for Berserk, it's recommended to simply read the manga. Now if I were You, The 1997 version of Berserk is probably where I would start. It has that old anime art style (that I personally love) and does the opening of the Berserk story, known as 'The Golden Age' arc.
But the 2016 anime (Berserk) is a sequel and the movies are an alternate version of the old series. Old one and movie are the same part of the manga, the Golden Age arc. You can watch whichever you want. Didn't watch the movie, but the series very much shortens the introduction arc from the manga.
The ’90s anime uses many images from the manga, so it looks good, and the music is especially noteworthy too. The newer anime adaptations are best avoided.
It would be impossible to talk about the best aspects of the Berserk manga without giving due credit to the absolutely breathtaking artwork of the manga. Kentaro Miura was a master of his craft and this can be seen in each and every panel of the manga, regardless of how mundane the events around it may be.
Berserk is full to the brim with iconic moments that most anime and manga fans are well aware of. While the '97 anime and the movie do a great job of translating these moments into the medium of animation, one has to admit that the manga is simply better when it comes to conveying these moments.
Berserk has been in publication before the 90s even started! So, it's only a given that Miura's artwork didn't remain static since the moment his manga was serialized — it obviously developed and became more refined over time, and one need only read the latest chapters to witness this transformation firsthand.
Berserk is easily one of the grittiest manga ever drawn, with some of the panels being downright uncomfortable to read through. However, that's precisely why so many people love Berserk — it doesn't shy away from showing just how depressing and brutal its world really is.
The '97 Berserk anime and the movies are definitely great watches that any fan of the series should definitely check out. However, due to censorship and pacing requirements, the pacing of these animations can feel rather off at times.
This is arguably the biggest reason why any aspiring fan of Berserk should read the manga instead of watching the show. The manga is well on its way to reaching a proper conclusion — or, at least, as proper a conclusion as Berserk can reach, given the circumstances.
This is a point that absolutely needs to be addressed, given the fact that some people might be confused as to why so many fans give the new Berserk anime a wide berth. Any person who simply has to watch the Berserk anime should just stay content with the old series and the movies.