Books: Berserk Vol. #9 TPB

The older I get, the more I think there are few joys in life greater than the joy of knowing you’re not alone and few agonies greater than being abandoned — or abandoning others by choice.

Small wonder I responded to Volume 9 of Berserk so strongly, and not only because the previous eight volumes have established this series as being as violent on the emotions as it is in every other respect. Like Takehiko Inoue’s outstanding Vagabond (currently being reviewed by my colleague Eric Fredericksen), Berserk creator Kentaro Miura paints on such a broad emotional canvas that he seems to be hellbent on cramming whole lives into the pages. Life, love, sex, violence, death, transgression, redemption — it’s all here, on a scale and in a scope that puts so many other comics to shame.

The one life that Miura’s most determined to get into the pages is that of Guts, his (anti)hero — now alone again, having walked away from the only “family” he’s ever known, the mercenary Band of the Hawks. Their leader, Griffith, was determined to keep him amongst them, but Guts fought his way free, just like he fought his way into the group.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.