Let’s skip ahead a bit, shall we?
The last review I wrote of Berserk feels like ages ago, and while I was planning on going through the whole series in order before arriving at the most recent volumes, I had a nasty run-in with this thing called real life. Then volume 25 hit my doorstep, and I decided to save us all a lot of trouble and jump ahead. I should say that if you’ve any kind of investment in being surprised by the way Berserk unfolds and you haven’t gotten anywhere near this far, go back and get caught up. I hate to ruin a perfectly good surprise.
Volume 25 takes place in the main line of Berserk’s plotting — where Guts is a hulking engine of destruction, Casca a mute shell of a woman, and the world around them is being torn to pieces by demonic incursion. This installment kicks off in the middle of deep trouble, where Guts and his companions have stopped to aid a village being overrun by trolls. Guts’s sword, impressive as it is, only goes so far, and so a local magician — a lithe young girl named Schierke — steps in to lend a hand. Her use of sorcery sparks the ire of the local priest (“Blasphemy!” he thunders), but the townspeople could care less about blasphemy when their village is being overrun.
Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.
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Man, I couldn't disagree with you more on this. This is the one where the kid grabs the witch girl's breasts and she makes him act like a monkey, right? And the one where everyone gets elemental super-weapons, right? And the Godhands become these sort of elemental creatures, in a move strikingly reminiscent of the way August Derleth defanged Lovecraft's creations?
Sure, it's still disturbingly violent, but now it's descended into standard anime-style wackiness in an almost shockingly anodyne (given how the series used to be) setting. This series was special for a while, but now I have become thoroughly disillusioned.
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I haven't seen any of that yet -- it might well have been in a volume that was before the jump I made. Then again, I have a higher threshold of tolerance for that kind of thing. To me, it would take a betrayal on the order of "oh, it was all a DREAM!" for me to call it quits on this series.
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I don't know at what point you bailed, but if you missed it, you really must go back and read the story arc with the carnivorous fairies, which is gorgeous and heartbreaking.
That said, although I initially wanted to kill myself after being left hanging by the anime, in retrospect, I think it's better than the manga because, unresolved though it is, it captures the part of the manga that represents a dramatic, sustained, and above all focused narrative that shows Miura at his strongest without revealing his fallibility.
It's not that I would mind silly cliches and standard fantasy tropes in any other context, but it's clear at this point that he's more or less abandoned the nihilistic, Lovecraftian worldview that, for me, made the series so compelling. That represents a huge disappointment to me, especially since at this point it's painfully apparent that this thing is just going to go ON and ON and ON, meandering aimlessly through extended battle after battle after battle. I know this sounds a little harsh, but for me, the series has degenerated into a slightly more upscale Dragon Ball Z. That makes me sad. I don't know.
And I know I'm babbling on like a crazy person, but when I think back to how utterly captivated I was by this series at one point, it inspires strong emotions in me.
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I can understand where you're coming from, believe me. I did have to jump ahead for the sake of getting caught up with the most recent releases, but I'm going to be doubling back and checking out what's in the gap I leaped over. From what I've seen, though, the "DBZ"-ness that you're citing doesn't look *quite* that bad, really. (I speak as someone who's seen much worse -- there's always a comparison to be made in that department!)
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