It’s not often that I read manga. In fact, it’s been decades since I last picked one up. However, I am a big fan of Berserk, and imagine my surprise when I received Berserk Deluxe Volume 1 by Kentaro Miura as a birthday gift. It’s nearly 700 pages, a veritable monster of a book. Naturally, I dove in.
I finished it in 3 sittings. It is ultra-violent and rendered in beautiful, horrifying detail by the artist. He pulled no punches. In fact, it makes the anime (which was how I came to know the series) look like a Saturday morning cartoon. The individual stories that were included in the volume were interesting, and the side characters were well developed and played their parts well. You encounter quite the assortment of characters, but don’t get too attached if you do take the plunge. This book follows our hero, Guts, and the elf Puck on their various adventures across some unnamed subdued medieval landscape.
If there is anything I found negative here, it’s that Guts is a man of few words. It’s part of his dubious charm, as I have the feeling he was written to be gruff and definitely not personable, even to allies. His dialogue could be put on a magic 8-ball with room to spare. But, who has time to talk when there are bad guys, demons, and undead to kill with a giant sword? We slowly learn about him as we learn about the world, and the book ends with the beginnings of his origin story. Once I saw where he came from, his personality made a lot more sense. They can’t tease me with an ending like that, I want more!
In short, I recommend this volume if you’re into manga, enjoy sword-related action, and can handle a lot of gore.
Your review is very well written. I can’t say as I’m ready to take a giant leap into manga at this time, but you have piqued my interest with this review.