The world in which the story is set is still that medieval realm right down to the brilliant castles with their greedy landlords, the disadvantaged common folk, and the never-ending wars. Along the way we'll find out how he came to be a warrior more powerful than any other human, with death more than just nipping at his heels from his very birth. You can imagine, then, what my sentiments were like when I began watching a 25-episode-anime of which I'd read 300+ chapters of manga. Characters such as Farnese and Mozgus sound just like I had imagined them when reading the manga which was unexpected. The unfortunate thing is that although the story is somewhat part of the original work, the way that its' been directed so far, makes Berserk feel like a horribly put together fan project.
Friendship, love, betrayal, and a lot of blood and gore to set the pace. Berserk 2016 fails in literally every category when it comes to production quality. Upon closer look, however, I'd say that instead of a shortcoming, Berserk's old-school animation works exactly in the shows favor. Voice acting most notably reflects the characters well, save for some of the demons. The characters and their actions are defined by their varied internal philosophies. This isn't so much the case in the manga however, I digress. This also sets the pace of the story based on the technological circumstances of medieval culture.
At times there is an over usage of scrolling single pictures in place of animation, which works as both an advantage and disadvantage. I felt like what was released, wasn't the shows full potential. Many corners of the internet regard it above Watchmen as the greatest graphic novel of all time. He he, I wrote ass as, lazy. This is the question posed by Berserk, pitting humanistic free will against nihilistic predestination.
With a very distinct difference in character philosophies and a heavy story focus on them, central story events are marked by relationships between these philosophies. Not to mention they are terrible to begin with. Animation, music, sound, story---- you name it and it fails miserably. The narrative, or rather, the way that the story was told, it failed improve successful elements that the original story used. Berserk is an amazing anime. Plot and characters: Berserk 2016 already had a difficult task because the Black Swordsman Arc is. I'll make note of the music, since that is certainly one of the most enjoyable things about Berserk.
As the ragtag group slowly comes together after having decided to join Guts in his quest, they will face incredible danger unlike anything they have ever experienced before. This adaptation focuses on Guts trying to locate and eventually rescue Casca who has very much turned into an invalid after the traumatic events of the Eclipse. This means the characters move clunky and unnatural like this was filmed in fucking stop motion. The dark settings and somber tone berserk once had seemed to have vanished. This is why I think this is a great series: this combination of themes, which is already rare in anime, are very well incorporated together as a complete story.
Guts faces demons, both literally and figuratively. Few moments into the introduction, the first episode pretty much plays homage to the original anime series. From the filler episode 3, mentions of a certain bad ass armor, the green behelit, Schierke making an appearance at the beginning and end of the series, there definitely feels like there were better choices for content removal or editing. The beginning and middle, rising action, parts of the story were perhaps the biggest turn off. Now horrible design choices and color contrast aside, the sound and music is absolutely atrocious. Synopsis Born from the corpse of his mother, a young mercenary known only as Guts, embraces the battlefield as his only means of survival. As for the other reason, if I'd start to go on detailing bit by bit what makes the story and characters of Berserk so unfathomably excellent, we'd all soon be looking at a review of more than 10,000 words.
Far more than once I found myself being chilled to the bone as the horror scenes rolled in, aided by terrifyingly fitting ominous sounds without which the anime's horror elements would've lacked greatly. The decline in quality was to be expected as Berserk certainly peaked during the conclusion of that arc with the events of the Eclipse. An avid listener of music though I am, I rarely pay much attention to the tunes played in anime. Here he also meets Caska, a dark and fiery-tempered woman second only to Griffith in terms of skill and leadership; second to none in terms of honor and loyalty. The show didn't seem like it was ready for release. Berserk's finale is one of the most notoriously shocking cliffhanger endings in anime history. Adapting this portion of the manga was always going to be hard, but Berserk 2016 flat out eviscerates Miura's work.
Berserk is not for the faint of heart or the very young , brimming with violent battles and head-to-head confrontations resulting in dismemberment, bodies sliced entirely in two, blood and entrails by the bucketload, and some very intense sexuality including rape and molestation. The story is, after all, rough by nature and set in an age long gone, in which case the ancient animation actually accentuates the overall mood quite nicely. Overall 10 Story 10 Animation 9 Sound 10 Character 10 Enjoyment 10 I'm one of those guys who usually read the manga before watching the anime. I felt that I focused too much on how bad the art was that it completely turned me away from the story. All set in a very adult, and mature tone. The voice acting was on and off.