Berserk

Publisher
Dark Horse/Digital Manga
Writer
Kentaro Miura
Artist
Kentaro Miura
Country of origin
Japan
Length
24 volumes
Year
1989

Berserk

By Hameln
10th Jul 04

This is basically a fighting manga, but this also has a very good plot and character development compared to other fighting mangas.

The main character is strong melee warrior named Gutts. He also has plenty of nicknames like Monster and Black Swordman. In the first two and half volumes he seems to be psychopathic but volumes 3-13 tell his story from his childhood for reasons of his revenge and after that I agreed with his actions totally.

This series has lots of character development and readers will probably change their opinions of many characters in this manga, when more details of their desires and personas have been revealed. I won't tell any more about the important characters in this manga, because such basic things like if a character is a bad or a good person would be spoilers. You'll have to find your opinion yourself.

The only one dimensional character, who doesn't develop at all, is an elf named Puck. His fighting abilities are almost zero, but he can heal light wounds almost immediately and he can spy on other people's conversations because he is so small. The reason why he exists in this manga is explained directly when Gutts asks him why he follows him around all the time. Puck answers that without him this manga would be too dark. This is the only conversation in this manga, which broke the atmosphere so much and it's only an excuse of writer of this manga for readers. Pucks actions are very funny to watch and he really lightens this manga a lot. He doesn't exist in volumes 3-13 at all, because these volumes are flashbacks. It's up to you, if you like him or not. I like.

This manga has very strong drama elements and I had to stop reading of this manga from time to time, because some plots were almost too much for me to handle.

The fighting of this manga is very intensive and has the best fighting scenes what I have seen.

The graphics of this manga is very detailed and realistic apart from scenes where Puck presents some stupid jokes. Now I have say some serious warnings. This manga has very sadistic fighting and rape scenes including abusing and raping small children. If you cannot handle that, don't read this manga at all.

The weakness of this manga is that it's Jack-of-all-trades manga. It concentrates on character development for a long time and on the contrary one fight can last about 150 pages. If you don't like character development or fighting, you are sometimes very bored when reading this manga.

If you think that this manga is too cruel for you, there are other highly recommended fighting mangas like Naruto, Black cat or Hunter X Hunter. If you want to watch character development, I can recommend I''s, Harukana Machi-E or Confession.

I give this manga 9/10. 25 volumes have been released so far.

-- Hameln 10th Jul 04