In 1989, Kentaro Miura published a work that would end up changing the entire world of manga as we see it and followed through with it as his life's work until his death in May 2021. Berserk, as the title may suggest, clearly doesn't hold back at a first glance from its dark, medieval fantasy. Its blood and gore, unfiltered and uncensored nudity, violence, and dark, suggestive themes. But it's because of these themes, and lack of censorship that makes the series as beautiful as it is. You will laugh. You will cry. You will shake in fear, and you will go berserk. From an amazing set of characters, a beautiful story of friendship, revenge, and its portrayal of a wide spectrum of emotions and what they can do to the human heart, you can see how over 32 years of work can change a view of the medium of manga as a whole.

The story wastes no time getting straight to the point. I knew that the instant I opened the book. December 25th, 2020, I received the book from my older brother for Christmas - not remembering I had watched the 1997 anime with him when I was five. Yes, five. He looked at me, smirked, and just said, "read the first page." When I did, I was shocked at what I saw. For lack of a better phrase, when I saw the main protagonist, Guts, quite literally balls-deep in a succubus before slicing her head off, I knew something was different. This opening page was a warning. It was saying, "beware, this manga isn't for the faint of heart. If you can't handle this, leave now. It's going to get sexual. It's going to get bloody. It's going to get disturbing, and vile, and... good." I knew then I stumbled across something truly special.

Berserk centers around the main character Guts, a large, six-foot-eight mercenary whose objective is one goal: to swing around his massive sixty-foot-long sword that weighs over four-hundred pounds. He's a beast, and looks like something straight out of the widely popular Final Fantasy games, even though Berserk was actually the one that inspired the whole large-sword trend. In fact, a lot of our favorite anime series' today like Fullmetal Alchemist, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, Bleach, and Attack on Titan may not have even existed today if not for Guts' creation. Guts travels on his journey with a fairy companion, Puck, trying to survive demons that come to murder him each night after a horrible, tragic event happened to him and his past. From here, the story spins out into many narratives. The wonderful, and highly acclaimed "Golden Age Arc", which is mostly lots of medieval wars and drama, to the beautiful "Fantasia Arc", is more focused on the supernatural and fantasy. However, none of these arcs or genres become reducible to the other. Miura finds a way to blend everything together so naturally smooth, the story just fits together perfectly. All in all, the story is truly something special. It makes you feel things for each and every character. You laugh and cry for them, and you begin to care a lot for each of them. Obviously, Miura doesn't hold back on the subject matter. Whether that being plot points of Guts' past of his father figure selling him out to be raped as a child, the incestuous longing a king has with his daughter - complete with a nipple-licking scene, or, the infamous horse scene that everybody knows about, and which is famous amongst the Berserk community - don't look it up if you don't know, it's for your own good. All in all, I think Michael Aronson put it best in his critical review of the first volume, and it's always the go-to phrase I use to describe it to people: "a curious mix of medieval barbarism, sorcery and futurist technology, combining ghouls, guns and gore. The result is beautifully rendered badass action with enough bloody violence to keep fans of the genre happy."

One of the things that make the series Berserk so wonderful, I find, is the amazing length of characters. Guts, otherwise known as The Black Swordsman, is a former mercenary that wanders the lands fighting demonic entities each night to pursue his own dream. One, that is, still not known, even to him. He knows nothing but the swinging of a sword, something he was taught since he could stand. His character of being an antihero is true to his name. He's neither a horrible, evil entity, but neither is he actually a good person either. Whether that is because he's lost his trust in humans because of his horrible past, and the events of the infamous Eclipse, or something he's still trying to figure out, it's up to him.

"I'm used to fighting to survive. But what grows worse daily is the pressure not to die. Have I ever before wielded a sword so heavy?"

The companion that is with Guts for the majority of the manga is Puck - a fairy-like elf that serves as, quite honestly, the comic relief character in the horribly dour story. One of my favorite examples of this is a scene where Guts is battling a bunch of demons, and a kid is watching him in absolute awe and disbelief at his strength. Puck sees this as a prime opportunity to just go right into the kid's cloak and quite literally rob him of all his food and ale while he's distracted. He's funny - and sometimes a little shit if I have to admit - but I absolutely loved him. But that doesn't mean he's the loyal companion that's so cliched. It's quite the opposite. A lot of the time - especially at the beginning of the story - Puck and Guts will get into arguments, usually with one of them storming off because of Guts' cold nature. But in the end, Puck always comes back, even if it's to tease Guts. If there was one thing I didn't like about Puck's character, it was how the story changed the dynamic and chemistry he and Guts eventually worked up to have. The boy I mentioned earlier? His name, Isidoro, is another one of my favorite characters. However, once Isidoro is introduced in the story as a main character, he and Puck team up to be the chaotic comedy duo, and everything that was there for a bond between Guts and Puck just seems to vanish for the rest of the series. The two still have their moments, but it shifted dramatically - and I wasn't a fan of that.

If there is one thing, out of all the other things that I recommend Berserk for, it's the artwork for it. Even though it is - currently - 370 chapters in, it's a long read. But not just because of the number of chapters. It's the artwork. You can see each panel, page, everything had care and love put in. Every panel looks like a beautiful graphite or ink drawing, sometimes these "works" would span across both pages for more shock value and beauty, and there were moments that I found myself totally encased in this beauty of just staring at a page for its artwork alone. Whether it was overly gory, sexual, or even just a scene of hills, twisted hellish landscapes, or even Gits walking down a path... It's almost less of a book and more of almost a collection of professional illustrations. And that alone makes the series amazing. I take longer to read it because the work is so amazing. My roommate put it best. She said: "Berserk is meant to be read slowly. It's meant to be gazed at and savored. It's not just a story, it's an experience." The art of Berserk is meant to be seen and read in black and white - any other color would almost take away from the experience and beauty, in my opinion. If you don't believe me, take a look at some examples, which I'll provide here: