Anime: Berserk

Note: This review only covers the first season of the new Berserk series.

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Review
Berserk. This legendary show conquered the hearts of many in the late 90's with its cunning scheme of mercenaries, warring kingdoms, and supernatural evils. Its tale, focused on a group of three friends rising within a setting of warfare, managed to hold together both fantastic elements and gritty realism to make it unique, standing even today as the only true dark fantasy around the industry. The movie adaptation of this show, released a few years back, managed to bring a modern-day touch to this old tale, yet it somehow lacked the artistic signature and the focus on the humanity of the main trio.

Both TV series and movie adaptation, however, ended with the first arc. We never had the sequel to it, we never saw past the treacherous sacrifice and the infestation of evil coming to Midland and its inhabitants. Well, fear no more, as we can finally see the light (or darkness) at the end of this tunnel.

This new TV series aims to continue the tale from the movie adaptation, following the never-ending manga tale as Guts becomes known as the Black Swordsman and the land slowly fades into eternal darkness and damnation.

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1. What the...
   Gods. Look at that. What the f*ck is this? I mean, the movie retelling already had its deal of issues with robotic computer graphics and a doll-like animation made by Studio 4C, but here the guys behind Liden Films simply take the trophy home for completely destroying the visual experience. This show not only lacks the artistic value of the original, but it manages to make things nearly unbearable at the start. Guts and everyone else look like clumsy ragdolls with plastic limbs. Animation is completely broken when the CG elements are so artificial, neither looking like an original japanese animation nor a new kind of type of western show.
   
   This pretty much slashes the show
   Remember how the original Berserk shone due to its main trio? Remember how the world around these characters turned bleak and filled with despair? It was nice, right? Not anymore. You see, when you turn the cast into robotic ragdolls with little expression, all that despair and darkness is destroyed. This becomes a major issue when the tale is going towards a spiral of unimaginable horrors, death, and hopelessness. It becomes hard to feel anything towards the cast when they look like that, no matter how hard the writing tries.
   
   This part of the tale also explores tons of heavy scenes as manga readers can relate, with many naked people being slaughtered, women getting raped, soldiers being sliced in half by demons, and insane f*ckers doing horrible things. However, being animated with such a clumsy CG and being naturally censored with nipple-less and penis-less characters models in scenes where people are f*ckn naked makes it hard to feel any kind of fear towards what is happening in this world.
   
   It cuts through filler content
   There is a LOT of content released by the manga since the Golden Age arc. It basically became an endless source of filler content showing how distorted and terrifying the world of Berserk becomes after the Eclipse. This show, tasked with continuing through this part, manages to achieved a decent condensation of the immense content it was supposed to tackle. There is a lot of things cut off the show, angering manga fans, yet it makes sense to cut it away, as many mini-arcs are basically just side-quests with little to none character development and just a decent amount of world building. The main events are here and that's what matters.
   
   And it goes on
   This first arc goes around the Tower of Conviction arc, showing the raise in power of Guts as he drags the Holy Iron Chain Knights and their leader, Farnese, into the never-ending darkness that is his life. Despite the tough drawback that is the animation department, the plot manages to kick in in terms of action, thrilling moments, and important events. The pace is there, you get to see what really matters, and there is a decent work around Farnese through these twelve episodes, showing her change from religious fanatical to a struggling weak noble girl in a world of demons.
   
   It gets some help
   If the visual department is lacking, the sound department is not. Berserk manages to keep a decent sound track backed by a mature voice-acting whose only struggle is matching the robotic cast. If the themes are not on the same level as the original TV show, they still have enough strength to push the show forward.
   

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Comments
Ergh. I have mixed feelings when watching this show. The fact it continues one of the most amazing tales of this industry makes me want for more, helped me through the early episodes, and even managed to truly conquer me after the first half. Yet the absurdly terrible choice for animation style, the mediocre quality of it, along with a change of art direction that certainly did not help to make the world feel "darker" brings me to the real thing: this is a mess.

Berserk deserves more. A LOT more. I know that the manga, after the Eclipse, became a bunch of never-ending mini-arcs making Guts grow from "strong guy who can put up a fight against demons" to "invincible shounen lead eating demons for breakfast". Yet the artistic value of those pages is immense. Berserk is one of the most detailed mangas I've seen and one who depicted some f*ckn disturbing scenes that I cannot easily forget. Here, however, there is nothing of that. Even the rapist horse seems like a bozo clown with this choice of art. The gruesome combat also loses a lot of power when the butchering is this artificial. Sad. Truly sad. The static paintings back in 1997 managed to be far more alive than this.

Anyway, it's here though. The tale, despite being shrugged, has most of the important things intact, and perhaps we can finally hope to see the end of this long-running tale in a few years. My only hope now is that Linden Films manage to gain experience in the next season, making the CG more tolerable or maybe event ditching it out completely. Nah.

You have to give them credit...is amaizing how they took a great story (the manga...the only reason why you can see all the other good recomendations), and ruined it, adding horrible animation, some poor character desing (like Guts...what is it with that large cranium?), and weird CGI...for me, this is only a comercial product, that aims to make profit of the love that we do have for the original manga/anime/movies. If you are new to Berserk, I would recommend you to start with the manga, and then, if you want more, while waiting for the next manga (like me), watch this crap, only wortly for fans.

The main discrepancy that one will notice is the graphism. We are far from the clear-cut style of the first season, for an intentionally more sketchy style. I will not try to describe it with words when a glance is sufficient to understand why it has received mixed reviews. I cannot understand why this anime could not have been done with the mundane style we find in the contemporary realizations, instead of this obviously experimental one.
That style is a like-it-or-not, and you end up overlooking it in favor of the intrinsic qualities of the show as it progresses. Furthermore the 2 first episodes seem to have been a warm-up for the graphic team, and are for the visual part sub-par with the rest of the anime.
There is also inclusion of CGI (which this style makes less intrusive compared to what it would have been with the classic visuals), and sometimes it is clear that we are dealing with computer generated images instead of hand-drawn ones, that is not always very nice.

The music is very good, but suffers the comparison with the previous season. Still it fits perfectly to what you see on screen, and underlines the emotions of the scenes.

On another hand, the story is really well paced, deep and clearly exposed. It does not suffer a single second from the comparison of the story of the first season.
To be more specific, the first half the first season is really good, one understands what are the motivations of the characters, the political intricacies are apparent, and the introduction of the fantastic nature of the show is excellent, you are as much surprised as a viewer as Guts is as a personage. On another hand the latter half suffers from rhythms and plot holes problems, in particular with over-elongated aimless gory battles, and a completely rushed ending.
Here it is not the case. What is at stake is clear, the fights are shorter, more intense, better inserted into the story. The story itself is deep enough to hook you from the beginning to the end.
Even if new comers can get a grip on the universe (I think that is why the third episode dealt with a matter which is rarely used afterward), starting this season as a primer will have viewer miss why is Casca so important to Guts, and this is what drives the entire story of this season.

the characterization is really good. The characters really behave humanly in response to the more and more deranging world they face. And you get to care for the protagonists (especially in a world where survivability is not granted), hate the villainous.

In a few words, this is really a good show I may recommend wholeheartedly, but you have to overlook the visual choices.

This is my third effort to complete this review. I have never written a preview for an unfinished anime/manga before, neither for one I dropped. I didn't see the point. Also, I didn't like the idea of judging a work that I had not experienced as a whole. I pushed myself to finish the ~750 pages of Red Storm Rising (don't read it) just to be “able” to review it.

After watching the first episode of the new Berserk I simply had to write something. I retouched this review after watching the first four episodes, as I was disappointed that things didn't move towards the right direction. After I finished the series, I thought it was worthwhile to visit the review a third time.

I love Berserk. The anime adaptation was reason I abandoned my initial hesitation and started reading manga. Berserk is a genre on its own. And even though the anime is a 1997 work, I still recommend it to my friends. I didn't watch the 2012 movies because of the horrid CGI in the PVs, meaning I was really not prepared when I started this.

It was... well in a single word: Unacceptable. Please don't disregard this comment because I am a CGI hater. Every aspect of it was unacceptable. OK the CGI was horrible,but not only that, the direction reminded me of old console RPGs, those that you didn't get a good sense of the action. Finally, never in my life, I commented about neither music in movies/TV etc nor about seiyus, I probably have a thick and/or untrained ear, but that episode astonished me because I found that everything in the audio department was appalling.

The anime covers the second act of the Berserk story, following the excellent “Golden Age” arc. While this act is not as good as the first, it still remains a masterpiece.

During the first four episodes you get glimpses of the beauty that is Berserk. Unfortunately you have ugly CGI, poor direction -full of strangely rotating angles and trite shots- and irrelevant sound. All of the above makes watching the anime unbearable.

I cannot understand how such a popular source material was given to such an amateurish studio. If you are new to Berserk, you can read the manga. This product does not even come close to replicating the beautiful panels of the original work. If you don't do manga, watch the 1997 anime. It's awesome. On your own risk, you can try this anime if you want to get acquainted with the world of Berserk; if you don't get a headache from the camera work maybe you will enjoy it, or at least whet the appetite for more. I know it made me want to read the manga all over again from the beginning.

While the production values are worth less than 0, underneath looms one of the best stories in any medium. 4.0/10.

Right from the beginning it becomes obvious that everything went down in terms of quality since the original 1997 series (and even the movies that came after). Starting from art and animation, and going as far as the story and the characters - literally everything is toned down significantly.

Shots are often way too close up, a lot of unnecessary scenes are stretched far beyond their value. The plot feels contrived at many points, and it doesn't feel like it progresses the story in a meaningful way. Rather, at times this feels like a cheap video game, with the main character moving from one location to another, slaughtering monsters and facing a boss at the end.

But the thing that annoyed me the most BY FAR is the introduction of anime cliches, particularly, the exaggerated portrayal of emotions on some of the characters. 1997 series and the movies didn't have that, which was the major factor of my enjoyment. This may seem ridiculous, but these exaggerations look extremely out of place in an otherwise dark and serious setting. In other words, this is the case of stupid not being equal to funny.

All that said, there's a very solid reason to watch this: if you are a fan of Berserk, and you don't plan reading the manga, then THIS IS YOUR ONLY OPTION to see the continuation of the story. At least for now. If you're not a fan, then I suggest not watching this, unless you want to ruin your first impression of the entire franchise.

Now, even though this anime breaks some of the fundamental concepts of the original, overall it's still Berserk. Battered, but undefeated, just like Guts himself. Darkness and blood are still there, as well as fights with monsters, many of whom are actually interesting and unique. This means that, while not living up to the legacy, Berserk (2016) still beats your average mass-produced anime by a mile.

I consider the 1997-1998 Berserk show to be the best dark medieval fantasy anime of all time; it had a great emphasis on character dynamics between the three main characters of the show and fleshed them out wonderfully. The show may have had low production values but it didn't look ugly to the point where you couldn't stand the sight of it. 18 years down the line, Berserk gets a new anime. So, this new Berserk anime should be great as well, right?

Wrong! Berserk 2016 is the worst TV adaptation of a manga series I have ever watched. I mean holy shit the original Hunter X Hunter and Full Metal Alchemist series were not this grotesque. A big flaw of Berserk 2016 is that it is unfaithful to the manga. How did Guts obtain his behelit? I don't know. This new Berserk skipped some arcs which were vital and instead focused on the Tower of Conviction Arc. I didn't understand how Guts was able to overcome his trauma from the Eclipse nor did I get any explanation as to why Casca suddenly became a vegetable (okay, I understand that she went through hell during the Eclipse and she would be severely mentally damaged but I was never shown her gradual degradation) As such if you are an anime only viewer like me, you will have no idea what is going on and if you have read the manga, you will be pissed off and probably drop this anime in an instant. Being an unfaithful anime adaptation is never a good thing.

Probably the greatest flaw of Berserk 2016 is the production values; the show is animated in CGI and it is so terrible. I usually place story and characters much higher than production values but when art and animation is so god damn appalling it is difficult to enjoy a a show's story and its characters. The CGI essentially ruins the viewing experience; when Guts is slashing enemies to pieces, it doesn't feel like people are being sent flying everywhere and instead it feels as if Guts is fighting dolls rather than actual people. What is even worse is that there is 2D animation mixed with the CGI! In some scenes, some of the characters are CGI while the others are in 2D. This completely breaks immersion and makes you lose interest quickly. The music is awful nor where there any good soundtracks; the only piece of music I actually remembered was the Opening of the show because it wasn't in terrible CGI and it was a great throwback to the Golden Age Arc. Overall, the production values destroy any semblance of this show being actually good.

The Berserk 2016 anime mainly adapts the Tower of Conviction Arc. Guts goes to save a brain-dead Casca who has been labeled as a which. Before that he meets Puck, Isidoro and Farnese of the Holy Iron Chain Knights who appear in the main arc. Honestly, there was nothing special about this arc; it was just some rescue mission that doesn't really progress the story; the only progression was Griffith returning to the mortal realm, which came out of nowhere and no foreshadowing (thanks to the unfaithfulness of this anime).

New characters are introduced such as Puck, Isidoro, Farnese, Luca and Nina. Puck and Isidoro were annoying, Farnese got some characterization and development but felt minuscule while Luca and Nina seemed to be important but felt like interventions. As for the older characters, they became shadows of their former selves; Griffith becomes an apathetic demon, Guts is just bent on revenge and Casca who was a strong willed woman becomes a vegetable. The new characters were not interesting nor did they provide anything new while the older characters regressed. Thus, there was no real character development.

Another problem with this show is that it forgot the key ingredients which made it great in the first place; human ambition and proactive gifted people who chase after their dreams while the mediocre commoners follow them with no question. I'm fine with this show adding dark themes such as human suffering and religion but when a show forgets its root elements, it becomes difficult to watch.

Berserk 2016 is unfaithful, ugly and a shadow of its former self. It is a show that is a failure due to terrible production values destroying the viewing experience, low quality storytelling and forgetting its roots.