Episode 25: One Year Anniversary Episode Berserk
Disclaimer: The following consists of copy written material owned by Kentaro Miura, Media Blasters, Oriental Light & Magic, and Dark horse Comics. This review is for entertainment purposes only and covered by the fair rights usage act.
Airnaruto45 aka The Classic critic sat at his desk once more but he seemed a little distracted this time around he was reading some books on Greek Myths, Athenian tragedy, and watching some anime on his laptop before he noticed the camera was on.
"Oh sorry about that..." Airnaruto said before clearing his throat and going to his main introduction. "Hello I'm the Classic Critic; I remember it so you're not required to, and I know it's a month late but welcome to my 25th episode/One year Anniversary." He said which lead to a thunderous ovation. "If you were about to ask me why I had all this stuff cluttered on my desk well it's because I've been looking into an anime/manga series that has most of it's themes rooted in Greco/Roman myths and tragedy despite it's medieval environment, and unless you've been living under a rock for the past 12 to 23 years you'll know which series I'm talking about." He said before the Jeopardy theme began to play.
(Jeopardy theme plays in the background for about 30 seconds)
"HOW CAN NONE OF YOU KNOW WHAT SERIES I'M TALKING ABOUT?" Airnaruto screamed before calming down…"Sorry but honestly has nobody here other than my production team and myself heard of Berserk?" He asked the audience before getting a look on his face. "Whoever has watched, read, heard of, or played a video game from this series please take one step forward." Airnaruto said before he saw everyone take one step back.
"Why me?" he asked himself before going on to explain the premise of the series.
"Berserk is based on a manga of the same name written by Kentaro Miura that started back in 1988. The kingdom of Midland is overrun with demons who oppress the humans and the only bold enough to stop them is a beast of a man known as the black swordsman Guts." Airnaruto said as we see a man with a huge 9 foot long sword, black hair, a red cape on his back, a prosthetic left arm that hid a crossbow and a miniature cannon in it, his right eye gouged out, with black flat top hair, and his body covered in armor, this was Guts the Black swordsman who was shooting crossbow bolts into the remains of snake demon of some kind. "Now that we've gotten the introduction scenes out of the way let's move on to the main plot." Airnaruto said
Plot:
"After slaying the demon, Guts begins to reflect on his time among the mercenary band known as the band of the hawk, and his friendship with the hawk's leader Griffith." Airnaruto said as the camera shows a scene of Guts conversing with a handsome young man in armor with white hair and blue eyes this was Griffith. "Just by the opening of episode 1 you know that their friendship ended on a pretty sour note, but in any case the rest of the series basically follows the battles that the band of the hawk are enlisted for and the friendship between Guts, Griffith, and the main female Character Casca who thankfully is a very strong and outspoken character in her own right and not the stereotypical fan service feast." Airnaruto said before giving his own thoughts in regards to the story. "This story of this anime to me has more substance than style as it has more than just straight hack and slash battles, as it can be very introspective, with displays of the best and worst of human nature, political intrigue and some horror. I would say it's perfect if not for one problem….The ending or lack thereof." Airnaruto said before showing the ending and then explaining his dispassion with the ending.
Guts manages to cut himself loose by sacrificing his arm and continues to chase after Griffith who's still busy raping Casca.
Guts: GRIFFITH!
Guts then gets pinned down by more demons and has his right eye gouged out and then he screams as the screen fades to white.
"Berserk has one of the worst endings in anime history, where it gets to what should be the climax of the first story arc in the manga, and then it stops." Airnaruto said before getting angry again. "In other words the show was more or less a 25 episode manga commercial disguised as an anime series." Airnaruto said before he asked a question into the camera.
"Why OLM why did you and Media Blasters flip us the flaming middle finger and tell us to go get the manga to find out what happened have you no shame?" Airnaruto said before he started shaking
"JUST…EXPLAIN!" Airnaruto said banging his fists on his desks which caused a nuclear explosion.
(BOOM)
"Sorry about that." Airnaruto said as he continued, "The manga is still going but the latest chapters have been delayed for whatever reason, of course they even had to make a couple of video games based on the series to help anyone who hadn't read the manga but had watched the anime understand how it got up to the point it's currently at in the manga, but only one of them Sword of the Berserk Gut's Rage for the SEGA Dreamcast was the only one of the two to get an international release." He said moving on to the next category.
Technical Aspects (Art, Animation, Music, Voice acting):
"You've probably guessed by now that this show's animation has not aged well over the past 13 years or so when compared to the anime of today such as Death Note, Baccano!, Claymore, Cowboy Beebop, Trinity Blood, Desert Punk, and several other series." Airnaruto said as posters of each series he mentioned flashed on the screen.
"The art design and detailed backgrounds are good and well done but do they have to do a still shot every 8 minutes?" Airnaruto asked then showed a few shots said stills to prove his point as the camera slowly panned away from a hillside.
"The music is an eclectic blend of orchestral instruments, electric guitars, and synthesizers all fused and beautifully put together by Susumu Hirasawa who has worked on anime series such as the late Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent…" Airnaruto said before getting cut off by Captain Kirk.
Captain Kirk: KAHN!
"I said Kon!" He screamed before finishing what he was trying to say "and the Paprika movie. I just have one problem with the soundtrack and that's it's opening Tell me Why by the Pen pals, how does that song fit into this series of blood, guts, horror, tits, and gore? It doesn't!" He finished saying before moving on the voices.
"The voice acting has it's ups and downs, the Japanese track is good and each Seiyu performs their roles as if they were their characters." Airnaruto said praising the Japanese dub. "The English dub is more of a hit and miss, don't get me wrong, Mark Diraison as Guts is good, Carolyn Elizabeth as Casca is great and every other voice actor and actress performs above and beyond the call of duty…but Kevin Collins as Griffith is an absolute fail with his character." Airnaruto said before explaining, "What I mean Griffith's Seiyu in Japanese Toshiyuki Morikawa played the part of the silver tongued charismatic pretty boy perfectly but Collins sounds like he's trying way too hard and doesn't sound half as charismatic as Morikawa." Airnaruto said before moving on to another problem with the dub. "The other problem I have with the dub is that the vocals can occasionally become out of sync with the lip movements of the characters but other than that the English dub is fine but still nowhere near the caliber of the Japanese dub." Airnaruto concluded.
"The characters are also as much substance over style as the story of the series, specifically Guts and Griffith who are the main focus of the story as the personas couldn't be any more different." Airnaruto said before showing a photo of Griffith.
"Griffith is the kind of person you don't expect to be the villain of the series but trust me he is the villain. He never dirties his own hands and freely manipulates everyone around him to achieve his goal of becoming king of Midland despite his commoner heritage. In other words he's a Machiavellian villain." Airnaruto said before getting questioning looks from the audience.
"You know Niccolo Machiavelli, the Italian politician who said is was better to be feared than loved?" Airnaruto asked before the crowd nodded in understanding as Airnaruto moved on to Guts.
"By contrast our hero Guts, is for lack of a better term a badass, but unlike Griffith, he doesn't like to involve others with his own problems or the emotional baggage of his tragic past and while he doesn't show it nor would he admit he does care deeply for the lives of his friends and comrades, in fact I've heard him described as a Byronic hero." Airnaruto said before turning to the producers.
"Should I describe that?" He asked before he got his answer in the form of text.
Yes you should. The text read. "Okay, a Byronic hero is an idealized yet flawed character created by the 19th century British poet Lord Byron." Airnaruto said before further explaining. "In simpler terms A Byronic hero is someone we want to be in reality are also what we are really like, in Guts' case he can fight fate but he'll never beat it." Airnaruto said before giving his final thoughts.
"All in all I definitely can say that Berserk has earned it's global cult following and acclaim, while the dubs have their ups and downs, and the animation is dated, the story and characters are what pull you in for wild ride if only it didn't end up crashing into a wall at the end of the first story arc, though the bloopers on the DVD are funny enough to make up for it." Airnaruto said before he remembered something else. "Oh yeah thankfully the series is getting reboot done in the form of movie series that will encompass the entire manga story line that's slated for a release later this year." Airnaruto said as he showed some of the photos from the remake that he could find.
"My final rating for Berserk I give 4 stars out of 5." Airnaruto said before showing the poster of the series and then showed the star rating below it.
"Well that's it folks so until next time I'm the Classic Critic; I remember it so you're not required to." Airnaruto said before leaving to the tune of Hirasawa's song Forces in the background.
Final recap:
Pros: Great music
Characters you'll come to know and love
Great story
Well detailed background art
Great Bloopers on the DVD
Japanese Dub well put together.
Cons: English Dub hit and miss
Animation is dated
The ending doesn't exist
poor choice of opening theme.
Final Rating: **** out of 5