It doesn’t take much to see why many fans are upset over the newest adaptation of Berserk.
After just one episode, fans of the long-running manga were crying foul over some of the stiffest and ugliest 3D animation seen in an anime. It seems that Berserk may never get a faithful anime adaption – or at least one with a decent budget.
Unfortunately, the mostly-3D animation leaves a lot to be desired, but the aesthetics of a show are just one part of what makes it good. Personally there are a lot of other things to like about the new Berserk anime, even if it falls short in the looks category.
For the uninitiated, Berserk is a hyper-violent, hyper-sexual, dark and twisted medieval fantasy about a swordsman named Guts and his quest for revenge. Berserk has been in publication since 1989 and is written by Kentaro Miura.
This new Berserk anime isn’t the first one to be produced. In 1997 a different Berserk anime was made, covering the Golden Age Arc. For those interested in Berserk, that is a great place to start. There are also three Golden Age movies that skip some material but basically cover the same story as the first anime.
Berserk (2016) follows the events after the first anime/movies. Our hero Guts happens to cross paths with two side characters Puck and Isidro in the first episode of the anime.
But that’s enough of the plot summary and the history of Berserk. This article isn’t a history lesson - it’s about why fans aren’t happy with the new Berserk anime.
As previously mentioned, the 3D animation just hurts to watch sometimes. For some reason the animation studio GEMBA decided against a traditional 2D style animation.
There are many reasons to question that decision besides the fact that 3D animation makes the characters look emotionless and that the battles don’t have the same satisfaction. It’s a shame because when there are 2D animations they look absolutely gorgeous in comparison. However, these are rarely used and only seem to come about in Guts’ flashbacks.
Besides the animation, pacing is a huge issue in the first episode. For those who have read the manga the first episode is just a mishmash of events that never actually happened together. Obviously the anime can’t be a 100 percent true adaptation, but the first episode just feels lost and disjointed.
The second episode of the new iteration of Berserk fixes the pacing issue but it’s just hard to ignore the problems with the first episode.
One of the positives that the new anime has going to for it is the voice acting. It may all be in Japanese but the voices do fit the characters. The anime is subbed for those who don’t speak Japanese.
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It’s unfortunate that Berserk doesn’t really cover the Black Swordsman Arc or the Lost Children Arc at all. The main arc that the anime will be about is the Conviction Arc. It makes sense why they went this route, with just 24 episodes for the entire series.
Honestly it’s hard to really come up with a strong conviction either way with Berserk. It’s only two episodes in, and to declare it a failure so quickly makes absolutely no sense. Let’s just be patient and let the entire series play out before panning it for the rest of eternity.
Fans of Berserk should just be happy that there is a new anime out. It only took 19 years between anime releases so let’s be grateful for what we get.
Berserk (2016) comes out every Friday and can be streamed on crunchyroll.com.
