Berserk (2016)

[MFauli]

Berserk Gets New Anime Project Featuring Guts as 'Black Swordsman'


The first 2016 issue of Hakusensha's Young Animal magazine (cover shown right) is announcing on Friday that a new anime adaptation project of Kentarou Miura's Berserk manga has been green-lit. NBC Universal will unveil the anime's first promotional video at its winter Comiket booth, which will run from December 29-31. The announcement did not note the format of the anime (TV, film, OAV, etc.).

Miura comments in the magazine that the anime project will depict Guts in his "Black Swordsman" appearance, which is only revealed in parts of the manga that go beyond any previously animated Berserk story, and is only briefly hinted at in the first and last episode of the 1997 television anime series

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-12-21/berserk-gets-new-anime-project-featuring-guts-as-black-swordsman/.96773


On the bad news side: Only one more manga chapter, then hitaus until summer 2016 :|

[neflight86]

I understand why they aren't doing another reboot/retelling of the original story, but I absolutely hated the CG and truncated story from the latest movies. For that alone, I would wish for them to start over from the beginning. I feel that this story deserves a proper full series treatment ala HxH.

It's also hard to get excited for a story that will not likely end in my lifetime, going by the author's output.

[shinta|hikari]

Are you older than the author perhaps? Or did you mean "a story that will never end" period?

[neflight86]

I meant that he only appears to put out chapters about one every six months or so.

[DarthEnderX]

He means it in the George R.R. Martin sense of "Motherfucker is so slow, he's going to die of old age before he finishes this fucking story."

[Munsu]

Anime project will be a TV series beginning this July.

http://berserk-anime.com/news/index00060000.html
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-02-04/new-berserk-anime-is-tv-series-that-premieres-in-july/.98320

[MFauli]

Just stumbled over this song and thought it´d be perfect for later parts of the story when Guts travels with his group.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao5lLdtDdrQ

Bah, July cannot come soon enough.

[Munsu]

Subbed extended trailer:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAkl2uJEuA4


I managed to watch the movie trilogy and got used to the art there, but honestly this looks visually like crap to me as far as first impressions go. Disappointing.

[shinta|hikari]

Well, let's be fair. It's not crap. It's pretty close to it though.

Why didn't they just animate this properly? Everyone wants this adaptation. Why waste it on cheap 3D crap?

Whatever. I'm just in this for the ultra greatsword masturbation scene, then I'm done.

[MFauli]

It´s not good :(

And it´s not because of the design looking like a PS3-game with anti-aliasing. The whole episode felt so ... rushed. So fidgety. And not in a befitting way. There was zero downtime, even in-between the action-parts. The music transitioned terribly. Just when one track ended, the next started, without any sense for creating atmosphere. And the music they used for the big fight against the tree monster ... it´s as if this anime caters to 13-year old youtube-kiddies :/ Edgy heavy metal music, sigh.

I don´t know.
Ofc I´ll keep watching, it´s freaking BERSERK. But this first episode felt more like a summary, or an AMV, instead of a proper anime episode. Don´t think I can recommend this to any of my friends. Oh man ...

[Kraco]

or an AMV, instead of a proper anime episode.

I'd believe if I was told the director of this show has previously directed nothing but music videos. During the first minutes I was wondering if I could finish the episode, but it got easier towards the end. I'll keep watching for now. Fortunately I wasn't overly much disappointed since after the trailer and stuff, it would have been foolish to expect miracles.

[MFauli]

During the first minutes I was wondering if I could finish the episode, but it got easier towards the end.

I´m not being hyperbolic when I say: I agree. The beginning was super-shocking. I kept waiting thinking "when does it start properly, when does it start properly ...?!". It did get better but still nothing to write about.

[QUOTE Fortunately I wasn't overly much disappointed since after the trailer and stuff, it would have been foolish to expect miracles.[/QUOTE]

Disagree. Most of the complains prior to this release stem from the CG usage in and of itself. But I never had a problem with it. Would I prever a BERSERK-anime animated by Madhouse? Sure. But it is what it is. So fretting about that would have been idiotic. What, however, neither me nor anybody could have anticipated is the horrible pacing/sound design/directing. That´s what´s so disappointing.

Also was Puck always sex-less? I mean, the manga never showed us his penis, but it also never put that much emphasis on his crotch area. weird.

[KrayZ33]

It's always heartcrushing if you see such a poor work and know that you'll probably never get another one.
Either the industry blames the work itself (Berserk) and think that people are not interested in it, or they won't bother because "very recently, someone adapted this already" (-" and it failed")

What a piece of crap. Expected nothing after seing the trailers/PVs, got nothing. How can you produce something like this (with it's huge fanbase etc. and well known source material) in 2016.


Disagree. Most of the complains prior to this release stem from the CG usage in and of itself. But I never had a problem with it.

I wonder how you cannot have a problem with it. They could've voiced/add SFX to the manga pages and animate them similiar to one of these
http://content.madefire.com/s-298c57876fb74447975e5e942695ddcb/index.html
and it would both look better and be more immersive. Aaaargh I'm about to cry, man.. I'm so disappointed (ever since they showed how it would look like).

[MFauli]

It's always heartcrushing if you see such a poor work and know that you'll probably never get another one.
Either the industry blames the work itself (Berserk) and think that people are not interested in it, or they won't bother because "very recently, someone adapted this already" (-" and it failed")

Same dilemma with videogames :/ Currently: Tokyo Mirage Sessions for Wii U. Heavily censored to hell and back again. I was hyped for the game, but decided not to support Nintendo´s ongoing censorship agenda. But how will they get the message? It´s a niche JRPG, it will sell average to poorly. Me not buying = "people in the West have no interest in this kind of game". :/


How can you produce something like this (with it's huge fanbase etc. and well known source material) in 2016.

THAT is the biggest riddle. I cannot comprehend that. BERSERK´s gotta be one of the most popular, famous manga out there. Yet, it gets this treatment when it comes to anime. At this point my theory is that none of the producers give a shit about a BERSERK anime and simply release a new anime from time to time to generate more manga sales. And that´s just crappy.

[KrayZ33]

That would be completely fine, because you'd have to advertise the product by doing decent animation/content/storytelling or work in general.
But what exaclty are you trying to boost with "this"....



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaCyHxcZSxQ

only hope now... but it's not the same as anime :(

[Kraco]

Disagree. Most of the complains prior to this release stem from the CG usage in and of itself. But I never had a problem with it.

When one element obviously is going to have a problem, I rather expect the others have as well. This series seems to have a whole host of problems, some of which are related to the CGI based graphics, some not. The horrible directing/camerawork is obviously due to the CGI since they can do easily things that would have blown traditional animation budget to high heavens. Apparently the director then decided that these things that might (or might not) look cool in a fighting game are splendid for anime as well, instead of just sticking to the traditional anime form, which has been proven to work over the decades. If memory serves Arpeggio, for example, wasn't this annoying despite the even more rudimentary CGI.

[shinta|hikari]

Watched it. It was okay until the fighting started. Then I dropped the show.

[MFauli]

episode 2 is out
--------------------

first of all, it was a lot better than episode 1. But that´s mostly because of the specific contents taking place. Meanwhile, the terrible animation became a lot more apparent because of that. For christ´s sake, why can´t they at least properly animate the facial expressions? I have a feeling the upcoming Berserk Musou for PS4 might end up looking better ...

At least they nailed Serpico´s voice actor. Perfect. And the initial scene of Gut´s slashing 3 enemies at once gave me chills, despite the terrible animation.

[Kraco]

Two eps still isn't enough to get over the ugly graphics (especially the unstable striped shadows annoy me), but I found myself able to ignore it sooner than in the first ep. Perhaps it's because the camera work wasn't so insane this time. Naturally it does help the story is so good. But yeah, the facial expressions are as bad as in some decade old game.

[shinta|hikari]

Wow, that was shit.

I think this is the most brutalized anime adaptation ever. Art, direction, music, choreography, everything was shit.

And I'm not even a big fan of berserk.

[Edort4]

Watched both eps and I agree 100% with shinta. Bad bad bad. Even having a great storyboard on the manga they manage to mess it up. I dont know wtf they were thinking. This is a crime.

[David75]

I wonder how the art director can tolerate that when he compares to some masterpiece level scenes of the manga, showing a great deal of fine details.
Or he has a grudge against the manga artist and it is his insults against him...
I'm not sure the Geneva rules tolerate such lowly weapons of art destruction...

[shinta|hikari]

Maybe Berserk isn't popular in Japan at all and this is the biggest budget they could get?

[Edort4]

I dont think it is a budget issue. I think that this is a comercial/economic decission. They make the series and game similar so that it all makes one corpus or experience. This kind of things sell well in Japan I believe. Cross-platform or enhanced experience and so.

Having a cell game and a handart series would break that union thread. Im sure they are making way more $ from the game than the series so in the end its just to be expected that the game is the one reigning.

But said that... they have butchered the series. Its a sad day.

[MFauli]

Worst of all is the article on Kotaku.com about this new anime. Praises it and calls it better than the original anime-series in every regard.

[Janice]

I really liked episode 2. The animation is absolute garbage, yes, but I thought the direction and voice acting were excellent. The music also fits the atmosphere very well. I don't know why they chose this animation style, but if cheap CG means they can animate more episodes, I see that as a good thing.

[shinta|hikari]

I won't argue about the music since that's mainly preferential, but what part of the direction was "excellent" in this episode? I'm not trying to attack you or anything. I'm genuinely curious because I didn't see it.

[Janice]

Well, I don't have specifics, but I thought the scene with Guts and Farnese in the tent was done particularly well. There was a lot of variety to the scene despite being confined to a small tent with two people. Overall they are doing a good job with the camera angles and transitions that would be hard to pull off in a full 2D series. They just have to be careful to not over-do it, which the first episode did a little.

Also, Farnese is hot.

http://puu.sh/pYtyA/ae1622ec6c.jpg

[shinta|hikari]

Still can't see it. It was standard camera work, with nothing standing out. That's not a bad thing, but I wouldn't call it excellent. It's acceptable.

[Janice]

To each their own. I'm also a crazy Berserk superfan, so I may be a little biased.

[shinta|hikari]

I'm surprised a fan enjoys this so much, not that I find anything wrong with that. I'd think a fan would be more strict and demanding when it comes to adaptations.

[Kraco]

I'm surprised a fan enjoys this so much, not that I find anything wrong with that. I'd think a fan would be more strict and demanding when it comes to adaptations.

Generally speaking that's not necessarily true. There are those fans who are super purists and there are fans who are glad to see anything new, within reason. Personally I don't think this show is an utter catastrophe. But then again, I reckon I'm more tolerant than many.

[Janice]

The CG is bad, but overall the Berserk atmosphere is there and it seems to be true to the original. I can look past the animation. The original Berserk is still one of my favorite series, despite the dated animation. None of the Berserk adaptions live up to the manga though.

[shinta|hikari]

That's the sad part. Several adaptations have proven that the anime adaptation can indeed exceed the source (i.e. Fate/Zero). This was one of the shows that deserved that exception, particularly due to how long the fans have waited.

[MFauli]

episode 3 is out
-----------------------

I don´t get it. Is the director for this anime simply incompetent, or did they just say "screw the horse rape scene, let´s put in no effort at all!"? That scene was awful! Rushed, silly animated, then ended abruptly. It completely lacked the horror that it had in the manga. It was supposed to be a slow, brooding scene, a giant horse cock being hinted at in the shadows, closing in on the helpless, innocent girl. Closer, ... closer, ... and closer. THEN Guts comes in to save her.

But they completely fucked it up. sigh

Other than that ... meh. Serpico is great. That´s about it.

[Kraco]

It's weird this episode again felt worse after the second one. The camera was back to strange places, angles, zooms, and cuts. I reckon the second ep merely happened to have the kind of content that didn't necessite the foolishness in the director's opinion.

I can't help but wonder why the graphics are so bad. I sometimes get used to them during the action, but unlike with something like Arpeggio, for example, there's no sign I would get completely used to them as episodes go by. When the action ceases for a moment, I find myself staring at the subpar ugliness, hardly believing it.

[Edort4]

What the hell was that noise we got when Guts was cutting through things? Im not an expert at slicing dogs and horses but Im pretty sure that it wouldnt sound like a frying pan.

About all the changes and omissions they are doing, a whole arc with awesome fetus fire extinguishers and "children" slicing, in the show I would like to think that it is cause they want this to be clasified for underaged.

[shinta|hikari]

No nipples. WOT.

[MFauli]

it looks so stupid, and it makes no sense.

[Munsu]

I know I'm the guy that always exhort people to power through it and make peace with it, but man saw a few seconds of Berserk and couldn't handle this shit. Can't believe these people trolled us this way, fucking wasted opportunity after they had us waiting this long for one of the most popular series ever and this is the crap they come up with?

Fuck it, not going to give it a chance. And fuck whomever's decision it was to release this piece of shit animation.

[shinta|hikari]

Still watching, but I agree with you 100%. Shit is shit. No nipples? Now shit is way better than that. Just finished the latest episode, and the line "pearls before swine" (used by a whore in this ep) really hit home. The company animating this story squandered a golden opportunity by not recognizing its worth.

[MFauli]

This new episode had some good moments. But it still suffers from being so RUSHED! I don´t get it. It feels like the production team more thinks about how to pack enough plot progression into 20 minutes than thinking about how to make GOOD 20 minutes of anime. It´s so fucking frustrating. And then there´s the terrible animation on top of it ...

And yeah, no nipples. It looks so goddamm dumb. And they won´t sell a single bluray more for having them uncensored there, because nobody will buy this shitty glorified video game cutscene.

[DarthEnderX]

Watched it all. As people have mentioned, the 3D animation isn't good. But I ended up getting used to it.

As an adaptation, it's pretty goddamn faithful. At first, I was pretty pissed that they made Caska white, but then suddenly, like a few episodes in, they suddenly changed it(seriously, they even changed it in the intros, you can compare them), and it was before she even really showed up in the series. So it's fine now.

I really like the music, and the sound effects on Guts' sword is just fantastic.

Either way, they're already coming back in Spring finally getting to the part I really like. So I'm glad for that.


And yeah, it's been censored. It's a show airing on TV in 2016. What did you people expect? The manga borders on hentai at points.

Frankly, I think simply removing the nipples/dicks is a better solution than constantly having to have weird camera cuts or objects always awkwardly in the way.


Not at all surprised to come here and find MFauli complaining that "They didn't do the rape good enough!"

[MFauli]

XD

Sorry for focusing on the important things!!1

Anyway, I thought it was a great final episode. The beginning of this adaptation was super rough, but then I got used to it. It´s still ugly and disappointing, but, ya know, even shitty animation cannot ruin the masterpiece that is BERSERK. Best of all: Thanks to how crappy this anime looked, the upcoming PS4-game from Koei Tecmo is surprisingly eye-pleasing, definitely more beautiful than the anime. Really psyched for that one, and the typical Musou-gameplay is a perfect fit.

Anyway, good anime overall, but it will forever be a mystery why a popular franchise like Berserk couldn´t have gotten a proper animation, maybe from Madhouse or whoever made HXH 2011.

[DarthEnderX]

maybe from Madhouse or whoever made HXH 2011.Which is also Madhouse.

[shinta|hikari]

Wait, Casca was white!?

[Kraco]

Wasn't she ganguro?

[DarthEnderX]

Wait, Casca was white!?For the first couple episodes, yeah. Though she only appeared in the intro and flashbacks in those episodes.

Once she actually showed up for real, she was dark skinned again, and they changed the intro. I can only assume people(rightfully) complained.

[MFauli]

Nah. There was a single artwork with special lighting that had her skin appear brighter than it really is. But there never was an attempt at whitewashing her, wouldn´t even make sense.

[DarthEnderX]

Seriously man. Watch the intro to episode 1, then watch the intro to episode 12. It's VERY obvious that they changed it.
http://i.imgur.com/Dy53LJQ.png

[shinta|hikari]

Well holy shit. WTF were they thinking.

[DarthEnderX]

No idea, but I'm glad they fixed it before she showed up in the show.

Although looking back at it again, it actually took them till episode 11 before they finally changed the intro.

[shinta|hikari]

What the fuck. If they didn't change it, they could've gotten away with the "lighting" excuse. Now they just admitted to racism. Burn the witches!

[Edort4]

She has suffered several changes. Even in the manga she has changed quite a bit. In the beggining she was more Kushan like, shape of eyes was pretty distinct and exotic.

https://i.redd.it/g6u2nyobzn6x.png

This Berserker CGI sucks, and lighting sucks double time.

[shinta|hikari]

But she was never white until 2016.

[Edort4]

Is she the new Michael Jackson?

[MFauli]

lol, yeah, that they changed it proves their shenanigans. So dumb. Kjaska is one of the few hot black girls ;>

[Kraco]

Was it really intentional? The graphics are cheap, indie game level CGI. It's entirely possible the ones creating and animating the character models didn't even know what they they were doing, as they could do it half-assedly compared to real anime productions where characters are painfully drawn and edited by humans. The director isn't a total n00b, but it's not like he would have any outstanding projects under his belt. Perhaps he hadn't instructed the modellers and animators well enough. Nobody then paid any attention to the situation until fans started complaining (although I guess they needed to filter that detail out of the myriad other complaints this POS series gained). When a show is this bad, it's given it's going to have all manner of problems.

[DarthEnderX]

13+14

---

Guess who's back!

Art's exactly the same. So, still shitty 3D animation.

Oh well. This is still my favorite part of the story, so I'm still looking forward to it.

[MFauli]

Meh, I´ll keep watching, but my hype is very low. Especially after playing the PlayStation 4-game, which covered all the upcoming story, and probably in a manner not much worse than this anime ;>

[DarthEnderX]

15

---

It's funny, seeing this again after so many years, I realize just how much Dark Souls steals from this series.

[Prof. Chaos]

Where is a good place to watch this online? I really hate the animation, but just love the story so much that I would rather watch than try and find where I stored all my manga.

[DarthEnderX]

I mean, I torrent it like I do everything else...

Also, it's on Crunchyroll.

[MFauli]

Meh. I only watch this anime on autopilot by now. It´s just not that exciting, both because I already know the story AND because of the shitty animation. :(

[DarthEnderX]

16

---

Why is Farnese so useless? I get why she can't cook or clean, but she was some kind of knight, why is she also useless at fighting?

[NeoCybercoin]

She was a knight by title only it seemed. Maybe she can hold her own in a fight against people but ghosts and monsters is a whole new thing for her.

[DarthEnderX]

She was a knight by title only it seemed. Maybe she can hold her own in a fight against people but ghosts and monsters is a whole new thing for her.Okay but...that doesn't really explain why she fights with torches and frying pans when she has a sword.

[MFauli]

She´s a super-spoiled brat. She has no battle experience.

[DarthEnderX]

I guess. If that's the case though, she should be training right next to Isidro.

[MFauli]

eisode 18 is out
--------------------

Good episode. The arc that´s about to start now is one my favorite scenes in the manga. Have re-read that battle in the town many times. I won´t talk about spoilers, but the whole encounter truly felt magical, like witnessing a real modern fairy tale, something you´d only now from Record of Lodoss War otherwise.

[DarthEnderX]

Serpico's wind shit makes him so fucking badass now.

[MFauli]

episode 20 is out
-------------------

really enjoying these last couple of episodes. But I already said: It´s maybe my favorite part in the manga, too.

[DarthEnderX]

It's also been so long since I read this part of the manga that I'm not remembering, like, 90% of it anyway. Which is pretty fun.

Like I remembered Serpico getting his wind sword and Isidoro getting his fire knife, and then completely forgot why they were even givin those things in the first place or what they ended up doing with them.

I completely forgot that Guts fought a member of the God Hand already.

[Buffalobiian]

Episode 21

---------------------------------












Having just binged all of berserk (the old one) till now, I must say that the CGI doesn't hurt it that much. It's especially true since the fighting is a lot more fast paced compared to the original. I must say that the 3 songs used over and over again in this latest edition gets comically old.

[DarthEnderX]

But them vocals man!

[MFauli]

Meh, it never gets old when Guts does something badass and that certain music starts playing. I´m a simple man. I need Guts and I´m fine.

[Buffalobiian]

This isn't "omg stop playing it already" old. It's "Team Rocket's blasting off again" old.

[DarthEnderX]

A fucking recap episode? Seriously?

[NeoCybercoin]

Pretty damn disappointed at that myself. Finally gets the armor and instead of giving us the action....they give us a recap.

[MFauli]

Recap episodes are such ultimate bullshit. They make sense for long running series like Naruto or One Piece, but not for 1-2 cour series :/

[DarthEnderX]

22

---

Well, it took 20 years, but the anime has finally reached the title drop moment of the series.

[MFauli]

Berserk armor is such a cool concept. It doesn´t make Guts superhuman or anything. It just lets him fight at his own fullest potential as a human being. This is important, because it would ruin the series if Guts got demon-powers like the demons he fights. Nah, he´s still just a human being. All the armor does is granting him to ignore his injuries.

As I´ve said many times, starting with Enoch village, this is my favorite part of Berserk. Unfortunately, it´ll soon be over - I guess.

Since there´s only 3-4 episodes left, we´ll probably get a shitty cliffhanger ending :/ With another cour, they could have ended it with a semi-proper ending similar to the HXH 2011-anime.

[DarthEnderX]

24

---

I guess that was the end for this season?

Decent place to end off. Though the climax of the season was a couple episodes ago.

I'd forgotten about Shirke's awkward crush on Guts.

[MFauli]

Was it the last episode? It kinda felt like it, but it also said "the story continues". Was that meant in a "the anime will return soon"-way or in a "the manga is unfinished and the Berserk-story will continue, but we have no plans about it currently"-way?

Episode was fun, but animation was another low point. Isidro continues to be my favorite character.

[DarthEnderX]

Was it the last episode? It kinda felt like it, but it also said "the story continues". Was that meant in a "the anime will return soon"-way or in a "the manga is unfinished and the Berserk-story will continue, but we have no plans about it currently"-way?I assume one of those, since there was no actual preview for the next episode.