Berserk 1997 Season 2 Fan Project

[NCHaskew]

After some disappointment with Studio Eclypse’s latest release, I briefly searched the forums and didn’t see any mention of this project. I found it much more endearing when I first saw it, so I thought I’d share it for anyone who might be interested. Apologies if this has been posted, feel free to kill the thread if I’ve accidentally duplicated a topic.

Berserk (1997) Fan S2: PILOT

Welcome to our fan-animated Season 2 of the beloved Berserk 1997 anime. As fans ourselves, our team have poured our hearts into this project to honor both th...

youtu.be

I think it does a decent job of capturing the style of 1997. I especially like their remix of Guts’ theme, now set in minor key. It gives the scene a very eerie feel to it, and I was digging it. There’s a couple times when they try to do the painted stills, but it’s for kind of bizarre moments, instead of more impactful moments.

It’s also a little wonky in terms of how it adapts the manga, but since it’s transitioning from the ‘97 series to the original story, I think it works as a bridge.

The weakest element to me is the voice acting. Puck’s mic quality is abysmal, and Guts is mediocre but effective enough.

All in all, I’m intrigued to see how this one goes. Apparently the animator was able to crank it out in about 3-4 months, and they sound confident they can keep that pace. I’ll be interested to see how much they adapt.

 

[Aazealh]

We talked about it in the chat a month ago.

Here's what I had to say about it: It's less amateurish than the usual fare, so props to them for that, but they made a ton of changes to the dialogue and scenes that don't make sense and lessen them. I wish the people doing "fan tributes" would start respecting the author's writing a little more. Also, I'm puzzled as to why they gave credit to Mori and Studio Gaga (like in the continuation) given that they're adapting volume 1. Doesn't make sense. Overall I'd say it doesn't do the series justice. In particular, it feels like the people involved didn't really understand the point of the scenes they depicted (encounter with Colette & her father, their deaths, Guts' reaction and talk with Puck).

 

[NCHaskew]

I can definitely understand that mindset. My hope would be as they get to more untouched content that it will improved—given that Colette and her father were in episode 1 of ‘97 in place of Puck. Though apparently they want to do a “recap episode” to retcon in Skull Knight and Puck during the Eclipse to make ‘97 more consistent with the manga. Which at this point, feels a bit like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

As for the credit to Mori and Studio Gaga, maybe they’re just trying to foster as much good will as possible to avoid any issues? Working with intellectual properties on the internet can be risky.

It could also be indicative of the wider Berserk fanbase, which sadly doesn’t understand how much of Miura is in Berserk. This project is clearly from fans of the ‘97 anime. Which I love too, but it’s not the end-all, be-all of Berserk. That’s always going to be the manga as created by Miura.

 

[Aazealh]

My hope would be as they get to more untouched content that it will improved—given that Colette and her father were in episode 1 of ‘97 in place of Puck.

The problems with what they produced have nothing to do with Colette's presence in the '97 series. This was already "untouched content" and they handled it rather poorly.

As for the credit to Mori and Studio Gaga, maybe they’re just trying to foster as much good will as possible to avoid any issues? Working with intellectual properties on the internet can be risky.

Either way it's not a good look and won't help at all if Hakusensha starts caring.

 

[ApostleBob]

In general, I'm a fan. The amount of effort it would take to solo animate this and retain the original style is commendable. As Aaz said it takes some liberties, some of which I think are fine to show off action, and others are arbitrary or miss the point of this short story. Guts pretends not to have a heart but he does.

I've seen previews of the work on the Snake Baron episode and it's quite impressive. The animator is working at an impressive pace. I hope they do some work on the voice acting, and hope they are able to make it through the first 3 volumes, mostly accurate to the manga. It's wild that there are two high-quality fan adaptations to this arc going on at the same time.

It sure would be nice if a professional Studio just adapted the whole thing in one consistent style. Am I wrong in thinking that 60 million copies sold is fairly popular?