Berserk: The Flame Dragon Knight novel

Passione said:
Spotted Dark Horse's release at my local Forbidden Planet.The age of darkness has finally arrived! :magni:

Strangely, Miura's co-credited almost as if he and Fukami wrote it together rather than Miura just doing the illustrations.
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I mean... I'm sure Fukami at least asked Miura some things before writing, you know, the backstory of a fan favorite character.

I don't think it's stated anywhere but i think Miura helped at least a bit in the story of this Novel.
 
Passione said:
Spotted Dark Horse's release at my local Forbidden Planet.The age of darkness has finally arrived! :magni:
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Strangely, Miura's co-credited almost as if he and Fukami wrote it together rather than Miura just doing the illustrations.
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Yep, that's a confusing move by Dark Horse. They chose to keep both names, but didn't distinguish the roles.

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VS
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Keratos23 said:
I mean... I'm sure Fukami at least asked Miura some things before writing, you know, the backstory of a fan favorite character.
I don't think it's stated anywhere but i think Miura helped at least a bit in the story of this Novel.
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These assumptions are besides the point. In the Japanese version it's clearly stated that Fukami is the author of the book while Miura is credited as the author of the work it's based on (and as illustrator of course).
 
Might it be required because even if the text is all Fukami, the base concepts/character(s) originate from Miura's work? I think the JJBA light novels do the same as well.
 
Well I'm 4 pages into the e-book, and already had to check and see if I was reading the right one, because nothing about this goddamned thing feels like Berserk. It is immediately off-tone.

My goal here, apart from having to know for myself, is to ultimately write up a review to warn away others if it's truly as bad as everyone has already said. So far ... yeah.
 
Walter said:
Well I'm 4 pages into the e-book, and already had to check and see if I was reading the right one, because nothing about this goddamned thing feels like Berserk. It is immediately off-tone. My goal here is to ultimately write up a review to warn away others if it's truly as bad as everyone has already said. So far ... yeah.
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Hopefully, this should once and for all put an end to rumors that Miura (other than providing illustrations) had anything to do with this hot garbage.
 
I'll get to a proper review when I'm done, but I couldn't help but share that within the first 20 pages, the following disconnected scenes occur:

"He'd been stripped naked, his hands and feet pinned down, and his genitals cut with a dull, rusty knife. The severed bloody mess, testicles and all, looked like some kind of putrid marine animal. "

"His mother's dress had been torn and the soldiers thrust into her three orifices at once. She'd been punched in the face over and over and nearly all her teeth were gone. "

"After the rape, the Tudor soldiers toyed with Euphemia like she were a bug, enjoying their torments. They punched her, kicked her, peeled the fingernails from her hands with pliers, and finally slashed her throat horizontally with a knife. Then they yanked her tongue out through the gaping wound."

"She was hanging by a rope around her neck from the prison tower's main gate, her naked body bearing signs of having been gang raped. After the hanging and public display, the corpse was sawed into pieces and fed to pigs. One of them bit into the girl's freshly severed head as it rolled along."

And this bears the Berserk name...
 
tmichael said:
:schnoz: Those are all such disgusting mental images and with entirely clunky verbiage. I had thought the book was gonna be a bit embarrassing, but this is sort of completely appalling.
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Readers of Berserk are no strangers to horrifying imagery, but there's a fundamental difference in how that kind of violence is used in the telling of the story in the manga, versus how it is used here in this "novel." This Fukami guy seems to be using horrifying imagery purely to debase people. And he does it every 5 pages or so, like a bludgeon. The point was underscored by the first instance of rape and mutilation. By the 5th it's like "alright, is this guy sane?"
 
Walter said:
Readers of Berserk are no strangers to horrifying imagery, but there's a fundamental difference in how that kind of violence is used in the telling of the story in the manga, versus how it is used here in this "novel." This Fukami guy seems to be using horrifying imagery purely to debase people. And he does it every 5 pages or so, like a bludgeon. The point was underscored by the first instance of rape and mutilation. By the 5th it's like "alright, is this guy sane?"
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Yeah, that was the feeling I got. Berserk seems to "humanely" present horrific and appalling imagery - that is, it serves a narrative and thematic purpose, and if you read it attentively it's hard to make the mistake that Miura is being sadistic or excited by the violence he's depicting. These quotes come off as pretty sickening and juvenile.
 
no name said:
I warned you guys a year ago. It doesn't get better is all i can say.:sad:
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Don Rodrigo said:
What did I tell y'all? A shitty screenwriter making for a shitty novelist - ain't much a leap there now, is it?
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I wasn't doubting anything I'd heard. I'd seen the comments, and even read a few summaries. Enough to know it'd be a shitshow. But I still wanted to see the real thing on my own. It's one thing to read that it's not very good, and another to read, "testicles and all, looked like some kind of putrid marine animal."
 
Walter, based on those excerpts you're quoting, it was written by the deranged cousin of the guy who comes up with the backs of the Dark Horse Berserk volumes. And we thought THOSE were bad. :magni: I don't think I could even stomach a book like this for a cheap laugh.
 
Berserk has blood and guts, huh? Hold my beer!

I think he missed the point. All I'm getting out of those quoted texts are someone trying to illustrate shock value as a means to further demonstrate a lack of understanding about a series with some very tough moments to digest.
 
Walter said:
Well I'm 4 pages into the e-book, and already had to check and see if I was reading the right one, because nothing about this goddamned thing feels like Berserk. It is immediately off-tone.

My goal here, apart from having to know for myself, is to ultimately write up a review to warn away others if it's truly as bad as everyone has already said. So far ... yeah.
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You read it so we don't have to. Godspeed.

Ugh...that writing is just terrible. Whilst some of it could be attributed to the translator, particular with how dry it sounds, it's clear the original writer just doesn't get Berserk. Even with all the detailed imagery of people being being maimed, tortured, raped, and debased, the manga always makes a point to emphasize the emotional aspect of that degradation in either the characters suffering it, or those stuck witnessing it. It sounds like this guy is only interested in focusing on the nitty-gritty details of the violence itself.
 
Walter said:
And this bears the Berserk name...
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God, the sadness and cold anger had faded and are now being reawakened... I feared it from the very beginning, after the first announcement, and I was right: this is the greatest injury Berserk has ever received and the single biggest threat to its integrity as a work of art. Anyway, thank you for suffering through this so we don't have to. I look forward to your review, in an unhealthy kind of way.
 
Walter said:
I'll get to a proper review when I'm done, but I couldn't help but share that within the first 20 pages, the following disconnected scenes occur:
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What the absolute fuck? Trying so hard to be brutal and gritty... but just comes off as juvenile and squicky. Yuck.

That mental image of a dude’s severed junk looking like a “putrid marine animal” is going to haunt me :magni:
 
I'm at 70% now. The end is in sight. But before I hop in bed, here are a few more tasty morsels to give everyone happy dreams:

"Her tongue had been cut out and all her teeth removed, so she could emit only moans from the back of her throat. The grand duke, Haakon, was thrusting his cock into the girl's mouth. When he ejaculated into her throat, the girl choked and went into a coughing fit. Haakon struck her and shouted. "You idiot! Swallow it!" He picked up a pair of red-hot tongs that had been hung on the wall, and hit her with them, gouging her flesh until the bone was visible."

"Deep down, Edvard felt agitated. There were rumors going around about Fulda, and many of them disturbed him. For instance, that she was remarkably lecherous, and that she couldn't be satisfied down there except with a ridiculously large penis." (Fulda is Edvard's mom)
 
Miura should take a few lessons from this novel. He should forget all this nuanced character development, world building, foreshadowing, and complexity nonsense. Physical and sexual ultra-violence covered with blood and ejaculate, that's what Berserk was always suppose to be. :mozgus:

Less cynically speaking, I'm wondering what the next monstrosity will be in the array of Berserk related projects. It just keeps getting worse and worse. Compared to this the 2016 Berserk anime seems like a masterpiece, even though it was yet another seaming pile of dung.

So disappointed, yet, weirdly, not surprised. Also saddened that Miura's name is going to be associated with an abomination like this novel.
 
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Just fucking lovely. This isn't horror, or drama, or...Berserk, this is a rape fantasy fic written by a hack. And it has to have Miura's goddamn name stamped on it.

For the love of Puck, Miura, retcon the shit out of this travesty when and if you get to the point where it's time to delve into Grunbeld's backstory. Wipe this thing from the canon.
 
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Mine came in yesterday. I just flipped through it. As bad as it is, I never realized it had 10 illustrations from Miura. That's pretty cool at least. The pictures are nice. But yea seriously Walter, thanks. I probably won't actually read it now, even out of curiosity.
 
Lets just hope this didn't do well enough for them to consider another novel. Not that it means much, but it got 21 reviews on the japanese amzon.
 
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