Coping with the death of Mr. Miura through scenes from Berserk

I'm creating this thread with the intention of helping some of us grieve with the tragedy of Kentaro Miura's death. To those who can’t cope or even bring themselves to cry when they know how sad they are, how much was lost with his death, but are just in disbelief or apathetic. Since this is what happened to me I hope this can help someone else.
So we can express our feelings of sadness and loss with thoughts, reflections or moments from the manga that break the hold of apathy or vagueness of why this is such a tragedy. Like when Schierke finally broke down at the beach with Guts, finally seeing the ocean and remembering Flora, she finally pushed through apathy and embraced the sadness of her teacher’s death.

Don’t know if this is mutual feeling but since reading the news i was just numb, apathetic, feeling mostly anger, and disbelief but i simply could not bring myself to cry. I was thinking. This can't be, there are no words to describe how he and his work are important to me. Why can’t I express my sadness with not even a single tear? I felt like I was betraying Miura.

I think that is just basically not being able to properly cope with his death. Since we don’t know Miura in person, we can relate with him through his art, there are only a few ways of remembering him, but it felt like going back to the manga would be too much and I was just so numbed down, I couldn’t find myself to read a single panel.
But reflecting on Berserk while coming back from work, i remembered a moment from the Manga that always really resonated with me, that in dark parts of my life i always came back. It was the final interactions between Guts and Jill, how he told her to go back to her own battlefield.

How he inspired her, even when she bore witness to all the horrific events that happened in Misty Valley, all the death and despair. That encounter with Guts in a cave, him just barely recovering from wounds and his primal urge for violence and vengeance. He embraced her and comforted her, and was able to change her, as a better person.
I’m not good at analyzing and dissecting art but remembering that moment and rereading it (Vol.16, pages ~124-140~. The last 16 pages of the Conviction Arc) was the moment I when all my emotions aligned, and I could finally cry, cry a lot. it was very cathartic, I released all the negative feelings inside of me, all the anger i felt subsided, and I was left with a bittersweet sadness. The beautiful kind of sadness, it hurts very much but it hurts because what you lost is something truly special.

Crying is good for coping with grief, but sometimes our psychology is so messed from grief that we cant even bring ourselves to do that. There’s also the vagueness that is left when you lose someone, be it a friend, a partner, a relative. But then you see a picture of them, hear a song, a scent that reminds of you of them.
From Miura, all that we have to remember is his manga, the anime, the soundtracks.

As Dr. Hiluluk said in One Piece, “A man dies when he is forgotten” So let’s not feel apathetic, lets share our grief with each other with moments that can help those who cant manage to cope or express their sadness with the basic reaction of crying, or who cant remember why Berserk meant so much.

Lets share the reflections about him and his life, his work. If you couldn’t cry with just knowing he died, lets share what finally broke you. Lets share the moments from the manga that really make you miss him. I know every panel is a masterpiece but what will you take from it for your whole life and what made the realization that he passed away really, really sink in.

I made this thread with the intent to help those who cant cope, who are just in denial, disbelief and like me couldn’t cry or felt apathetic and felt that this was some sort of betrayal. Everyone grieves differently, If the thread is in bad taste or too soon, please delete it. My intention is only to share the experience I felt after bawling my eyes out by reading the final pages of the conviction arc, the feeling that I was Honoring Miura by being able to express my sadness, that I was remembering him, past the denial and disbelief. Finally finding solace. I will always love Berserk

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Menosgade

Not all those who wander are lost
Berserk is the single most impactful narrative in my life. Berserk made me someone who had never read manga before into someone who could devour 50+ Berserk chapters a day (containning myself in order to not exhaust the story quickly), and still is one of the 2 manga I read consistently, and the only I reread multiple times. I am not easily moved, but Miura's passing makes me truly sad. He changed my life with his art, and it will never be finished. And I wish he was still around for me to contribute much more. Some people say a person is never gone until he/she is forgotten, Miura definitely won't be forgotten while I'm still alive.
 
I think the thing beyond the tragedy his death-- the feeling of having no idea what will happen with the series going forward makes all this especially traumatic-- was there ever any contingency plan over the last 34 years for what would happen if Miura died unexpectedly?

It just feels so cruel, for the most popular Dark Fantasy Manga of all time to have this happen and no one has any idea or game-plan ... it just feels so crushing-- following this journey for more than half my life and to have it get wiped out in a blink of an eye. It feels like the eclipse :-(
 
I finally managed to cry last night, after spending nearly two days in shock. Funnily, what brought me to tears were the scenes from the first three volumes. 20 years ago there were no official releases in English yet so, like many others, I was reading the crappy scans. I remembered how I spent long, quiet hours completely immersed in those first volumes, slowly getting into the story and savoring each detail. I was 15 or 16 years old at the time and, in my eyes, there was never anything more beautiful. And the tears just came pouring out.
 
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To me, it feels exactly like when Godo died on his deathbed and Guts was kneeling at his side.
I feel lost, like the master artisan, craftsman, that was Miura, left us with his incredible creation. I see him and his dedication to his art in Godo. A man who poured every inch of his soul into his craft. All his life force. And now we have to keep going on without him.
It is hard, because all the projects I will ever be able to make based on Berserk will forever miss a little something, now that their creator is gone. I will still cherish the work I was lucky enough to make while he was still alive, and that he approved.
The last few days have been hard but gradually better. I try to keep working & not to think too much about it, and focus on the huge monument that he built. I will hang on to that and revisit it after some time when it's become... Less painful.
 
Thank you for this topic.

Truthfully, I am not coping well with Miura-san's passing. I have never been upset by a "celebrity" death before but this one has hit me pretty hard. I only have to listen to songs like "Guts" "Earth" and "A Sister's Story" to trigger the waterworks.

I ordered the Deluxe editions but I couldn't bring myself to read them yet. Seeing all the heart and soul Miura poured into every page, knowing he never got to finish his magnum opus, was too much for me.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Just now I was looking for a specific dreary scene from the manga to post as it reflects my feelings, that of Guts down on the ground, extended his arm towards an unreachable Femto in volume 16. But I had to read what follows, when Puck saves him and they banter. Brought a smile to my face. Even on this deeply sorrowful occasion, reading Berserk can't not make me happy.
 

Dar_Klink

Last Guardian when? - CyberKlink 20XX before dying
Just now I was looking for a specific dreary scene from the manga to post as it reflects my feelings, that of Guts down on the ground, extended his arm towards an unreachable Femto in volume 16. But I had to read what follows, when Puck saves him and they banter. Brought a smile to my face. Even on this deeply sorrowful occasion, reading Berserk can't not make me happy.
I just read that part yesterday during my re-read, I've always loved that entire ending sequence of Lost Children from Jill begging Guts to take her with him up til what you mentioned above, the shadows and monsters behind Guts, his terrifying silhouette, and then the extremely sad/kind expression as he tells her she can't come with him which is then followed by the introduction of the Beast of Darkness is some of my favorite stuff in the series and gets to me every time. The bit of levity with Puck afterwards definitely helps bring the mood back up of course.

Re-reading the series has been a nice time even though I meant to take it slow and appreciate every panel, which I'm doing, but it's hard to stop reading so I've just spent most of my free-time going through it again and finding the funnier goofy stuff in the backgrounds. Things like Charlotte doing the cat paw wave at Griffith, the kids climbing up the tower to the roof to watch the Band of the Falcon come into the city, the ladies all rubbing Pippin's muscles while he looks uncomfortable, Corkus just putting his nasty feet up on the table next to the wheel of cheese in the bar where he/Judo talk to Guts, Pippin carrying Guts' sword for him while he piggy-backs Charlotte in the Tower of Rebirth, or Guts beating the other raiders at the dice game he's barely paying attention to while they freak out. It's all such good stuff I had forgotten about or missed on previous read-throughs. It's helping dull the pain of Miura's passing a lot but it also is bringing up a ton of nostalgia and appreciation that is hard not to be capped off with the sad feeling of loss. If I keep up this pace and finish my reread really soon I feel like a lot of emotion is going to hit me at once for sure. This isn't something I really want to have expectations about but I really hope that somehow there's some finished episode or two that shows some level of making up between Guts and Casca, but that's unknowable at this point, we'll have to wait and see.
 
The scene where guts looks at his sword and thinks about how he is an extension of himself and how he has experienced everything in his life through hits hard. I feel like miura saw himself as guts and instead of the sword he is holding a pencil. His spent his whole life honing his craft and it took him on an incredible journey. A life well lived.
 
When the news of Miura's death was made public, it felt shocking and paralyzing to me, and made me feel down. It was two weeks since I started working, and I just didn't have the time to really think about it and to process it. That day, I cried what little I could in the car on my way to my job, and during the day I couldn't help that it crossed my mind several times.

Since then, I've been trying to complete a Berserk-based playlist I began on late May, re-reading some few episodes, trying to be the most faithful to what this story told me lyrically and musically. I found Puma Blue's last album In Praise of Shadows, a mixture of mainly hypnagogic pop, indie, lo-fi, and some blues & jazz, to be very suitable and relatable as for the more tender and painful moments.

Also, I read lots of posts and saw lots of commemorative fanarts from the fanbase, here on SkullKnight.net and on Tumblr too. The posts in which these scenes were shared seemed particularly appealing to me:

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And:

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Why? Because I think they perfectly depict a crossroad, a kind of situation in which most of the main and secondary characters in Berserk were put in at some point of the story. These situations were some of the most painful to them, since the two poles of the dilemma were radically opposed. Situations in which they were forced to change paths after years walking the same road, or to build new ones:

1) To accept the end of the Band of the Hawk and rebuild their lives; or to maintain the aching, living corpse of a virtually dead dream.

2) To continue Griffith's bloodstained path, sacrificing everything and losing his humanity in order to achieve his dream; or to perish in its ruins, with all of those who would then have meaninglessly given their lives for it.

3) To run away from Jill's deplorable situation with a complete stranger, or to become able to face and fight in her own battlefield.

4) To continue Guts' lonely, revenge-driven path, destroying himself in the process; or to cope with the loss of that which, for the first time, gave meaning to his life, caring to protect the little that was left.

5) To continue upholding Farnese's crumbling faith and inquisitor persona, or to overcome her fear to the reality of the (Berserk's) world, becoming a new and stronger person in the process.

6) To cope with the death of Flora, of the sunshine-bathed tranquillity at the Mansion of the Spirit Tree, and with the violence and disgust of the outside world along with Guts' crew, becoming a stronger witch and person; or to forever grieve for the loss of the very little world you ever knew, to continue keeping it all to yourself, being arrogant still towards everyone who doesn't immediately understand or share your ways.

7) (Hypothetically) To accept the hardness of Casca's mental recovery process, and the necessary distancing between her and Guts, now that they're effectively reunited after so much pain and struggling; or to face that which causality was in ways of making converge, as said by the Skull Knight in episode 361, most likely something ominous related to the Moonlight Boy/NeoGriffith's presence in Elfhelm.

These dilemmas were some that changed, re-shaped and forged the core personality of those characters. They made their changes profound and meaningful, since they radically challenged their way of being up to that point, making them face their new, cruel reality, instead of just making them question minor aspects of their personas.

Having said that, what really sums up Berserk for me, and that which inspires me the most, are these panels (I even have a tattoo of the first one in my left forearm):

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Finally, I hope everyone is doing ok.

R.I.P. Miura.
 
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Thank you everyone for sharing such beautiful words. It makes me feel like I am not alone in the pain I feel. I have been rereading berserk from the beginning as it is the only way I can cope. Everytime I read it, it feels as fresh as the first time. Miura really put every fiber of his being into berserk and it can be seen and felt, again R.I.P. Miura
 
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