I will keep it short for once: Does anybody on this board have access to a really decent map of the Berserk World that you could share? All I found after a rough search through the webz was low quality - good intentions at best.
Decent Map of the Berserk World?
- Thread starter GhizmoTheKeeper
- Start date
From the shots of the "great wave of the astral world" in volume 34, we know that the landmasses of the Berserk world resemble our own to some extent. However the key zone is obscured by the blast, and there is not enough information about the position of various places to create a reliable map anyway. It's simply not something the author cared to do.
For that reason, of all the fan-made maps I've seen over the years, none were worth considering.
For that reason, of all the fan-made maps I've seen over the years, none were worth considering.
Since I was a child, reading Tolkiens works, I have always loved maps and was fascinated by them. This here frustrates me.
I would love to see a map that is as correct as it is pleasing to look at.
Without promising - maybe I'll try making it myself. If I do, starting with a table of locations and hints, there will be postings here, asking for help.
Tolkien liked his world more than he liked his stories. He made the maps for himself because he genuinely cared about the geography of Middle-earth. On the other hand, Berserk is a character-driven story and the countries in it only serve as a backdrop. They're not unimportant, but weren't Miura's focus.
Unfortunately, no matter how much effort was put into it, it would always have to be based on assumptions.
Let's create a few languages, singing gods and continents and see where that leads ;-)
I would have loved to somewhen see the material concerning European history (and in general) Miura has used for inspiration and/or research. For someone from the literal other end of the world the references to real historic circumstances, behaviour and personalities from Europe are quite on point, almost perfectly simulating the crusty old heritage of violence and distrust we cherish so much. If you are really into history, many flaws appear rather quickly, but that only breaks the immersion if one forces the real world into the story... which is generally not advisable I'd say.
He spoke at length about his many inspirations and influences in his interviews over the years. In short, it's mostly movies, manga and animation. He used picture books of medieval armors and weaponry as part of his research material and had a great erudition in general, but I don't think he studied European history specifically. That's just not what Berserk is about.
Well Berserk is a fantasy story, not historical fiction. There's no real ground for comparison outside of a few borrowed terms.
That makes the convincing nature of his art even more impressive to me. It makes it look like he studied at least some sources describing practice of the inquisition during the high middle ages. Simply astonishing!
Exactly. But if a history nerd like me was not supposed to draw comparisons then he should not have made his stories' immersion SO DAMN GOOD. :-D
This fan-made map from Reddit a few years back might satisfy your map curiosity. It's one of the better ones that I've seen, but ... I still have a pretty sizable list of problems with it (among them: Doldrey is supposed to be at a strategically critical location, but here it's shown in the middle of a mountain range), which I told the map creator about, but they didn't seem to care, so... what's the point? 
Like Aaz already said, any map of the Berserk world would necessarily require many assumptions, because Miura never established specifics of territories that would necessitate defining hard borders around them. You could simply say that he wasn't interested in it, so he never did it. But I'd even go as far as saying he would never have made one. Miura had said in a few of his more recent interviews (Guidebook + Persona) that he wanted his world to feel familiar, so he opted for Disney's approach to fantasy ("Once Upon a Time, Somewhere...") without laying down too many foreign concepts.
To elaborate on that, I would say that because Berserk was a serialized story published over a long period of time, Miura didn't want a top-heavy fantasy world that required you to understand many niche concepts before you could really get into the story. It's the antithesis of worlds created by a fantasy writer like, say, Brandon Sanderson, where if you jump to like Book 3 your mind will basically drown in all of the foreign fantasy mumbo-jumbo. I'd say that's why Miura wasn't interested in maps with hard borders around his territories.
Like Aaz already said, any map of the Berserk world would necessarily require many assumptions, because Miura never established specifics of territories that would necessitate defining hard borders around them. You could simply say that he wasn't interested in it, so he never did it. But I'd even go as far as saying he would never have made one. Miura had said in a few of his more recent interviews (Guidebook + Persona) that he wanted his world to feel familiar, so he opted for Disney's approach to fantasy ("Once Upon a Time, Somewhere...") without laying down too many foreign concepts.
To elaborate on that, I would say that because Berserk was a serialized story published over a long period of time, Miura didn't want a top-heavy fantasy world that required you to understand many niche concepts before you could really get into the story. It's the antithesis of worlds created by a fantasy writer like, say, Brandon Sanderson, where if you jump to like Book 3 your mind will basically drown in all of the foreign fantasy mumbo-jumbo. I'd say that's why Miura wasn't interested in maps with hard borders around his territories.
Griffith
With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Map of Midland
Miura needs to do a map of the Berserk World in the style of the Hyborian/European map from the old Conan paperbacks. :guts: That would be awesome, but still, a chance of this happening... :sad:
www.skullknight.net
Lots of vintage topographical analysis and amateur cartography from back when we first saw the world. In retrospect I'm actually a little proud of the one superimposing the map of Europe over the visible landmasses.
Really disappointing that the creator did not use the opportunity to work together when there is a community with great interest in detail... To be confronted with problems should result in ambition to find a solution, not end in ignorance and giving up a project. I am not content with the positioning of doldrey either - some mountain ranges are shaped weirdly as well.This fan-made map from Reddit a few years back might satisfy your map curiosity. It's one of the better ones that I've seen, but ... I still have a pretty sizable list of problems with it (among them: Doldrey is supposed to be at a strategically critical location, but here it's shown in the middle of a mountain range), which I told the map creator about, but they didn't seem to care, so... what's the point?
And I have yet another issue: Vritannis. Where? In the fan made map it is located roughly where rl Rome is located. That coheres with it being the supposed lands of the holy see. But for me it doesn't add up taking a longer route by ship (including exponentially more opportunities of attack) through the 'mediteranian sea' to get to a celtic island. Since Elfhelm is not at all tropical but displays a kind of european jungle, the route would lead south-east to get through Gibraltar (no hints on something like that in the over 9000 ship-chapters) and then north and then north-west again. Every rl example of myths towards sacred islands combined with elves and celts can only point towards either Ireland or Iceland. Because we have not (yet) seen volcanos on Elfhelm I would suggest Elfhelm being represented by Ireland or the mythical Island of hy-brasil, west of Ireland, always clouded in mist, only visibly once every 7 years and ofc swarming with mythical creatures. That would mean the most logical route would lead through France, possibly the Bretagne (Britanny) in particular. "Vritannis" sounds similar to Britanny, even though I know that this is very thin evidence but we have to cling to something don't we?
Also I thought of Midland being some hybrid of the HRE and the romanticised version of the Kingdom of Burgundy which would also shift around locations a bit. But enough! If I continue, I am still writing this here tomorrow morning!
Completely get it. It is just the internalized reflex of mine to always imagine the map of everything when I read a story because I then have the basis to imagine wandering all the potential different locations in said fantastic world. And I know many people feel similarly, so we deserve a map!^^
Nothing to comment here, just wanted to point out this sentence for its quality.
Yes! I also noticed the shapes of the land masses are quite heavily distorted in Miuras' panel but the final projection of the geography without civilization is convincing for me. Dropping Russias' asian part is fine for me (allthough I would criticize Miura for the general lack of ice and snow in the north).Map of Midland
Miura needs to do a map of the Berserk World in the style of the Hyborian/European map from the old Conan paperbacks. :guts: That would be awesome, but still, a chance of this happening... :sad:
Lots of vintage topographical analysis and amateur cartography from back when we first saw the world. In retrospect I'm actually a little proud of the one superimposing the map of Europe over the visible landmasses.
I think it is pretty safe to use a non-political map of Europe as foundation if you maybe cut at the Urals and squeeze Scandinavia a bit.
With this in mind, I would say a good starting point would really be a plain list of locations that are mentioned by name or described in any other form in the manga.
No offense but this all just sounds idiotic to me. Skellig doesn't have to be anywhere in particular. There are no rules. It's a magical island in a fantasy world. And do I even have to say that it's obviously not of the same size as Iceland or Ireland?
Also, Japanese people don't call Bretagne "Britanny", nor is Vritannis spelled very much like it, and even so that wouldn't indicate anything. Vritannis was clearly inspired by Mediterranean cities. But again, there are no rules. It can be a mix between Genova, Nice and Marseille with architecture borrowed from elsewhere or invented, and placed in whatever location Miura felt was convenient. Because it's a fictional city in a fantasy story.
Oh, and the sea journey only took up 30 episodes in total, and only 10 of those were actually spent on the ship itself (17 were on the Solitary Island, 3 were a flashback to Guts' childhood).
What we see of the world is undetailed on purpose. Seems rather pointless to be purporting to criticize lack of details in those circumstances.
Yet I take offense. You could have written your criticism without the insults. Obviously, it was important to you to formulate your feelings in belittling my remarks. I feel sorry that what I wrote seems to have made you angry. I have to oppose what you said. You write definitive and in present tense: "there are no rules". Who says that? You? Even though I respect your profound knowledge, you write as if Miura himself sits upon your shoulder, whispering the truth. I did not speak of a "rule". I did not even say that something has to be a certain way. I said that it would seem most logical to me and expressed that in lengthy sentences that yet do not contain everything concerning that topic I have thought about. If I would not have known your "style" of response, I propably would not even have taken the time answering this because of the discorteous nature of your message.
To me, it is obvious that Elfhelm is very strongly inspired by celtic mythicism. Especially the legends of elves and magic users inhabiting hidden islands are most abundant in irish and celtic mythology. Also things, plants and actions on Elfhelm hint strongly towards this inspiration. I could elaborate this further and in detail but will refrain from that for the moment.
Even though he did not make a map for the readers it does not mean that Miura has never looked at a map of Europe, read some Shakespeare or watched a related movie and maybe thought "Oh I read/heard about this places' legends, maybe I can incorporate this and that in my story". For a man so obsessed with detail, I cannot imagine him being completely random regarding the stories' locations.
Yes it is fantasy. But that is exactly the reason I can very well imagine Miura placing a french-italian city at the west coast of France or even Spain to let his protagonist ship to friggin' Tír na nÓg. Which is in Ireland. Vritannis sounds similar to Biritanny. I wanted to mention this because I thought it interesting because it fits. 'Britannis' is a latin declension of Britannia - Britain. I think we can agree on Elfhelm not being the large body of Britain. But a regional vicinity would make it easy for someone thinking about a name for a city in that region to just borrow such a name for its convincing sound. If one cannot follow me there, that appears not to be my problem since it is not really a big stretch from my perspective.
I will not let myself down to using insulting words even though this made me very upset because I think it would not bring anything positive to fruition. Nevertheless, I will share one final thought on this issue: If I experience cognitive dissonance resulting from somebody expressing imagination, fantasies and speculation about a topic, story I care and/or know a lot about, I firstly try to let myself in on that strange train of thought. I try to accept that another human can read the same things, coming to different conclusions than I do. If I find contradicting facts in the underlying opus, I will simply correct said person in a polite way, accompanied by sources to said facts. I would do that because maybe, just maybe I myself can improve my knowledge, the knowledge of the other person or at least leave some impression to a not interacting person to make up his own mind about a topic.
You're overreacting to a simple fact, one that I wasn't alone in pointing out to you: Miura was not constrained by anything when he created his world. You're talking about the shortest sea route and where it would make the most sense to board a ship as if those were real considerations from the characters' perspective, while in fact it's preposterous given the context (traveling by foot with limited knowledge while a war is ongoing) and in the fictional world they're inhabiting (we don't know where Skellig is). In that sense, you are indeed making up rules that don't actually exist and don't make sense. And while doing so, you're ignoring actual details from the story.
There are a number of elements inspired by Celtic mythology on the island, and its name itself is taken from a couple of isles off the coast of Ireland. This isn't anything new; each of these individual elements was commented on pretty much immediately after its publication. However, Elfhelm itself takes the form of a giant Japanese cherry tree, and the neighboring village is inhabited by magicians who are nothing like druids. Like I've been telling you, Berserk is a fantasy story and there are no constraints on mixing and matching references and influences.
But none of this matters when it comes to where the island is. What we know is that it is located in the "Western sea", isn't on any map, and isn't near any other place. It's in the open sea, not off a coast. From its description and the aerial shots we see of it, it's also clearly of a modest size. Which is why it's silly to suggest it might be the equivalent of Ireland. Ireland is visible off the coast of Britain and is 50 times too big to fit the bill. Even talking about this is a waste of time.
This is why I said earlier in the thread that no "correct" map can be made. You're making things up based on your personal tastes and assumptions, which is fine but means it has no legitimacy to anyone else. Also, Tír na nÓg isn't "in Ireland". It's a fictional island from Irish legends. And Skellig, in Berserk, is a different fictional island in a fantasy world. Reading Wikipedia articles isn't going to help you find a way to make it all make sense in the way you want.
ヴリタニス is neither very close to ブルターニュ nor to ブリタンニア, which are two actual ways that region can be referred to in Japanese. I'm sure in your head it all makes sense, even though we're talking about a city here, but it's just not supported by the story. You should be careful, you don't seem too far away from saying Miura must have done something wrong to explain why your own ideas don't add up. That's usually how these threads end up.
And to get you started on that road, check episode 305 again. The Sea Horse gets engulfed by the wave of light before "Breizh" does.
I can tell you're upset, but you must understand that nothing constructive is going to come out of this thread anyway. You're just retreading old topics and I (and others) am spending my valuable time explaining things to you. If you prefer I can let you scream into the void, it's no loss to me.