Episode 320

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Aazealh said:
Yeah, I really like how eerie and gloomy Miura made the "place" look.

Eerie came to my mind as well, it's morbidly awe inspiring. Something like the first 30 seconds of the Beauty & the Beast Prologue music should be repeating as they survey the scene. :zodd:

Aazealh said:
The shots in which Guts is silhouetted all look amazing.

Yeah, and the armor has never looked better like that either, the long shot on page 9, the corner of 12, and my goodness, page 14: DEATH DEALER!
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
The boss laughs at Guts because he doesn't think he can do anything inside the Sea God's mouth. And since they can't do anything there anymore themselves, they'll go eat the "dirty stud-horse". It'll be the climax of the ceremony. Even inside the body, Guts & Schierke can see some dim light. Schierke comments on some legendary ship cemetary. She thinks the Sea God is more than a mere monster because of how crafty it is to transform eaten sailors into parts of itself (tentacles, just like for sea cucumbers/sea slugs). They hear a loud sound which Schierke mistakes for cannon fire, but Guts corrects her and tells her it's the palpitation of the Sea God's heart. Guts asks Schierke if she can know where the heart is using a sort of sonar; she finds that the blood flows from the upper right region. Schierke suggests to get out quickly since there's a large amount of gastric acid. Guts says it might rather be a good thing, using it to float upwards. Schierke guesses the isopods are simply parasites.

On the ship, Ivalera tells Farnese to protect Schierke's body, and Farnese agrees. Serpico wants Farnese to get to safety, but she denies because she should keep the barrier up. Roderick says they have a goddess on board who calls angels.
 

Aphasia

ALL MYSTERIES MUST BE SOLVED
Just another great episode. Thanks for the summary.

I love how fast the Sea God clamped his teeth after Guts jumped in. You can really feel the intensity in that panel, like the Sea God was waiting for it's prey to snap.
That acid is eating some scary holes in the ships, Guts better be careful where he jumps.

I'll never grow tired of the way Miura handles sea vessels, beautiful.
 
Colleague at work: What are you upto?!
Me : Nothing much, reading the new episode for Berserk.
Colleague at work: .... then why're your pants down.
Me : .... uuuhhmmm.

Man, what an exciting, epic episode :guts:. I like the different angles Miura's drawn Guts & Schierke in. So far it's been a little easy for Guts & Schierke to get by, a little too convenient maybe. Perhaps a setup awaits them? It'll get interesting if there's a situation that forces Schierke to return to her body prematurely. Can't wait to see what other defense the Sea God's got on the inside!
 

Grail

Feel the funk blast
IncantatioN said:
So far it's been a little easy for Guts & Schierke to get by, a little too convenient maybe. Perhaps a setup awaits them? It'll get interesting if there's a situation that forces Schierke to return to her body prematurely. Can't wait to see what other defense the Sea God's got on the inside!
Gobs and I were just discussing this too. At this point, it seems likely that the Sea God purposely lured them in, especially after the comment Schierke makes about its craftiness (I guess the resemblance to a certain plant wasn't such a coincidence after all! :troll:). Combining this with the fact that its innards are probably connected to the astral realm in some way, it's safe to say that the Guts/Schierke superduo is going to have trouble sticking together. But with the mystery kid on board, maybe we can expect some deus ex machina goodness? :void:

However, all of this feels a bit obvious to say, so I have a feeling that there'll be some unforseen twists to keep us guessing.
 
Great episode! So it looks like the Isopods are just throwing themselves at Guts in their last panel, frightening. Very excited about what we will find inside the Sea God (besides the heart). I agree that this has been a bit too easy for Guts and Schierke, they can jump around those cucumbers like they're nothing!
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Grail said:
Gobs and I were just discussing this too. At this point, it seems likely that the Sea God purposely lured them in, especially after the comment Schierke makes about its craftiness

I wouldn't say that it's likely.

Grail said:
Combining this with the fact that its innards are probably connected to the astral realm in some way

The Sea God is an astral creature, so technically all of it is connected to the astral world. But like Walter repeated not so long ago, the worlds have now merged, so that might not play a big role in this case.

Grail said:
it's safe to say that the Guts/Schierke superduo is going to have trouble sticking together. But with the mystery kid on board, maybe we can expect some deus ex machina goodness? :void:

Is it really safe to say at this point? I'm not so sure. And I don't think the Moonlight Boy will be helping them from that far either. In my opinion he's more likely to help with the current situation on the ship.

Grail said:
However, all of this feels a bit obvious to say, so I have a feeling that there'll be some unforseen twists to keep us guessing.

The Sea God's heart itself might be a monster in its own regard that could give Guts & Schierke some serious trouble (could it somehow be the source of its power?). They might also discover some more ancient relics (from old vessels to ruins to skeletons to monsters) along the way.
 

Aphasia

ALL MYSTERIES MUST BE SOLVED
I love how guts slid tarzan style off that tentacle into the mouth. Awesome. :azan:

And yeah, It's all felt a bit too easy so far. It's never that easy though. There's surely some dark and ugly challenge up ahead. They just bypassed all the slugs for the main course. I was impressed Guts was able to get by them as effortlessly as he did.

Aazealh said:
The Sea God's heart itself might be a monster in its own regard that could give Guts & Schierke some serious trouble (could it somehow be the source of its power?). They might also discover some more ancient relics (from old vessels to ruins to skeletons to monsters) along the way.

That's an interesting thought. I don't know what you mean by the "source of it's power" though. If it's just a big animal like Guts suggested then the heart has to be the thing keeping the whole system running right?
 
Aphasia said:
I love how guts slid tarzan style off that tentacle into the mouth. Awesome. :azan:

More like fred flinstone :carcus:

On that last page, it looked like the slugs are extremely close to the ship on the 2nd last image, but possibly further away on the last, also with bright light emanating from the ship. Wonder if it's the 4 kings spell taking effect? Or it could just be massive simultaneous cannon fire
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Aphasia said:
I don't know what you mean by the "source of it's power" though. If it's just a big animal like Guts suggested then the heart has to be the thing keeping the whole system running right?
I've been wondering if the Sea God isn't "just" a giant sea creature, but some kind of conglomeration of different undersea creatures -- one from many. It's pretty evident, of course, in his appendages varying from sea slug to sea cucumbers, but also the inside of his stomach The mouths that pour acid look like creatures in and of themselves. So this big, giant god, could be a mash up of several predatory creatures of the sea. Who knows what kind of thing will be at its heart.

Mage said:
On that last page, it looked like the slugs are extremely close to the ship on the 2nd last image, but possibly further away on the last,
The slugs do look close there, but it's just the angle of the shot. The deck and crew are obscuring the distance between them. Anyway, the slugs would be much bigger if they were actually that close. Remember, a single slug took up a large portion of the pirate's ship.

also with bright light emanating from the ship. Wonder if it's the 4 kings spell taking effect? Or it could just be massive simultaneous cannon fire
I don't think the effect of the four kings on the slugs would be something that would occur off-page. And the ship is surrounded by bright light because of the spell, regardless of its proximity to the slugs, as shown on the top of page 17.
 
Fantastic episode with lots of stunning shots of our handsome hero in a hideous surrounding. Anyone see anything interesting or remarkable about the ornamentation on the destroyed ships? If so, please chime in! I'm interested in those kind of detail about the world of Berserk.

Trouble at the Sea Horse. Thankfully Serpico is handy. It's nice to see him still caring for Farnese even with Roderick nearby. I hope these two can manage to get along in the future. I might even change my avatar someday! :serpico: Maybe another emoticon could be Roddy with a telescope?

Jaze1618 said:
This is like level 8 of contra all over again. up up down down left right left right a b
The Konami code is u,u,d,d,l,r,l,r,b,a (and often START). :slan:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Aphasia said:
I love how guts slid tarzan style off that tentacle into the mouth. Awesome.

Reminiscent of when he jumped off the Makara at the end of volume 30.

Aphasia said:
And yeah, It's all felt a bit too easy so far. It's never that easy though. There's surely some dark and ugly challenge up ahead. They just bypassed all the slugs for the main course. I was impressed Guts was able to get by them as effortlessly as he did.

I don't know why you guys keep saying it was too easy. Guts' dash was daring and took the Sea God by surprise, but it's not like it was a walk in the park for him (he was even worried Schierke might fall off him since he was rushing so fast). Don't forget he's using the armor and that had he missed a single step or been delayed for a few seconds he'd be either dead or in big trouble. Besides, all he's accomplished so far is getting into the Sea God's mouth, which isn't exactly a problem from its perspective. The real challenge starts now.

Aphasia said:
That's an interesting thought. I don't know what you mean by the "source of it's power" though. If it's just a big animal like Guts suggested then the heart has to be the thing keeping the whole system running right?

Well Guts was being derisive here, so I wouldn't take what he said too literally (and he's not exactly an expert in the matter anyway). Schierke's warier and most likely for good reason. Even from an anatomical standpoint (forgoing the size issue) the Sea God isn't anything like an octopus so far. As for what I mean by "source of its power", well I don't really know myself. I'm thinking that something could clue us in about the creature's origin. That maybe it wasn't always such a formidable monster, and grew from its original state into what it is now. It's just wild speculation and I don't have any specific theory as to what they might find further in right now.

Mage said:
On that last page, it looked like the slugs are extremely close to the ship on the 2nd last image, but possibly further away on the last, also with bright light emanating from the ship. Wonder if it's the 4 kings spell taking effect? Or it could just be massive simultaneous cannon fire

I agree with Walter here, I think it's just the perspective. The first picture makes it look like they're very close because of how huge the slugs are.
 
Aazealh said:
I'm thinking that something could clue us in about the creature's origin. That maybe it wasn't always such a formidable monster, and grew from its original state into what it is now. It's just wild speculation and I don't have any specific theory as to what they might find further in right now.

When I first saw the Sea God's mouth (very remniscent of Ganishka as it's been said before) I had a crazy thought about the Sea God's origin: that maybe he was some sort of equivalent of Ganishka from a thousand years ago or more, or at least a creature linked to an previous merging between realities (which would mean that what happened with Griffith is not the first merging between the astral world and the physical world). Of course I have nothing to support that theory, and though I like the idea, it doesn't feel too likely.
But the presence of his statue in the village, the stories about the merrows and the Sea God, all of it indicates that at some point in the past, the existence of the Sea God was heavily felt in the physical world, not just the astral world.
Anyway I'm not too comfortable with the notions of layers of reality, so please don't beat me if what I'm saying is completely out of line!
 

Th3Branded0ne

I'll be back.
Impressive episode. It really gives it a different vibe the way the drawings are when Guts and Schierke are shown inside the Sea God. Since the Sea God's beard had the pirates as hosts or you can say representatives of him while itself can't go anywhere in the open sea. I wonder if any other crew members from those ships are going to appear and attack with other kind of creatures in the style of the sea cucumbers, you know in hordes but being something different, while Guts is trying to get to its weakest point(the heart).
 
Reading this episode, and seeing all the action that is taking place inside him, it really opens up a lot of new possibilities about the Sea God. Like his bowels being connected to the astral world. In that instance, the Sea God's innards, somewhat remind me of that of those enslaved mass of apostles' that were chained together, back from vol 27. The difference here is that instead of unborn human fetuses emerging as Dakas from the pregnant women's wombs, we got Sea God's human victims' bodies being processed into sea slugs during the digestion and then emerging as tentacle "strands" in his beard. It all raises interesting questions, like for what exact purpose is Sea God eating humans and what goal is he possibly trying to accomplish by doing so? Does he derive some sort of nourishment by consuming human flesh, or is to grow out his beard with as many new tentacles as he can? Or perhaps it's both. Schierke mentions in one of the earlier episodes how all the villagers on the island were actually dead at this point, and all those human tentacles were really nothing more than lifeless and soulless appendages of Sea God. Maybe all the people that he has eaten, their souls provided him with nourishment, while their bodies - became a part of his human tentacle beard.
Currently, Sea God is still confined to the isolated island. But if his beard keeps on progressively growing and growing, as the more humans he devours, maybe soon enough it might be enough for Sea God to literally extend his reach all the way to Continental mainland. Who knows, maybe that is his ultimate goal.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Señor Caudillo said:
Reading this episode, and seeing all the action that is taking place inside him, it really opens up a lot of new possibilities about the Sea God.
There's nothing new, really. The Boss said way back in Episode 315 that the Sea God devours people who then become parts of its beard, and it was already pretty obvious even then. Schierke's observation in Episode 320 merely confirms it, since she's the reliable source for these kinds of things.

Like his bowels being connected to the astral world. In that instance, the Sea God's innards, somewhat remind me of that of those enslaved mass of apostles' that were chained together, back from vol 27. The difference here is that instead of unborn human fetuses emerging as Dakas from the pregnant women's wombs, we got Sea God's human victims' bodies being processed into sea slugs during the digestion and then emerging as tentacle "strands" in his beard.
Let me stop you right there. There is nothing indicating the sea god's insides are connected to the astral world, apart from the obvious world merging. The processes you're describing are only similar in that for both instances, X goes in and X comes out. The actual functions by which these transformations occur don't appear to be comparable in any way. You may as well make the same observation about the transformation of food to feces. Is your stomach connected to the astral world?

What little we know about the sea god's method is that it, or its sea cucumbers, devours humans, and the subsequent digestion process somehow binds the bodies and their essence to the host body. It's certainly worth studying more, and theorizing about. But right now, all we can say is that it's interesting that it has this kind of ability. There's absolutely no reason to jump to the conclusion that it has anything in common with the apostle incubation chamber. It sure would be interesting if we could draw a line between evil creatures and apostles, in that they can both infect/assimilate humans. But we aren't at that point yet.

It all raises interesting questions, like for what exact purpose is Sea God eating humans and what goal is he possibly trying to accomplish by doing so?
It's a giant, evil, sea monster who so far has said only one thing: "DOGOAAAAAAaaaaa!". I don't think it really needs a multi-layered agenda. It's likely just lining its stomach, like any other monster.

maybe soon enough it might be enough for Sea God to literally extend his reach all the way to Continental mainland. Who knows, maybe that is his ultimate goal.
Yeah, it all makes sense now. Continental expansion -- the true agenda of the sea god.

seagodconquer.jpg

I CLAIM THIS LAND... FOR ... THE .... SEA, I GUESS...!!
 
I'm speechless. This episode was visceral, and the ship graveyard was particularly evocative.

And another in less than 3 weeks? These are good times. :badbone:

mBkMC.jpg
 
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