Episode 369

Aazealh

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I sincerely doubt it's intentional too, by all accounts the two were as close as it gets, but that is no guarantee you won't misread the material. The Dune sequels were made by Frank's son and they still managed to miss everything about the originals except there being worms in pseudo-feudal space.

As for publisher decisions, If they were going for a more high-paying approach, the least bad move would've been to start a new series for the Continuation and give them latitude to write an actual manga. Beyond the weaknesses of story, theme and art, the halfway nature of the continuation episodes where they're a broad strokes summary of what Miura told Mori but also a functional comic of their own has left it worse than committing to either approach.

That's the thing, though. Mori already has two manga of his own he's working on, and another one ready to go after that. He neither needs nor wants to write his own Berserk story, and that's a honorable decision for which he has my deepest respect. That aside, like I said earlier in the thread, I personally don't think letting someone other than Miura make up their own story would be an improvement. It would just push the project from half-denatured to 100% illegitimate.
 
That's the thing, though. Mori already has two manga of his own he's working on, and another one ready to go after that. He neither needs nor wants to write his own Berserk story, and that's a honorable decision for which he has my deepest respect. That aside, like I said earlier in the thread, I personally don't think letting someone other than Miura make up their own story would be an improvement. It would just push the project from half-denatured to 100% illegitimate.
It's entirely denatured by default. No one except Miura can deliver on Miura's story and Berserk is in every aspect his story. The frame of the post-Miura episodes as a legitimate continuation made by the people closest to Miura are a big part of why it lands the worst among the people most attached to the story, despite being made by people even more invested in it than those who post on this forum. The conceit of it is to be as close as possible to what Miura would have done based on what he's told Mori second-hand without adding anything additional, but the whole thing is an addition, and whether it wants to or not it will produce its own style. Trying not to have a style will just make that style confused and incoherent, not prevent it from having one.

Beyond intent, there's the reality you point out - the workload means that neither Mori, whatever his proven skills, nor the artists can devote anywhere near the amount of time that Miura could on every individual episode, especially when obligated to produce it monthly. You've a cliffnotes story delivered on a strict time limit by people who are trying to channel Miura, but can't, since they aren't him, yet also can't channel themselves. The entire project is conceptually ill-conceived specifically because its goals of being a continuation as Miura would have done it are impossible.
 
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Aazealh

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It's entirely denatured by default. No one except Miura can deliver on Miura's story and Berserk is in every aspect his story.

Sure. But I don't see how you can say so and then advocate for the team doing the continuation to take more liberties than they are already. To me that's a step in the direction of not even following Miura's intent anymore, and if so then why do it at all? I sure as hell don't want to see that.

Let me give you an example: In this episode, Guts has one line of dialogue, where he laments the fact he couldn't even hit Griffith once. Had they left him voiceless, the readers could have imagined his thoughts and naturally deduced him to be crestfallen about Casca. But they chose to have that one line instead. That's not a line Miura had left behind or anything, it was just the team's decision to add it. What you should ask yourself is whether advocating for more decisions like this one is a good idea. Like I told someone else earlier in the thread: be careful what you wish for.

whether it wants to or not it will produce its own style. Trying not to have a style will just make that style confused and incoherent, not prevent it from having one.

It's not about style though, and I don't think they're trying to "not have a style" anyway. Their execution is simply lacking and the project was too ambitious to begin with. Which is why I don't see how anyone can think that what they produce would be better if they didn't try to avoid veering off from Miura's plans.
 
Sure. But I don't see how you can say so and then advocate for the team doing the continuation to take more liberties than they are already. To me that's a step in the direction of not even following Miura's intent anymore, and if so then why do it at all? I sure as hell don't want to see that.

Let me give you an example: In this episode, Guts has one line of dialogue, where he laments the fact he couldn't even hit Griffith once. Had they left him voiceless, the readers could have imagined his thoughts and naturally deduced him to be crestfallen about Casca. But they chose to have that one line instead. That's not a line Miura had left behind or anything, it was just the team's decision to add it. What you should ask yourself is whether advocating for more decisions like this one is a good idea. Like I told someone else earlier in the thread: be careful what you wish for.
The project goes beyond following Miura's intent in the structural sense, it is trying to reproduce Miura's style and what they know of his story. But they can't do the former since they're not Miura and what Mori knows of the story, even if he knows the entirety of the broad strokes going to the finale isn't what lends to being a good manga, as there's no dialogue or connective tissue. Trying to skate by with the bare minimum of connective tissue results in the non-dialogue we have now and the total lack of scene transitions not just between episodes but within them. What we have now and will continue to have keeping this intent is neither an individually good manga nor a faithful continuation, because the restrictions they've placed on themselves keep it from being either. And by using the Berserk name and numbering without change, it pretends to be something it can't and never will be.
It's not about style though, and I don't think they're trying to "not have a style" anyway. Their execution is simply lacking and the project was too ambitious to begin with. Which is why I don't see how anyone can think that what they produce would be better if they didn't try to avoid veering off from Miura's plans.
They're trying to mimic Miura's art style as close as possible but with much less time for each episode and without his particular gift for detail. Giraffe horses and all. They're not trying to mimic his writing much in favor of trying to include as little dialogue as possible, and they're trying not to include anything not explicitly told to Mori by Miura. These are choices that lead to the creators depersonalizing themselves from what, at the end of the day, is their project, not Miura's.

A separate continuation manga that from the start admits it can't reproduce what Miura may have had in mind and simply tries to tell a story based on his notes would be more honest and more free to someone's story rather than being a kind of zombified auteur project. Would it be as good as what Miura would have done? Obviously not. Would it be better than we have now? Unclear. But what it would be is a product more honest with itself and its abilities and more ready to tell at least a story, if not his story, because even from these few episodes we know this method has failed to tell Miura's story.
 

Aazealh

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What we have now and will continue to have keeping this intent is neither an individually good manga nor a faithful continuation, because the restrictions they've placed on themselves keep it from being either.

You don't know that, actually. There is absolutely no reason to believe "lifting restrictions" would produce a better result, and in fact I'm going to go ahead and say that it wouldn't. Honestly, I think you're making too much of these "restrictions". You're making assumptions about why things are the way they are without actually knowing it for sure. As you said yourself: the limitations of their own abilities can't be ignored, and in my opinion that's the biggest factor by far here. I gave you an example above with dialogue and I can give you more if you want.

And by using the Berserk name and numbering without change, it pretends to be something it can't and never will be.

Using a different name, which I was maybe the first to advocate for, wouldn't change the nature or quality of the continuation. It would just be more respectful.

A separate continuation manga that from the start admits it can't reproduce what Miura may have had in mind and simply tries to tell a story based on his notes would be more honest and more free to someone's story rather than being a kind of zombified auteur project.

It would be worthless is what it would be. And if that's what you're advocating for, there's no reason for us to continue this discussion. I have absolutely no interest in reading some guy's story. This project's entire raison d'être is rightfully to tell what Mori knew of Miura's plans (because there are no comprehensive notes). Without that, it wouldn't (and shouldn't) exist. Which is why I think it should have less stuff and not more. Stick to the bare bones if that's all you have.
 
You don't know that, actually. There is absolutely no reason to believe "lifting restrictions" would produce a better result, and in fact I'm going to go ahead and say that it wouldn't. Honestly, I think you're making too much of these "restrictions". You're making assumptions about why things are the way they are without actually knowing it for sure. As you said yourself: the limitations of their own abilities can't be ignored, and in my opinion that's the biggest factor by far here. I gave you an example above with dialogue and I can give you more if you want.
Far from it, I said at the end explicitly that there's no guarantee that what they produce would be any better if they were free from these restrictions, at least on the artist side. But Mori for his part is at the very least a decent writer with experience writing manga. To produce what he's doing now is to go counter to the basics of the craft to aim for a goal - recreating what Miura told him verbatim, that's unachievable in the format chosen. What I have said and will say is that we got isn't worthwhile enough that them taking the risk of drawing outside the lines would be any great loss if it fails to work.
Using a different name, which I was maybe the first to advocate for, wouldn't change the nature or quality of the continuation. It would just be more respectful.
You were 100% right back then too, though I only lurked at the time, but it entirely changes the nature of the continuation. At present, the continuation picks up where Berserk left off, uses the name and the numbering. It is marketed based on being a faithful continuation of Miura's work by the people closest to him. But it isn't and can't be. Admitting this and being honest with what the project is, namely licensed fanfiction working off of the skeleton of his ideas frees Mori and Co to tell their version of that story. They will never be able to tell Miura's story and have already failed to do so.
It would be worthless is what it would be. And if that's what you're advocating for, there's no reason for us to continue this discussion. I have absolutely no interest in reading some guy's story. This project's entire raison d'être is rightfully to tell what Mori knew of Miura's plans (because there are no comprehensive notes). Without that, it wouldn't (and shouldn't) exist. Which is why I think it should have less stuff and not more. Stick to the bare bones if that's all you have.
As is we have to pretty much read tea leaves to divine the broad strokes of Miura's story. It's been five episodes and we're already arguing whether Miura really meant to do X or Y, if X or Y was a bad plot beat in general or just because the Continuation failed to provide context, see Elfheim's destruction or Casca's abduction, what Miura could have decided to do with it and so forth. The absolute best thing to do would be what you suggested, i.e just Mori's recounting of what Miura told him with no standard narrative or manga coat of paint, with his assistants drawing art for some of the pivotal moments. Sadly, the boat has sailed on that one and hence it's worthless as is, because it's a square peg in a round hole. What we get is tainted by the medium chosen and makes it unfit for purpose. The medium is what we're stuck with, it will be a manga trying to tell some kind of standard narrative beat for beat. This being the case, the refusal to use the tools of a standard narrative will keep it a bad manga on top of what it is already, being a bad conveyance of what Miura told Mori. The latter is incurable, the former is not.
 

Aazealh

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What I have said and will say is that we got isn't worthwhile enough that them taking the risk of drawing outside the lines would be any great loss if it fails to work.

They've already been drawing "outside the lines" as it is, though. :shrug:
I know what you'll say: not enough. But I'd rather not see this project turn into more of a field for experiments than it already is.

As is we have to pretty much read tea leaves to divine the broad strokes of Miura's story.

And you're arguing to make it even harder! :mozgus:
More seriously, while I'm waiting until the chapter is over to really have that discussion, I think it comes down to very simple things. Guts can't hit Griffith, Casca gets abducted, a black ooze rises and the island crumbles, the elves disappear. That kind of stuff and not much more.

What we get is tainted by the medium chosen and makes it unfit for purpose. The medium is what we're stuck with, it will be a manga trying to tell some kind of standard narrative beat for beat. This being the case, the refusal to use the tools of a standard narrative will keep it a bad manga on top of what it is already, being a bad conveyance of what Miura told Mori. The latter is incurable, the former is not.

Well, I don't think they're going to change course in any case (so we're essentially wasting our time here :sweatdrop:), but I do still have a tiny little bit of hope that maybe they'll abbreviate things more once the Elf island chapter is over. I know, I know, it's wishful thinking... Still, as far as I'm concerned, the more concise they make it, the better.
 
hello, new member. this space here is the most critic and intelligent for berserk, on youtube people are loving this fanfic, which is cringe, but understandable, I wonder if this sentiment will last in the general public as this ''berserk'' goes on.
I was liking until the last episode, but on this one, I still kind enjoyed just because of the art (which is not that great anymore) and the despair atmosphere, but even I (a casual reader) was sensing something off. This is too fast, no more constructives dialogue, with content, with manga theory. Just going into main events, a lot of characters doing nothing. And then I came here, read a lot of comments, so this forum enlightened me everything. Here is really another level, its like well qualified adults versus teenagers (on youtube channels that I checked, at least).
I have some points to ask/made.
1) Guts and his friends werent supposed to get some upgrades in their weapons, or something? I dont think they just skipped this part, because this would have been a main event, so if Miura would write this, Mori also will, eventually.
2) about the astral creatures vanishing. Well, I read some comments here that claimed this is incoherent with the manga theory we know so far, they put arguments on fantasia and stuff, but while its unclear on why they vanished, on the mechanics of it, I think this would definitely have happened with Miura aswell, because this is a main event. Mori should remember, so he did not ''invent it'' of course, but the question is.. did he remember this well? of course memory is kind tricky, we have a lot of false memories, what he think have happened or listened to its not really precise. Is he really writting the whole continuation just by memories? The team members dont have at least some notes? Or even Mori (before Miura died)? There is no way we can be sure of what we remember, specially in old age, so this is very dangerous indeed.

Anyway, I think they would have vanished with Miura, but would have been much more developed and more explained. The way it happened looked like a fanfic, which is the "new berserk", sadly. Thats it, sorry for any english issues, not my first language.
 
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Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Honestly, I'd rather this be as accurate as possible than as good as possible anyway, especially if and when those things are mutually exclusive in this format. Basically, this doesn't need to be a good manga! I mean, sure, it would be nice if a manga that says "Berserk" and Miura's name on it was, which is really the frustrating part here, but for all intents and purposes I just want to download the information it's purported to contain. Knowing the outline of the rest of the plot or the broad strokes of Miura's intent is far more valuable to me than any wannabe replacement manga for Berserk (good luck with that, anyway). The worst possible outcome to me would be that they sacrifice the former for the latter, most likely accomplishing neither. Stick to the plan, Mori-sama! :miura:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
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Honestly, I'd rather this be as accurate as possible than as good as possible anyway, especially if and when those things are mutually exclusive in this format. Basically, this doesn't need to be a good manga! [...] Knowing the outline of the rest of the plot or the broad strokes of Miura's intent is far more valuable to me than any wannabe replacement manga for Berserk (good luck with that, anyway). The worst possible outcome to me would be that they sacrifice the former for the latter, most likely accomplishing neither.

Exactly. You put it much better than I did!

1) Guts and his friends werent supposed to get some upgrades in their weapons, or something?

Well it depends. I know that I expected Casca to get some equipment, and although she kind of did it's pretty clear that wasn't the plan. The other big thing is Guts' armor and how to mitigate the damage it's doing to his body, not to mention the fact he can't control himself when fighting. That hasn't happened yet. It still might, but it could also end up not being depicted in the continuation. Other than that, Farnese did get her own witch's garb, for what it's worth.

I dont think they just skipped this part, because this would have been a main event, so if Miura would write this, Mori also will, eventually.

Many things have been skipped so far and many more will be skipped in the future. It's inevitable as a result of Miura passing away.

Mori should remember, so he did not ''invent it'' of course, but the question is.. did he remember this well? of course memory is kind tricky, we have a lot of false memories, what he think have happened or listened to its not really precise.

Mori said that he wouldn't do the things he doesn't remember well. But you don't have to think that far. Even for the stuff Miura told him about, he did not give the full and final details because 1) that's more information that can be conveyed in a conversation 2) he hadn't come up with every detail yet. So it is inherently incomplete and different from what Miura would have done. Again, that just can't be helped. What we see is only an interpretation of a summary of what Miura thought about doing.
 
They've already been drawing "outside the lines" as it is, though. :shrug:
I know what you'll say: not enough. But I'd rather not see this project turn into more of a field for experiments than it already is.


And you're arguing to make it even harder! :mozgus:
More seriously, while I'm waiting until the chapter is over to really have that discussion, I think it comes down to very simple things. Guts can't hit Griffith, Casca gets abducted, a black ooze rises and the island crumbles, the elves disappear. That kind of stuff and not much more.
Where I and you and @Griffith disagree is that the format chosen can be a good conveyance of Miura's intent while being a bad manga. My position is that this is impossible because the method chosen, that of a narrative manga, condemned it to always be an adaptation of Miura's remembered ideas, ergo a form of fanfiction. If we had gotten the art book + notes that I think we'd all much prefer, then I'd agree entirely, but in this case the delivery is also part of the story told and if the delivery is poor, as it has been up to now, so is our understanding of the plot beats.

Going back to what we talked about re: Guts, having a manga but not trying to include the connective tissue where Miura would is also an adaptational choice. Guts saying nothing isn't negative space, it's, due to the format, an absence of thought that Miura would have included. Suppose Mori knows that Guts would've thought in the general sense about Casca, but not what, so he chooses to include nothing and the artists consequently draw nothing. That Guts would've thought of Casca is thus excluded. For a bigger example and one we can see the results of, let's go for the Elfheim cast. Jury's still out if they all unceremoniously vanish having done nothing in the continuation, but we can see very clearly from the episodes Miura did do that this is a robust set of characters he put a lot of thought into and from previous chapters that even incidental characters, like Nina and Joachim, have their own mini-stories with a beginning and end.

For example, to not include Volvaba or Morda at all because the sum of his discussions with Miura on them were only, let's say, 'the elves in general disappear at the end of the arc' is true to the extreme broad strokes of what he is told, but is not true to Miura's sort of storytelling or the seeds he planted. There is no payoff, emotional or otherwise. The choice not to embellish or include where we, let alone he, can infer Miura would have, becomes an adaptational choice that leaves us worse in trying to understand what he would have done, not better. Choosing to condense rather than expand is also an adaptational choice, and this is a work of adaptation. For a comparable example where the decision to excise instead of embellish has this effect, see the result of cutting the Young Griff story from the Song of Ice and Fire adaptation.

Well, I don't think they're going to change course in any case (so we're essentially wasting our time here :sweatdrop:), but I do still have a tiny little bit of hope that maybe they'll abbreviate things more once the Elf island chapter is over. I know, I know, it's wishful thinking... Still, as far as I'm concerned, the more concise they make it, the better.
I really hope you're right. Sadly, nothing we say will change anything, all we really can discuss what we get and what we could've gotten.
 

Aazealh

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Where I and you and @Griffith disagree is that the format chosen can be a good conveyance of Miura's intent while being a bad manga. My position is that this is impossible because the method chosen, that of a narrative manga, condemned it to always be an adaptation of Miura's remembered ideas, ergo a form of fanfiction.

What Griffith and I both mean is that conveying any morsel of Miura's intent will always be infinitely better than the alternative. We're not saying the continuation is good as it is (I take it you've read my posts on the matter?), just that what you propose would be even worse at providing us what we want out of this.

It comes down to the fact I'm fundamentally not interested in what someone other than Kentarou Miura thinks the characters would do or say. You can talk all you want about the failings of this continuation but it will not change the fact that having a lower ratio of Miura's plans compared to someone else's input is a bad idea to me, and something I personally do not want under any circumstance.

It's fine if you disagree, but I can tell you nothing will change my mind. I'm only following this to try and extract Miura's intent from whatever they produce, that's its sole value as far as I'm concerned.
 
What Griffith and I both mean is that conveying any morsel of Miura's intent will always be infinitely better than the alternative. We're not saying the continuation is good as it is (I take it you've read my posts on the matter?), just that what you propose would be even worse at providing us what we want out of this.
I've read your posts on the continuation and mostly agree on them, where the great gap is that you think there's potential that some version of this can convey Miura's original intent exactly as it really was whereas I think it can't. Only Miura is a testament to himself. This'll always be second-hand, an adaptation of the memory of another man's story. This manga is akin to the two of us watching say, Se7en, only for us to stop thirty minutes from the close and for me to tell you that at the end Kevin Spacey puts the head of Brad Pitt's wife in a box and he's upset about it. Yes, that's some snippet of what happens, but my summary captures none of the artistry and detail in it and misses the actual thematic climax of the story as regards the clash of values between Pitt's and Morgan Freeman's characters. You will not only not have seen the film or grasped Fincher's idea from my summary, you'd have a wrong idea of it that'd negatively colour your view of the movie as a whole because of the amount missing and the difference in tone.

I'll admit to some cynicism on this because I've never liked the idea of the continuation precisely because of this feigned continued authorship by Miura. Rather than have the current skeleton format serve to guide the fanbase on where he might have gone and what he might've had in mind, the half and half-authorship and poor craftsmanship has meant that, even just five episodes in, specific plotbeats, like the elimination of the Elfhelm cast or Casca's abduction, are inextricable between idea and execution. Because of the attempts to pretend this is still the same story, we will never know for sure if these were questionable ideas by Miura that were accurately conveyed, good ideas by Miura that were poorly conveyed or not his ideas at all and merely extrapolations made because Mori was told some things and not others and needed some bridge to get to the parts he was told. The continued numbering joined by the choice to try and keep to these ideas Miura told Mori means that the longer this goes on, the worse this phenomenon will get and we will never reach a point where we, as a community, can parse who is responsible for the faults and virtues of the material.

A separate work, using the notes as a baseline and trying to tell a narrative manga and conceding from the start that this is only based on Mori's recollection of what his best friend told him that Miura's assistants put to life, doesn't have this problem and has no potential to taint the original material. I viscerally dislike the attribution to Miura that this material is clothed in, that neither has nor could have any of his direct, personal involvement and the more distance the better.
 

Aazealh

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you think there's potential that some version of this can convey Miura's original intent exactly as it really was whereas I think it can't.

No, I definitely don't think so, like I reiterated just above. But I also don't think what you propose would be a better alternative. It's as simple as that.
 
I've read your posts on the continuation and mostly agree on them, where the great gap is that you think there's potential that some version of this can convey Miura's original intent exactly as it really was whereas I think it can't. Only Miura is a testament to himself. This'll always be second-hand, an adaptation of the memory of another man's story. This manga is akin to the two of us watching say, Se7en, only for us to stop thirty minutes from the close and for me to tell you that at the end Kevin Spacey puts the head of Brad Pitt's wife in a box and he's upset about it. Yes, that's some snippet of what happens, but my summary captures none of the artistry and detail in it and misses the actual thematic climax of the story as regards the clash of values between Pitt's and Morgan Freeman's characters. You will not only not have seen the film or grasped Fincher's idea from my summary, you'd have a wrong idea of it that'd negatively colour your view of the movie as a whole because of the amount missing and the difference in tone.

I think we're all agreed that this continuation is not a satisfactory way of continuing Miura's story. But following your comparison, I'd rather have someone describe the ending of Se7en than bring in Joss Whedon to fill in the gaps. Yes it would be "more complete," but it would be less of Fincher's vision.

It's like people saying the 2016 Berserk anime is "better than nothing." It's more than nothing, but I think most of us would prefer not getting any adaptation over getting a shit one.

This is always going to be a compromised telling of Miura's vision, but the solution isn't to stray further. Again, no one here cares what anyone else would do with the world and characters of Berserk. Without Miura, it's hollow. So just give us the most succinct summary of events you can, and leave Joss Whedon's Berserk on the shelf.
 
I think we're all agreed that this continuation is not a satisfactory way of continuing Miura's story. But following your comparison, I'd rather have someone describe the ending of Se7en than bring in Joss Whedon to fill in the gaps. Yes it would be "more complete," but it would be less of Fincher's vision.

It's like people saying the 2016 Berserk anime is "better than nothing." It's more than nothing, but I think most of us would prefer not getting any adaptation over getting a shit one.

This is always going to be a compromised telling of Miura's vision, but the solution isn't to stray further. Again, no one here cares what anyone else would do with the world and characters of Berserk. Without Miura, it's hollow. So just give us the most succinct summary of events you can, and leave Joss Whedon's Berserk on the shelf.
That's the thing though, what I'm telling you also wouldn't be Fincher's vision. It would be my brief recollection of what I remembered from the film, much like this manga. I am the author in that case, not Fincher, much like Mori and the assistants are the authors now, not Miura. The point about not caring what anyone else would do with the world and characters is moot, because that's all the continuation is, someone else reproducing elements of what Miura may have had in mind in some shape. It's just in denial about it and pretending to be part of the same thing when it isn't. By dropping the pretense and letting creators actually create while acknowledging the reality of what is being created, i.e fanfiction the work both has more potential to be good and is intellectually honest with itself and doesn't tarnish the original. If anyone would be suited for it, it'd be those currently doing it - Mori's a lot closer to Miura both as a person, which is key given how much of himself he put in his work, and as a professional, given he's a mangaka as well, ditto his assistants than anyone who worked on 2016.

Of course, admitting what it is to an audience and itself would make the whole project far less marketable. To note, the above wouldn't be my preference if we were starting from the word go. My ideal preference would be for the Continuation not to exist at all, followed by it being an art book and a set of notes from Mori's talks with Miura and finally what I outline above - the manga as a separate work by Mori and Co, continuing on from Berserk but not sharing serialization or the illusion that it's somehow a transmission of exclusively his ideas. The ship however has sailed definitively on the first two and mostly sailed on the third too, so at the end of the day this is just a thought exercise and we're going to continue to get what we're getting now, fanfiction in a trenchcoat where the line between Miura's genuine ideas, the team's own and the execution of either is as blurred as possible.
 
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Walter

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Staff member
Let me try to disentangle this thing, because I doubt everyone's going to read all of the above, no offense.

I don't think anyone would disagree that the current Berserk continuation is a half-measure between Miura's remaining ideas and a full-fledged manga. However, many of us think it would be preferable to peel back the episodic format into a more conservative usage of what Miura left behind. @JohnWayne is advocating a more liberal, full-fledged manga implementation, incorporating ideas beyond what Miura had left behind.

[Conservative] <-- Just the Essence------- Current Continuation------- Semi-authorized Fanfiction--> [Liberal]
There is no definitive "best answer" here, because it comes down to what each of us wants out of the continuation, and how much fat we're all willing to tolerate to see the story to its end. And it's not like we get to choose, anyway :sweatdrop:

On the middle ground, we already know what the cost has been. On the conservative side, we'd get precisely what Miura's ideas were with no sugarcoating. But we'd never have "episodes" again as we know it, visual depictions would be minimal, and it would be up to fans to imagine the beat-by-beat moments. And on the liberal side, we'd get what feels more like a story, but it's from a team without a ton of experience working on their own, and it would become more difficult to extract Miura's intent as they pile on unauthorized content.
 
So I've thought long about this, and I came to the realization that I'm fine with whatever they do, as long as we get a list of exactly what mori remembers
 

Walter

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So I've thought long about this, and I came to the realization that I'm fine with whatever they do, as long as we get a list of exactly what mori remembers
There's no guarantee Mori would ever publish such a thing, though. I feel like it would undercut the work that Studio Gaga is doing, making any divergence from a bullet-pointed list feel unofficial (which it is...), and I just don't get the impression that he would do that.

So we all have to deal with each new release, not knowing if we'll ever get clarity between original intent and execution.
 
At this point I'm just hoping the authenticity or lack thereof of what's to come doesn't consume all discussion of Berserk forever. Pining after what could have been is a sad and fruitless effort, and I just know the holes will only get bigger with each episode.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
At this point I'm just hoping the authenticity or lack thereof of what's to come doesn't consume all discussion of Berserk forever.

It will always be the main topic for this continuation, and that's inherent to its nature. But as far as actual Berserk discussion is concerned, it's only of passing interest. Once the continuation is over and we've extracted whatever worth we can out of it, I expect it won't be mentioned all that much anymore. Of course, few of the people who are currently active in these threads will still be around by the time that happens.
 
Here it probably won't be a big issue past its conclusion, but in the wider "anime space" people are prone to cling to those sorts of things forever. Guess I shouldn't be too concerned about them though.
 
It will always be the main topic for this continuation, and that's inherent to its nature. But as far as actual Berserk discussion is concerned, it's only of passing interest. Once the continuation is over and we've extracted whatever worth we can out of it, I expect it won't be mentioned all that much anymore. Of course, few of the people who are currently active in these threads will still be around by the time that happens.
Do you truely believe that the community will die out once the manga is over?
It's just sad
 
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