What does Berserk really mean to you?

This is the best Berserk website on the nets and screw you if you disagree. I've been an official member since 2010 and a lurker for far longer, and this site has time and time again opened my eyes to the nuances of Berserk that I overlooked. My appreciation and enjoyment of Berserk is exponentially larger due to this community. Having said that, I think it's time for us to address the elephant in the room.

There has been a flurry of new activity on these boards since the anime debuted. Most of the posts consist of people dog piling on the anime and one upping each other on new ways to say it's the worst thing ever. Yes, the anime sucks, we all know it, and it's extremely fucking obvious to anyone with eyeballs. Let me just point something out to everyone losing their grip because the anime is so bad - there are going to be A LOT of people completely new to Berserk that end up landing on this page. Make them feel welcome! Show them the light! Don't make the reaction to the anime so toxic that people will be afraid to confess that they may have actually enjoyed it. These folks dont' even understand how they have been shortchanged and it's up to us to explain the real Berserk to them.

Forgive me if I leave someone out but I have watched Aazealh, Walter, Griffith, and others be fantastic ambassadors for the series. These folks have meticulously explained, theorized, and shot down nonsense over the years. One of my favorite things about this website is the quintessential Aazealh reaction posts where he deftly eviscerates arguments point by point leaving nothing but the facts in his wake (hopefully there's isn't one of those following this post). That's a guy who loves Berserk and this community - as opposed to the guy who shows up just to shit all over the anime.

If all you have to contribute is vitriol then maybe examine your motivations and place in the Berserk fandom world. Skullknight.net is extremely passive about the Patreon page, so much so that despite being a member for years, I only discovered it early this year. If you havent spent time on these boards in the down times between episodes or have not positively contributed to this community then I encourage you to make a pledge to the Patreon page as a show of solidarity (maybe consider a couple bucks even if you are a contributor :ubik:).

Just today I was browsing reddit on a default account and Berserk was on the front page. It was a post about the monsters of Berserk and there was a huge amount of curiosity about the series as a whole and especially the new anime. New fans are on the way and we should be able to welcome them into the fold. If this is your home for Berserk or one of your daily visited sites then consider doing something other than complaining to keep this community alive and kicking.

We have a dozen more episodes coming our way and if this is our reaction to every episode then it is going to get old really, EXTREMELY, fast. The horse has already been beaten into subatomic particles. Just ask yourself how you can help other people appreciate Berserk the way our admins and others have over the years.

I understand that there are a lot of raw emotions surrounding this new project but I'm just asking for us all to take a deep breath and look at the big picture. We need to be the place where folks get pointed in the right direction, not ridiculed into exile. We are at an extremely exciting part of the series. A portion of the story is now unfolding that some of us have been waiting for over a decade to see revealed. I don't need a Berserk anime and the real deal is now more exciting than ever. Don't sour this exciting time by pushing potential Berserk fans away before they have a chance to learn the true depth and sincerity of the series.

I'm getting off my soapbox now. I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds. I'm only asking that we, as a community, don't overlook the one truly great aspect of this animation, the inititiaion of new Berserk fans.
 
I understand what you're trying to say, though I don't think we have ridiculed any new members for liking the anime, just the anime itself. We have made efforts to point out positive things(scarce as they are) about the new series. I suppose we do need to focus on clearing any and all inconsistencies that the anime brings in the episode threads.

As for the new fans, I think everybody can agree that we need to direct them to the manga more than anything else.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
That was a nice post, buttonmasher. I understand where you're coming from and I agree that criticism needs to remain constructive in the long run. However we also need as a community to be able to express our disappointment and our dismay in the face of what they're doing. In fact most of the recent new members joined for that reason, as far as I can tell.

So people need to blow off some steam (and they may not necessarily be able to in other venues, as some have testified), but beyond that we're also just expressing what we honestly think of that series. I think of myself as a pretty unbiased person, and when I say that each episode of the manga is great, it's because I really do believe so. If I found them lacking in quality, I would say that instead, and maybe even stop reading the series. It's the same for everything, including this TV series. If it becomes better in the future, I'll say so. If it doesn't, I'll say so as well. You've lauded the quality of our discussions on SK.net and I thank you for that, and I think you'll agree with me that refraining from criticizing elements we feel are bad would be detrimental not just to our integrity but also to the level of critical thinking we promote.

I also agree with hearTes that our main effort for people who will be introduced to Berserk through this TV series should probably be to get them to read the manga.
 

residentgrigo

Excitement and Enjoyment!
I agree with you buttonmasher. If you like it, you like it, if you don´t , you don´t :azan: . But stand by your opinions!
I for exampled loved a certain DC film, despite having a flawed theatrical cut, and signed up to batman-news.com in March, to explain what in saw in the film, after years of lurking. I got a TON of shit, and even 1 death threat, until 2 weeks ago, for calling Zack Snyder a world class director, and then the better received UC came out and suddenly the herd mentality kicked in and everyone now "trusts" him with Justice League, despite calling for his head (or mine) for 3 months straight. It´s still technically the same film, just with more polish. I am now bathed in up-votes nearly every time i open my mouth over there but these are now meaningless to me.
I will take future episodes as they come, while expecting nothing, and will address the overall quality in my current Imdb review at the very end of the run. Yet my negative opinion comes from pure deductive logic and not anger.
I watched the animes seasons as they came for a decade now, have watched anime since the early 90s, and have a deep historic knowledge of the industry itself, with a backlog dating to the 60s. Berserk 2016 ultimately fails me more as a piece of high profile animation, that as an adaptation, and i am more confused by the show if anything.

And what does Berserk mean to me? It´s my favorite long form comic, or my favorite fictitious anything, and has been since 2006. I am quick to praise and advertise it, if i feel that i have the right audience in front of me. I may hold on to that opinion till the day i die.
 
I agree with some of what you've said. I too wish that Puella would get more support from the community via the patreon. And that people should be more active in the community, especially when Berserk is on hiatus. (Although to be fair I've seen non-anime threads become active. People aren't sticking solely to the anime thread.)

As for the meat of your post, I don't necessarily know if people reacting negatively to the anime would drive newcomers away from the manga. The opposite was true for me. I bought the DVDs for the 97 anime from a local video store. The cashier was a Berserk fan. He bluntly told me the ending of the anime was complete shit and that I should read the manga because it is infinitely better. Not only did his opinion not ruin my enjoyment of the anime it sparked my interest in the manga. Maybe I'm an outlier though.

I personally think you should be relatively polite/kind to others. I also believe you should say what you believe on a discussion forum. If your belief is proven to be objectively wrong you should change your belief to fit the facts. If someone says your belief is stupid but doesn't explain then don't take it personally and move on. If someone believes something you don't believe then say you disagree and explain why. To me that's just basic human interaction. Good clean fun.

Admittedly though I've felt like a man outside his time for the past few weeks. Like internet culture has changed dramatically and I didn't get the memo. So I sincerely don't know if my beliefs are good or if I'm a monster in the eyes of the current culture.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
residentgrigo said:
I agree with you buttonmasher. If you like it, you like it, if you don´t , you don´t :azan: . But stand by your opinions!

That's not at all what buttonmasher's post is saying...

residentgrigo said:
I for exampled loved a certain DC film, despite having a flawed theatrical cut, and signed up to batman-news.com in March, to explain what in saw in the film, after years of lurking. I got a TON of shit, and even 1 death threat, until 2 weeks ago, for calling Zack Snyder a world class director, and then the better received UC came out and suddenly the herd mentality kicked in and everyone now "trusts" him with Justice League, despite calling for his head (or mine) for 3 months straight. It´s still technically the same film, just with more polish. I am now bathed in up-votes nearly every time i open my mouth over there but these are now meaningless to me.
I will take future episodes as they come, while expecting nothing, and will address the overall quality in my current Imdb review at the very end of the run. Yet my negative opinion comes from pure deductive logic and not anger.
I watched the animes seasons as they came for a decade now, have watched anime since the early 90s, and have a deep historic knowledge of the industry itself, with a backlog dating to the 60s.

Look Grigorio I don't mean to be rude, but this is irrelevant to the subject at hand. No one cares about your thoughts on Zack Snyder and you don't need to remind us with every post that you're a professional anime watcher. The goal of the thread is to ask people to not be senselessly vitriolic over and over again, which is kinda what you've been doing so far actually.
 
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