What impact did Berserk have on your life?

Now, this is a personal question but one I'm interested in seeing answers for. Please go ahead and talk about the impact this series has had on your life.

Personally, the impact that Berserk has had on me is probably negligible (especially compared to others). I first got into Berserk when I was around 12. It helped me through some tough times and even motivated me to try hard at school work. Seeing Guts struggle through nearly impossible odds acted as a deterrent to my own procrastination. It indicated to me that nearly any challenge can be overcome through sheer willpower. I am forever grateful to Miura for creating this masterpiece and especially as a loner in my younger years, this series really helped me overcome barriers and forget about any troubles.

Now, it has been a while since I first experienced Berserk and I enjoy it more with each subsequent read-through. It seems more and more relevant than it ever did. I remember always believing that the conviction arc was the weakest area of the manga, but it is now my favourite; especially when looking back at my catholic education. That one Guts quote about those praying being too weak to fend for themselves will stick with me til the end of time, especially as someone surrounded by religion at school. That Mozgus fight on-top of the wall is also my favourite battle in the whole series, besides the funnily out of place GODS BREATH that still makes me laugh.
 
Now, this is a personal question but one I'm interested in seeing answers for. Please go ahead and talk about the impact this series has had on your life.

Personally, the impact that Berserk has had on me is probably negligible (especially compared to others). I first got into Berserk when I was around 12. It helped me through some tough times and even motivated me to try hard at school work. Seeing Guts struggle through nearly impossible odds acted as a deterrent to my own procrastination. It indicated to me that nearly any challenge can be overcome through sheer willpower. I am forever grateful to Miura for creating this masterpiece and especially as a loner in my younger years, this series really helped me overcome barriers and forget about any troubles.

Now, it has been a while since I first experienced Berserk and I enjoy it more with each subsequent read-through. It seems more and more relevant than it ever did. I remember always believing that the conviction arc was the weakest area of the manga, but it is now my favourite; especially when looking back at my catholic education. That one Guts quote about those praying being too weak to fend for themselves will stick with me til the end of time, especially as someone surrounded by religion at school. That Mozgus fight on-top of the wall is also my favourite battle in the whole series, besides the funnily out of place GODS BREATH that still makes me laugh.
As a teenager there was a comic book store that had a decent selection of anime and the 1997 DVD cover caught my eye. I guess the artwork as well as the word ``Berserk`` drew my attention. "Violence and a dude swinging a massive sword? Count me in!" I loved the main character, the music, everything about it in general; of course like many fans, the ending of the first season blew my mind. All I can say is the series had a dramatic impact on my life that has just stayed with me. The series was not only entertaining and emotional, I think that one of the main themes in the series that has applied to my own life is that even when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, Guts still finds the strength to keep moving forward and doesn't give up. So even though it is a work of fiction, that, "never give up" and struggle against the odds attitude has stuck with me. For that, i`ll always be grateful to Miura San for his creation.
 
I hope I don't sound overly personal or weird here, but berserk did help me out quite a bit, and to this day it is genuinely a therapeutic/stress relieving activity to read it.

When I was a teenager I went through a lot of abuse at home, and I took this out on the people around me (girlfriend, friends, people in general) which came in the form of acting really edgy, mean, vindictive, and condescending.

Anyway, I slowly got into some anime and manga because it was really popular at the time, and one of my friends recommended berserk to me, strangely enough, I felt like I saw a lot of parallels to my own life in it, especially with guts. Despite the story being great and all of that stuff, for me on the first read it really spoke to me on a personal level. I guess I saw a bit of me in guts. Anyway, by the end of the golden age I kinda had an epiphany that I should really appreciate the things I have while I can, and that I should be better to people in general because everyone is complex in their own way. On top of this, it also served as a really effective diversion tool. I become obsessed and fascinated with things really easily, most likely because of my ADHD, and berserk was a perfect segue into reading more manga/anime and story based stuff that I could learn from, as compared to seeking out conflict and argument with people I did not like.


Essentially, I took many of the themes as valuable life lessons, and using that frame of reference actively tried to become a better person.
 
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I hope I don't sound overly personal or weird here, but berserk did help me out quite a bit, and to this day it is genuinely a therapeutic/stress relieving activity to read it.
I like that it's personal. That is the purpose of the thread, so don't worry about that. I definitely can relate to quite a few things you said. Berserk was also a personal outlay for me, especially when I was angry. Seeing how terrible its world was and the hardships faced by each character provided me with a sense of relief.

And like you, it was the manga that got me into reading other stuff. Without Berserk, I would never of read anything by Jiro Taniguchi. If you've never heard of him, I recommend "A Distant Neighbourhood", which is an absolutely amazing story. His artwork is absolutely stunning.
 
And like you, it was the manga that got me into reading other stuff. Without Berserk, I would never of read anything by Jiro Taniguchi. If you've never heard of him, I recommend "A Distant Neighbourhood", which is an absolutely amazing story. His artwork is absolutely stunning.
I haven't read anything by him, I'll check it out. Thanks.
 
Berserk was the first manga I read and got me interested in exploring other series. Now I’m studying to read Japanese in my spare time.
 
My childhood was very turbulent and rough, and my school years were even worse due to my antisocial tendencies and autism. It all left me pretty apathetic and disconnected from the people around me, and I ended up blocking out all sorts of help and just kept denying how awful I really felt after all the years of mental torment.

Eventually it would always come to a tipping point where I had a total mental breakdown; it was a self-destructive cycle, and I had no will or care to escape it. I realized how much of my past still haunted me, and that realization just made me more anxious. But after stuff like Berserk, I learned that the past shouldn't define who you are. Every time you stumble, you get back on your feet. A small setback is nothing compared to the long journey you took to get where you are now.


And now i replay every fromsoft game as a Guts build atleast once...
 
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I can't say that Berserk had much impact on my personal life, but it had an immeasurable impact on me as an artist. I've mentioned before that I'm an aspiring writer, so Berserk is one of my greatest influences. Kentaro Miura is one of my all-time heroes and my personal favorite author. Even to this day, I become teary eyed when I recall his untimely passing. I can count on one hand the number of people who I never knew who left such an impact on me.

But yes, Berserk is a huge influence for me as an author, despite me working with another medium (novels). If I had to name watershed moments in my development, then there is a BB (Before Berserk) and AB (After Berserk) period. It is both a source of inspiration and frustration for me; inspiration because of its greatness and frustration because I know I'll never live up to such greatness with my own work. I know it's pretentious to even say something like that, but it can't be helped sometimes. I mean, that's the point of role-models, right? You want to aspire to be like them, even if they're unreachable.

Anyway, being a contemporary of Miura, and part of his first audience, has been one of the privileges of my life. Maybe, given all what I've said so far, Berserk did impact me on the personal level after all.

My childhood was very turbulent and rough, and my school years were even worse due to my antisocial tendencies and autism. It all left me pretty apathetic and disconnected from the people around me, and I ended up blocking out all sorts of help and just kept denying how awful I really felt after all the years of mental torment.

Eventually it would always come to a tipping point where I had a total mental breakdown; it was a self-destructive cycle, and I had no will or care to escape it. I realized how much of my past still haunted me, and that realization just made me more anxious. But after stuff like Berserk, I learned that the past shouldn't define who you are. Every time you stumble, you get back on your feet. A small setback is nothing compared to the long journey you took to get where you are now.


And now i replay every fromsoft game as a Guts build atleast once...

Despite differing circumstances, I can relate. Always keep struggling, buddy. You're not alone out there.
 
Berserk was the first manga I read and got me interested in exploring other series. Now I’m studying to read Japanese in my spare time.
yoooo same
before I watched the anime of Berserk I didn't read any manga, I don't like reading comics in the first place but that anime got me to read the manga and I ended up loving the manga even more than the anime, but the anime is still cool as hell too
 

Parkus

Keep pushing no matter what
There's always been one main thing that's always stuck with me from reading berserk, even if things seem hopeless, keep struggling no matter what, even if it ends in defeat.
 
It didn't have a personal impact per se, but heavily impacted my tastes in visual storytelling and sequential art in general. Reading Berserk made me curious if there was anything else as good, as Miura found a beautiful synergy where the whole was far better than the sum of its parts. As far as manga goes, Vagabond is the only thing I have read that hit that high mark, and in western comics (at least from what I have read so far, pretty new to that scene) there is only Cerebus. Everything I else have read just doesn't have that same magic, even if it is really enjoyable to read. So I guess Berserk made me a comic snob? hahaha
 
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