Why do people say it went downhill after the Golden Age Arc?

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Hensmon, you're just saying all the same stuff in a slightly different way. The fact remains that the people who have expressed their opinions here don't agree.

Hensmon said:
One example I can think of is in one of the early episodes when Puck is being introduced. Puck makes a direct referance to himself, explaining his reasoning for being there; a comic tool to break up the dark stuff. Miura felt the need to explain himself, clearly taking up suggestions to make the story open to people who dont want darkness 100% of the time.
I've heard this view of what Puck says before. People seem to think he's doing an outside quip to the reader referencing the actual story he is in, Berserk, but in my opinion he's not. In volume 1 when he's talking with Guts and Guts asks him what he's still doing hanging around Puck says "It's interesting! All this monster stuff. It's the kind of thing you only hear about in myths or epic poems, but you're it! The real deal!" So when Puck mentions "the story" I think he is referring to how he thinks of Guts' adventures as an unfolding myth or poem that he is now part of, not making direct reference to himself as a character in Berserk. Puck thinks Guts' life is too dark and in need of cheer and that is definitely the truth at that stage. I don't think Miura felt the need to explain himself. :schierke:
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
JMP said:
Hensmon, you're just saying all the same stuff in a slightly different way. The fact remains that the people who have expressed their opinions here don't agree.
I've heard this view of what Puck says before. People seem to think he's doing an outside quip to the reader referencing the actual story he is in, Berserk, but in my opinion he's not. In volume 1 when he's talking with Guts and Guts asks him what he's still doing hanging around Puck says "It's interesting! All this monster stuff. It's the kind of thing you only hear about in myths or epic poems, but you're it! The real deal!" So when Puck mentions "the story" I think he is referring to how he thinks of Guts' adventures as an unfolding myth or poem that he is now part of, not making direct reference to himself as a character in Berserk. Puck thinks Guts' life is too dark and in need of cheer and that is definitely the truth at that stage. I don't think Miura felt the need to explain himself. :schierke:

Hah that reminds me the part where Gaston is all messed up in the eclipse and says to Guts that it's like being in a story and that he guess he is just a secondary character. But I have to agree with you here that it's how I've interpreted that scene!
 
jackson_hurley said:
Indeed, I am still waiting to see the obvious example that you are talking about since the beginning of your arguments.

Fair enough, it's just hard for me to remember off the top of my head, I am on holliday and dont have my books at hand!

I would say though that it's not really isolated incidences that got to me, more the general tone set throughout some parts. Since getting on that boat I would say contains the worst of it. Ghost pirates.... need I say more? The whole way these characters were handled had me shaking my wooden leg, Me'heartys!! Awful dialogue at parts, which added nothing to the story. Never at one point did I feel like they posed a threat or had anything of value to add. Also this theme has been done before in pop-culture.

Another example...I enjoy the magic element in the series - the relationship between Guts and Shrieke becuase of it, as well as adding to Farny development - but having it explained so much, over and over, got too much for me. So many painfully obvious things explained repeatedly, there was lots that I would have liked left for me to piece together myself. No spelling things out for me!

And as far as people having similar views to me, all I can say is have a look out there. It's not hard to find, reviews, forums, etc.
 

Walter

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Hensmon said:
I would say though that it's not really isolated incidences that got to me, more the general tone set throughout some parts. Since getting on that boat I would say contains the worst of it.

The boat stuff has been almost 100% character development. Even that single sortie out at sea was development for Roderick and his abilities. ... I thought that's the stuff you were looking for?

Ghost pirates.... need I say more?

At face value, I agree that it wasn't the most exciting development (they also weren't at the center of that story arc...). However, I think by the time they died, and we learn they were aggregate personalities created by the Sea God, it made their involvement a whole lot more interesting to me. As always, Miura manages to give things his special touch, even when it's not necessary.

The whole way these characters were handled had me shaking my wooden leg, Me'heartys!! Awful dialogue at parts, which added nothing to the story. Never at one point did I feel like they posed a threat or had anything of value to add.

Oh... So you're basing these bad dialogue impressions on scanlations, then? Evil_Genius went overboard with the pirate lingo. But that's not how those characters actually spoke in Japanese... Maybe you should check out our translations.

Also this theme has been done before in pop-culture.

Right. Sea voyages are off limits! Johnny Depp sunk the entire genre! You got that, Japan?! This is ridiculous. What other genres are off limits because pop culture has already soiled it?

Another example...I enjoy the magic element in the series - the relationship between Guts and Schierke becuase of it, as well as adding to Farny development - but having it explained so much, over and over, got too much for me. So many painfully obvious things explained repeatedly, there was lots that I would have liked left for me to piece together myself. No spelling things out for me!

I guess you haven't been paying much attention, then. Miura's constantly been expanding the kind of astral entities we see and how they're used in combat.

And as far as people having similar views to me, all I can say is have a look out there. It's not hard to find, reviews, forums, etc.

Oh, I've been out there. I'm actually the moderator for r/Berserk, so I see new impressions of the series every single day (9,600 members). But usually the kind of things you're complaining about come from people who read the series in a 3-day span, and didn't read the series very closely. So yeah, your opinion does kind of stick out a bit.
 
Even if there are characters and sections that I may not be entirely stoked about, I know all those chapters, and sections are well paced, drawn, and written. Making them more than worthy to move the story further. If someone would say that the Sea God and some others section are weak, or anything else for that matter, it still only represents a very small section of the overall story. Even in these so-called weak sections there is no lose in quality. Hell, if you never heard of Berserk, and just took the Sea God section out and some what made it into its own "short fantasy story" it would be a great stand alone story! I even think people would want to see more adventures of the short stories cast. Reality is... we have a entire series of that cast!
 
jackson_hurley said:
Hah that reminds me the part where Gaston is all messed up in the eclipse and says to Guts that it's like being in a story and that he guess he is just a secondary character.
Aw, yeah....poor Gaston. :judo:

Walter said:
Oh, I've been out there.
:ganishka:

Edit: I wanted to say that I didn't mean to imply that I think Puck's character is played out by any means in what I said earlier. I agree that he will almost definitely come back into the spotlight in Elfhelm and I think he'll end up playing a pivotal role. I'm looking forward to that because I really like Puck and I'm curious to see how things will go. :puck: I just meant that for right now, some newer characters have taken a more pronounced place in the narrative and I think that's understandable.
 
I think most of the people who say that have an incorrect view of what Berserk is, because they come off of the anime they think Berserk was strictly historical until the last two episodes where the writers gave up and started making stuff up about God Hands and demons (people actually believe this). They don't realize the Golden Age Arc is a flashback to provide context for Berserk's Fantasy/horror setting and the motivations for Guts' quest of vengeance. Without the first 3 volumes it can seem like the fantasy elements like the God Hand, Apostles and Elves come out of nowhere rather than being foreshadowed.
 

Aazealh

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Wenliinvictus said:
I think most of the people who say that have an incorrect view of what Berserk is, because they come off of the anime they think Berserk was strictly historical until the last two episodes where the writers gave up and started making stuff up about God Hands and demons (people actually believe this). They don't realize the Golden Age Arc is a flashback to provide context for Berserk's Fantasy/horror setting and the motivations for Guts' quest of vengeance. Without the first 3 volumes it can seem like the fantasy elements like the God Hand, Apostles and Elves come out of nowhere rather than being foreshadowed.

I don't disagree with you, but it's worth pointing out that the TV series opens up with the Black Swordsman fighting the Snake Baron. And then episode 5 features Zodd. Between that, the beherit and Guts' giant sword, it's still hardly a "historical" story.
 
Wenliinvictus said:
I think most of the people who say that have an incorrect view of what Berserk is, because they come off of the anime they think Berserk was strictly historical until the last two episodes where the writers gave up and started making stuff up about God Hands and demons (people actually believe this). They don't realize the Golden Age Arc is a flashback to provide context for Berserk's Fantasy/horror setting and the motivations for Guts' quest of vengeance. Without the first 3 volumes it can seem like the fantasy elements like the God Hand, Apostles and Elves come out of nowhere rather than being foreshadowed.

Plus there's the fact that it's also pretty heavily foreshadowed in the show, even without all the extra supernatural stuff the manga had. I think that the eclipse was so extreme that people chose to ignore the foreshadowing instead of accept that Griffith would get everyone killed.
 

Walter

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metime00 said:
Plus there's the fact that it's also pretty heavily foreshadowed in the show, even without all the extra supernatural stuff the manga had. I think that the eclipse was so extreme that people chose to ignore the foreshadowing instead of accept that Griffith would get everyone killed.

If you just watch anime, all you know about future events is that Guts isn't a big fan of Griffith. The Falcons could still be alive in that future, based merely on that vague foreshadowing. But from the events of Volume 3, you know explicitly the definition of a sacrifice. That knowledge fundamentally changes how manga readers perceive events during the Golden Age. As a result, the anime is a much more simple story, that I don't think does justice to what Miura created. There's no creeping dread during scenes like the Bonfire of Dreams, for example, during the anime. It's just a nice scene about how this group of friends is so devoted to Griffith :griffnotevil: (and of course that scene doesn't even exist in the movies...)
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
Walter said:
If you just watch anime, all you know about future events is that Guts isn't a big fan of Griffith. The Falcons could still be alive in that future, based merely on that vague foreshadowing. But from the events of Volume 3, you know explicitly the definition of a sacrifice. That knowledge fundamentally changes how manga readers perceive events during the Golden Age. As a result, the anime is a much more simple story, that I don't think does justice to what Miura created. There's no creeping dread during scenes like the Bonfire of Dreams, for example, during the anime. It's just a nice scene about how this group of friends is so devoted to Griffith :griffnotevil: (and of course that scene doesn't even exist in the movies...)

I like how the anime and manga are so different, it's double the enjoyment for me. I don't see the simplicity of the anime as being a bad thing in the same way as i feel the complexity of the manga fits the medium better.
It's naive to say that the anime doesn't transmit dread just because you don't see what Griffith will become (you can even argue that it's non-existant in the manga for the same reason). What it adds to that is a feeling of hopefulness related to the Band that is all the more destroyed when the eclipse happens. In the manga the eclipse needs to be that long and that extreme, just prolonged, excruciating suffering. It's a way of Miura saying, you knew that it was coming, but not like this. But in the anime it's all about the disbelief and the shock, 40min and it's over, have fun thinking about it for the next couple of days.

The anime is never going to be popular among devoted purists, but they both have a place in the world of Berserk. Maybe if the anime was closer to the source material it wouldn't leave as much of an impact to make most of us go out and get the manga. I believe that in 25eps they did a pretty good job.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
NightCrawler said:
The anime is never going to be popular among devoted purists, but they both have a place in the world of Berserk. Maybe if the anime was closer to the source material it wouldn't leave as much of an impact to make most of us go out and get the manga. I believe that in 25eps they did a pretty good job.

I don't think anyone's saying the TV series has no place in the Berserk world. It did help popularize the manga back then (much more so than the movies did), and it did manage to do quite a bit with what I presume was a very low budget. You mentioned Silat being cut earlier, and well, one of the thoughts I've had over the years is that they might have skipped him simply because they couldn't afford to properly animate him. Unfortunately, another side effect of those budget constraints is that it isn't aging very well.

That being said, I think you should also admit that if the TV series existed in a vacuum, that shocker of an ending would likely be universally reviled. It did a great job of making people want to know more because there was a better, richer story it could refer people to. Without that it would have been pointless. I also think it's disingenuous for anyone to portray the anime's omissions and faults, which were due to various constraints (budget, time, level of violence suitable for TV...), as deliberate artistic choices intended to improve on the original. That's not how things went down and anyone thinking otherwise is deluded.

Now of course that doesn't mean the old series is without charm, or that we can't be nostalgic about it. Again, it is far from being without merit. It certainly did a much better job of telling a story than those wretched movies, and with so much less.
 

Oburi

All praise Grail
The anime is also missing one of my favorite scenes between Guts and Griffith in the entire Arc, when Guts dresses Griffith in his armor for the first time since the war. It's an incredibly touching moment that happens between all the action with Wyald.

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NightCrawler said:
I like how the anime and manga are so different, it's double the enjoyment for me. I don't see the simplicity of the anime as being a bad thing in the same way as i feel the complexity of the manga fits the medium better.
It's naive to say that the anime doesn't transmit dread just because you don't see what Griffith will become (you can even argue that it's non-existant in the manga for the same reason). What it adds to that is a feeling of hopefulness related to the Band that is all the more destroyed when the eclipse happens. In the manga the eclipse needs to be that long and that extreme, just prolonged, excruciating suffering. It's a way of Miura saying, you knew that it was coming, but not like this. But in the anime it's all about the disbelief and the shock, 40min and it's over, have fun thinking about it for the next couple of days.

The anime is never going to be popular among devoted purists, but they both have a place in the world of Berserk. Maybe if the anime was closer to the source material it wouldn't leave as much of an impact to make most of us go out and get the manga. I believe that in 25eps they did a pretty good job.

I like the anime too, and I can't speak for its ability to draw in manga fans because I picked up the manga first. there is definitely a lot of effort put in to be loyal to the source matireal, and it's great to see iconic scenes animated, and accompanied by Hirasawas music. However when people say things like "I think the writers just gave up and went full evangelion in the last two episodes" I can see why they came to that conclusion.
 
Dunno, they probably like normal life like manga, less fantasy, more insight to relationships between characters. It was very good in Golden Age Arc, but Miura improved his art style and Fantasia is peak of that, he never dissapointed me in drawing aspects of relationships and depth of particular characters, especially with Farnese and Serpico and of the top of that - Guts, I like Guts more and more after Conviction Arc. In Falcon of the Millennium Empire he is just slowly becoming a good guy, because he wasn't one in Black Swordsman Arc and Conviction Arc, he was just ... an asshole. Talking about Fantasia we must to admit that it's just masterpiece in it's fantasy aspect - story of Berserk was moving to that point, personally I loved Lovecraft idea of Ancient Gods, whom once were worshipped, and they were wipe out by spreading of monotheistic like religion in the world of Berserk. After World Transformation ( which is great idea btw ) these ancient Gods, creatures, known before only from myths, dreams and human imagination, they've just became a reality. For me Falcon of the Millenium Empire Arc is just the best, but only Fantasia can surpass it, because it's fantasy to it's very core and it is taking from the best of this genre.
 
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