Speculation about Movie IV

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Walter

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Tripas said:
Yeah, and that's the problem. That is not the appropriate format for a story like this. It'd be amazing if they did an anime. A good anime, Ufotable/Bones style, like Gurifisu said. Unfortunately, we will surely get more movies/OVAs with the only purpose of giving amounts of fanservice instead of telling a good story. However, I still don't lose the hope. When the manga is finished (in 30 years or so), maybe we could see a good Berserk adaptation.

Wait... What's wrong with OVAs? I think they'd be ideal for Berserk.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Walter said:
Wait... What's wrong with OVAs? I think they'd be ideal for Berserk.

Agreed. The censorship one would encounter with a TV series wouldn't do Berserk justice.
 
Aazealh said:
I might have missed something since I'm not following movie news too closely, but I don't think anything's been announced in regard to future movies. In fact the next step in the "Berserk Film Project" might not even be a movie (could be OVAs for example).
Ah, you are correct. I remembered the article I read about future plans wrong.

I'd love to see a series of OVAs instead of movies or a TV series. A TV series has been made already, and while in comparison to the movies was a decent adaptation, it suffered from censorship. OVAs tend to be more accurate to the source material so if done right it would be ideal for Berserk. If done wrong it could end up like the Gyo OVA, which completely butchered the original story.
 

Walter

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It's been over a year since the release of Movie 3. If there were news about the next leg of the project, whether it'll be movie or OVA, or even what section of the series it'll cover, I'd guess we'll hear about it this year. That studio has to stay employed somehow. Or, maybe the whole thing is dead in the water and no official announcement will be made.
 
Walter said:
Wait... What's wrong with OVAs? I think they'd be ideal for Berserk.

Well, an OVA is essentially a movie (or more likely a very well animated long anime episode). Yes, censorship wouldn't be a problem, but it wasn't for the movies either. If Studio 4ºC is going to continue with their adaptation philosophy, I don't see the point in a series of OVAs. But of course, if well done, OVAs would be the perfect format for Berserk. However, it'd be really cool to see a good arc per season anime in the future.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
The way I see it, to get the best animation ever of Berserk would be to learn the dialogues by hearth, then flip the pages of each volume really fast. That way you'll get the same quality of the manga with everything being 100% accurate. :slan:
 
TheWillOfT said:
I would really like to hear the opinion of Miura about the Movies.

There was at least one comment by Miura which said he liked seeing the big armies animated on screen, or something to that effect. I don't think he's the kind of person that would bash the movies publicly, even if he hated the guts out of them.

Although you could make the argument that, if THAT'S the best thing he has to say about them... :magni:
 
Walter said:
Wait... What's wrong with OVAs? I think they'd be ideal for Berserk.

The time constraints placed on an OVA makes it hard to really capture everything about the story. Berserk has such a large and complex story that would make it difficult for the animation house producing the OVA to meet those time constraints. I have to agree with Tripas, if anything it needs a new series. But the likelihood of that is slim to none.
 

Walter

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Vodnak said:
Berserk has such a large and complex story that would make it difficult for the animation house producing the OVA to meet those time constraints. I have to agree with Tripas, if anything it needs a new series. But the likelihood of that is slim to none.

It was my understanding that OVAs generally had higher budgets than TV series, and weren't as beholden to time constraints because they weren't on a proper release schedule. Each release paid for the next.

The fundamental problem is that the movies didn't give the characters or story room to breathe. But a well structured OVA or even a TV series would (and arguably has).
 
I have entertained this somewhat naive belief/hope that the movie people rushed the hell out of the golden age arc of the berserk story because it has already been done and they are assuming that most people have seen or at least heard of the 97 anime series, and that since the arcs of Berserk are not as well known they would take their time and develop them properly.
 

Walter

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Heavenly Maiden said:
I have entertained this somewhat naive belief/hope that the movie people rushed the hell out of the golden age arc of the berserk story because it has already been done and they are assuming that most people have seen or at least heard of the 97 anime series, and that since the arcs of Berserk are not as well known they would take their time and develop them properly.

I think they did rush it. But they still invested a lot of (wasted) effort in the production of it. So I don't think this was their B-team or anything.
 

Aazealh

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Heavenly Maiden said:
I have entertained this somewhat naive belief/hope that the movie people rushed the hell out of the golden age arc of the berserk story because it has already been done and they are assuming that most people have seen or at least heard of the 97 anime series, and that since the arcs of Berserk are not as well known they would take their time and develop them properly.

On the contrary, they said they made this for a new generation that had not seen the TV series, and that animating the rest of the series depended on the success of the Golden Age arc adaptation.
 
Walter said:
The fundamental problem is that the movies didn't give the characters or story room to breathe. But a well structured OVA or even a TV series would (and arguably has).

I'm assuming when you say one arguably has you're referring to the 97' Anime TV Series. If so, here are my .02$.

I think the Anime was really not that bad. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but what is? The only real complaint I have is the omission of The Black Swordsman story Arc, and the omission of Vol. 11's fight between Guts and Wyald. Those are pretty big complaints also.

But when I saw the Anime for the first time, I had not yet read the manga, so because of that I am able to look past that to an extent. Like I mentioned before about OVA's, time constraints and a non-dragonball z budget make it difficult to do everything right, (OVA's have a little more freedom, but are still restricted to an extent by time frame and money) so there is some forgiveness and license granted, as I don't think the company that produced Berserk had access to assets that more recognized and acclaimed Anime TV Series have had.
 

Aazealh

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Vodnak said:
I think the Anime was really not that bad. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but what is? The only real complaint I have is the omission of The Black Swordsman story Arc, and the omission of Vol. 11's fight between Guts and Wyald. Those are pretty big complaints also.

Omitting the fight against Silat, the meeting with the Skull Knight and the encounter with the Bakiraka in the sewers are also pretty bad points in my book, especially considering that in parallel they added worthless material featuring Adon that made him into a more important character than he was ever supposed to be.

Vodnak said:
Like I mentioned before about OVA's, time constraints and a non-dragonball z budget make it difficult to do everything right, (OVA's have a little more freedom, but are still restricted to an extent by time frame and money) so there is some forgiveness and license granted, as I don't think the company that produced Berserk had access to assets that more recognized and acclaimed Anime TV Series have had.

They were on a budget, that's for sure. However I think a series of high-budget OVAs would by far be the best possible choice for a Berserk adaptation. It's the time format most suited to the story and the one that has the least amount of censorship.
 

Mammon

Mangoku army
Aazealh said:
Omitting the fight against Silat, the meeting with the Skull Knight and the encounter with the Bakiraka in the sewers are also pretty bad points in my book, especially considering that in parallel they added worthless material featuring Adon that made him into a more important character than he was ever supposed to be.

(first forgive my English, frenchie here)

At the risk of being slaughtered by most members, I... I kinda liked the Adon fillers :farnese:
Obviously, I'm pissed that it was at the detriment of Silat, Wyald, , Sk and the Bakiraka, and would have much rather have had these moments instead, I still thought they were pretty funny.
Especially Adon's speeches.
Or maybe it's just the subtitles that I got that made Adon fun, but.... I always kinda liked his character. Even if his 2 "battles" with the Hawks were small conflicts that actually made Griffith look bad, without Guts warning everyone they would have all been blown-up in that munition storage, what the hell was that? And that random small bridge suddenly becomes a very important strategic place for the war...

But I tend to like underdog/non-main-character in general (In "Kingdom", my favorite character is Mangoku, in "Blade of the Immortal", it's Shira, in "Cowboy Bebop" it was Vicious, in "Hellsing" it was Schrodinger, etc, you get my point... since I was a kid watching DBZ, my fav character was Pui-Pui for Christ sake :judo: ), so...

Anyway, I didn't start watching the 97 anime before buying volume 27 I believe, for a long time I never bothered with it because I'm not a huge anime enthusiast (except for a few very rare exceptions, I prefer to read my manga) and because of the bad reviews it got.

When I finally got it, I was disappointed by many things, but after watching the new trilogy, I realize that maybe I've been a bit too harsh with the original anime... except for Silat (even though he sounded like a psycho, his fights with Casca and Guts were fun to watch) and Skully making an appearance, the new movies were vastly inferior to the 1997 anime.

Studio 4 °C really screwed up, and I wouldn't shed many tears if they never release anything Berserk-related in the future...
But if I had to choose one moment, it would be the volumes 1-3, with the Snake Baron and the Slug Count. OVA form would be perfect, à la Hellsing Ultimate.
At least in the 97 anime, we had a glimpse of that in the first episode...
(that led some of my "anime only" buddies to believe that Griffith was the Snake Baron, with that "Things sure became gloomy since Griffith became king" bartender :ganishka: and Guts killing him, finally getting his revenge... before the story begins!)

Anyway, sorry for the rant.
 

Aazealh

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Mammon said:
At the risk of being slaughtered by most members, I... I kinda liked the Adon fillers :farnese:
Obviously, I'm pissed that it was at the detriment of Silat, Wyald, , Sk and the Bakiraka, and would have much rather have had these moments instead, I still thought they were pretty funny.
Especially Adon's speeches.
Or maybe it's just the subtitles that I got that made Adon fun, but.... I always kinda liked his character. Even if his 2 "battles" with the Hawks were small conflicts that actually made Griffith look bad, without Guts warning everyone they would have all been blown-up in that munition storage, what the hell was that? And that random small bridge suddenly becomes a very important strategic place for the war...

Those additions were completely worthless on every level. They made his character more of a buffoon than he is supposed to be (and that's saying something), and also reduced the scope of the world by having him become a recurring character when in fact he only faced against the Band of the Falcon twice, with the second time (in Doldrey) being completely secondary to the main threat. Not to mention that, as you said, these repeated encounters made the Band of the Falcon look less competent as well.
 

Mammon

Mangoku army
Ha, I know, I don't intend to rationally defend these fillers episodes. One of them is just a "guilty pleasure" of mine. :slan:
(just the "Bridge" one; Adon and his speeches, and his interactions with his soldiers make me smile for some reason, but once again perhaps the French subtitles were not very faithful and he doesn't say the same stuff in Japanese...)

But yep, all in all it was unnecessary filler, I believe we can all agree about that.
 
Without having researched the reason for Adon's expansion in the TV series, and comparing his role in Berserk '97 to other similar 'buffoon' type characters in other anime and manga, it feels like the animation studio wanted to have a conventional second rate minion for the heroes to beat up on in order to stretch out the story and meet some kind of internal narrative milestones they were aiming for.

I liked the Japanese voices for a lot of the characters in the '97 anime.

As for the actual topic of the thread, the pipe dream would be an open ended TV series that accurately depicted events from the manga. Since that is very unlikely to happen, I'd be down with OVA format as long as it allowed for enough decompression to depict events with the necessary emotion to invest the audience in the developments and twists. I wouldn't want a rushed production that just rattled off the storyline by the numbers to get it done. Berserk is more than just a plot synopsis waiting to be animated.
 
Why they didn't just do OVA's like the recent Hellsing series is completely baffling to me. Hellsing showed that fans will still come out to buy single DVDs/Blu-Rays of a good adaptation despite episodes being released sometimes years apart.

It also shows that the producers were completely incompetent and didn't understand the material before it even got to the hands of the rest of the staff. If a new animated project is announced with the same studio involved I can only hope that they have spent some time completely re-thinking their idea of what a decently animated version of Berserk would look like.
 

Walter

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No official news from Studio4C since the theatrical release of the third movie in Feb 2013. So yeah, probably. Thank god.
 
I have a feeling Manga 1 - 3 will be left out and will go right to manga 14.

Drakull said:
Is the OVA project dead ?
it's been over 2 years if we don't hear anything when volume 38 comes out it would best to guess that it was.
 
Deci said:
Found this, a piece of fanart of what could be, you could say.

NdKaVb9.jpg
I like this cover more than most of the animation from the new movie's
 
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