I gave it a listen and I think it was nice! Great initiative!
I took some notes to share, so here they are below.
About the low female members count: aside from what's already been said, Berserk is about a guy with a big sword fighting monsters. So I don't find it too surprising that it tends to naturally attract more males than females. Although I like to think of Berserk as being above labels, the word "seinen" itself implies that its target demographic is men. Anyway, it's true that forums are antiquated now. Tumblr is a social network, so even aside from its popularity as the platform-of-the-moment, it's normal that it appeals more to young people. And it's centered on the self too. You're just tagging your thoughts on a "personal" microblog as opposed to submitting a contribution to a public community. Different mental process. That being said, using a forum allows us to be a bastion of wisdom and sanity. Lastly, the fact we're adamant about supporting the author also sets us apart.
It was interesting to hear that the first three volumes are your favorite, Grail. I was glad to learn that, seeing that so many people underestimate them. They're really quite underrated as far as I'm concerned.
Skipping around a bit: about Colette's death, let's not forget the monk who died with her. I think their deaths and how they occurred were really more about the place of innocents in that dark world and how they're not equipped to cope with it. Plus the strong symbolism of that sweet girl's corpse being possessed. Regarding the Slug Count and his wife, I think it's worth noting that he didn't kill her. Couldn't. So he tried to kill himself, but couldn't quite do that either. His despair, at that moment, activated the beherit and the rest was history. I don't think it's fair to him to say he just had the God Hand kill her, because it's more subtle than that. As for the orgy(ies), I'd say that it's a pretty sure thing that Slan's influence was involved. On the possibility of Theresia coming back: it would be funny (and I would greatly enjoy it), but it wouldn't really accomplish anything. Theresia, no matter how hard she could have trained, could never pose a serious threat to Guts. I think that last scene with her is there to show us how easy it is for humans to get embroiled into a quest of revenge, like Guts.
Guts' mom is named "シス" (SHI SU). It can't be pronounced as a Z. And there's a great deal of possible spellings: Sis, Shis, Sith, Sisu, Cis, etc. Anyway, the time skip is what I think robs her of background/development. She goes straight from mentally unsound to dying from a plague, so for example we never get to know if she got better in-between those events or not. But her death allows for Guts to have the traumatic, unloving childhood he needed for the sake of the story.
Concerning the scene where Casca stands above and apart from the rest of the Band of the Falcon, I had originally brought it up as a parallel between her behavior and Guts'. I think she's content to observe from afar in that instance, and I think that informs us about her personality. Beyond that, I believe she did celebrate with the others at times, although like it was said, her position would certainly set her apart from the lower ranks, which is natural.
Casca's character being in "stasis" is understanbly a big deal. I think that it has possibly been going on for longer than Miura might have wanted it to originally, but like with any story, at some point the author follows where it goes, you know? Getting her cured had to be something beyond just going to a herbalist. And more importantly, it's also used to advance Guts' character development beyond anything else ever done. Even though it might seem like Casca's been set aside, the truth is that Berserk is about Guts first and foremost, and her sidelining allowed for a lot of interesting things to happen to him. First off he made new friends, something that likely wouldn't have happened had he stayed with her. Second he embarked on a quest of protection that took him geographically AND mentally away from Griffith and from his revenge. And by the same token that allowed for the world to change while Guts was away. And lastly, well, he's really had a lot of internal development concerning Casca (and some not related to her but made possible by her absence), and now that she's finally about to get healed, the payoff for that long wait is just gonna be enormous. It can't be anything but enormous. Also the fact she's like that is painful reinforces the rest. The difficult parts are as important and as necessary as the vindicative ones. It's really a pretty unique situation in any story I believe, but isn't that what's great about Berserk? =)
Miura does not have a female assistant, no.
About the occurrences of sexual violence in the manga, I find it difficult to address that without addressing plain violence too. Berserk is a pretty violent story, and it takes place in a very violent world. We see a ton of people die, many of them in horrible ways. Given the world depicted, an absence of sexual violence would stand out as being odd. It's quite unfortunate but historically, in our world sexual violence was really quite commonplace in the past. Not that it's become rare nowadays, mind you... Anyway, I personally think it's important to portray it so that readers are shown how unglamorous it is, how sordid. And I think we can agree that Miura never depicts such things gratuitously. It always serves a purpose in the story. Lastly, I think it's important to remember that it's not just girls getting assaulted either: the first rape victim in Berserk is Guts as a boy.
On the topic of "male power fantasies". Well, about Guts, he does get fucked up a lot. And I don't think, if you take volume 1 as an example, that a man who gets captured, tortured, badly beaten up by his enemies, is shown to have nightmares, and who's generally haunted by his past is a very good example of a "power fantasy". Going a bit wider, we see him cry, we see him troubled by his choices, we see him refuse to take action (letting Vargas die) because of the risks involved... There are many other things to say, but in short, while Guts is utterly badass, I don't think he fits the mold of a "power fantasy". That's something I associate more with, say, Superman.
Regarding the community: unfortunately, many "fans" don't seem to get what Berserk is. In fact I always marvel at the fact they keep reading it, considering that most of the time these people don't seem to like the series. They complain about it, and if you get down to details, you can tell they'd have complained about pretty much any portion of it had they been reading it episodically when it came out. These people only like the blatantly incorrect and weirdly distorted view they have of Berserk. That explains why we sometimes get people who are so terribly confused about the series. Anyway, yes, the guy you girls mentioned was banned. And I remove the term "loli" when I see it in posts. I've only seen it a few times here, but I find it rather offensive considering its connotation.
Also, I think you girls don't do us justice at the end of your talk, in the sense that I believe we stand up for women. See my posts in that thread where Gummyskull argued with the guy. Generally speaking, I honestly don't think we can do much more than what we're doing now. I know I'm at the front lines when it comes to standing up for the female characters in Berserk (just as I am for the other characters).
