Encounter with Japanese Tourist

First of all, no, it wasn't Kentarou Miura  ;D  I'm in Kenya, Africa, visiting my sister and taking a safari.  After my flight out of here this morning got cancelled, the airline hooked us up with cab fare to return to our hotels.  The guy that shared the cab with me was from Japan, and like me, had taken a safari.

After conversation got slim, I asked him "I don't guess there's any chance you read manga still, right?"

"Oh yes. I read many."
"Really? Do you know of Berserk?"
"Ohh hahaha yes yes. Guts!"
"Wow, you know of it."
"Oh yes. Very popular you know."
"Really? I didn't know.  I run a website on it in America. Have you been keeping up with it recently?"
"No. Not since ahhhh... 200 or so."
"Well, you missed some good stuff.  Serpico is dueling with Guts now."
"Hahaha again? hahaha" ;)

He also had followed Vagabond until arond tankoubon 19, so I brought him up to date on that, too.  I was just really pleasantly suprised that a chance encounter with a stranger could involve Berserk.

Africa, huh?  You are too lucky!

Anyway, how old was this guy in the cab?  Just curious.

He was a 30-something, single, engineer. He gave me his business card too. I intend to email him later on. I'll post other stuff if it gets interesting.

That's cool. Random encouters like that are always great.

how random and cool :)

i hope the safari was as good as meeting another berserk fan.

I like the feeling or the rarity of encounters like that. 8)

Just like when rarely encounter someone else who likes one of your fav bands that no one listens to much, or someone who went to the same college you did, etc.

awesome story...

I was up in Santa Barbara wearing a custom BERSERK t-shirt I had my mother-in-law make for me about two years ago and a guy and his girlfriend approach me and ask me where I got the shirt...

It had a pic of the Black Swordsman on the back and the front had the kanji for Berserk on it.

I smiled and said it was custom made and he asked if he could buy it off of my back. seriously...

i told him I didn't want to part w/ it as it was a gift and he asked me if I knew a place in SB where he could get some comics or manga. we instantly started talking Berserk and anime and other pop culture stuff...
he too was on vacation and his girlfriend was much more interested in Berserk than my wife (my wife has seen the anime but not read the manga).

it's funny how life leads us on similar paths...

Nice encounter indeed Walter, I wish I could meet some Japanese fans of Berserk myself.

Reminds me that today I went to install the Windows Japanese IME on some user's computer at work. The woman is Japanese and asked the I&T support guys to do it but they had no idea how to (::)). So they asked me as a co-worker and I took care of it in like 30 seconds. After rebooting the computer I proceeded to show her that it worked, opened Word and spontaneously typed in "ベルセルク". 8)

conan said:

It had a pic of the Black Swordsman on the back and the front had the kanji for Berserk on it.

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Hehe, that's a cool anecdote conan, however Berserk is written in Katakana, not Kanji. Just nitpicking. ;D

That's a nice story, sadly I haven't met a real Japanese Berserk fan myself yet or even someone who has seen or read it. Although plenty of them can be found on Japanese forums on the net of course. :)

Aazealh said:

Hehe, that's a cool anecdote conan, however Berserk is written in Katakana, not Kanji. Just nitpicking. ;D

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What about 狂戦士?

Sorry, just counter-nitpicking.

Mizar said:

What about 狂戦士?

Sorry, just counter-nitpicking.

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You know what? When I saw you posting, I was sure that you'd be saying that.

The point would be valid if conan wasn't referring to the manga Berserk in itself but to the mere concept of a berserk warrior ("kyôsenshi"). But as you can see, he capitalized the word, and thus definitely meant Berserk as Kentarou Miura's work of art. 8)

Well, technically it shouldn't really matter whether you write it in katakana or kanji, but I agree that writing the title of Berserk in kanji does seem a bit weird.

Anyway, just joking around a little, you can take the winning point of this argument home if you want. ;)

i don't know what either of you are talking about...
but the front of the shirt had "Berserk" in Japanese on it...

how's that...

conan said:

i don't know what either of you are talking about...
but the front of the shirt had "Berserk" in Japanese on it...

how's that...

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Don't pay attention to the pick nitters. 8)