How did you get into Berserk?

FotiX

[b]Enjoyment and excitement![/b]
Hello everybody.

I got into Berserk 2 years ago when a friend gave me the anime. After finishing the anime, I was obsessed with Berserk and search in the net to find related stuff. Then I saw there was a manga too, and it was the progenitor of the anime. I downloaded the fansubs, cause in my country there is no other way to get the translated manga (I am in Greece). Berserk rules. :guts:
 

sarahofborg

goodbye assholes
OK here goes. When I was first getting into anime 3 years ago I didn't have much available and had to take what I could get. When Berserk came out on DVD it was commonly carried in local Blockbusters, amazingly. They still have it now. I simply rented it because I saw it on the shelf and it looked cool.
Problem was that by the end of the first disk I was hooked, and nobody carried all the volumes. I ended up driving to every blockbuster in a 50 mile radius to get every disk except the last one. As a result, it was about a month between disks.
However, NOBODY carried the last disk (gee I wonder why?) So I went on a quest to find it on sale somewhere. I failed to find anything at all on discount so I just gave up and bought it for $30. A week later I found it for $7 :puck:

After being sufficiently traumatized by the last episode (nobody warned me) I didn't want to go back to it, so I didn't start reading the manga for a few months later, and I just followed the DH releases. It was yet another year before I got to the scans. I read 21 volumes in 2 weeks, which is insane for me.
A week ago I started rereading most of it for the first time, and I finished the 15 volumes today. I only rewatched the anime exactly once when I showed it to a friend two years ago.

So, like, here's a timeline to sum it all up:

watched anime<---1 year-->started manga<---1 year--->read scans, rewatched anime<--1 year>reread manga (this week)
 
Back in late 2002, I was in Best Buy looking for some anime w/ my wife and she suggested we get it b/c of the box art. Best random purchase I've ever made. We pre-ordered and anxiously awaited every new DVD until the end of the series. Just like sarahofborg, once I saw the Eclipse, I was devastated. Then I did some research and found some scanlations, and imported some manga. Then I bought some a Berserk TCG starter pack and got this:

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An art card signed by Miura himself. (I just like showing it off!) I also bought a DC just for Sword of the Berserk and got the import PS2 Berserk game and a Guts statue from Art of War.
 

relmneiko

Scaffold of Rotting Wood
I had just been reading a streak of really disturbed yaoi and shoujo smut manga and I felt so unclean that I needed to get some good, clean violence. I was looking for nonstop gore and slaughter, here. I was waffling between a few manga titles that I had heard of - Blame!, Elfen Lied and Berserk - and I ended up chosing Berserk mostly by chance (NO! It was causality! Ahem...). I powered through the first six or so volumes, frantically emailed a friend and told her she had to read it because it was the awesomest thing since ever. I tried to get a second friend into it, but he was turned off by the first page. :p I TOLD him it started with a bang...

Anyway, I recently got ahold of the anime and was disappointed though understood why they cut so many things out. I guess I've gotten desensitized to all the sex and violence. XD

I was looking for gore and got something so much better. Rock on, Berserk.
 
I was at my friend maddie's house about last year, I think we were studying or something, and I was looking through her manga collection... Here's the dialogue:

Me - Hey maddie, what's this? (holds up Berserk),
Maddie - Oh that...that's Berserk...I dont think you should...Its kind of terrifying...No! Wait! What am I talking about?!?! You love violent and twisted stuff! You should so read this, Berserk is the perfect manga for you! (Hands me volumes 1-10) Just read this! It's awesome, you'll love it!
Me - Umm...okay...(flipping through it)...Holy Shit!!! This is AMAZING!!! The art is soooo good, and there's blood, and demonic things, and horses. I'm taking this home!

So I took it home and read it and now I love it. Maddie's tried to get me into manga for years, and Berserk is the only one I actually got into. It's so nice to have friends who appreciate violence as much as I do. :)
 

Okin

The Ultimate Battle Creature
I wanted to get into really dark manga for awhile. About a year ago I heard on some forum that Berserk was the most Brutal manga out there. A few weeks later I ended up finding a fansub for it. I powered through the first 15 volumes, and after that I scoured the internet for fansubs ahead of the darkhorse releases. I can easily say its one of my best choices to choose Berserk.
 
Saw an episode of the anime around 4 years ago, loved it but forgot about it, and then discovered there was a manga shortly after that was coming stateside. Did the scan thing till it happened and now its my favorite work of fiction. Nuff said.
 
well, for a while i followed shonen manga (FMA...) scanlations on the net...then AMV hell 3 came out and i remember berserk popping up a few times; after that i kept hearing people talk about berserk, and asked what it was, then i got treated with replies of "VIOLENCE, GORE, NUDITY, AWESOME STORY" and knew i had to see it.
got the anime for cheap on ebay and then proceeded to marathon the entire series in 1 day (i do this with all anime/mangas that capture me); after seeing the end, i got all of the volumes that dark horse released...but i needed MORE!!! after hearing on the intertubes that the manga was still running and being scanlated, i went on to download the living crap out of it, and spent another 24 hours doing nothing but reading berserk.
then i caught up and got told that the manga does have large gaps between episodes sometimes, then i was a sad panda...but i'll be damned if i quit now
 

Bowie-Spawan

The God Ass
I stumbled over a review of it back in 1999.
It just sounded as if it would be exactly the thing I'd love...it was and still is :guts:

Needless to say I was thrilled when they started releasing the Manga here in germany.
It's my favourite Manga and right now one of the two series I still buy (the other being Blade of the Immortal).
 
My boyfriend was reading something (and it took him awhile to read it) at the computer and he mentioned I might like it. I always thought he had great tastes, but when he said it was Berserk, all I could think about was how boring the first episode was and how I already knew how it "ended" (someone had told me awhile back so I felt like it had been ruined for me) Also, I had seen him play the Dreamcast game and remembered how boring that was too.

But he brought up jokingly things like how crazy it was that the main character's girlfriend was always in the position of getting raped (to which I thought "what kind of messed up story is that? And is she the same head-in-the-clouds woman that follows him around in the game? How'd she get like that anyway if she used to be some sort of tough fighter..."), how it was as graphic if not bloodier than Gantz (which I had made up my mind as being the goriest thing I'd ever seen, also awesomest), and I forget what else.

A few days later, I realized I was kind of bored, and asked him if he still had the story on his hard drive. Which he did.
 
My older sister was watching it 1st because she had bought it on Ebay just to see if it was any good then she told me to watch it but i thought i would suck......... couples hours later and i was in awe :isidro: because it was awesome i started to buy the mangas that is when i found out about them because before that i was depressed thinking does this anime really end like this :sad: i got hooked instantly later on i also found out about the statues...... well I think you all know how it goes from there :ganishka:
 

Dar_Klink

Last Guardian when? - CyberKlink 20XX before dying
It all began when my friend's older brother got the Berserk dvd set for his birthday. That was probably in 2003. I watched the first few episodes and loved it, but I never finished it. That was in 8th grade I think. In 10th grade I met some guy that influenced me for a few years since I thought he was so cool,and he happened to have the first 3 manga volumes of Berserk which I borrowed. A few weeks later I got a semi-decent computer (for the time) and ... downloaded the anime... which led to me ...reading scantalations by the Hawks... which just made my love for the story greater. From then until about a year ago I only semi-followed Berserk and looked out for anything from it I could buy whenever I could. Then a few months ago I made up for my ragtag rapscallion days of my youth and bought most of the Dark Horse releases of the manga and the remastered anime dvd set. Around the end of February this year, I found a link to the Griffith character analysis essay from somewhere Berserk related, and I've been hooked on this site ever since. :guts:

Hope you guys enjoyed my overly long tale of my journey through the Berserk world, and I'm sorry I don't make too many posts in the actual Berserk section, but I know my stupid uneducated opinions would be eaten up by Walter, Aazealh, and the other defenders of Berserk lore and spit right back into my face. Also, sorry to anyone that actually remembers my first post on this site, which was graciously deleted by the admins. I came from the troll's den of the internet, and somehow at the time the post made sense as a way to communicate to fellow fans. Thanks for all the good times here on SK, and lets all hope for more!
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Darklink286 said:
I'm sorry I don't make too many posts in the actual Berserk section, but I know my stupid uneducated opinions would be eaten up by Walter, Aazealh, and the other defenders of Berserk lore and spit right back into my face.

Nah, we can all be courteous to each other, even if sometimes people make mistakes and those mistakes are corrected. :serpico:
 
The first time I saw a form of Berserk, was in a video game magazine. I believe it was a issue of either Game Pro/EGM (I wouldn't see Berserk until many years later), but my friend had a dreamcast. I really liked the system so I bought one. I think the next year (2000 or so) I ran into "The Sword of the Berserk" I had a flash back to the cool looking preview in the video game mag. So I got it, loved the game. Dreamcast had a lot of off beat games, so that all I thought Berserk was just a one time thing.

Years later around 2003, I saw (at hastings) the box of war. I flashed back the DC game, remembered how cool the game was, so I got the Complete Collection a few months later when it come out. After the cliff hanger, I had to look into it some more. I find various internet sources leading me into the Manga. I joined a few Berserk forums and some how ended up here.
 
How did I get into Berserk? Thereby hangs a tale filled with love, hate, passion, greed, tragedy and mutated killer-hamsters.

I got into manga in 2002. I didn’t know of many series so I tried to get some recommendations from the “experts”. I believe Berserk was mentioned early on, but it’s difficult getting hold of manga in Norway so I couldn’t immediately rush the stores and have a look for myself (didn’t help that the books were shrinkwrapped either).

My first meeting with Berserk wasn’t really that memorable. I glimpsed through volume 1, but it didn’t give me the revelation I had hoped for. Back then I guess I always expected to be enthralled by any kind of series from the first page, no matter what kind of comic. People still continued to praise it so I knew there had to be more to it than what I had seen.

Early in 2005 I decided to purchase the first three volumes to see if I got a better impression if I actually sat down and read the damn thing (this had never occurred to me!). This time I got hooked. Have been keeping track ever since then.
 
I’m a newbie when it comes to manga and anime. About 2-3 months ago I decided to buy some anime-series just to try it out and see how I like it. Berserk caught my attention so that’s the anime I bought. Turns out that I began to completely adore the anime and when I heard about the manga I started reading it as well. I have now read all of the existing volumes and chapters, and I’m certainly looking forward to the upcoming one. There are barely any words that can describe how much I love Berserk. I wrote a review of the anime in my Swedish movie-blog, don’t have the energy to translate it though… :p
 
One day, many years ago, I rented Sword of the Berserk on a whim. Though the gameplay wasn't very impressive to me, I could tell there was something in the characters and world, some real depth behind a rather shallow game. I've always been a huge fan of dark fantasy, but unfortunately I know in this genre that you have to sift through a lot of shit before you find any gems. I was very skeptical when I first rented the anime, and only got a few episodes in before I gave up on it. For some reason it didn't appeal to me very much the first time. But I had already been exposed, and the thought of Berserk never really left my mind. Later, I decided to give it another chance, and realized how foolish I was to quit on it before. After I watched through the anime, I was left in shock. It's one of the few times where I just sat in my chair for quite a while, motionless, completely shaken by the insane ending I had just witnessed. I had to know more, so I looked into the manga, and the rest is history.
 
Well, I firstly rented the Dreamcast game from Blockbuster, since the (European) cover art had this really dark feel to it and I liked the sound of the game from the back of the box. Played it and at the time thought it was like some Metal Gear Solid + Resident Evil + Golden Axe hybrid (it reminded of those three games when I playing through it) all put together. I loved the story and didn't have the internet at the time, so I couldn't look it up, to find if it was based upon something... but it stayed in my mind for a long time. I then, a couple of years later, came across the anime series, and by that time I'd completely forgotten about the DC game. I watched the anime series and loved it. Wanted to see where the story went next, looked it up on the net and then it hit me, that awesome game for the DC that I played a couple of years back was like a continuation of a manga series and the manga series has been going for some considerable time by the time I discovered it.

At first I was cautious not to get into the series since it's so long, but I gave the first three volumes a shot and here I am, obsessed as much as the rest of you are (I quickly acquired the DC and PS2 game when I was at around volume 14 of the Dark Horse volumes). It was my first manga series and still my favourite after all this time.
 
I started off with the Dreamcast game as well, but I actually had (and still do) a very early (and MUCH more ugly pixel nasty) demo version of it which I acquired from Japan. The demo had the battle stages where you had to see how many kills/points you could get in the time limit and consisted of 3 levels if I remember correctly. At the time I was like "damnit, they never release anything stateside, this will probably never come out here."

Sometime later it came out in the US, and I rented the game. My first impressions were about how moody and great the soundtrack was, it still stuck in my head long after I hit the power button on my Dreamcast. I beat the game about 3 days after I rented it, and was left feeling a little let down by the length of it. I very much enjoyed the battle with Zodd, (he's one tough bastard) and found the Skull Knight intriguing but really didn't know anything about the anime or manga at the time so I also assumed it was a one-off thing. I read all the info in the extras menu, but it just confused me since I didn't know who Femto was or anything else for that matter. Anyway, I enjoyed the game but found it flawed in some aspects, though I still bought it. :guts:

Years passed, and I became a miserable robot working at a Blockbuster Video store. "Would you like to get a candy and drink with your movie for $2.00 more?" I was REQUIRED to ask. "Do you need help finding anything even though it's apparent you are just looking at what's new and don't want someone harassing you?" then came the angry looks. Anyway, I was looking for something new and saw the Berserk anime, this was when it was still being released in the US and only Vol. 1-4 of the 6 were out. I used my free rentals to pick them up, even though my boss stressed I should be using my free rentals to see the new releases so I could give good descriptions of the complete shit people came in to rent.

"So what just came out today?"
"Well theres the Pianist-"
"Did you just say the PENIS??"
"NOO...this is Blocbuster we censor stuff sorry if you're looking for that please go to one of those more shady video rental stores."

After that, I quit Blockbuster, I became obsessed with Berserk, bought the anime, got into the manga, imported some Japanese volumes since Dark Horse had not done any releases yet, imported the Berserk PS2 demo, and now I have the Dark Horse as well.
 

ZeroEO

Barguts
jp said:
Dreamcast game...
ive been hooked ever since. :)

Same. I remember going into a Microplay with a friend and he rented it. We couldn't beat Zodd. Then a few years later I got my own Dreamcast and wanted to play it again, so I used hotbot to search for Berserk Guts Rage and found out about the Anime and then the Manga. And now I all the current books and anime and games. =)
 

Aphasia

ALL MYSTERIES MUST BE SOLVED
I was surfing the DVD section of an anime website several years ago, and I said "Hey, berserk...blood, this looks cool." So I ordered the whole boxset. I watched the whole series with a friend over the weekend and I decided I had to read the manga. :D I believe it's one of the most in depth, beautiful, and tragic stories I've ever come across. I'll surely be a fan until they print the last page, har-har. :troll:
 
I was looking for a good action manga and picked up volume 17 after seeing the executions at the end I thought cool! So one February 1st I was at Borders and I picked up volume one asked myself why I didn't try this earlier. Once I read volume 2 I was hooked.
 

Gobolatula

praise be to grail!
Back in 2002, I asked my internet friend what anime he was into. He replied, "Excel Saga and Berserk." So, I waddled over to Kazaa and downloaded the first 3 Berserk anime episodes. Forget about Excel for the time being, though it's hilarious.

I sat through the first anime episode and thought, "What the hell is this bullshit? Why should I care about this muscley dude with a big sword? I get it. He fights demons." Then, all the sudden, the famous INSTANT flash to the past at the end of episode 1. All the sudden, I see a younger version of the same dude, looking more badass, about to fight some ridiculous looking knight (Bazuso). I'm intrigued.

Episode two was quite a thrill compared to episode 1. I actually got it. I love the whole "lone warrior" thing Guts had going on. After he bashed Bazuso's brains out, got the reward money, and took off, he was accosted by this mysterious "Band of the Hawk." (I'll use Hawk here, because that's what I saw at the time).

Skip to episode 3, and we have a goddamn hell of a fight between Guts and this beautiful man, Griffith. They are evenly matched for the most part, until Griffith dislocates Guts' shoulder. Wow.

FUCK THIS. 3 EPISODES AIN'T ENOUGH. WHERE'S THE DVDs?

So, at the time, I believe only Volume 1 was out. 5 episodes still wasn't enough. Like the law abiding citizen I was, I Kazaa'd the remaining episodes.
I marathon'd that shit. The characters. The battles. Friendship. Sheer animalism. Love. I was surprised at every plot twist.

And then, it happened: The eclipse. I screamed, I cried, and most of all, I was confused. It was too much to handle. All those characters I was attached to just... went away. In the most twisted fashion possible. And watching Femto rape Casca right before Guts. At one point I think i was actually punching something, trying not to scream.

And that was the end? Obviously not. I remembered that the first episode was sort of an epilogue.

Using my internet detective skillz, I saw that the manga was still ongoing, but it was only available in Japan. Nuts. I read synopses all over, but it just wan't the same.

Scanlations did not quite do the trick for me. Most of the earlier volumes were JPEG artifact ridden and the translations looked as if they were written by a 13 year old. UGH. It wasn't until 2004 when I lucked out in college. One of my hallmates in my dorm was a RABID Berserk fan. He even had his own egg of the king. That's how I KNEW he was trustworthy. I told him that the only exposure to the series was the anime, he let out a hearty guffaw and probably should have slapped me. He said, "Come back to my room in 10 minutes." I did. He handed me CD-R after CD-R of half-decent manga scanlations.

Like a fucking moron, I skipped right to the part after the eclipse. I read up to the point where Casca gave birth to the demon baby, then I stopped.

Fortunately, I came to my senses a few months later and started buying the Dark Horse releases. The art quality at first seemed a bit too oldschool for me (hey, I'm just being honest), but the story was captivating. I got to see more Black Swordsman badassitude.

Around that time, I believe only 3 Dark Horse volumes were released. Then, outta nowhere, I was YouTubing Berserk shit and came across the PS2 footage. I ran down the hall and grabbed my nerdy friend and he went apeshit. "OH MY GOD IT'S GRUNBELD HOLY SHIT THE BERSERK ARMOR WHAT THE FUCK!!!" I had no clue what he was talking about, but I wanted to find out.


Skip a few years later, and I was caught up with Berserk, through scans and translations, while buying every DH release that came out, as well as the recent Japanese volumes.

Now I have a Guts tattoo, a few action figures, a subscription to YA, just about all the JP and DH volumes, and am a very happy man.

And I'm especially happy to be part of a community that's just as bonkers about this Japanese comic as I am.

CHEERS
 
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