Dark Horse Releases

Oburi · October 26, 2009

If anyone is still looking for volume 15 try this site: https://www.animeniacs.com/catalog/category/books-domesticmanga/index.html

Not only is it cheap but I'm sure many people will tell you how reliable they are. Though I never purchased books but I did see that they had Berserk on the front of the domestic manga section. Definitely worth a try if you're missing some books.

Tirade · October 26, 2009

Oburi said:
If anyone is still looking for volume 15 try this site: https://www.animeniacs.com/catalog/category/books-domesticmanga/index.html

Not only is it cheap but I'm sure many people will tell you how reliable they are. Though I never purchased books but I did see that they had Berserk on the front of the domestic manga section. Definitely worth a try if you're missing some books.

Interesting....I wonder if that Volume is actually in stock. Also, are those prices for new books/manga?

Death May Die · October 27, 2009

I'm just wondering because I really don't know what to think about it, but does Berserk (as a whole) sell better in Japan or North America?

Aazealh · October 27, 2009

Death May Die said:
I'm just wondering because I really don't know what to think about it, but does Berserk (as a whole) sell better in Japan or North America?

It sells better in Japan. It's got quite the headstart, though.

JezzaX · October 27, 2009

Aazealh said:
It sells better in Japan. It's got quite the headstart, though.

I am curious as to where we may be able to see the figure breakdown per volume in each country. I think it would make for some interesting statistics.

Aazealh · October 27, 2009

JezzaX said:
I am curious as to where we may be able to see the figure breakdown per volume in each country. I think it would make for some interesting statistics.

I don't think the sales volume is known for every country where it is published, unfortunately. I can just tell you that on their website, Dark Horse says they've sold "over half a million copies of Berserk" and that in Japan they've sold over 24 million copies.

You'll find a weekly sales ranking for individual volumes in Japan here, but no numbers. For what it's worth, Berserk volumes are consistently #1 the week they come out.

Rhombaad · October 27, 2009

It's good to know it's still selling so well in Japan after all these years. :guts:

Walter · October 27, 2009

Rhombaad said:
It's good to know it's still selling so well in Japan after all these years.

If anything, I'd say it's likely its popularity has snowballed over time.

Henry Spencer · October 29, 2009

Volume 15 update, I received a reply to my enquiry whether it will be reprinted:

Hi

Thanks for the email!

You should actually be able to pick up a copy of the reprint on
shelves now. It should have hit shelves about week or so ago.

We appreciate your interest in Dark Horse Comics.

Best,
Spencer
Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

What the hell? A simple Google search should suffice, and yet they obviously didn't check to see that it isn't available anywhere. I did mention it was very hard for people to get ahold of. Oh well guys, I tried. Sorry.

Tirade · October 29, 2009

Henry Spencer said:
Volume 15 update, I received a reply to my enquiry whether it will be reprinted:

What the hell? A simple Google search should suffice, and yet they obviously didn't check to see that it isn't available anywhere. I did mention it was very hard for people to get ahold of. Oh well guys, I tried. Sorry.

If you look now on Amazon, actually, Volume 15 is in stock again. When I looked a week or so ago, that wasn't the case. So I think DH must have heard all the cries about Volume 15.

Henry Spencer · October 29, 2009

Everybody must have bombarded them with e-mails. Glad to hear the fans got through to them eventually. No fan should have to do without their dose of Berserk.

Tirade · October 29, 2009

Henry Spencer said:
Everybody must have bombarded them with e-mails. Glad to hear the fans got through to them eventually. No fan should have to do without their dose of Berserk.

Yeah, I'm glad DH got the message. Of course that still bums me out since I paid a few bucks more to find a Volume 15 copy a few months ago. Oh well. Such is life.

JezzaX · October 29, 2009

Awesome! Glad to hear it :guts:

Johnstantine · October 29, 2009

Went ahead and ordered a copy from tfaw!

Spoofer · November 11, 2009

Heyo Berserk experts. =x With the Dark Horse releases catching up to the Japanese ones, and with rightstuf.com having a 40% off Dark Horse sale, I was thinking about finally picking up the US books, but have a bunch of questions to barrage you with first. =p (after spending the past 2 days catching up on this thread, heh)

1) I don't imagine the horrific *FX text boxes were ever "fixed" in future reprintings of 12-14? >_<

2) From what I gather in this thread, the page alignment/cropping as well as the print quality are pretty hit and miss throughout the entire series? I bought the first volume way back in the day, and was immediately turned off by how dark and horrible the print was, as well as counting over 10 instances of words flying off the edges of the pages. I tracked down a 2nd Printing from the library and it fixed the Koka/Koda castle thing and the spelling error on page 10 (but still had a bunch of other spelling errors carried over from the First Printing), and the page spilling/cropping issues weren't AS bad (but still noticeable)... This release is basically what stopped me from buying US Berserk all these years.

I doubt any of you own multiple printings of the same volume, but could you at least tell me if the printing/alignment has improved as the series progressed? Are there still ridiculous amounts of spelling mistakes in the first printings? Do you think future printings of 30 will go back to the regular style of paper?

3) "Knight of Skeleton"? Seriously? >_<

4) Dark Horse keeps interchanging Fate/Karma/Causality, right? Do you think they ever would have gone to previous volumes and tried to keep the translations more consistant with newer printings? That's probably pretty unlikely, I imagine... I doubt they'll go and change all the mentions of the Band of the "Hawk" to "Falcon" in the earlier volumes...

5) Speaking of translations... this really has nothing to do with the Dark Horse releases: was there ever anything from the episodes or merchandising of the anime version of Berserk that made "Band of the Hawk" an official, legitimate translation? I'm so used to "Band of the Hawk" that "Band of the Falcon" is going to take some getting used to.

Also, I could've sworn I saw "Evarella" listed in Miura's official character intros in later volumes? That was probably just my imagine though, right, and I'm getting confused by scanlations? What is it you guys prefer, "Ivarela"? And why is beherit "beherit" instead of "behe_L_it"? =x (lol, had to get around the autocorrect for beheL to Beherit, hence the underscores)

I remember SK.net had a topic about all the translation issues / possible translations for names back in the day, and I tried searching for it, but since I'm 4 or so volumes behind on the manga I didn't want to run into any spoilers. =x If it still exists, could someone link me to it? ^_^;;

6) Lastly, the color foldout pages... they aren't limited to First Printings only, are they? A lot of other Manga I own has operated that way, I hope that's not the case with Dark Horse's Berserk.

7) Thanks, and sorry for all the Q's. ^_^;;

EDIT: Hmmm, wth? I've been regged for 4 years but this is my first post? Could've sworn I had posted before. =/ Suprised I wasn't purged otherwise, heh.

Oburi · November 11, 2009

Hey Spoofer!

1) I don't imagine the horrific *FX text boxes were ever "fixed" in future reprintings of 12-14? >_<

I doubt it.

I doubt any of you own multiple printings of the same volume, but could you at least tell me if the printing/alignment has improved as the series progressed? Are there still ridiculous amounts of spelling mistakes in the first printings? Do you think future printings of 30 will go back to the regular style of paper?

It does get better. The first few books were terrible for that. Occasionally I will notice words going right off the page, but at least not as much or as bad as it used to be. And I'm not sure if future printings will go back to the old paper for 30. It's kinda like the talk of the town right now so we can only wait and see. I know DH hasn't commented on what they'd do yet.

3) "Knight of Skeleton"? Seriously? >_<

Yup

4) Dark Horse keeps interchanging Fate/Karma/Causality, right? Do you think they ever would have gone to previous volumes and tried to keep the translations more consistant with newer printings? That's probably pretty unlikely, I imagine... I doubt they'll go and change all the mentions of the Band of the "Hawk" to "Falcon" in the earlier volumes...

No i don't think they will either. Why should they though, really?

5) Speaking of translations... this really has nothing to do with the Dark Horse releases: was there ever anything from the episodes or merchandising of the anime version of Berserk that made "Band of the Hawk" an official, legitimate translation? I'm so used to "Band of the Hawk" that "Band of the Falcon" is going to take some getting used to.

In Japanese hawk and falcon are the same so it's only different to us.

Also, I could've sworn I saw "Evarella" listed in Miura's official character intros in later volumes? That was probably just my imagine though, right, and I'm getting confused by scanlations? What is it you guys prefer, "Ivarela"? And why is beherit "beherit" instead of "behe_L_it"? =x (lol, had to get around the autocorrect for beheL to Beherit, hence the underscores)

What later volumes are you talking about? It's always been Ivarela as far as I know in DH. Yea your probably confused with bad scans. And yea all I know is that its Beherit. Someone else can give all the "technical" stuff behind that.

6) Lastly, the color foldout pages... they aren't limited to First Printings only, are they? A lot of other Manga I own has operated that way, I hope that's not the case with Dark Horse's Berserk.7) Thanks, and sorry for all the Q's. ^_^;;

Nope. At least DH never mentioned anything about that.

I remember SK.net had a topic about all the translation issues / possible translations for names back in the day, and I tried searching for it, but since I'm 4 or so volumes behind on the manga I didn't want to run into any spoilers. =x If it still exists, could someone link me to it? ^_^;;

I don't have the link but there is the Encyclopedia. :guts:

Walter · November 11, 2009

First, welcome to the forum Spoofer :ubik:

I'd recommend you purchase the entire series, for whatever price you have to. It's required reading to participate on the same level as other members.

Now, to quickly answer your questions:

1) Not yet.
2) DH's quality improves over time, but small errors still crop up from time to time, and they are usually noted in this thread.
3) That was the translation they had to use because of the insistence of Hakusensha. Yes, it's a bad translation, but it's the company line, so it's hard to really blame them. For the record, 髑髏の騎士 (Dokuro no Kishi) translates literally to KNIGHT OF SKULL (specifically, the cranium). So, that's why Skull Knight is more correct, and not Horseman of Skeleton or any other translation.
4) I posted at length recently about the Fate/Karma/Causality thing. Check here for more info.
5) Yes, there has been merchandising with names like "HAWK SOLDIERS" but in the Berserk game for PS2, the Ogre was called the Ogle, so... they've been wrong before. The kanji 鷹 (taka) can mean both Hawk and Falcon, and in our interview with Miura, he said the arc's title was named Millennium Falcon because of the famous ship in Star Wars. So, one COULD conclude that Falcon is the more correct term. It's just not mandated :void:

6) No, the color foldout posters are in every edition of Berserk that I'm aware of, The Jets Comics ones in Japan and the Dark Horse ones in the US.

Not quite sure what you're asking for in the last question about translation issues. Threads like that are all over the place.

As for Oburi...

Oburi said:
Yup

Well, this is a misleading answer. It's Dark Horse's unfortunate name for it, but not ours. The discrepancy should always be noted.

No i don't think they will either. Why should they though, really?

See my post above in answer to question 5.

What later volumes are you talking about? It's always been Ivarela as far as I know in DH.

Wrong. It's been "Ivalera" in DH since she was introduced in volume 24. That's the spelling we adopted. Evarella was an older, incorrect translation of the katakana.

PS: Seems to me that Rightstuf's price for Berserk is still higher than Amazon.com's: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=mozilla-20&index=blended&link_code=qs&field-keywords=berserk&sourceid=Mozilla-search

Spoofer · November 11, 2009

Thanks a lot for the answers so far. :}

As I said with my first post, I bought the original volume 1 about 6 years ago and have been waiting to buy the series when it was closer to being caught up with the Japanese release and maybe had some of its issues fixed. I think I recall you talking about doing the same thing about 10/20 pages back in this topic, lol (whoops, I meant... this admin http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=5 I wish I had foreign language support enabled on this laptop so I could properly see his name, heh >_<). Berserk is definitely in my top 3 anime/manga properties and I own everything else "Berserk" released in the US aside from the DH manga, and I plan on rectifying that soon, as for the most part their release isn't too terrible (assuming I get a fixed reprinting of the first volume, and don't run into excessive cropping issues/repeated pages/upside down pages/entirely blank pages...). I'm current plot-wise up to somewhere around tank 30, the last time I played catchup was a year or so back. I figure I'll just wait until March when 34 might possibly be out to re-read whatever I buy and catch up to where we are now.

With "Evarella", I meant I THOUGHT I had seen it spelled that way in the character introductions Miura started to include in the late 20's tankoubons, but you guys surely would have noticed if it had been so I must be wrong. I must just have "Evarella" in my head from some scanlations. It's no big deal and I was just curious. But if you could still answer why beherit is the correct term over behe_l_it I'd appreciate it, as I seem to remember reading it as behe_l_it for the longest time.

As far as the rightstuf.com sale, in case anyone interested reads this in the next two days, heh (it ends Nov. 12th):
rightstuf.com sales use codes at checkout, in this case it's "guts" ;). It takes 33% off MSRP from all Dark Horse items and merchandise (including pre-orders) so all $13.95 volumes become $9.35, along with free shipping if you spend $49 total. If you've got one of their GotAnime memberships you get 40% which makes each volume $8.37. $8.37 definitely beats Amazon's listed prices, and is still a lot cheaper than most of the Amazon Marketplace sellers when you factor in the shipping. Plus, rightstuf has AMAZING customer service. I haven't checked around with other various sites on the internets, but I rarely find deals on manga getting much better than 40% off.

Rhombaad · November 11, 2009

Spoofer said:
But if you could still answer why beherit is the correct term over behe_l_it I'd appreciate it, as I seem to remember reading it as behe_l_it for the longest time.

"Beherit" is the Syriac word for "Satan". The other word doesn't mean anything.

Aazealh · November 11, 2009

Spoofer said:
Speaking of translations... this really has nothing to do with the Dark Horse releases: was there ever anything from the episodes or merchandising of the anime version of Berserk that made "Band of the Hawk" an official, legitimate translation?

Merchandising does not make for "official, legitimate" translations. It's been rife with errors since the beginning, including wrong spellings for character names, both in English and sometimes even in Japanese. Simply said, unless it's at the beginning of a volume or said by the author in an interview, it's not 100% sure.

Which leads me to point out that while we use the spellings "Judo" and "Carcus" here because that's how the names are written in the anime's "Complete Analysis Book", it's only for lack of a real official spelling and because there's no clue at a definite one. Truth be told those two are not particularly likely to be correct.

Spoofer said:
Also, I could've sworn I saw "Evarella" listed in Miura's official character intros in later volumes?

You're mistaken. No spelling has appeared at the beginning of the volumes for her name. It's people on SK.net who came up with the spelling "Evarella" and it's also people on SK.net who decided to discard it.

Spoofer said:
What is it you guys prefer, "Ivarela"?

The spelling used in Young Animal is "Ivalera" (first used in YA #13 of 2007, in which episode 286 was published). Said spelling had been previously introduced in the PS2 game released in 2004.

Spoofer said:
And why is beherit "beherit" instead of "behe_L_it"? =x (lol, had to get around the autocorrect for beheL to Beherit, hence the underscores)

Firstly, like Rhombaad said, the word "beherit" actually has a historical basis, while the other spelling doesn't. Secondly, even if we had no clue, by default in Japanese the katakana "リ" is translated as "RI". Lastly, the word is written "beherit" in the second My Best Remix issue.

Spoofer said:
I remember SK.net had a topic about all the translation issues / possible translations for names back in the day, and I tried searching for it, but since I'm 4 or so volumes behind on the manga I didn't want to run into any spoilers. =x If it still exists, could someone link me to it? ^_^;;

It still exists but it's really old and not always correct, so I actually don't recommend you to base yourself on it.

Oburi said:
No i don't think they will either. Why should they though, really?

Why should they translate words correctly and consistently throughout the series?

Walter said:
Yes, it's a bad translation, but it's the company line, so it's hard to really blame them. For the record, 髑髏の騎士 (Dokuro no Kishi) translates literally to KNIGHT OF SKULL (specifically, the cranium). So, that's why Skull Knight is more correct, and not Horseman of Skeleton or any other translation.

Not specifically the cranium, no (it's just another, secondary possible meaning). Its main definition is that of a skull. However the word specifically denotes that it's a worn out skull, which is very appropriate in the Skull Knight's case. Also worth mentioning is that the most recent English translation of his name for merchandise has been this (look at the background):

Walter said:
5) Yes, there has been merchandising with names like "HAWK SOLDIERS" but in the Berserk game for PS2, the Ogre was called the Ogle, so... they've been wrong before. The kanji 鷹 (taka) can mean both Hawk and Falcon, and in our interview with Miura, he said the arc's title was named Millennium Falcon because of the famous ship in Star Wars. So, one COULD conclude that Falcon is the more correct term. It's just not mandated

Well we already knew why the arc had been titled that way. Miura had commented on it long ago. His response to our letter just confirmed what I had suspected for a long time: that he personally didn't care about the English translation of the word (and truly, why would he?) until he decided to make a pun with it. However, since he's been using the word "falcon" both for the Millennium Falcon arc and for Falconia, Griffith's capital, it has become evident that it's what we should use by default.

For the record I've been advocating the change from "hawk" to "falcon" ever since the chapter of Falconia started. It could have been a one-time thing with the Millennium Falcon arc, but "Falconia" made it clear Miura favored that word to me. And why not? "Falcon" does sound pretty cool.

Walter said:
Not quite sure what you're asking for in the last question about translation issues. Threads like that are all over the place.

He means the old thread Graywords did back in the day: http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?topic=834.0

Walter said:
It's been "Ivalera" in DH since she was introduced in volume 24. That's the spelling we adopted. Evarella was an older, incorrect translation of the katakana.

We had been using the spelling "Ivalera" long before DH did though, let's not reverse the order of things here. :miura:

And "Evarella" wasn't so much a wrong translation as it was a total guess. Anyway, while it's very likely to be the case, we're still not 100% sure that it's the correct spelling for her name. What Dark Horse uses or not is completely irrelevant; they have no legitimacy.

Spoofer said:
(whoops, I meant... this admin http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=5 I wish I had foreign language support enabled on this laptop so I could properly see his name, heh >_<)

It's katakana for "Griffith". You may call him Griffith. :guts:

Spoofer said:
Berserk is definitely in my top 3 anime/manga properties and I own everything else "Berserk" released in the US aside from the DH manga, and I plan on rectifying that soon

That's cool, because honestly the only thing that truly matters is the manga.

Spoofer said:
With "Evarella", I meant I THOUGHT I had seen it spelled that way in the character introductions Miura started to include in the late 20's tankoubons, but you guys surely would have noticed if it had been so I must be wrong.

Yeah you're definitely wrong.

Death May Die · November 11, 2009

Picked up Volume 31 today. Not as much mile marker as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting to pick up 7 volumes, and only 1 showed up. It wasn't a volume I had ordered. lol

Oburi · November 11, 2009

For the record I've been advocating the change from "hawk" to "falcon" ever since the chapter of Falconia started. It could have been a one-time thing with the Millennium Falcon arc, but "Falconia" made it clear Miura favored that word to me. And why not? "Falcon" does sound pretty cool.

At first I thought there was no way I could start using "Falcon" instead of "hawk" for the earlier volumes and parts of the story covered in the anime, because that's what I and so many others are accustomed too. However considering it now, I really think "falcon" could (probably should) be used. It does sound cooler doesn't it? "Band of the Falcon" and "The White Falcon" work for me. :guts:

Why should they translate words correctly and consistently throughout the series?

Sorry I was referring to the second part about DH changing all the "hawks" to "falcons" in reprints of older books. I seriously doubt they would ever do that.

Aazealh · November 11, 2009

Oburi said:
At first I thought there was no way I could start using "Falcon" instead of "hawk" for the earlier volumes and parts of the story covered in the anime, because that's what I and so many others are accustomed too. However considering it now, I really think "falcon" could (probably should) be used. It does sound cooler doesn't it? "Band of the Falcon" and "The White Falcon" work for me.

Yeah, it's just like you say: a habit. People are simply used to it. But that can change.

Oburi said:
Sorry I was referring to the second part about DH changing all the "hawks" to "falcons" in reprints of older books. I seriously doubt they would ever do that.

Maybe the day they release a deluxe edition.

01010111 · November 11, 2009

Maybe the day they release a deluxe edition.

UGH DON'T SAY THAT, I'm already super poor, no thanks to DH and Berserk!

Walter · November 11, 2009

01010111 said:
UGH DON'T SAY THAT, I'm already super poor, no thanks to DH and Berserk!

Your lack of money won't stop me from shelling out hundreds of dollars for a true deluxe edition of Berserk. :mozgus:

Dark Horse Releases

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Hai Yai, Forces!

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Skibbidy Boo Bop

Indeed.

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