The Big Berserk Exhibition

The exhibit took place across from an Inuyasha exhibit that had almost zero traffic, so that was amusing to me (no shade thrown on inuyasha!). Pics for a comparison of the 2.

omg id die BERSERK and INUYASHA EXPO in the same hallway my body would split in two lol and thanks for sharing all the great pics :)
 
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Walter

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While looking through the new artbook, I found these 2 drawings which I believe to be either from the mecha anime or some original artwork he drew. Either way these look very interesting and cool!:guts:
The second one is related to the unsigned doujinshi that Aaz mentioned earlier in this thread, published in the early 00s. Other related sketches are on his desk. But the one with the transforming mecha, I don't know that it says anything other than concept art for a robot. It could be the anime, though!
 

Aazealh

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While looking through the new artbook, I found these 2 drawings which I believe to be either from the mecha anime or some original artwork he drew. Either way these look very interesting and cool!:guts:

In addition to what Walter said about the second picture, the first one seems to be a concept for a transforming mech, but is unrelated to the animation project. The 12 illustrations displayed about it at the exhibition are in color and they seem to feature a more "old school" design.
 
I finally got to see it. Having a 2 year old kid means I can't really go see it during the weekend, so I went during a weekday before evening. Great thing I did - I was in the venue from 16 til 17:30, and as I left, the line to get inside was getting crazy long. So it gets super crowded on holidays and after work/school.

All-in-all, it was a great exhibition. I'd been to a similar exhibition for Akira in Shibuya a few years ago, but the Berserk one had a lot more content and was presented much better. Even for anyone new to the manga series, it definitely brought a lot more bang for one's buck. Wished I could have stayed there for twice as long.

Especially loved the exhibition as a fan of the manga. Sure there were lots of figurines and objects and merchandise, but at the core of the event were the actual manga panels in all their raw glory, displayed in the Berserk-verse chronological order. Like rasputin wrote, being able to see the hand drawn pictures with all their tiny imperfections and other details was awesome. Really made me (and surely the other exhibition viewers) see up close and realize again what a beast of an illustrator Miura was.

If you don’t mind me asking, what was the crowd size like? The atmosphere of the place (quiet, somber, laughter, some chatter?)

I went on a weekday during work time, and even then there was a 10 minute line to get in, so in terms of audience size, by Tokyo standards, it was definitely a success. Even though there were lots of people around, the atmosphere was pretty quiet. People who went in groups would be chatting among themselves of course, but generally people were reserved, as is the norm for (mostly) Japanese crowds.

In terms of the crowd, I saw people from their 20s to 60s. A pretty varied crowd. If I had to ball-park it, the most represented demographic was people in their 30s-40s. I was kind of surprised to see that there was no stark underrepresentation of women. I'd been thinking it would be mainly guys, but I'd say 30-40% were women. I think that in itself speaks to the universality of Berserk, despite being somewhat branded a "guys manga".

Do you remember what Susumu Hirasawa songs were being played during each arc walkthrough? What sound effects and music (if any) were played specifically during the Eclipse portion? Low-pitched screams from the faces, humans screams, sounds from the hand? Was the diorama just the Hand + God Hand figmas or did that area display other aspects? Your summary and pictures are very appreciated but I'd like more descriptive details.

There were lots of Hirasawa songs playing in the venue. The entrance was blasting Forces. The Golden Arc bits had Aria. The Eclipse had ominous ambient sounds with monster hissing and screeching (personally think would've been sweet to hear the old anime's Beherit clip there though!). The Conviction Arc onward had Hai-yo and one other Hirasawa song that I'm not not what it was.

In the last room before the merch, Miura's interview was blasting on 3 different TVs and 3 speakers. It was a bit annoying that depending on where you stood, it was a bit hard to make out all his words, as they were all running the same interview with slightly different times with full speakers on per TV, so it was hard to isolate some bits where he was speaking more quietly. The interview itself was great though. Was really great to see a recent Miura on full crisp high resolution view talking around a number of things.

It was simultaneously devastating though. He seemed to be super healthy both in terms of physical as well as mental health, speaking his mind freely and smiling/laughing a lot. Especially the first part of the interview, where he greeted all his old and new fans and anyone new to the show and said he's in good health and is planning to keep on working on Berserk for as long as it takes.

He also talked about a bit about old vs. new manga, writing with a pen vs. a pencil, the difference in using analog vs. digital and other things I can't remember at the moment. In the last part of the interview, he was asked how far along Berserk is and I'm pretty sure he said it's around 3 5ths or 4 5ths (hence 60%-80%) done. I unfortunately didn't hear out all that he said there and had to leave before I could get a second listen, so would definitely want to listen to the interview again. Hope it gets shared publicly soon.

On the merchandise: Some of it was cool. There were some weird ones though. The Guts man boob mousepad was pretty prominent lol. Also found it odd that a sticker of the manga panel where a dying Judeau tells Casca "you sure smile a lot" was being sold. Not sure an adhesive sticker is the right format for one of the saddest panels in the most fucked up part of the manga.


And finally, that little Void drawing. I wish I could read it, but it's pretty funny either way, hehe :void:

The text is what Void says at the beginning of the Eclipse, namely the text in the above speech bubbles on this page on Chapter 91.
 

Walter

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Thank you so much for the detailed review of your visit! I'm sure we all appreciate the added descriptions about your experience, as overseas fans can't be there for this big moment in Berserk's history.

Curious, did you get a glimpse of the giant robot sketches on the desk in the Miura room? And could you describe anythig about Miura from the video -- what he was wearing, how long the video was, etc.

Especially the first part of the interview, where he greeted all his old and new fans and anyone new to the show and said he's in good health and is planning to keep on working on Berserk for as long as it takes.
This hurts...
 
I put all the images I took in this folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12m3HFuucDB4cxMYJn160Ko37-5FbFQvC

Curious, did you get a glimpse of the giant robot sketches on the desk in the Miura room? And could you describe anythig about Miura from the video -- what he was wearing, how long the video was, etc.
You can see some of the sketches in the last pic in the folder above. Some of it looks quite Marvel-like I think:

The interview video was I think around 5 minutes. He was wearing a sweater, glasses, no hat. And like mentioned, he just seemed all around super healthy. You can see him quite up close in the video.
 

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A friend of mine hinted me to this picture in the artbook's interview with Miura-Sensei and we think (with a looot of imagination) that it might be Griffith talking to Gedfryn in the bottom snippet. Imagine Griffith confirming that Void is his father and continuing revealing more and more about the God Hand, that would've been so cool, but I don't want to interpret too much into this! I'd love to know what you guys think of this!20210922_152744.png
 

Aazealh

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Staff member
A friend of mine hinted me to this picture in the artbook's interview with Miura-Sensei and we think (with a looot of imagination) that it might be Griffith talking to Gedfryn in the bottom snippet. Imagine Griffith confirming that Void is his father and continuing revealing more and more about the God Hand, that would've been so cool, but I don't want to interpret too much into this! I'd love to know what you guys think of this!

That's from episode 358, page 7. Also, there's no real chance that Gedflynn's dad could have been Void.
 

Aazealh

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Thanks for the reply, if I'm reading it correctly you will be able to preorder tickets for the event online in mid october?

Yes. But in case you're planning a trip, let me remind you that at this point in time Japan does not allow foreigners to enter its country due to the Covid-19 situation.
 
Video I found on YouTube covering the exhibition. A lot of stuff I hadn't seen before. Including the eclipse area and parts of the shop and the paintings. Also it gives me more perspective on the size of some of the paintings, some are really huge.
 
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Video I found on YouTube covering the exhibition. A lot of stuff I hadn't seen before. Including the eclipse area and parts of the shop and the paintings. Also it gives me more perspective on the size of some of the paintings, some are really huge.

Great video, got see much more of the exhibit in detail
 
Great video, got see much more of the exhibit in detail
Video I found on YouTube covering the exhibition. A lot of stuff I hadn't seen before. Including the eclipse area and parts of the shop and the paintings. Also it gives me more perspective on the size of some of the paintings, some are really huge.
Hey, thanks for sharing my video! Saw that I was getting some views from here, so I made an account. Happy to share this exhibition with other fans.
 
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