Mika Nakashima has a beautiful voice but this song just doesn't suit the source material, imo.
[2022] Berserk: The Golden Age MEMORIAL EDITION
- Thread starter kubricked
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In my opinion the worst offender are the trap beats, I have no clue why they are there. I can imagine this song being used as a special ED or for the credits of the last episode, but we'll have to see if it will happen.
I really like that Sagisu reprised the guitar arrangement of "Blood and Guts" that opened the credits of the second movie, it's one of my favourite tracks of the trilogy, and as far as I can tell, I'd say that the Mika Nakashima lyrics are a translation of the choir lyrics of "Blood and Guts", a big improvement since it's not that annoying choir repeating a stupid pun ad nauseam.
I really like that Sagisu reprised the guitar arrangement of "Blood and Guts" that opened the credits of the second movie, it's one of my favourite tracks of the trilogy, and as far as I can tell, I'd say that the Mika Nakashima lyrics are a translation of the choir lyrics of "Blood and Guts", a big improvement since it's not that annoying choir repeating a stupid pun ad nauseam.
According to the official Twitter profile, Susumu Hirasawa's new song "Expedition" will debut in today's episode of the Bonfire of Dreams
So, about episode 5.
There's 4 minutes of material covering the end of the hundred men battle and when the rescue party finds Guts. That's unchanged save for the usual minor improvements on some faces. I'd forgotten how they had modified the dialogue when Casca finds Guts, and unsurprisingly it's bad.
Anyway, the new stuff starts at 5:29.
We see Casca talking with her men around a fire, then Judo comes to get her and they have a talk where he gives her the elf dust. Then she goes to Guts. At the end of that scene, Guts' men come get him to go have drinks. Compared to the manga, we skip when they bringing Guts back as well as the part about Griffith returning, since he's present for the rescue. They worked around that discrepancy well enough, so it's seamless for someone who's not aware of the original story.
The models they use for Casca, Guts and Judo are nice. Less so for minor characters. Generally, the close-ups are well polished, the shots from above or a little afar clearly less so. And you can somehow see some aliasing on the models (characters or Guts' sword) in some scenes, which feels pretty weird to be honest. They fixed Guts' posture as he sits down compared to the preview pictures, which I appreciate, but at the end, when he gets up and walks, the animation is noticably stiff.
The dialogue is pretty faithful to the manga, and the scene overall might be the most faithfully adapted part of the manga in the entire movie trilogy. That's something to thank the director of the memorial edition for, I guess. Ah, it's a minor thing, but the sky is ridiculously bright, with multicolored stars, which was apparently a request from him. I get the intent ("it's a bright moment" or something), but it feels a bit much.
Regarding the new Hirasawa track, the music starts at 9:25 and keeps going till 14:28. It's very mellow. I'm curious to hear the whole thing on its own. 14:28 is when we cut back to the old material (prelude to Doldrey battle), so that's 9 minutes of new content for the Bonfire of Dreams. More than I expected, to be honest. They really took their time and made it a nice scene.
The Doldrey segment is mostly unchanged. The nameless captain's model at the beginning has been touched up, which is nice since it was especially bad. It's still not that great though. There's a few other notable face improvements but nothing amazing (as usual). Some also weren't improved, strangely.
Gennon's characterization is as caricatural as I remember it, but I had forgotten how nonsensical Adon's return to Doldrey is. They have him get captured, then he returns just before the battle starts. I guess it was done out of a desire to imitate how nobles were dealt with during the real-world hundred year war, but that's both stupid (because this is a fantasy story) and inaccurate to how things were actually done. Anyway, all of that is unchanged from the movie.
Next episode should also be mostly untouched, with the actual battle for Doldrey and probably the victory parade. That's about 19 minutes and thirty seconds of content. What I'm curious about is how they'll handle the ball. It's only 6 minutes long until the stupid dance scene, which lasts 2 minutes and a half. They could have compressed it down to fit everything into episode 6 if they wanted to, which could be done for example by cutting most of the dance and shortening a few other scenes. Otherwise they'd need to have created at least 10 more minutes of new material to make it into a proper episode 7, which would end before Guts and Griffith have their duel. That'd be quite the effort.
There's 4 minutes of material covering the end of the hundred men battle and when the rescue party finds Guts. That's unchanged save for the usual minor improvements on some faces. I'd forgotten how they had modified the dialogue when Casca finds Guts, and unsurprisingly it's bad.
Anyway, the new stuff starts at 5:29.
We see Casca talking with her men around a fire, then Judo comes to get her and they have a talk where he gives her the elf dust. Then she goes to Guts. At the end of that scene, Guts' men come get him to go have drinks. Compared to the manga, we skip when they bringing Guts back as well as the part about Griffith returning, since he's present for the rescue. They worked around that discrepancy well enough, so it's seamless for someone who's not aware of the original story.
The models they use for Casca, Guts and Judo are nice. Less so for minor characters. Generally, the close-ups are well polished, the shots from above or a little afar clearly less so. And you can somehow see some aliasing on the models (characters or Guts' sword) in some scenes, which feels pretty weird to be honest. They fixed Guts' posture as he sits down compared to the preview pictures, which I appreciate, but at the end, when he gets up and walks, the animation is noticably stiff.
The dialogue is pretty faithful to the manga, and the scene overall might be the most faithfully adapted part of the manga in the entire movie trilogy. That's something to thank the director of the memorial edition for, I guess. Ah, it's a minor thing, but the sky is ridiculously bright, with multicolored stars, which was apparently a request from him. I get the intent ("it's a bright moment" or something), but it feels a bit much.
Regarding the new Hirasawa track, the music starts at 9:25 and keeps going till 14:28. It's very mellow. I'm curious to hear the whole thing on its own. 14:28 is when we cut back to the old material (prelude to Doldrey battle), so that's 9 minutes of new content for the Bonfire of Dreams. More than I expected, to be honest. They really took their time and made it a nice scene.
The Doldrey segment is mostly unchanged. The nameless captain's model at the beginning has been touched up, which is nice since it was especially bad. It's still not that great though. There's a few other notable face improvements but nothing amazing (as usual). Some also weren't improved, strangely.
Gennon's characterization is as caricatural as I remember it, but I had forgotten how nonsensical Adon's return to Doldrey is. They have him get captured, then he returns just before the battle starts. I guess it was done out of a desire to imitate how nobles were dealt with during the real-world hundred year war, but that's both stupid (because this is a fantasy story) and inaccurate to how things were actually done. Anyway, all of that is unchanged from the movie.
Next episode should also be mostly untouched, with the actual battle for Doldrey and probably the victory parade. That's about 19 minutes and thirty seconds of content. What I'm curious about is how they'll handle the ball. It's only 6 minutes long until the stupid dance scene, which lasts 2 minutes and a half. They could have compressed it down to fit everything into episode 6 if they wanted to, which could be done for example by cutting most of the dance and shortening a few other scenes. Otherwise they'd need to have created at least 10 more minutes of new material to make it into a proper episode 7, which would end before Guts and Griffith have their duel. That'd be quite the effort.
Good summary Aaz, I agree with most everything. I was also pleasantly surprised by the length of both the Scene with Judeau and Casca at camp, and the full Bonfire of Dreams dialogue. The panels and dialogue are pretty faithful.
The sky is a bit much and looks like an imminent galactic collision (with stars inside the moon's crescent), but it's a style. I also like the glow they added to the elf dust to make it feel fantastical.
I was a bit annoyed by the new music track having lyrics under a dialogue scene. It got a bit distracting. Guts sword shrinks at one point to fit inside the frame.
Otherwise, though it's a solid improvement; an essential breath of air and a moment of character development before Doldrey.
The sky is a bit much and looks like an imminent galactic collision (with stars inside the moon's crescent), but it's a style. I also like the glow they added to the elf dust to make it feel fantastical.
I was a bit annoyed by the new music track having lyrics under a dialogue scene. It got a bit distracting. Guts sword shrinks at one point to fit inside the frame.
Otherwise, though it's a solid improvement; an essential breath of air and a moment of character development before Doldrey.
It's crazy that they just directly jumped into Doldrey in the movies, I forgot honestly. I actually really enjoyed this episode it definitely flowed better, and as people have said it gives us a breather from the action set piece of the 100 man fight. I felt emotion when watching the Bonfire of dreams and when the Susumu music starts playing it was great, I believe in the 97 anime Guts theme plays at this point which of course is pretty hard to beat but I liked this version a lot. The CG was decent the faces are nice and emotive, I believe the entire section used CG models with some 2d faces, what's good is I can't tell if the faces are CGI or 2d at some points but definitely the movement was all CGI. The big thing I noticed as to why it looks so much better than the 2016 anime is for the main characters they use simplistic shadows, they use shadows as if it was drawn in 2d which gives it a more aesthetically pleasing look and it is more seamless with the traditional 2d animation for the 2016 anime the shadows look artificial and messed up because it's just an AI casting shadows from the light source and its just too much information that 2d anime doesn't usually convey it's usually more simple.
Here's a compilation of visual changes in episode 5:
I particularly enjoyed the Bonfire of Dreams sequence.
I particularly enjoyed the Bonfire of Dreams sequence.
Oh boy what a treat, I really enjoyed the bonfire of dreams scene, the 2D animation bits in there was so pretty!
I also really liked the colorful sky, It reminded me of Call of The night aesthetic:
The new track by susumu hirasawa was also a great addition, it felt like the essense of Guts' theme mixed with sign in some weird way - I liked it!
Overall its my favorite episode so far, I'm curious on how they're gonna execute the eclipse animation-wise after seeing this episode
I also really liked the colorful sky, It reminded me of Call of The night aesthetic:
The new track by susumu hirasawa was also a great addition, it felt like the essense of Guts' theme mixed with sign in some weird way - I liked it!
Overall its my favorite episode so far, I'm curious on how they're gonna execute the eclipse animation-wise after seeing this episode
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residentgrigo
Excitement and Enjoyment!
The bonfire lasts from 8:07 to 21:46 in the 1997 anime and why Griffith wasn´t removed from the rescue? His inclusion is as bonkers as removing the bonfire and makes Guts and him look like besties. Take out his model of the scenes as he already does nothing, keep Judeau´s head steady when they look at each other and replace his model with Judeau when he approaches Guts. This would be easier to do than any of the CG touchups.
Gut´s walk cycle in the 2 shots of him leaving the hill are as bad as anything in the 2016 anime and was what I expected for the whole scene. The rest looks fine but not cinema ready as the old scenes have far more "effort" put into them. Not that films 1&2 were ever cinema material. Today´s The Dragon Prince S4 premiere showed how to do limited animation CG with 2D backgrounds right. It fresh on my mind could have made me more critical and switching from 2D to 3D at random drives me bonkers in the films. The bonfire luckily settles on 3D.
We got an adequate, if incomplete, take on the source. The missing bit with Griffith leads to a loss of a human element + humor and Griffith not being there explains why Guts would start talking about him. Guts being carried to the doc is a far easier cut. Viewers will also have no idea who Guts is talking about with Gaston as no one was introduced in film 1. It’s why I always liked film 3 the least. It finally looked like something but who are these people being killed? Why should I care? The source material feels reduced to somewhat tasteless gore schlock.
Forget the additional opening and ending in ep 14 of 1997. The low-angle shot of Gut´s sword when he talks about it being his strength puts that version into a different dimension of quality. It really caught me off guard when I went to compare. The 2022 version instead moves the camera up the blade so it and Guts aren´t connected by the end of the shot. Why? Again, it´s all adequate and twice as long as I expected. A 5/10 ep with a 6 to 6.5/10 sequence. The 10.5 new minutes so far are of course deeply needed. Film 2 is being improved so far. No question.
Gut´s walk cycle in the 2 shots of him leaving the hill are as bad as anything in the 2016 anime and was what I expected for the whole scene. The rest looks fine but not cinema ready as the old scenes have far more "effort" put into them. Not that films 1&2 were ever cinema material. Today´s The Dragon Prince S4 premiere showed how to do limited animation CG with 2D backgrounds right. It fresh on my mind could have made me more critical and switching from 2D to 3D at random drives me bonkers in the films. The bonfire luckily settles on 3D.
We got an adequate, if incomplete, take on the source. The missing bit with Griffith leads to a loss of a human element + humor and Griffith not being there explains why Guts would start talking about him. Guts being carried to the doc is a far easier cut. Viewers will also have no idea who Guts is talking about with Gaston as no one was introduced in film 1. It’s why I always liked film 3 the least. It finally looked like something but who are these people being killed? Why should I care? The source material feels reduced to somewhat tasteless gore schlock.
Forget the additional opening and ending in ep 14 of 1997. The low-angle shot of Gut´s sword when he talks about it being his strength puts that version into a different dimension of quality. It really caught me off guard when I went to compare. The 2022 version instead moves the camera up the blade so it and Guts aren´t connected by the end of the shot. Why? Again, it´s all adequate and twice as long as I expected. A 5/10 ep with a 6 to 6.5/10 sequence. The 10.5 new minutes so far are of course deeply needed. Film 2 is being improved so far. No question.
I finished watching most of this episode (mainly for the new scenes, didn't bother with ep.1-4 yet) and while it's somewhat pleasant it doesn't live up for a decent presentation imo, especially when put in comparison with 1997 (which I watched immediately afterwards). I like the articulate CG models and the effort they did to make them look like 2D for close ups, as well as the detailed backgrounds but the overall color palette is just so grey-ish! The effort of having more "realistic" or modern-looking aesthetic shouldn't go against a more artistic depiction of scenes. I can see from the comparison provided by Léon-Solide that the shots with updated CGI also feature a color correction that goes against the dull palette or the trilogy, but it's not sufficient.
The presence of Griffith is just so puzzling and the decision to end the Bonfire of Dreams sequence with Guts being called by his soldiers to drink randomly, leave Caska on the hill and with no emotional reunion with Griffith (why did he leave if he was already there to begin with???) is just plain bad. The new Hirasawa song is nice but its usage is terrible, distracting from the conversation Guts and Caska are having. At this point I would have preferred if they had used "Guts" from 1997.
The presence of Griffith is just so puzzling and the decision to end the Bonfire of Dreams sequence with Guts being called by his soldiers to drink randomly, leave Caska on the hill and with no emotional reunion with Griffith (why did he leave if he was already there to begin with???) is just plain bad. The new Hirasawa song is nice but its usage is terrible, distracting from the conversation Guts and Caska are having. At this point I would have preferred if they had used "Guts" from 1997.
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Is it just on my end or the countdown on the website has disappeared?
Coincidentally, yesterday I saw on Twitter that Berserk 1997 should be added on some EU territories in early December, so I wondered if the countdown could be correlated with the Netflix release...
EDIT: It was apparently a momentary hiccup, now it appears again.
Coincidentally, yesterday I saw on Twitter that Berserk 1997 should be added on some EU territories in early December, so I wondered if the countdown could be correlated with the Netflix release...
EDIT: It was apparently a momentary hiccup, now it appears again.
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The memorial edition website announcing that the 1997 adaptation would come to new countries on Netflix? That's not how these things work.
Actually, it didn't... so on second thought I'd say that it could rather be the collaborative efforts from all the different media formats of Berserk to make something big next month, between the 1997 anime coming to Netflix (assuming it will actually come in December), the new episode of the Mori / Gaga serialization, end (?) of the Memorial Edition and what they have in store with the countdown.
@Hitoshura Thanks for linking the video! I notice that in the description there's a comment about publication deadline for "The Expedition" being in late March 2023, so I suppose they are thinking of making a distribution but there are no concrete plans yet.
If this video is just the clip from the anime without dialogue / SFX, I wonder if I could use this to replace the music in the episode with Guts' Theme...
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Marketing pushes across multiple media are common (e.g. new episode in magazine + tankōbon release + new animation), but I can guarantee you that Netflix securing the rights to stream the old TV series in a few more foreign countries doesn't factor into it.
If you say so...
I know that the distribution of Berserk 1997 on Netflix is part of a bigger deal involving many more anime series, but I wouldn't exclude that they can play around with the exact distribution date. I can be totally wrong (and in fact, it's already available in a couple of EU countries) so I'm not taking it as a fact.
Anyway, I'm using the YouTube audio of the song to clean the episode audio and it's an almost perfect match. Faint echoes and beats are still slightly audible, but dialogues are very clean... if all goes well I may manage to make a video of the clip featuring Guts Theme soon!
I know that the distribution of Berserk 1997 on Netflix is part of a bigger deal involving many more anime series, but I wouldn't exclude that they can play around with the exact distribution date. I can be totally wrong (and in fact, it's already available in a couple of EU countries) so I'm not taking it as a fact.
Anyway, I'm using the YouTube audio of the song to clean the episode audio and it's an almost perfect match. Faint echoes and beats are still slightly audible, but dialogues are very clean... if all goes well I may manage to make a video of the clip featuring Guts Theme soon!
Here we go! I apologize for not including subtitles, but I hope it works well for now. It's much closer to what I expected to see in this last episode.
www.youtube.com
Berserk: The Golden Age MEMORIAL EDITION - Bonfire of Dreams with Guts Theme
For those who wanted to see the Memorial Edition version of the Bonfire of Dreams with Guts Theme from Berserk 1997.Thanks to the release of the Susumu Hiras...
www.youtube.com
Here we go! I apologize for not including subtitles, but I hope it works well for now. It's much closer to what I expected to see in this last episode.
Berserk: The Golden Age MEMORIAL EDITION - Bonfire of Dreams with Guts Theme
For those who wanted to see the Memorial Edition version of the Bonfire of Dreams with Guts Theme from Berserk 1997.Thanks to the release of the Susumu Hiras...
I love it! really well made!
Also, looking at the animation without being distracted by the subs really show how clunky the 3D animation is
For me only the walk at the end is really painful to watch 
But it somehow feels memeworthy looking at it with the Guts Theme vocals accompanying it!
But it somehow feels memeworthy looking at it with the Guts Theme vocals accompanying it!
Rhombaad
Video Game Time Traveler
Hmmm…not my favorite track of his, but I imagine it will grow on me over time.
I finally managed to include English subtitles on the YouTube video, for a better experience. It is my first time doing that, it's a ton of work! But I think it was worth it.
They updated the Behelit visual in the website countdown:
This makes me think that to some extent the Behelit from the countdown is correlated to the events of the Memorial Edition (as in, it will activate with the Eclipse).
From the images on Twitter I'm not sure if they went as far as to finish the second movie with today's episode so who knows if they'll be able to finish the Golden Age with 11 episodes
This makes me think that to some extent the Behelit from the countdown is correlated to the events of the Memorial Edition (as in, it will activate with the Eclipse).
From the images on Twitter I'm not sure if they went as far as to finish the second movie with today's episode so who knows if they'll be able to finish the Golden Age with 11 episodes
Episode 6 went on exactly as I had predicted: they finished the Doldrey battle and did the victory parade, leaving both mostly untouched.
I'll say that there's a lot of scenes that actually could have used some texturing enhancements, but for some reason (time? budget?) they did not bother with them. That's even for "important" characters like the Band of the Falcon's lieutenants. They also didn't add sound when Boskone has a laugh animation in the midst of battle, that's still as jarring as it was back then. And the framerate still feels weird when Griffith comes to Gennon.
I did notice a strangely pointless modification of the haircut of one of Gennon's "companions", going from long hair to short. Not sure what was the point of that. They also did a freeze frame on Boskone to segue into the opening, which is a bit cheesy but effective enough. And they shortened things very slightly with a couple of edits but nothing major. Ah, Casca & Pippin's faces were visibly improved in a couple of scenes during the parade, but it looks a bit rough, especially on Casca.
Other than that, I can't help but lament all the pointless changes to the storyline they had originally done with these movies, it really just makes the battle less cool and interesting. Oh and I noticed two instances of a character crossing themselves the Christian way, which makes no sense whatsoever.
That's what I've been saying from the beginning.
They were never going to finish it with this episode, that was impossible. It'll either be done with the next one, if they cut the ball scene short and don't add any new material, or more likely with episode 8. I'm leaning towards the second option. The full ball scene, around 10 minutes of new content (tavern scene), and they end it at the beginning of the duel.
I'll say that there's a lot of scenes that actually could have used some texturing enhancements, but for some reason (time? budget?) they did not bother with them. That's even for "important" characters like the Band of the Falcon's lieutenants. They also didn't add sound when Boskone has a laugh animation in the midst of battle, that's still as jarring as it was back then. And the framerate still feels weird when Griffith comes to Gennon.
I did notice a strangely pointless modification of the haircut of one of Gennon's "companions", going from long hair to short. Not sure what was the point of that. They also did a freeze frame on Boskone to segue into the opening, which is a bit cheesy but effective enough. And they shortened things very slightly with a couple of edits but nothing major. Ah, Casca & Pippin's faces were visibly improved in a couple of scenes during the parade, but it looks a bit rough, especially on Casca.
Other than that, I can't help but lament all the pointless changes to the storyline they had originally done with these movies, it really just makes the battle less cool and interesting. Oh and I noticed two instances of a character crossing themselves the Christian way, which makes no sense whatsoever.
That's what I've been saying from the beginning.
They were never going to finish it with this episode, that was impossible. It'll either be done with the next one, if they cut the ball scene short and don't add any new material, or more likely with episode 8. I'm leaning towards the second option. The full ball scene, around 10 minutes of new content (tavern scene), and they end it at the beginning of the duel.
I'm pretty sure this was in the original. Their artbook has a 'Hawk' style 'sign of the cross' outlied as a cultural thing to represent the Holy See.
Yeah it was, I just mention it because it jumped out to me during this rewatch. It doesn't feel like something Miura would have been a fan of. I guess they made their own version as a cheat, but it's among the (long) list of liberties they took that don't sit well with me. It's really like watching a bad clip show of the story.
Good to know about the artbook though, I didn't buy it at the time so I have no idea what's in it.