Alright, just finished my re-read.
I'm obviously not gonna touch up on everything, cause that would be way too much.
So in terms of things that stuck out to me, I really liked how Guts' character was set up in this Volume, not only does it do a great job of making new readers become interested in knowing what made him the way he is, but his personality in this volume still makes sense.
In many manga the way some characters act in their first appearance compared to later, is completely contradictory, and not cause of character development, but because the author just hadn't figured out what to do with that character yet. So it's honestly impressive how Guts and Puck were written in this volume.
Guts was putting on an apathetic face, avoiding any sort of connection with other people, because he didn't want to lose any more people close to him.
And he's constantly saying he doesn't care about anyone other than himself, basically trying to convince himself to belive that lie.
I was curious if the reason Guts said he hates Elves was because of Chitch, but Miura definitely hadn't thought of her yet. Though it's nice it lines up
so well, even if it wasn't on purpose.
It's honestly very cool how
many things line up well even from the first volume. For example the Snake Baron was a really good depiction of an Apostle, and all the things that were set up about Elves through Puck still hold true.
There were
so many things were introduced in this volume, the Apostle, the Brand, the Behelit, the Demon Child, even
Puck Spark was used for the first time here!
But the one that always surprises me the most, is the Godhand, that's mentioned once by Guts in the very first episode.
Obviously in terms of art, it's not nearly as good as the volumes that follow, but it's still
really good. Especially the composition was something that
Miura was incredible at from the get-go. So many dynamic poses during fight scenes, and great paneling.
Of course I could've written much more for this volume, but it already feels like I wrote too much. Looking forward to the next volume re-read!