Berserk publications around the world

I wanted to know about Berserk publications around the world and since here there are people from different countries, they can post pictures of their editions.

Kentaro Miura's greatest masterpiece is finally published in Rusland and even in HC!! :ubik: Check it out!
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Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
That Russian edition looks amazing, great quality and very faithful to the original (although they're not spelling "Kentarou" right, I can see through their cyrillic tricks! :mozgus:).

Out of curiosity, how is the translation so far from what you can tell?
 

Daijyashin

Berserk is Divine and Human
Unbelivable!! If this amazing edition has a good translation, I'll try to learn the russian.(I am looking at my edition right now and I still can't believe how BAD it is). :judo:
 
Aazealh said:
(although they're not spelling "Kentarou" right, I can see through their cyrillic tricks! :mozgus:).
It's hard to explain, you can read all about it here it's a fucked-up topic, since I hate Polivanov's system but it's officially accepted. But in case with Kentarou, I think that(Кэнтаро) is the right spelling, "Кэнтароу" in other hand is gonna sound way to different from original pronunciation.

Aazealh said:
Out of curiosity, how is the translation so far from what you can tell?
It's pretty decent and unlike DH they use Beherit. But there was one thing, they call Count's pawn - Zondak instead of Zondark...

Marik said:
Unbelivable!! If this amazing edition has a good translation, I'll try to learn the russian.
Good luck with that. :iva:

Marik said:
(I am looking at my edition right now and I still can't believe how BAD it is). :judo:
Are you talking about DH or some other edition?
 
Looks good, especially the hard-bound cover!

How much is each volume priced at?

Also, the colors on the cover are different compared to the DH one - the Russian edition looks so much better, livelier. How does it compare with the Japanese edition's cover? (I haven't seen the Japanese cover up close :schierke:)
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Konketsuji said:
It's hard to explain, you can read all about it here it's a fucked-up topic, since I hate Polivanov's system but it's officially accepted. But in case with Kentarou, I think that(Кэнтаро) is the right spelling, "Кэнтароу" in other hand is gonna sound way to different from original pronunciation.

Hehe thanks for the info (it's quite interesting), but it was more of a joke since I can't actually read Russian. :farnese: Although from the link you provided it looks like to be perfectly exact it would have to be written Кэнтаро: or Кэнтарō (but they also say that rule is hardly ever followed).

Konketsuji said:
It's pretty decent and unlike DH they use Beherit. But there was one thing, they call Count's pawn - Zondak instead of Zondark...

Actually that's not necessarily wrong. In Japanese his name is spelled "ゾンダーク", so when it was originally transcribed we just added the "r" because of the long vowel. However since his name does not have a verified official spelling and given the peculiarities of Japanese to Cyrillic transcription you just told me about, it seems to be an acceptable spelling.

Konketsuji said:
Are you talking about DH or some other edition?

He means the Italian edition by Panini. I'll let him give you the details.

IncantatioN said:
Also, the colors on the cover are different compared to the DH one - the Russian edition looks so much better, livelier. How does it compare with the Japanese edition's cover?

The Russian cover is closer to the Japanese one than DH's in terms of colors, however in the picture Konketsuji posted it's severely oversaturated. Nothing beats the original! :slan:
 
Aazealh said:
Actually that's not necessarily wrong. In Japanese his name is spelled "ゾンダーク", so when it was originally transcribed we just added the "r" because of the long vowel. However since his name does not have a verified official spelling and given the peculiarities of Japanese to Cyrillic transcription you just told me about, it seems to be an acceptable spelling.
Oh, well, it's too late I already said about it in Comix-Art(publisher) community, let's see what they have to say. :guts: Anyway, Zondark sounds better.

IncantatioN said:
how much is each volume priced at?
I bought mine for about eleven bucks, but in Moscow or S.Petersburg you can buy it for 6$.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Walter said:
Very awesome. Too bad Western booksellers don't take the material as seriously... :sad:

No kidding. They even kept the little illustration on the inside of the cover and Puck on the back. Jealous... :puck:
 

Daijyashin

Berserk is Divine and Human
Konketsuji said:
Are you talking about DH or some other edition?

Nope, like Aaz said I meant the italian version of Berserk.

Warning: the following text, images, etc, is not a joke. Everything is real. :sad:

First of all Konketsuji, I must specify that in Italy we have FOUR edition of Berserk, but let's proceed with order.

The first one was based on the horrible former spanish edition, with childish cover color, heavy censorship and so on:

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Basically a volume is the half part of a normal volume.
Since in the spanish edition, there were mispelled names, the italian version inherited them:

- Gatsu
- Grifis
- Caska
- Pak

And so on.

Later even with the detachment from the former Spanish edition, other names still remain misspelled:

- Shilat
- Shilke
- Lasquash

Some years later Panini released the second version, the Berserk Collection:

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In this version they corrected some censored panel or they cleaned some pages, but one thing that didn't change between the two editions is the mirrored story. I mean they used the western reading mirroring in the whole manga; so we have that everyone is left handed, Griffith at the hill of swords touches his heart on the right side of his chest and so on.
So leaving aside the bad quality of paper/inking, the mirrored panels, misspelled names, now we arrive at the translation issue.

Basically the translation is good, but in some points (unfortunately the PIVOTAL moments) it sucks.

As Aaz will remember, I have already put under discussion some pivotal speeches like the one of Void (ah by the way his name in the Italian version is Boid):

http://www.skullknight.net/forum/index.php?topic=9538.0

Someone that read the episode 83, and then the Italian speech of Void at the occultation ceremony would be pretty confused and will think that Void is contradicting himself.

Or another example at the volume 24:

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Instead of saying "the fifth angel incarnate" she's saying "the fifth APOSTLE incarnate". :judo:

Anyway the weird thing is that even though the story is mirrored, the first page of an episode is STILL on the right perspective:

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and a page after:

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Guts come back left handed and so on. One more horrible thing is the black bar with the episode title that sometimes COVERS half panel:

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Ok, after that, Panini RELEASED THE ULTIMATE version of the BERSERK MAXIMUM:

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The first thing that comes in your mind is...but WTF of cover color choice!! COME ON!! Fluorescent childish color!

However here, the reading is eastern. So farewell mirrored thing. But this maximum shit has enlarged panels with a loss of quality. The paper is shitty as well. A volume has more or less 15 episodes, so it equal to a volume and 1/2.

And finally we arrive at the BLACK edition..

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It's the Collection edition..but the color cover it's just black..ad for this GREAT ENHANCEMENT it costs 5 euro. (one more euro of the ordinary collection).
This black shit is EQUAL to the collection.

:judo:
 

Gobolatula

praise be to grail!
I am very interested in seeing examples of censorship in Berserk. It seems like it would be a tough job to clean this series up.
 

Daijyashin

Berserk is Divine and Human
Gobolatula said:
I am very interested in seeing examples of censorship in Berserk. It seems like it would be a tough job to clean this series up.

Well, let's say that the most censored thing in the first italian edition of Berserk are the woman's nipples.(Yep it sound ridiculous, but it's true):

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There are more or less 30 censored panel in the former italian version, fortunately removed in the collection.
 
Wow, Marik, thanks for the info. That is just awful, I'm really shocked about the things they've done... But still it was almost 15 years ago, if it had been Russia they'd probably print it on the toilet paper at that time. And what about now, is there gonna be new editions of Berserk or is it long forgotten?
 

Daijyashin

Berserk is Divine and Human
Konketsuji said:
Wow, Marik, thanks for the info. That is just awful, I'm really shocked about the things they've done... But still it was almost 15 years ago, if it had been Russia they'd probably print it on the toilet paper at that time. And what about now, is there gonna be new editions of Berserk or is it long forgotten?

Ok, I'll clarify that actually EVERY of the four Berserk editions are printed and sold simultaneously. Basically they had printed the black one to contain the lack of the former numbers of the other editions, there's no replacement of a new one with the older. Berserk in Italy is always in the top ten best selling manga.

I just wanted to underline that, with FOUR edition, Berserk in Italy sucks in terms of quality, and the paradox is that it's pretty popular.

I myself sometimes buy two times the same volume (two slim editions and a collection for example) just because they are released with a gap of some months.

Anyhow the editions timeline is:

Berserk-1996
Berserk Collection-2000
Berserk Maximum-2004
Berserk Black edition-2008
 
Marik said:
I just wanted to underline that, with FOUR edition, Berserk in Italy sucks in terms of quality, and the paradox is that it's pretty popular.
Well, people don't have a choice, nothing's better in the market, right? Or is it possible to find DH editions in your stores? And what about the price, how much for the slim and the regular?


Marik said:
Anyhow the editions timeline is:

Berserk-1996
Berserk Collection-2000
Berserk Maximum-2004
Berserk Black edition-2008
I turns out the Black edition is quite new, and still no improvement in translation, you say?
Oh, and mystery solved, I always wondered why Italians call characters by a strange names(on deviantart, for example) like Boid, Urbick and so on. Now I know. =)
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Ugh, that sucks Marik. You should try and import the DH versions if you can (or learn to read Japanese so you can enjoy the originals in all their glory, which is a personal goal of mine), since you speak English very well for someone who isn't a native speaker.
 

Daijyashin

Berserk is Divine and Human
Konketsuji said:
Well, people don't have a choice, nothing's better in the market, right? Or is it possible to find DH editions in your stores?

Yeah you hit the core of the problem. We are fated to eat up the bad fluorescent poultice that Panini dishes out to us. We can only hope that some day they'll release a decent version, with a double cover, good general quality and so on.

Rhombaad said:
Ugh, that sucks Marik. You should try and import the DH versions if you can (or learn to read Japanese so you can enjoy the originals in all their glory, which is a personal goal of mine), since you speak English very well for someone who isn't a native speaker.

Thanks Rhombaad, but about the DH version, while I am pretty sure that in terms of quality it's a lot better than an Italian edition, like Aaz said it has some translation problems. For sure the best (and most arduous) way is to learn Japanese. :iva:

Konketsuji said:
And what about the price, how much for the slim and the regular?

The various prices of the Italian editions are the following:

Berserk slim: €2.20 - $2.82
Berserk Collection: €4.30 - $5.52
Berserk Maximum: €7.50* - $9.62
Berserk Black edition: €5.00 - $6.41

*Actually the first numbers of the maximum (from 1 to 5) are reprinted to a limited number for the obscene price of €12.00 ($15.40)

Konketsuji said:
I turns out the Black edition is quite new, and still no improvement in translation, you say?

Nope. :judo: The Black edition is merely the collection. The most improved edition is the Maximum, it has some name corrected, some dialogue is more accurate, but it's just that, aesthetically it's fucking horrible and aggressive to the sight, it's a kind of mocking from Panini toward the fans.

Konketsuji said:
Oh, and mystery solved, I always wondered why Italians call characters by a strange names(on deviantart, for example) like Boid, Urbick and so on. Now I know. =)

Ahahah! :guts: Well, that's about it. Long ago I too used those misspelled names. :schnoz:
 
The german version is done by Planet Manga (Panini Comics). We got two versions:
1. The normal edition.
2. The Berserk MAX Edition (somehow like the Italian Berserk Maximum).

1) The normal edition comes in a nice jacket. The quality of the printing is good. The price is 7,95 €. But most of the volumes are out of stock. Sometimes you could grab a used volume for under 10€ but you should expect to pay 15-20 € min. The highest price for a Volume is 450 €. Yeah you heard right. Volume 28 is very rare. You could look it up for yourself: http://www.amazon.de/gp/offer-listing/3866070241/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&qid=1284821211&sr=8-1&condition=used
Luckily, you can make a good bargain on ebay. When people are selling their whole berserk collection you can buy it for 140€ and up. :)

2) The Berserk MAX Edition contains 2 volumes. Below you can see how it looks. The quality isn't that good in the MAX like in the normal edition but it is acceptable. The price is perfect. 1 MAX volume (2 normal volumes) costs 10 € . You could see the cover with those Ads are a total let down.

Translation:
The translation is a good one. But it definitively needs a revision.
1. In the early volumes the language doesn't seem so fluent and a bit out-dated.
2. There are so much spelling mistakes (so much that even me is pissed off :) ) and even interchanged dialogues.
To mention the positive aspects. The language is not censored and direct. And the names are perfect :) I mean Casca is cool but in german Kjaskar sounds so goood :) Even Beherit sounds better than beherit. So only let down is the name "Schierke" instead of "Schierke" . Schierke sounds better, and Schierke sounds the word schielen which is to squint.

there is a rumor that in the german berserk version is censorship, but i haven't found any censored panels.
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It looks very nice, Kaimera. Too bad translation isn't perfect and I'm still shocked about a price range, especially about Volume 28...

kaimera said:
Schierke sounds better, and Schierke sounds the word schielen which is to squint.
That made me laugh. :guts:

kaimera said:
I mean Casca is cool but in german Kjaskar sounds so goood :)
By the way, in Russian Caska(Каска) means hard hat, but it's no big deal, everyone got used to it. :carcus:
 

Gobolatula

praise be to grail!
Konketsuji said:
By the way, in Russian Casca(Каска) means hard hat, but it's no big deal, everyone got used to it. :carcus:
I'm still getting used to the meaning of "Guts" in English :slan:

But "hard hat" must sound a little silly. I always thought "Casca" was a Russian sounding name anyway..
 
Gobolatula said:
I'm still getting used to the meaning of "Guts" in English :slan:

But "hard hat" must sound a little silly. I always thought "Casca" was a Russian sounding name anyway..
Yeah, "Guts" was a tough one too, but somehow it make sense. :guts: And like I said everyone got used to it, but it did sound weird at the beginning.
 
Konketsuji said:
It looks very nice, Kaimera. Too bad translation isn't perfect and I'm still shocked about a price range, especially about Volume 28...
That made me laugh. :guts:
By the way, in Russian Casca(Каска) means hard hat, but it's no big deal, everyone got used to it. :carcus:

Hard hat?! That's hilarious :ubik: There is something in my berserk volumes that bugs me. Most of the sound effects are in english. Is it just in the german version or in the italian and russian version too?
 
kaimera said:
Hard hat?! That's hilarious :ubik: There is something in my berserk volumes that bugs me. Most of the sound effects are in english. Is it just in the german version or in the italian and russian version too?
In russian version all the sound effects are in russian. :iva:
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Sorry for the quality, my camera is on vacation and phone camera is shit, as you can see.
 
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