Berserk: The Flame Dragon Knight novel

I'm ambivalent to the idea of Grunbeld becoming an anti hero apostle that saved his people, part of being an apostle is severing your ties to humanity, apostles don't help people. After all, how does Grunbeld feel about flooding his old homeland with hordes of monsters?
 
MrFlibble said:
I'm ambivalent to the idea of Grunbeld becoming an anti hero apostle that saved his people, part of being an apostle is severing your ties to humanity, apostles don't help people. After all, how does Grunbeld feel about flooding his old homeland with hordes of monsters?

Well, like the rest of Griffith's generals, Grunbeld is more morally ambiguous compared to your typical apostle.

Assuming this is an accurate synopsis, of course.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
MrFlibble said:
I'm ambivalent to the idea of Grunbeld becoming an anti hero apostle that saved his people, part of being an apostle is severing your ties to humanity, apostles don't help people. After all, how does Grunbeld feel about flooding his old homeland with hordes of monsters?

The deeper we went with the initial summary that was posted, the less it held up. I wouldn't put too much stock into it, particularly details like this.
 

puella

Berserk forever
In my opinion, it's not good to show interest for this novel, unless you want to see it happen again.
It's already selling pretty well. Japanese readers seem to be moderately satisfied with it in general, and many are expecting that more are to come, unfortunately...
Asian people are familiar with this kind of merchandising when movies, manga and the like are successful.

I have the book of course but I decided not to read it. I just checked the end out of curiosity.
 
Question, I know there was a few illustrations provided with the book. Is it by chance like the manga where there is sometime a illustration poster within it? Because shamelessly I would like to buy the novel if there was.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Death May Die said:
Question, I know there was a few illustrations provided with the book. Is it by chance like the manga where there is sometime a illustration poster within it? Because shamelessly I would like to buy the novel if there was.

The illustrations are interspersed throughout the book -- no posters.
 

residentgrigo

Excitement and Enjoyment!
Aaz already confirmed my initial question if this is a LN or not, as Fukami wrote wrote such in the past. His confirmation basically killed any last interest for me. A few good LNs do exist (Baccano) but they are ultimately a very cheap way to start a franchise, as the fluffy conversation style plots can easily be turned into manga/anime scripts. Someone would have turned this one into an OVA if the anime didn´t bomb so hard is my guess.

The utterly talentless Makoto Fukami is the much harder strike No.2. I frankly despise him but i will admit that his middling anime work is better than his soft-core manga porn. Amazon.jp reviews even seem to be optimistic enough, with the LN being deemed a breezy yet explicit done-in-one read. One reviewer even called the prose appropriate for elementary school readers, if it wasn´t for all the sex and gore :ganishka: . It´s kinda nice that the spin-off turned out to be harmless in the end!
I don´t want more, especially if we can´t get Neo Falcon one-of manga by YA´s Shizuya Wazarai or Kouji Mori. Such would get an immediate approval from me, as long as Miura gets proper story credit.
Or a "real" book and Berserk now has its first entry, outside of merch, that doesn´t target (young) adults. An interesting decision, yet this is hardly the first child inappropriate LN and the pachinko machine targets way older people than the manga, so all male markets are now served by YA. Insert Space Balls joke about merch [here].

I can live with the LN being apocryphal, as the mostly dreadful Star Wars EU used to be, or part of canon, even if the 3rd act seems a bit… off, as this is just a random Grunbeld story. His dead friends could be shown or be hinted at in let´s say a dying moment in the manga. The Dreamcast Mandragora had a cameo too for example. We´ll soon see where we will end up regarding spin-offs but Miura brought his A game for the illustrations. These are the best looking Berserk splash pages pages since Vol.34. They certainly lessen the blow.
 
puella said:
In my opinion, it's not good to show interest for this novel, unless you want to see it happen again.

I don't think I could agree more with this sentiment, the tricky part is how far to take it. In the end to me it came down to not buying the book at all, even though the illustrations alone were probably worth it. In this instance I ended up deciding that I wouldn't want to contribute sending a message asking for more of these novels. Oh, wait...

puella said:
It's already selling pretty well.

Perhaps it is too late and the message has already been sent and received. :sad:
 
Yeah m, it's pretty tricky. I wasn't sure myself whether I should buy it or not. I'd be buying it for the art in the cover (of young Grunbeld) and the illustrations within. Can't translate the written text, so there's no incentive when it comes to reading it and if isn't written by Miura then I'm not really interested in the text. Walter raised valid points in his discussion on the previous page. As of now, I'm on the bend whether to own it or not.
 
I'm not sure if you can take it as an indicator for an English translation, but it seems that a German translation is possible.

Asked on the German panini forum an official answered, that a release of the novel in Germany is "most likely yes" possible. And they also seem to look into a German version of the new character guidebook. Source: https://www.paninishop.de/forum/index.php?thread/8610-fragen-an-die-redaktion-vol-ii/&postID=1886017#post1886017
 
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2017-10-30/dark-horse-to-release-berserk-the-flame-dragon-knight-novel-berserk-guidebook/.123334

Apparently the novel is going to be translated and released by Dark Horse. Looks like what with this and the Guidebook English release Dark Horse is investing more into their Berserk license/publishing rights than before.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
That's great. It seemed progressively more likely that DH would localize this, given the recent attention they've given Berserk's success. No release date projected here, which is to be expected. I'd guess a year or so, based on their previous history.
 

DANGERDOOOOM

Rest In Peace, Kentaro Miura. We will miss you.
jackson_hurley said:
Just wait for the back cover synopsis! :ganishka:

Berserk: The Fire Lizard Soldier Grunbard

But yeah... still gonna buy it and check it out. It should be an interesting read either way.
 
REAL late to the party on this one. Just read the whole thread. Aside from the typically gorgeous illustrations, not much else about this sits right with me. The whole thing is frankly a bummer. Would've *much* rather have seen this told in the f***ing manga. Oh, and people preferring a backstory told this way, um, no. Not at all.
 
I know no one's chomping at the bit for more info, but for the sake of stirring the pot :daiba:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Berserk/comments/7fepkq/full_summary_of_berserk_the_flame_dragon_knight/

As I kind of expected, it doesn't sound egregious, just vastly inferior to the series proper. From what this reveals, I think the one hint of potential Berserk light novels could have is not in backstory for supporting characters, but in the history of the various kingdoms in Berserk. Because I do enjoy world-building even if it's not directly applicable to the story. I'm re-reading through the series now, and when Serpico goes on his long diatribe of the various nations in the Holy See alliance, I was very fascinated. So I'd be down for light novels on stuff like that.

Or one on the history of the Coborlwitz family. "The Chuders."
 
The novel is out in germany and i have read the first 65 sites.I really hope that this is not canon.It seems that the autor dosn´t know that berserk isnt only about gore,rape and violence. In what i have read it feels like that there is far to much rape and detailed violent i really don´t like it. I regret to buy it. :judo:
 
Top Bottom