Duranki - New series for the studio of Kentarō Miura

Aazealh

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Four releases in, I feel like this might become a strong series, but as it is, I feel like it has an identity crisis that it hasn't yet put to the test. It certainly doesn't feel like a short series, but one that is putting down roots for the long haul.

I'm not really following the releases right now, but Duranki was always presented as a series that would be long-running as far as I know. It seems some people have been assuming it would be short, like Gigantomakhia, but that's not what its announcement sounded like to me.
 
Story and characters are alright so far but I can't help admiring the artwork and staring at many of the panels, the manga's consistently been very high quality in that regard. I've even warmed up to the bigger eyed, rounder faces that most of the characters have as well (which I thought looked really wonky and irregular in the latest Berserk chapters).
Considering this is more of an experimental project for Miura to train his assistants and test if they can output chapters at a regular pace with consistently high art quality, I'm very impressed so far. Some pages have the issue where some panels have much thicker character outlines, clashing with the very finely-drawn landscape artwork and breaking the reading flow through pages, but overall it's still great. Looking forward to chapter 5 in the next issue!
(I honestly could do without the constant drooling and fanservice over Usum since it just frames their androgyne gender as fetishistic and has made their character pretty one-note so far, but looking forward to seeing more character development)
 
Judging off the latest episode i assume this will be also one volume like Gigantomakhia. In episode 2 Usum has a talk with the grandpa about the friends that Usum made from the Tasi village. In those pages there seems to be some foreshadowing surrounding Usums nature being revealed and how she/he will have to face the potential case of being driven away by those who don't accept whats different from them.

Then in the very latest release there are some serious implications about the boy Kirta being more than just human. With all the symbols taken from the Legend of Keret i would not be surprised if he ends up being half god considering the mysterious nature of his mom aswell.

I expect 3-4 more episodes with serious escalation coming our way and i would not be surprised if the boy ends up being the dragon that we saw from the initial color page. Obviously im reaching and just speculating right now, and it very well could be a longer project than expected. Just have to wait and see. I wonder what you guys think about the potential length of the series based on the groundwork done for it thus far?
 

Walter

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Judging off the latest episode i assume this will be also one volume like Gigantomakhia.

I get the opposite sense, so far. Nothing signals a crisis on the horizon, or anything to resolve before the next 3-4 releases. It seems like scene-setting for a longer series.

In episode 2 Usum has a talk with the grandpa about the friends that Usum made from the Tasi village. In those pages there seems to be some foreshadowing surrounding Usums nature being revealed and how she/he will have to face the potential case of being driven away by those who don't accept whats different from them.

Yep, it's a smaller theme of the series so far.

Then in the very latest release there are some serious implications about the boy Kirta being more than just human.

What did I miss in this release...? Nothing about Kirita seems particularly superficial, and the tribe that he lives with seem to regard supernatural things (like Usum and Mt. Nisir) with surprise and reverence more than familiarity. The only thing left unanswered in ep 4 is why they chose to build their village in a high place, which Kirita enigmatically doesn't explain to Usum when they ask.

With all the symbols taken from the Legend of Keret i would not be surprised if he ends up being half god considering the mysterious nature of his mom aswell.

Let's pretend I've never noticed any symbols from Keret in this manga -- could you note some for me?
 
What did I miss in this release...? Nothing about Kirita seems particularly superficial, and the tribe that he lives with seem to regard supernatural things (like Usum and Mt. Nisir) with surprise and reverence more than familiarity. The only thing left unanswered in ep 4 is why they chose to build their village in a high place, which Kirita enigmatically doesn't explain to Usum when they ask.

Basically it starts off with the name of the character. The Legend of Keret, or also called the Legend of Kirta is about a man who is half god. The name of the character obviously derives from that Legend. The interesting part is that Kerets father is the one who was a god, and in the latest issue we only see his mother who seems to be human the least. Most of the Legend focuses around Kerets inability to find a wife who can birth children for him, so he starts a war to get the woman he wants after his dad tells him so in his dream. Most of this stuff obviously seems to not apply to the series and where it is, but one thing i assume Miura built on was the sea portion of the episode. In the Legend Keret encounters the goddess of the sea which may be relevant down the line if the series ends up being longer.

Another small thing i noticed was the last page that has something odd going on. While all the characters are wearing wolf skin, the only one who isn't is usum wearing deer horns, maybe foreshadowing a situation where usum will be the one hunted due to the nature of her body.

Personally i could see the next episodes escalating into a situation where Usum being a hermaphrodite is discovered by the people of the village connecting to what Usums Grandpa said in episode 2 in regards to how others treat people who are different to them. And go from there to revealing that Kirta is a half god himself.


I get the opposite sense, so far. Nothing signals a crisis on the horizon, or anything to resolve before the next 3-4 releases. It seems like scene-setting for a longer series.

Honestly can't even say i disagree, there is definitely not enough content or drawn lines where i can say with confidence that this series will be one volume. The next 2 episodes should determine that
 

Found this tweet by an assistant (i assume one of the new ones) of Miura. He posted a spread that he inked from Episode 5 which just got released recently. Nice to find a guy of his team on social media, and while speaking on the content, as predicted a confrontation between humans is happening which i assume will lead to them learning about Usums real nature of being a hermaphrodite.
 

Walter

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while speaking on the content, as predicted a confrontation between humans is happening which i assume will lead to them learning about Usums real nature of being a hermaphrodite.

Nah... I didn't think so then, just from the speech bubbles alone (looked like a voice-over flashback). And as evidenced in the new release, it's Usum's gramps recalling a past war. I also don't see how a war will lead to a revelation about Usum's gender, unless you simply mean tying those two narrative threads together makes practical sense from a storytelling perspective. In any case, it's not much of a "prediction" that Usum's gender will lead to strife between her and humans, since that's precisely what's said in the very first release.

I'll again reiterate that Duranki does not appear to be a short, 1-volume affair like Gigantomakhia. It appears to be setting the stage for a longer series, which is in keeping with the messaging around its launch, and everything Miura has said about it in interviews.

That's good news, hopefully Miura has filled all the missing positions he was looking for and the team is now up and running.

That would be fantastic, but until Berserk starts appearing again, my hopes aren't up that the team is solidified.
 

Found this tweet by an assistant (i assume one of the new ones) of Miura.
Thanks for sharing! Looks nice from the picture, but I'm not a huge fan of the bold/thicker outlines of characters compared to the cross-hatch/sketchy details of the backgrounds, they don't really fit well together. I wasn't a big fan of this in earlier chapters too. Also, I wish the heads weren't so big on the humans...but these are kind of minor things.
 
Yeah i definitely take back my thought of the possibility of it maybe just being a volume. Like Walter described this episode, seems to be setting up for something longer. Will be interesting to see how they can balance both series release
 
Btw, loved this little detail from the latest episode on Kirtas armor. Looks like a mix of Falconias/Gaiserics symbol.

TrhieFt.png


On that note, who knows maybe Miura is even drawing the Gaiseric backstory right now :schnoz:

Also the new Miura of assistant has been a bit active lately and gained a nice following/support on Twitter which is nice to see!

He posted this tweet just now


Basically he has been a part of the team for a few months now and he has not worked on Berserk yet, which is completely unsurprising. Its nice to hear the original plan as explained in the Natalie.mu interview to continue.
 

Aazealh

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Staff member
On that note, who knows maybe Miura is even drawing the Gaiseric backstory right now :schnoz:

There's little doubt he is.

Also the new Miura of assistant has been a bit active lately and gained a nice following/support on Twitter which is nice to see!

Given the level of that crowd I just wonder how long it'll take until he has to turn his account private.
 
Seeing how people are already being repetitive and annoyingly inquisitive I'm not sure that's gonna turn out to be such a good thing.

They have been largely supportive which is a great thing as the assistant seems to be very appreciate thus far, but i hope he learns to ignore messages in the future including the good ones. Many people are not aware how Japanese differ to westerners in terms of sensitivity to whats said and not and thats evident in other mangakas social media where fans can be obnoxious at times.

In general i think its pretty cool though
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
I have a question for those who can follow the series in japanese : do they use "they/them" in japanese when someone is refering to Usum? (even though they dont know Usum's true nature?
 
The design of the Manticore looks... interesting. Not saying that it's bad, it just looks pretty different than how it's usually portrayed, I honestly like it.

We probably need 2 to 3 more chapters/episodes until the end of Volume 1, and it's slowly getting more and more obvious that this won't be a single volume like Gigantomakhia, which I'm happy with.
The story isn't blowing my away yet or something, but the way it's going, I can see it being something that I'll love further down the line.
 

Aazealh

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Staff member
I have a question for those who can follow the series in japanese : do they use "they/them" in japanese when someone is refering to Usum? (even though they dont know Usum's true nature?

Japanese isn't like English. You don't necessarily have to use pronouns, it's possible to just use one's name in every sentence. Beyond that, the gender assigned to words is also more fluid. A good example is the way Miura uses the word for "king" in Danan's title (King of the Flower Storm) while she's actually a woman. It's not a problem in Japanese.

The design of the Manticore looks... interesting. Not saying that it's bad, it just looks pretty different than how it's usually portrayed, I honestly like it.

Well originally a Manticore is supposed to have a human head, so on that front I think Miura did a great job of achieving a sort of human likeness while still keeping it a monster with three rows of teeths. Beyond that, what makes it special is the armored body and the bat wings. I guess those are to make it more formidable, because otherwise a single crossbow bolt at that range might have been enough to severely wound it.

We probably need 2 to 3 more chapters/episodes until the end of Volume 1

If you're wondering, Miura uses the word "episode" for individual Duranki issues, same as for Berserk.

it's slowly getting more and more obvious that this won't be a single volume like Gigantomakhia, which I'm happy with.

Been saying so from the beginning. :shrug:
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
Japanese isn't like English. You don't necessarily have to use pronouns, it's possible to just use one's name in every sentence. Beyond that, the gender assigned to words is also more fluid. A good example is the way Miura uses the word for "king" in Danan's title (King of the Flower Storm) while she's actually a woman. It's not a problem in Japanese.

Thank you for the clarification. I was reading a translation online for lacking any japanese skills and the translation bothered me a bit so I was wondering.
 
Just a heads up, but no Duranki episode in this month's YA Zero issue.

I can't say for sure if it got delayed like Berserk, due to the the digital editions not including a preview page for the issue after.

It doesn't seem that way though since the 6th episode had the "to be continued" announcement rather than the "continues next issue".

aZDeDXo.png
 
Yes, i know that Duranki is published in different magazine. I meant everyone worked on Berserk, both Miura and the assistants in this month.

But you're actually right, because both series came out in April. I forgot it!
 
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