Episode 359

His prescence makes me more worried than excited.

Well... The last time we saw him he told Guts that there was a way to heal Casca. Now that she is, it makes sense that he is meeting with them again...

He'll probably inform Guts and Casca about Falconia and Griffith, and maybe the Kid will also arrive when SK is talking to them :shrug:
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Casca's line in that first picture: "I thought so. I'm quite rusty. This small sword feels heavy."

Some (very) early thoughts:

I like the path Miura has chosen for dealing with Casca's trauma. I had pictured it as being something that would her take a long time to deal with, not unlike Guts' own demons.
That seems like the only sensible way to go about it, because introducing it just to have her struggle for a few episodes would have felt like a needless delay of an inevitable resolution (her "returning to normal").
Instead it's a burden she will have to carry, but one that doesn't prevent the restoration nor the evolution of her character going forward. It's just that she isn't magically devoid of trauma.
She was brought back, but she still has to deal with what happened. And I think the group will help. One of the things I'm perhaps most excited about is seeing her and Guts support each other in that regard.
Guts has had no one with whom to really share that loss until now. It's a new paradigm for him and for his revenge. That's another thing I'm really curious to learn about: how will Casca feel about Griffith?
Obviously there's the matter of their son, but what about Griffith himself? Will she feel an all-consuming hatred like Guts? Will it be paralyzing fear? Bottomless sorrow? Something else? There are truly a myriad possibilities going forward...
 
Speak for you, I can't be happier for Casca I don't care about the rest (for the moment)

I'm totally seeing both sides of this. I can't stop myself from consuming Berserk spoilers but with the first spoiler image seen being a fully restored Casca in armour....It's an understatement to say this is a jarring first image to see after the scream. I'm sure that the full episode will do a good job presenting these events, and I think a skip in time from the scream is a good idea. We don't really need to SEE an extended scene of Casca freaking out, I think it's classier leaving it inferred.
 
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To be honest, I feel like the story is jumping ahead. Casca has already shed her new look. She's already back to normal which makes me think her insanity is more like some magic spell versus an intense trauma. But I haven't read this yet. I'm hoping there is more patience as she deals with things.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
To be honest, I feel like the story is jumping ahead. Casca has already shed her new look. She's already back to normal which makes me think her insanity is more like some magic spell versus an intense trauma. But I haven't read this yet. I'm hoping there is more patience as she deals with things.

Sure but her new look was to be nice for the reunion with Guts. I dont see the need to keep that look too long. I cant wait to watch the full deal!

Got my copy after all. Thanx Aaz for preventing me an anxiety attack!
 
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It's been so long. Even if it makes total sense for her to take her time and "ease into it"... I genuinely hope we'll see substantial dialogue or thoughts regarding her feelings and disposition towards the state of things. Casca's still marked for sacrifice and the power of love ain't getting rid of that... I think.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
To be honest, I feel like the story is jumping ahead. Casca has already shed her new look. She's already back to normal which makes me think her insanity is more like some magic spell versus an intense trauma. But I haven't read this yet. I'm hoping there is more patience as she deals with things.

See what I said about this a few posts above yours.

I like the path Miura has chosen for dealing with Casca's trauma. I had pictured it as being something that would her take a long time to deal with, not unlike Guts' own demons.
That seems like the only sensible way to go about it, because introducing it just to have her struggle for a few episodes would have felt like a needless delay of an inevitable resolution (her "returning to normal").
Instead it's a burden she will have to carry, but one that doesn't prevent the restoration nor the evolution of her character going forward. It's just that she isn't magically devoid of trauma.
She was brought back, but she still has to deal with what happened. And I think the group will help. One of the things I'm perhaps most excited about is seeing her and Guts support each other in that regard.
Guts has had no one with whom to really share that loss until now. It's a new paradigm for him and for his revenge. That's another thing I'm really curious to learn about: how will Casca feel about Griffith?
Obviously there's the matter of their son, but what about Griffith himself? Will she feel an all-consuming hatred like Guts? Will it be paralyzing fear? Bottomless sorrow? Something else? There are truly a myriad possibilities going forward...

Also, while the princess look was nice, she was clearly not going to be wearing it for very long, so to be honest I'm happy we got to see it at all. It felt like a celebration of her return. And I'm also not at all convinced that what we see here will be her definitive attire. I believe it's another transient thing.

EDIT:

That's another thing I'm really curious to learn about: how will Casca feel about Griffith?
Obviously there's the matter of their son, but what about Griffith himself? Will she feel an all-consuming hatred like Guts? Will it be paralyzing fear? Bottomless sorrow? Something else? There are truly a myriad possibilities going forward...

Replying to myself here after talking to Walter led to the realization that guilt would actually make a lot of sense. When the Eclipse happened, she was the one who was responsible for the Band of the Falcon. She was leading them. And she organized and led the effort to rescue Griffith in the first place. She was blindly loyal to him (to be fair, as were the others), but most of all she was his second-in-command and she might feel guilty to have enabled what happened. When you think about it, it would really befit her. She always had such a strong sense of duty and responsibility. And while Guts does feel some guilt it hasn't been the focus of his own trauma, so there's space for it to be explored without feeling like a retreading.
 
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Judo

Midlands finest
Oh boy, you guys are killing me... it will consume a large amount of my mental strength to be able to resist those spoilers.
 

neohx_7

I say whip it. Whip it good!
I only started reading Berserk in 2000. Seems to me that the length of real world time passed has resulted in a mountain of expectations for this reunion. I think its fascinating and insightful we have Tolkien's "letters" as well as some history of manuscript/worldbuilding. I hope some day Miura will give us some insights on how the story developed over time for him. I think its fair to say that from art style to tone we are not going to see the same Casca/narrative that Miura would have gone with had she regained her sanity shortly after losing it. On the other hand it may be very close to what he has had in mind for 20 or more years. Differences in The Black Swordsman arc compared to post eclipse were not simply just changes in Miura's style over time, but characters and world not yet mature in development. Casca had already been well developed far before the eclipse.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
I think its fair to say that from art style to tone we are not going to see the same Casca/narrative that Miura would have gone with had she regained her sanity shortly after losing it. On the other hand it may be very close to what he has had in mind for 20 or more years.

I actually don't think Miura's vision for her character has changed. I mean we'll see how it goes, but it all feels pretty straightforward so far and, at least as far as I'm concerned, fits my expectations. What's sure is that some people had misconceived notions about what would happen to Casca over the years, but that was always just their problem (as they were told at the time). It's also worth noting that from what Miura has said in interviews, his general outline for the story hasn't changed over time.
 
I know that the episode isn't even out yet, but i just want to say something about one of the leaks.

I found it really cool how when Judo died we saw it mostly through his eyes, and he was looking at Casca while his eyes were slowly closing which formed this eye-shaped black outline around Casca.

But in episode 359 where Casca remebers Judo, she remembers him with the same black outline around him, probably because her eyes were teary at the moment.

Nn8RqnV.png


I know i'm pretty much pointing out the obvious, but i thought it was a cool detail.

Also, Miura drew Judo really well in his new artstyle, almost the exact same as more than 20 years ago.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
I found it really cool how when Judo died we saw it mostly through his eyes, and he was looking at Casca while his eyes were slowly closing which formed this eye-shaped black outline around Casca. But in episode 359 where Casca remebers Judo, she remembers him with the same black outline around him, probably because her eyes were teary at the moment.
I know i'm pretty much pointing out the obvious, but i thought it was a cool detail. Also, Miura drew Judo really well in his new artstyle, almost the exact same as more than 20 years ago.

Haha, yeah it's kind of obvious, but I also thought it was a nice touch. These little things are also what makes Berserk special. The attention to detail.

By the way, when we made the forum emoticons around 15 years ago, I debated whether to give Casca short or long hair for the kissing emoticon. At the time I decided I'd leave her with long hair and that if needed, we could always change it once she was restored. It's been a long time since then, but I haven't forgotten. So although she hasn't kissed anyone just yet, meet our new Casca: :casca:
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
Ordered my copy of YA, and I'm so unbelievably excited about this episode! The number 359 is significant to me, and it looks like ep. 359 is going to be really special for a variety of reasons. The wait is unbearable! :chomp:
 
By the way, when we made the forum emoticons around 15 years ago, I debated whether to give Casca short or long hair for the kissing emoticon. At the time I decided I'd leave her with long hair and that if needed, we could always change it once she was restored. It's been a long time since then, but I haven't forgotten. So although she hasn't kissed anyone just yet, meet our new Casca:

I love it! Nice addition!
 
I found it really cool how when Judo died we saw it mostly through his eyes, and he was looking at Casca while his eyes were slowly closing which formed this eye-shaped black outline around Casca.

But in episode 359 where Casca remebers Judo, she remembers him with the same black outline around him, probably because her eyes were teary at the moment.

Nn8RqnV.png


I know i'm pretty much pointing out the obvious, but i thought it was a cool detail.

Also, Miura drew Judo really well in his new artstyle, almost the exact same as more than 20 years ago.

Yeah, this is Miura being a perfectionist as usual. He probably went back and looked over his old drawings when reproducing these panels. He played around with perspective similarly when drawing Casca's memories. Here are some of them I put side by side for reference, in case some people didn't notice.

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K0dKSUQ.png


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P.S. The images don't contain any spoilers, I just used a spoiler tag to not take up all the space on the page.
 
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