Just consoom whatever slop they put out, right?
Episode 378
- Thread starter Aazealh
- Start date
Beelzebud
[...] Into the abyss will I run [...]
I keep reading because this is still Berserk, the work I most love between any medium. But I hate it because it's not Berserk anymore.
I think that's the same for everyone else, It's not like we can just forget that there are
I can't just not read then, it doesn't work that way, you know it.
It's exactly that way! I feel exactly the same to both works, except that RoP are a DIFFERENT WORK. It's completely fan fiction, with different names and all. It's like if someone tries to adapt again the LotR trilogy and ruin it all.
For an instant I though you are referring to "here" in the forum hahaha
Yeah I don't know why that argument is so popular, it's not like these careerists are ever going to release the notes and admit they made up a bunch of bullshit to fill the gaps, this is our only opportunity to figure out how things might have played out at this point. You can recognize that and still accept that this is irredeemable trash and the wrong approach entirely.
guuuuuuuuts
Excited for the next chapter!
There is still hope that Mori will release the original notes. Not to mention it would make a nice afterword for collectors. AFAIK, they think they are rocking it. So, I do still feel confident they may release the notes once the story is finished.
What do you mean when you say "the original notes" ?
I'm pretty sure the original notes are Mori's memories, and maybe a handful of sketches and rough outlines. It's pretty clear Miura didn't have a Berserk bible.
To think that the ending was supposedly planned 30 years ago, when he drew the Eclipse, and he still never left anything about it
So weird, because if he died, the ending he planned would be lost forever, or maybe he knew his friend Mori would have to handle everything and wanted it to be that way?
But i bet they will still release the artbook with "Miuras ideas" after this shitty Continuation ends, everything is about money, after all
"Original notes" is a misnomer, which is why Walter was asking @guuuuuuuuts to clarify what he meant. Indeed, Mori wrote down an outline based on his memories, and that's being used as the basis for the Continuation. He's on the record saying this. But there are no "rough outlines" from Miura that we know of, and we've had no indication that whatever sketches of character designs were found have been used in the Continuation.
There's nothing weird about it, really. It was a work in progress, far from being done, and Miura didn't intend for someone else to do it in his place because he didn't plan on dying unexpectedly. He fully planned on finishing the story himself, so he didn't need to leave instructions. Besides, I bet if you had asked him, he would not have believed that someone other than him could do it properly. I mean this is a guy who barely even let his assistants help with background details. Someone who did "99% of the work himself", according to Kurosaki.
What's clear from all this is that Mori oversold how much he actually knew/understood of Miura's plans for the story. And what it means is that Miura's ending is indeed lost forever. Whatever this team ends up producing will be an ersatz at best, a travesty at worst.
An artbook containing some never-seen-before sketches? It's possible. But that's very different from detailed notes about how the story would have progressed until its conclusion. Those just don't exist. I'd love for Mori to publish his recollections of Miura's ideas in their rawest form (I've been saying so for two years now), but nothing guarantees he'll do it. That said, you've got it right that greed is the one factor that could make it happen, along with appropriate (i.e. loud and persistent) fan demand. If large numbers of people start pleading for it under every tweet from Berserk-related official accounts, it will at least be considered.
A little dumb parody i wrote about the continuation and how i feel about it ending, and the crew talking.
I wrote it first where characters felt way too self aware. Can't have that.
Guts and Griffith last conversation:
I wrote it first where characters felt way too self aware. Can't have that.
Guts and Griffith last conversation:
Griffith: Still crawling around like a cockroach i see.
Guts: Griffiiiiith!!
*CLANG*
Void: Oh no Griffith is dead, we need to leave!
Slan: Can we take Guts?
Skullknight: Where do you think you're going Void? I have this new special sword. It's made of Beherits... Crimson Beherits
Void: This can't be. The current of causality!
Guts: I told you already! There's no fate in my world! Rickert now!
*Rickert detonates landmines, launching the remaining Godhand towards Guts and Skullknight*
*Shonen double spread of Guts and Skully cutting Godhand in a swoop*
Guts: fshuuu!
Serpico: Guts your arm and eye!
Skullknight: Your Astral wounds are disappearing struggler, as am I
Isidro: So Molda, wanna ride..
*Schierke punches him*
Schierke: Monkey!
Farnese: Let's go guys
-----------------
Mori: Think we tied everything up, i kinda forgot about the conversation but the fight was fire, like the second duel you know.
Kurosaki: Yeah and Slan likes Guts.
Mori: I almost forgot Farnese and Serpico were related.
Studio Gaga #1: We forgot about Puck, maybe like a Puck Flash?
Studio Gaga #2: Void's blind dude.
Studio Gaga #1: Is he really?
Kurosaki: We will put Puck on the cover.
Studio Gaga #1: Feels like we're forgetting somebody real important.
Mori: Right Zodd, uhh damn where did you send him? At the tree..
Studio Gaga #1: That was like last Arc. Don't think it was Zo...
Mori: Guys, what did I say? Berserk 2
Studio Gaga #2: hyyypeee
Kurosaki: You remembered some new old conversations?
Mori: Ye, ye we can make like a new fight inside Astral World, damn we can show old Band of the Hawk, Judeau!
Kurosaki: Judeau man!
Mori: We're making it happen! I'm remembering stuff as we speak. Make the phone call. Berserk 2 is coming.
Guts: Griffiiiiith!!
*CLANG*
Void: Oh no Griffith is dead, we need to leave!
Slan: Can we take Guts?
Skullknight: Where do you think you're going Void? I have this new special sword. It's made of Beherits... Crimson Beherits
Void: This can't be. The current of causality!
Guts: I told you already! There's no fate in my world! Rickert now!
*Rickert detonates landmines, launching the remaining Godhand towards Guts and Skullknight*
*Shonen double spread of Guts and Skully cutting Godhand in a swoop*
Guts: fshuuu!
Serpico: Guts your arm and eye!
Skullknight: Your Astral wounds are disappearing struggler, as am I
Isidro: So Molda, wanna ride..
*Schierke punches him*
Schierke: Monkey!
Farnese: Let's go guys
-----------------
Mori: Think we tied everything up, i kinda forgot about the conversation but the fight was fire, like the second duel you know.
Kurosaki: Yeah and Slan likes Guts.
Mori: I almost forgot Farnese and Serpico were related.
Studio Gaga #1: We forgot about Puck, maybe like a Puck Flash?
Studio Gaga #2: Void's blind dude.
Studio Gaga #1: Is he really?
Kurosaki: We will put Puck on the cover.
Studio Gaga #1: Feels like we're forgetting somebody real important.
Mori: Right Zodd, uhh damn where did you send him? At the tree..
Studio Gaga #1: That was like last Arc. Don't think it was Zo...
Mori: Guys, what did I say? Berserk 2
Studio Gaga #2: hyyypeee
Kurosaki: You remembered some new old conversations?
Mori: Ye, ye we can make like a new fight inside Astral World, damn we can show old Band of the Hawk, Judeau!
Kurosaki: Judeau man!
Mori: We're making it happen! I'm remembering stuff as we speak. Make the phone call. Berserk 2 is coming.
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Not that it tells us much about its eventual release date but Kurosaki said on Twitter that episode 379 is already done.
What an episode, everything moved so fast I couldn't keep up.
Right off the bat, Rakshas does Rakshas things, and it seems the new emperor is unfamiliar with him, calling him a "specter" (the translation might be off, but the point remains). Isn't Rakshas supposed to be a notorious exile?
One more elephant in the room is how Rakshas claimed to have died by Rickert's fireball. It feels so off. Rakshas appeared to be one of the stronger apostles out there, so such an attack killing him is unbelievable to say the least.
I blazed through episodes 340–341, and it didn't look like what was happening back there. Griffith was watching it unfold, and it’s pretty reasonable to assume he or the other members of the new Band of the Hawk would do something if one of their strongest comrades were to die on them like that.
But leaving the inconsistencies aside (as one is expected to do at this point), I'm curious about what direction the story will take from here, what happened to Rakshas to lose his memory (and "life"?), and how he ended up in the Kushan palace.
Also, the sudden return of Qlipoth was VERY unexpected to me. (At first, I thought those dark blobs were the same ones from the destruction of Skellig.) I assume it’s their shtick to reuse old ideas, but let's see where it leads.
After Qlipoth’s spawning and the opening of the "astral gates" (it can mean so many things; I’m not even going to guess), Rakshas said, "This will do." So... he's got Slan's powers now? Neat.
One more thing that rubs me the wrong way is how often and unjustifiably they are using the "white eyes" thing. It was a special visual that happened when someone was going "Berserk", but now half the time it’s just on random NPCs with a :O expression.
On the positive side of this episode, to give credit where credit is due, their paneling is getting better. I hope the art itself and the story will catch up.
I love Berserk. I admire Miura-sensei. I even respect Mori and the rest of Studio Gaga’s efforts in this, but man, I’m feeling betrayed. This manga means so much to me, and seeing it treated this way feels like getting stabbed in the back.
Right off the bat, Rakshas does Rakshas things, and it seems the new emperor is unfamiliar with him, calling him a "specter" (the translation might be off, but the point remains). Isn't Rakshas supposed to be a notorious exile?
One more elephant in the room is how Rakshas claimed to have died by Rickert's fireball. It feels so off. Rakshas appeared to be one of the stronger apostles out there, so such an attack killing him is unbelievable to say the least.
I blazed through episodes 340–341, and it didn't look like what was happening back there. Griffith was watching it unfold, and it’s pretty reasonable to assume he or the other members of the new Band of the Hawk would do something if one of their strongest comrades were to die on them like that.
But leaving the inconsistencies aside (as one is expected to do at this point), I'm curious about what direction the story will take from here, what happened to Rakshas to lose his memory (and "life"?), and how he ended up in the Kushan palace.
Also, the sudden return of Qlipoth was VERY unexpected to me. (At first, I thought those dark blobs were the same ones from the destruction of Skellig.) I assume it’s their shtick to reuse old ideas, but let's see where it leads.
After Qlipoth’s spawning and the opening of the "astral gates" (it can mean so many things; I’m not even going to guess), Rakshas said, "This will do." So... he's got Slan's powers now? Neat.
One more thing that rubs me the wrong way is how often and unjustifiably they are using the "white eyes" thing. It was a special visual that happened when someone was going "Berserk", but now half the time it’s just on random NPCs with a :O expression.
On the positive side of this episode, to give credit where credit is due, their paneling is getting better. I hope the art itself and the story will catch up.
I love Berserk. I admire Miura-sensei. I even respect Mori and the rest of Studio Gaga’s efforts in this, but man, I’m feeling betrayed. This manga means so much to me, and seeing it treated this way feels like getting stabbed in the back.
Of the Bakiraka, not the Kushan
Nothing, this isn't a real plot point it's transparently just some bullshit they made up because they can't read and it'll likely never be explained. The alternative is that they're aware that he didn't die and are trying to force some development with the astral world and Rakshas is just a plot device to achieve this. Maybe they felt they couldn't airdrop Griffith into the empire after they just did the same thing with Elfhelm.
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In addition to what @Ithier said above, I have to point out that these aren't "Rakshas things". He's never done anything like that before and, as I indicated earlier in the thread, this doesn't actually fit his abilities or behavior.
My guess is they serve the same essential purpose...
...Which probably explains this line, since it's not only meaningless, but also a fundamental misinterpretation of how these things work in Berserk.
And yet it ends pretty much the same way the previous episode did. Other than pseudo-trolls appearing, nothing really happened.
Yea I'm totally with you on this, I was just kidding, but it wasn't communicated well trough text - my bad on the wording
It makes sense. I always assumed all of the Bakiraka were known as notorious by the Kushan people.
Like everyone else, I've been disappointed by many elements of the continuation, in particular its pacing issues and apparent contradictions. That said, the team behind it was put in the unenviable position of attempting to continue one of the greatest manga of all time, so the fact it's of lesser quality is only expected. Like many others, I was initially opposed to the existence of a continuation and knowing Kouji Mori was behind it didn't settle this disquiet, given the fact that Holyland and Suicide Island are not exactly Berserk-tier manga. However, ultimately I think he and Miura's assistants probably have a better grasp on whether or not he would have desired this, and they're doing their best to honor his memory by completing his legendary work. I realize that "I would prefer there were no continuation" is the prevailing sentiment here and, while I respect that, I've also been reading it ad nauseam throughout the episode discussion threads, so I hope no one feels the need to clarify it again in their reply to me.
There are definitely a number of missteps and contradictions, and I don't think anyone here disagrees that the continuation lacks much of the subtlety and nuance that characterized Miura's Berserk. It is a different and ultimately inferior product and whatever conclusion we get can obviously only echo whatever the team knew and might not reflect Miura's ultimate vision of the story. That said, sometimes reading these threads comes across more like an exercise in venting frustration than any attempt to give the continuation a chance. It's obvious that many things are being condensed or "handwaved" to give the story a quicker vehicle by which to reach its end.
For example, I'm really not feeling the criticism about how the continuation disregards Fantasia. The Great Wave of the Astral World is explicitly mentioned in reference to how the Kushan Empire persists. While it's obvious that this thread of the story would have received another level of development if Miura had continued, I think the issues here are exaggerated. To begin with, waves have the interesting property of not traveling instantantaneously from their epicenter to wherever they end, but gradually gaining force and momentum. I think we would have seen a Kushan Empire besieged by supernatural forces, but I don't think that we're contradicting what came before. It was spared until now, when the wave reached it and Fantasia is about to come into full swing even in this distant empire. We're literally just being shown the reality of Fantasia in realtime as opposed to its aftermath.
Likewise, Rakshas' inner monologue tells us that he's clearly disoriented and was near-death, and he appears to have emerged from dormancy in response to the opening of the astral gates or whatever is happening. I don't think his behavior is so out of character in that context, although this will be contingent on what happens next. The apparent erasure of the differences between the Bakiraka and the Kushan people is more problematic, but I don't think it's farfetched to say Silat's role in the story would have moved in this direction and been about rallying the remnants of Kushan to mount some form of doomed resistance. We're speeding through the plot, to be sure, but this particular aspect doesn't seem contradictory to me.
tl;dr There are plenty of real issues with the continuation to bog down discussion in certain details, in my opinion. The lamentable pacing, Casca recovering only to immediately lose her agency in the story again, the regression of Guts' character development, and other important elements of the plot strike me as more worthy of criticism than the use of "kurultai" as a framing device for the political machinations within the Kushan Empire. If subtleties like that really must be nitpicked, Ganishka was a tyrannical godking whose demonic nature was not common knowledge, I don't think that reverting to earlier traditions after his demise is out of character.
There are definitely a number of missteps and contradictions, and I don't think anyone here disagrees that the continuation lacks much of the subtlety and nuance that characterized Miura's Berserk. It is a different and ultimately inferior product and whatever conclusion we get can obviously only echo whatever the team knew and might not reflect Miura's ultimate vision of the story. That said, sometimes reading these threads comes across more like an exercise in venting frustration than any attempt to give the continuation a chance. It's obvious that many things are being condensed or "handwaved" to give the story a quicker vehicle by which to reach its end.
For example, I'm really not feeling the criticism about how the continuation disregards Fantasia. The Great Wave of the Astral World is explicitly mentioned in reference to how the Kushan Empire persists. While it's obvious that this thread of the story would have received another level of development if Miura had continued, I think the issues here are exaggerated. To begin with, waves have the interesting property of not traveling instantantaneously from their epicenter to wherever they end, but gradually gaining force and momentum. I think we would have seen a Kushan Empire besieged by supernatural forces, but I don't think that we're contradicting what came before. It was spared until now, when the wave reached it and Fantasia is about to come into full swing even in this distant empire. We're literally just being shown the reality of Fantasia in realtime as opposed to its aftermath.
Likewise, Rakshas' inner monologue tells us that he's clearly disoriented and was near-death, and he appears to have emerged from dormancy in response to the opening of the astral gates or whatever is happening. I don't think his behavior is so out of character in that context, although this will be contingent on what happens next. The apparent erasure of the differences between the Bakiraka and the Kushan people is more problematic, but I don't think it's farfetched to say Silat's role in the story would have moved in this direction and been about rallying the remnants of Kushan to mount some form of doomed resistance. We're speeding through the plot, to be sure, but this particular aspect doesn't seem contradictory to me.
tl;dr There are plenty of real issues with the continuation to bog down discussion in certain details, in my opinion. The lamentable pacing, Casca recovering only to immediately lose her agency in the story again, the regression of Guts' character development, and other important elements of the plot strike me as more worthy of criticism than the use of "kurultai" as a framing device for the political machinations within the Kushan Empire. If subtleties like that really must be nitpicked, Ganishka was a tyrannical godking whose demonic nature was not common knowledge, I don't think that reverting to earlier traditions after his demise is out of character.
Beelzebud
[...] Into the abyss will I run [...]
Do you really believe that? The great wave of the astral world was SHOW covering at least 1/3 of the world in instants. Since then, the Moonlight Boy appeared two times, that's at least two months since then. We see the wave happening to spectators as a flash of light suddenly bringing Falconia to Midland, so to me it appear to be really depicted somewhat at speed of light. But let's say it's speed of sound to behave more like a "shockwave" that Guts company fell onboard of the Seahorse, so it should be sound speed? That will take something like one day and a half to cover the entire world and being a wave of magical properties I don't think it needs to accelerate or gain momentum.
Well, it's explicit said by Silat that they are enduring Fantasia, not that they were spared until now. Remember that Silat was there as an eye witness to what happened in the start of the Wave. He leaved Falconia DAYS before it. Are you saying to me that Silat travelled faster than the wave to the point that he surpassed the wave's border and the wave reached then just now?
That's clear indeed, doesn't mean it's within what was told to us. There's no way the he got into a near-death situation after Rickert bazooka shot, did you remember any fight Guts had agains apostles? Remember they power where somewhat scaling through the story being the first one lesser apostles that he can probably one-shot now, but try to remember that latest fights..
At maximum Rickert could put and ending to Rakshas pursue, obviously hurting him, maybe he got stunned by some minutes and that's all. He's not a common apostle, he is one of the big five, no way a human weapon can kill him and not even close put him to a near-death state.
Overall I got what you're saying, we should not try to evaluate this Continuation the same way we done with Berserk. That's being repeatedly said here, and everyone agrees. But it isn't our choice to do a continuation under the same name and episodes numbering acting like they are following Miura thoughts strictly, the continuation team are asking to being judged as so, it's inevitable even if we know they are wrong and we try to not get disappointed every time.
But this? Here you're just wrong, the issues are there, and the forum members just point then out
Sorry, let me rectify that: they put themselves in that situation. They pleaded to be allowed to do it. Then they said they would do it in the most faithful way possible. I don't feel sorry for them at all.
There is no real basis for that thought of yours, and as you recognize yourself, the Continuation falls so far short of Miura's work that it feels like an insult to it. In these conditions I don't see how you can convincingly rationalize what they're doing as something Miura would have wanted.
No, the issues about Fantasia are not exaggerated. You talk about reading the thread and being fed up with "nitpicking" but clearly you're missing something if you feel the state of the Kushan empire as depicted here doesn't go against what Miura had very clearly established with Fantasia. I'm not going to tell you to go re-read my posts on these episodes, but maybe re-reading the manga would help you better understand what the issues are.
I'm sorry but this sounds like you're either deluded or very mistaken. The way it's shown in the manga, that wave travelled halfway across the world in seconds. It wasn't going to "lose force" suddenly. This is not what's implied on the page and it's not what's explained in the story. The whole world was concerned and it was concerned right away. Besides that, it's explained again and again that Falconia is mankind's last bastion, so there simply shouldn't be a Kushan empire left, that very notion is a contradiction to what was established in the series prior to the Continuation.
Lastly, we do not see the result of the Great Wave of the Astral World in this episode, we see Rakshas summon pseudo-trolls by "opening a gate to the astral world". Something which is again complete nonsense and goes against the rules Miura had established for Berserk's world. I went over this in my post, but there's just no way you can rationalize it like you're doing here, it just doesn't work.
It's hilarious that you're trying to justify all of this as normal while you clearly have no explanation for how it could have happened. He emerged from dormancy? All the way across the world from where Rickert shot him? And he doesn't know how it happened? None of this makes any sense, and you can be assured that it won't be explained in a way that makes sense in the future.
You're also wrong about the order of things. Rakshas doesn't "emerge as the result of the astral gates opening or whatever" as you say, but rather he opens them himself after bursting out of that guy. It's something he inexplicably does. Big difference, although it still wouldn't make sense if it happened the other way around.
The remnants of the Kushan are in Falconia. And we know exactly what Silat was planning to do, and it wasn't to go back to a nonexistent empire that would have been a wasteland filled with monsters.
You're cute to come here to complain about this, but it's not like we've ignored all these other problems. These threads are about discussing their respective episodes, and so here we're talking about what happens in episode 378. That's why we discuss the kurultai and not Casca. Everyone here is keenly aware of the bad pacing and of how every character, big and small, has been mangled. If anything you're the one denying it when you say Rakshas' behavior isn't out of place! The fact he's not as important a character as Guts doesn't mean it's a non-issue.
By the way, I must ask: what is your point with this post exactly? You're admitting that the Continuation has tons of problems but you're also clearly trying to minimize a number of them from this episode. And you're complaining about the criticism other people have voiced but you don't seem to have a very good grasp of the issues in question. It just doesn't feel like it adds much to the discussion. Do you just mean that we can point out issues, but not too many? Because that's not how it works. It's fine if you liked this episode. Good for you! But it's not productive to try to police what others have to say about it.
Moreover, I must point out that these "small" errors and deviations add up and distort the story in ways that are profound, even though they may not be immediately apparent to most readers. You can think old Aaz over at SK.net is yelling at clouds and raving about unimportant stuff, but with each such decision we're moving farther away from Miura's vision. And I'm not talking about his vision as I imagine it, but as he had set it up in the manga!
You're missing the point. No such "earlier traditions" had been hinted at in the slightest, and the idea that another emperor would show up out of nowhere and be accepted by all, surrounded by a cadre of generals who are both unaware of what happened in the West and completely unbothered by Fantasia, is just ridiculous given what Miura had established for the story. It's quite clearly a retcon and it's inexcusable as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, frankly I think that the people who were personally acquainted with the mangaka are in a better position to determine what Miura might have wanted than the fandom, no matter how "elevated" some fans might think they are in terms of their interpretation of the text. I also don't feel particularly "sorry" for the team because they put themselves in this position, but as Beelzebud did seem to grasp from my post, I don't think that has much to do with comprehending that when the author of a work changes, so must the evaluation of that work. If you think their work has been "inexcusable" then that is your prerogative and I'm not trying to dissuade you from doing so. The "point of my post" was to offer a slightly different perspective to the echo chamber of disgruntled fans, although I don't really feel the need to justify my post, as I'm not the one policing others and telling them they're wrong, more so I suggested that maybe we should try to find the glimmers of hopefulness in being able to see Berserk end as opposed to being lost in the multitude of errors that we have no control over and which are probably an inevitable byproduct of a new team attempting to see the work through to its completion.
As far as my own perspective, I agree that it would be more helpful if this product were meaningfully distinguished from the original. I thought that the story ending on the appearance of Griffith at Elfheim had a certain bittersweetness to it that worked as a tragic and ambiguous ending, more so than much of what has come after, but that's really neither here or there because the reality we exist in is this one, where the continuation exists and we've all chosen to read it.
I'm not going to pick through the rest of the points where you tell me I'm wrong, because I don't think I'll be changing your perspective. Suffice to say, my comment about the great wave was simply to suggest that there is room for the interpretation to be somewhat more metaphorical and that I don't find the textual evidence for what's happening being a retcon as convincing as you do (though feel free to tell me to go reread again if you want to). As far as some of the others, I don't really think the English translation of 378 agrees with your commentary on Rakshas. Daiba's dialogue suggests quite directly that he is incapable of opening the astral gates and that something else is happening to make the qliphoth manifest, but I don't think we'll know exactly what that is until more episodes have been released.
If you want to continue discussing the episode with me, I'll humbly request that you refrain from telling me I'm "cute" for having a perspective that doesn't align with yours. It's patronizing and unbecoming of a discussion between two fans that are grown adults having a conversation about a story.
As far as my own perspective, I agree that it would be more helpful if this product were meaningfully distinguished from the original. I thought that the story ending on the appearance of Griffith at Elfheim had a certain bittersweetness to it that worked as a tragic and ambiguous ending, more so than much of what has come after, but that's really neither here or there because the reality we exist in is this one, where the continuation exists and we've all chosen to read it.
I'm not going to pick through the rest of the points where you tell me I'm wrong, because I don't think I'll be changing your perspective. Suffice to say, my comment about the great wave was simply to suggest that there is room for the interpretation to be somewhat more metaphorical and that I don't find the textual evidence for what's happening being a retcon as convincing as you do (though feel free to tell me to go reread again if you want to). As far as some of the others, I don't really think the English translation of 378 agrees with your commentary on Rakshas. Daiba's dialogue suggests quite directly that he is incapable of opening the astral gates and that something else is happening to make the qliphoth manifest, but I don't think we'll know exactly what that is until more episodes have been released.
If you want to continue discussing the episode with me, I'll humbly request that you refrain from telling me I'm "cute" for having a perspective that doesn't align with yours. It's patronizing and unbecoming of a discussion between two fans that are grown adults having a conversation about a story.
I mean, for all your posturing, you agree that the Continuation sucks. If you want to convince yourself that Miura, famously a perfectionist who had trouble letting his assistants contribute at all, would have been Ok with that, it's your choice. It's not rooted in anything factual though, just your belief that somehow these people know what's best, even though you also admit that they're not doing a good job. Maybe ponder on that cognitive dissonance instead of doing that little passive aggressive dance.
You said they were put in an unenviable position, implying we should cut them some slack because it's a tough job. My response is that they expressly demanded it and therefore we have no reason to do so. How's that for reading comprehension? Furthermore, they said they would be faithful to the utmost when the project started, and so it's their own criteria they're not meeting. Lastly, Hakusensha has chosen to call this Berserk and to keep it going with the same numbering, so shouldn't we judge it on the basis?
But all that being said, if you read my posts and paid attention, you'd know I always consider the Continuation for what it is and never as if it was unchanged from Miura's day. In fact what you're insinuating here is really far off from what my comment was about.
Sorry but do go ahead and re-read your post, it's basically a long complaint about what others have been saying. You go so far as to tell us what we should be talking about instead of what happens in the episode.
First off, I didn't get that from your post, and second, getting "any ending as long as it's an ending" might not turn out to be as good a thing as you think. Keep in mind how the characters and story have been treated so far. I won't tell you not to be hopeful, but let's just say my humble advice is to keep your expectations in check.
No one's getting lost in anything. This is a Berserk fan forum and the most hardcore fans in the world will dissect what's happening in minute details. That's why this forum exists. No one else would do it if we didn't, and if that's not what you're looking for, you're free to not read it.
I would also challenge the notion that all the problems with the Continuation are inevitable. They clearly aren't as many fans, here and elsewhere, have pointed out.
It would have made a big difference in how it's perceived.
It's "Elfhelm", just for info.
"Great wave" being my own translation for the phrase, it's amusing that you'd tell me how it can be interpreted. Anyway, I've already detailed all the ways in which the Continuation breaks what Miura had established with Fantasia, so I agree there's no point in going over it again. But you can be sure it won't be getting better in the future.
I read it in Japanese. You should probably trust me on this. More pragmatically, we see Rakshas emit a shockwave and then the pools of black fluid appear. I certainly wouldn't put it past the Continuation team to contradict this in the next episode, but that's how it appears in this one.
Just to be clear, I'm not particularly interested in talking to you. You came here to complain about what our community has to say about the Continuation, and about me specifically, even though you didn't have the courage to name me directly. I just replied on that basis.
You also gave your fair share of snide remarks, for example insinuating we're focusing on unimportant stuff and missing the forest for the trees. That's what I said was cute: your belief that we somehow had missed the terrible treatment of Casca and other characters just because we weren't talking about it in an episode where they're not front and center. That's a ridiculous assertion, hence my comment. So please don't pretend to be offended.
OK. I definitely wasn't singling out your posts with anything I said, for the record, and I find many of the observations you and other posters make in these threads to be useful to understanding the manga. I don't have a problem with anyone. There is, however, an unfortunate lack of intermediate avenues throughout the internet for meaningful discussion of Berserk, because other sites really only scratch the surface, but it's difficult to hold any meaningful discussion when most of it is spent shitting on the continuation ad nauseam over the same issues, every time minor variations of those issues arise.
I don't think I'm convincing myself of anything. You'll find that beyond the narrow scope of discussing Berserk on the Internet, most people will agree that when weighing the perspective of "random people online" with "people who worked and were personally acquainted and friends with the author", it's usually safe to side with the latter group. I'm simply suggesting that they probably know better than we do, similarly to how you suggest I should take your word for it because you read the manga in Japanese later in your post.
The author is dead, the people now writing the story are not the author, and unfortunately very few people have ever been as gifted with art and storytelling as Miura. My point is simply that it's futile to make comparisons with genius, and that people are setting themselves up for disappointment because it's unlikely anyone could carry Berserk like Miura did. I wasn't deliberately focusing on you at all nor do I really associate you to any particular comments or points about the series, but if I did so I apologize! I may have read more of them because your analysis of the text and the original Japanese is more stimulating than the white noise posts restating the same complaints for the umpteenth time, which is what these discussion threads have mostly become.
Like I said in my last post, I agree that it would be easier to sympathize with Hakusensha if they sacrificed the branding a little to recognize that this is not the same Berserk as what came before, but I think it was largely
It's a long complaint about how the state of discussion reflects the state of the continuation, I guess.
I agree. Shitty writing is never inevitable. However, I think that it was inevitable that things would be lost as the story is compressed to be delivered in a timely manner and without corrupting Miura's vision any more than it already has.
I think everything after the first two sentences was added after I read the original post, so thanks for at least deigning to add a little context! If the original Japanese contradicts the translation, it would be more useful for you to point out that contradiction. I'll help by providing the English text:
Daiba: This is beyond the abilities of a dumb apostle!
Daiba: The power to summon a mass of demons of this magnitude must be...
OK. I don't think anyone missed those elements of the story, nor did my original post imply that. I do think that nitpicking the description of the Kushan moot as a "kurultai" is amusing compared to the actual glaring issues in the continuation, but it's definitely reasonable that the thread for a given episode should focus its discussion on the content of that episode. Regarding that point specifically, I don't disagree that the political maneuverings of the Kushan elite are somewhat suspect given everything that's happened in the story. I think that it's metatextually obvious that those subtleties have been lost in order to accelerate the pace of the story and put the pieces in place for whatever Mori and the rest of the team want to happen in this final arc.
At the end of the day, the community is obviously free to continue grieving Miura and the Berserk we all came to love. I personally don't think that endlessly shitting on the continuation for its inferiorities is the healthiest way to do that or the way that Miura would prefer for his life's work to be experienced, even as it is ghostwritten by people without his abilities.
I chose to state that because I've been lurking here for well over half the community's lifespan at this point and I've learned a lot about Berserk in the process, and it is a monumental work to which I am quite partial, and it saddens me to see people focus exclusively on the negatives even if I agree that they outweigh the positives. That said, I'm not exactly cursing anyone with the brand of sacrifice if they choose to do otherwise, although I certainly wouldn't hesitate to do so if it might resurrect Miura
I don't think I'm convincing myself of anything. You'll find that beyond the narrow scope of discussing Berserk on the Internet, most people will agree that when weighing the perspective of "random people online" with "people who worked and were personally acquainted and friends with the author", it's usually safe to side with the latter group. I'm simply suggesting that they probably know better than we do, similarly to how you suggest I should take your word for it because you read the manga in Japanese later in your post.
The author is dead, the people now writing the story are not the author, and unfortunately very few people have ever been as gifted with art and storytelling as Miura. My point is simply that it's futile to make comparisons with genius, and that people are setting themselves up for disappointment because it's unlikely anyone could carry Berserk like Miura did. I wasn't deliberately focusing on you at all nor do I really associate you to any particular comments or points about the series, but if I did so I apologize! I may have read more of them because your analysis of the text and the original Japanese is more stimulating than the white noise posts restating the same complaints for the umpteenth time, which is what these discussion threads have mostly become.
Like I said in my last post, I agree that it would be easier to sympathize with Hakusensha if they sacrificed the branding a little to recognize that this is not the same Berserk as what came before, but I think it was largely
It's a long complaint about how the state of discussion reflects the state of the continuation, I guess.
I agree. Shitty writing is never inevitable. However, I think that it was inevitable that things would be lost as the story is compressed to be delivered in a timely manner and without corrupting Miura's vision any more than it already has.
I think everything after the first two sentences was added after I read the original post, so thanks for at least deigning to add a little context! If the original Japanese contradicts the translation, it would be more useful for you to point out that contradiction. I'll help by providing the English text:
Daiba: This is beyond the abilities of a dumb apostle!
Daiba: The power to summon a mass of demons of this magnitude must be...
OK. I don't think anyone missed those elements of the story, nor did my original post imply that. I do think that nitpicking the description of the Kushan moot as a "kurultai" is amusing compared to the actual glaring issues in the continuation, but it's definitely reasonable that the thread for a given episode should focus its discussion on the content of that episode. Regarding that point specifically, I don't disagree that the political maneuverings of the Kushan elite are somewhat suspect given everything that's happened in the story. I think that it's metatextually obvious that those subtleties have been lost in order to accelerate the pace of the story and put the pieces in place for whatever Mori and the rest of the team want to happen in this final arc.
At the end of the day, the community is obviously free to continue grieving Miura and the Berserk we all came to love. I personally don't think that endlessly shitting on the continuation for its inferiorities is the healthiest way to do that or the way that Miura would prefer for his life's work to be experienced, even as it is ghostwritten by people without his abilities.
I chose to state that because I've been lurking here for well over half the community's lifespan at this point and I've learned a lot about Berserk in the process, and it is a monumental work to which I am quite partial, and it saddens me to see people focus exclusively on the negatives even if I agree that they outweigh the positives. That said, I'm not exactly cursing anyone with the brand of sacrifice if they choose to do otherwise, although I certainly wouldn't hesitate to do so if it might resurrect Miura
This is a gross mischaracterization of the discussions that occur here. We don't just "shit ad nauseam" on the Continuation, we point out and discuss divergences and errors. We also talk about how things might develop, and some members freely highlight things they find good or "less bad" in each issue.
This also doesn't make it difficult at all for you to talk about something else if you want to. Like you could have posted some speculation about what you think will happen next in the Continuation, nobody is stopping you from doing this. You chose instead to complain about how other people conduct discussion, which as a new member is simply out of place and, as I already said, counterproductive.
This exchange is getting stale fast because you have simply no ground to be telling people how they should feel or discuss things, so I suggest you cease and instead engage in the discussions you say you would like to see.
I'm not interested in generalities and hand-waving. We know from what we can see in the Continuation that it doesn't respect what Miura had established. We know from Mori's interviews that they struggle with how to proceed and make up a lot of stuff. These aren't random guesses, they're facts. Arguing abstractly as you do has no value here. It's fallacious.
This is a false argument because no one here ever expected the Continuation to be "just like what Miura did", as you would know if you had read the threads from before, during and after its launch. But we do criticize the Continuation based on its intent and purported mission, which I think is not just fair but absolutely necessary.
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who went on at length about the inanity of the kurultai, which you keep harping on about, but that's fine. My response applies to what you're saying about the whole community, not me specifically.
Some people need to sound off because they feel pain reading these episodes, and that's understandable. Not every post can be an in-depth analysis. And their contributions aren't worse than people saying "oh it's not so bad" or "the art got better", or than yours here where you just complain about "the state of the discourse" while bringing nothing to the table.
I take that as an insult, because we have people here, myself included, who deliver excellent analysis on the Continuation.
They have been corrupting said vision to exceptional degrees, far more than we expected (and I expected it would be considerable), and they're far from being done.
This reads like machine translation. Daiba starts by thinking "バカな", which means "ridiculous". It's an exclamation for when you can't believe what's happening. He's not saying Rakshas is dumb. Because there's no punctuation, the machine clumsily integrates it in the sentence that follows. This is the kind of thing you're relying on.
Anyway, Daiba does think to himself that an apostle shouldn't be able to manifest so much evil riffraff (the phrasing in Japanese, 有象無象の魔, is rather bad, as it usually is for the Continuation). But as I told you, this doesn't matter as much as the fact we literally see on the page that Rakshas does "open the gates of the astral world". This was the point of my response. This is why I don't need "the English translation" to "agree with my commentary".
On that note, please do refer to my actual commentary on what happens with Rakshas in this episode, and reply to that directly if you want to disagree.
Given that I bother writing these out, I'd prefer if they were addressed directly when people disagree rather than by proxy.
Your post emphasized that "unworthy" (or at least trivial) topics are being discussed in lieu of those that matter, which does amount to saying we're missing the forest for the trees, whereas in fact you were the one missing the point of episode threads being dedicated to individual installments of the series. By the way, allow me to point out that plenty of people would have been eager to talk about those things again (Casca, Guts, the pacing...) if you had posted about them.
As I told you above, no one has been nitpicking the use of the term "Kurultai" itself. It is rather the fact a new command structure for the Kushan empire is introduced out of nowhere to justify that said empire somehow survived Fantasia unscathed, and not just that but is also still mighty enough to take on Griffith's forces, that we, and I specifically, criticized. Trying to mischaracterize thoughtful comments and analyses as vacuous nitpicking only serves to portray you as someone who doesn't understand the complexities of the issues at play (or alternatively who is not arguing in good faith), so I would advise you to stop doing it.
I also must reiterate that we've discussed all issues of the Continuation at length and will keep doing so, unlike what you were implying.
You're missing the bigger point: the Kushan empire shouldn't exist anymore. What the Continuation team is doing goes far beyond "losing subtleties" in the story. It might be painful for you to recognize this because you want to cling to the hope that we'll get something good out of it eventually. I can empathize with that. But sadly there's no denying it at this point.
This isn't what ghostwriting is.
People focus on what there is to focus on, and they criticize it because it is worthy of criticism. Again, I can empathize with the hope and desire that the Continuation be good. That's what we all started with. But that's not the reality of it. If it suddenly became good, we would be saying so. Part of being a rational adult is being able to see things for what they are and not what you wish they would be.
And at the end of the day, all you've contributed to the community so far is negativity yourself. You could have chosen to highlight what you liked about this episode or to speculate about the future. Instead you decided for your first (and I imagine only) interaction to be about how we're not doing things right, but without participating meaningfully yourself. It's regrettable.
guuuuuuuuts
Excited for the next chapter!
So, what are the positives? Let's highlight them!
377 was the first episode of the continuation that I enjoyed, personally, and thought did a reasonable job of advancing the story within the constraints and capabilities shown thus far by the team. It is clear that the depiction of the Kushan Empire is probably not what Miura would have shown us, but I also don't find it particularly out of place. In fact it immediately reminded me of multiple historical parallels. In 376, Silat describes how Ganishka neglected the traditional Kushan institution of the kurultai during his dictatorship, and our experience with him is certainly suggestive of drastic reform and a warmongering spirit in pursuit of his demonic ambitions. This, at least to me, recalls examples of real world history where tyrannical rulers or short-lived dynasties attempt far-reaching reorganizations of existing political structures that fail and revert back to preexisting traditions. I think this dynamic is fairly ubiquitous throughout real history - things like the pharaoh Akhenaten attempting to abolish traditional Egyptian polytheism with a monotheistic cult of a solar deity, and whose reforms were systematically undone after his death, or the Byzantine Empire attempting to censure the veneration of certain religious iconography, which was also repudiated and undone afterwards. I know these are not 1:1 comparisons, but they at least anchor what we're seeing in something "close enough" to reality that for me it didn't feel totally out of place.
Similarly, given that I think only a year or so has passed in-universe since Ganishka was struck down and the physical and astral planes merged, what we're seeing doesn't really surprise me. The passage of real world time might confound the passage of time within the narrative, but to me it makes sense that rather than show us a postapocalyptic Kushan, we're about to see Kushan fall in realtime as soon as it is touched by the rippling consequences of the great astral wave. In fact I find it a more natural development for the story than simply plunging us headfirst into a ruined world or whatever expectations others might have had.As I stated before, would Miura have handled it differently, and given us a richer context to explore the themes he spent decades setting up? Of course, but this particular element of the story isn't as jarring to me as it has been to many people on the forum. I don't think that we're being told that the Kushan Empire "survived unscathed," rather, in the translation I read the implication seemed to be that the Kushan heartland had not yet been reached by the sweeping changes overtaking the world... until now.
378 already felt clumsier again and didn't leave me hopeful, however. As I think I've been clear about, I'm very critical of the continuation, and I personally thought 364 was a beautifully bittersweet place for the story to end. I was strongly against the continuation at first and posted my thoughts about it vehemently in other places where people discuss Berserk. Eventually my feelings about it mellowed and I accepted that the continuation exists and that I will probably follow it to its eventual conclusion. The unfortunate reality is that most people seem to think the continuation is fine and the people who are big enough fans to seek out places for discussion like this forum are not the ideal population to sample.
Regarding Rakshas,
I'm not responding to the earlier parts because I don't disagree that Rakshas' reintroduction was poorly handled. In fact we seem to have settled on a similar interpretation of what Rakshas is doing here, per your beherit comparison: acting as a conduit for Femto/the God Hand/some other event we're likely to see unfold in the coming chapters, yet we seem to have reached very different conclusions. To me it is overwhelmingly obvious that Rakshas is not the one opening the astral gates here, in the same way that an individual uses a key to unlock a door but the key is simply an instrument. Daiba's inner thoughts and Rakshas' own confusion are clear narrative cues, particularly given the lack of subtlety in the writing of the continuation, that he's simply setting up whatever is about to happen. It appears more like his negative od is enough to manifest the qliphoth, the consequences of which we will see in the next few episodes, I guess. In this vein, I think the discussion of the metaphysics of the tornadoes is extraneous because, while the imagery is visually referencing the scene with the Count, the situation itself is very different. No beherit was activated. If anything, this seems like a reference to the absent barrier between planes. No beherit is necessary anymore to affect reality, the simple presence of a strong apostle like Rakshas in a place hitherto unblemished by the evil surrounding Griffith's forces is enough to open a gate to the interstice.
That said, I am similarly disappointed by the lack of visual ingenuity on display here. A few throwbacks are fine, in my opinion: the way the vortex manifests over the Kushan palace, mirroring what happens over the Count's castle, is a neat setpiece to me. The repetitive use of trolls to represent the qliphoth is quite disappointing, on the other hand, especially when Miura was always eager to give us interesting references to hindu mythology to give the Kushan a distinct aesthetic, and there were so many other options they could have chosen.
Just out of curiosity, how have you reached the conclusion that Daiba isn't an expert magician? He gave Ganishka the beherit and seems to have always been well-informed and well-versed in a variety of sorcerous arts, from the elaboration of the manmade beherit, to his mastery over the Pishacha and other beasts, as well as other magic tricks he's shown here or there on top of generally being portrayed as a wise advisor first to Ganishka and now to Silat. I know the creation of the Pishacha seemed to be related to Ganishka, but the astral serpent he summoned did not seem to be reliant on Ganishka's fog, although I'm operating from memory here.
I have to point out, as I did when that episode came out, that this directly contradicts what we're shown during Ganishka's backstory in volume 34. He was born into the royal family of a small kingdom, became king and then conquered his neighbors to create a giant empire. This is why the Kurultai makes no sense: there was no council Ganishka could have ignored. That's just not how it happened at all according to Kentarou Miura. And the more you think about it, the less it makes sense (like where that other emperor came from).
A year is a long time. I actually don't think it's meant to have been so long since it happened. But that's not really the point. We are shown and told that the whole world was changed by the Great Wave of the Astral World. It wasn't localized and it wasn't progressive.
Your interpretation that it's only happening now where the Kushans live, a year later, is simply not supported by the story as Miura had established it. We're told that Falconia keeps getting refugees from all nations and in episode 358, Griffith surmises that it's the only place that still has a government on the continent (to advance his idea that he'll build a second empire akin to Gaizeric's). And more simply, the change brought on by Fantasia was meant to be extreme and immediate. This is why we see the Sea Horse having to face the Sea God. It's a whole new world.
Moreover, what we're shown here isn't the Great Wave of the Astral World slowly going over that city. It's Rakshas "opening up the gates to the astral world" (a notion that doesn't make sense with what we know of Berserk's world as it had been established by Kentarou Miura). It's completely different from (and unrelated to) the Great Wave of the Astral World. So nothing supports this idea that it's happening with a delay. It's just not what's shown happening in the episode.
Lastly, yes actually, we are pretty much told that they can handle it because they've tough and have been fighting since ancient times. That is what Silat's answer to Roderick is about. He doesn't say the consequences of the Great Wave of the Astral World haven't reached them yet. He says they can handle it and that's why they're fine despite everything.
Not sure what that's got to do with anything. People on social media who've never bought a volume of the manga and can barely remember the characters' names aren't "the ideal population to sample" about the quality of the story in my book, and it's not like it's a numbers' game anyway. I could be in a room with a hundred flat-earthers and I still wouldn't think the Earth is flat.
You seem to be confused about what I said. I was criticizing the fact the Continuation team is reusing visuals from previous parts of the story without understanding what they mean, which results in a whole bunch of nonsense.
Haha, this is an exceptional exercise in rationalization. The reality is there is a close-up on him before a shockwave is sent from his body, and immediately afterwards we are told and shown that "the gates of the astral world" are opening (a nonsensical notion, that's not how this is supposed to work according to what Miura had set up in the story).
If what's supposed to be implied by this is that Rakshas isn't the cause of it, then it's extremely poor storytelling. And guess what? That's the point I made in my post!
This is the real difference between our perspectives: you're saying "ok this is clumsy but they must be meaning this, surely" whereas I'm just listing the many ways in which what they're doing breaks the established canon. Whether a member of the God Hand is behind Rakshas or not doesn't fundamentally change anything to what I'm saying. There's tons of inconsistencies in any case.This doesn't make sense though. This is just not how it's supposed to work.
The Qliphoth is a place you travel to, not something you summon and then monsters just spring into existence everywhere in a 3 mile radius.
That's not how this works at all... You're confusing the Interstice with the place where the God Hand conducts apostle ceremonies, which couldn't be more different as one is the border between the worlds and the other is very deep inside the astral world. More importantly, this just isn't what happens in this episode. We're told through Farnese that "the Qliphoth has appeared", which makes no sense mind you, but that's still what they're doing here. The Qliphoth is a specific territory of the astral world that is neither the Interstice nor the unnamed place where the God Hand conducts ceremonies.
And we also clearly see Rakshas making it happen, it's not just his presence but a shockwave he sends out that washes over people.
What's more important is that it doesn't make sense. There is no reason for a tornado to appear above the palace. I mean I did go over this already so I'm not going to repeat myself but they're reusing things without understanding them and it's just stupid.
Just to be clear, I quite like Daiba's character, but we do know the limits of his abilities. The Pishacha were created using Ganishka's power, as was the "artificial beherit", and Daiba didn't summon the Kundalini, it was a magical creature he charmed/tamed with his master's help. His power relied on the Kundalini, not vice versa. More broadly, during his fight against Guts' group, he's confounded by what happens while Schierke, despite being at a disadvantage, quickly works out what he's doing and how to counteract it. He can't see Schierke's body of light and doesn't seem able to leave his own body in that manner, which is why he views the encounter as Eastern magic versus Western magic, whereas Schierke recognizes it as just different applications of the same fundamental principles.
After Ganishka's death, we see Daiba's abilities by themselves, and they are mostly related to speaking to and controlling animals (i.e. he's a glorified snake charmer). Which is cool and I think would have been used in interesting ways by Miura, but it's far from the sort of things an accomplished magician can perform. This is why it's offensive to see him put on the same level as the Great Gurus given that they are actual world-level experts with a much deeper understanding of the world. It betrays an intellectual laziness and lack of imagination from the Continuation team, where instead of making use of his specificities, they've turned him into "default magic expert" so he can comment on what's happening.
Miura told us the state of Kushan at the time of Ganishka's birth, but nations rise and fall, and 303 gives us small hints of the historical relations between Kushan and its neighbors (for the record I typo'd my last post where I mentioned episode 376, it was 377). I haven't read a high quality translation of these latest chapters to refer to Silat's dialogue with greater precision, and depending on the way it was written in the original Japanese, it could certainly have been delivered better, e.g., if Silat had specifically referred to the kurultai as an "ancient" tradition, as he later refers to the many upheavals and wars Kushan has experienced "since ancient times" in the translation I read. In this sense it seems to me more like an expansion of what we know regarding the historical conditions of the Kushan culture, and not a glaring contradiction.
I think this is a major point of bifurcation in our perspectives. To me, this sort of detail is a narrative device where I believe the team behind the continuation deserves a certain leeway to develop the story with its new constraints, as opposed to other major missteps. Of course, if the other inconsistencies and missteps have ingrained a greater sensitivity to these minor details in parts of the readership, that's understandable and we can agree to disagree.
Well, referring to Puella's translation of 358, that isn't quite what Griffith says. He qualifies his statements as referring to "many" nations and Puella's translation even has him using multiple conditionals in the same sentence to describe Midland's current geopolitical position with regards to other kingdoms:
Griffith: Currently, the governments of many other countries have stopped functioning.
Griffith: Cities, streets or towns are isolated everywhere, still being infringed upon by trolls.
Griffith: This country, Midland, could be the only one that still keeps the form of a state on this continent, probably.
So again, your interpretation doesn't actually show us any explicit contradiction in what we're seeing, in regards to the ongoing persistence of the Kushan Empire. If anything, that makes sense because it is a far more powerful nation than other kingdoms we glimpse in the territories around Midland from the Golden Age, so it's reasonable that they would endure for longer.
Furthermore, I'd argue that your stance makes less sense than this interpretation because what is the alternative? 303 shows us that Berserk's world is a planet much like our own, and that everything we're seeing takes place over a fraction of its geography. We know nothing of humans elsewhere. I guess you can argue that means they don't exist, but hopefully we can both agree that that is most likely not the case (or else why did Kentaro Miura show us the entire planet at all?).
Was the Great Wave of the Astral World simply an extinction event and there are no humans elsewhere anymore? Because all of Griffith's statements and reflections on Gaiseric refer to the surrounding continent, and we're given no reason to believe he's ventured farther abroad in search of refugees to integrate into Falconia. Hopefully it is self-evident why this doesn't seem like the most plausible narrative path for the story take. It seems more logically parsimonious to argue for a gradual collapse of the existing world than an instantaneous one.
Lastly, and I mention this not out of pedantry but because these small linguistic details are also very interesting to me, is there a particular reason you choose Gaizeric as the transliteration of that character's name? My understanding of the behelit vs beherit debate given the ambiguity of l vs r when translating Japanese, is that beherit refers to an existing concept and behelit does not. Similarly, Gaiseric has a real world parallel with the same name, much like Kushan. I've also read that the morphophonology of g vs k suffers a similar effect due to rendaku which has led me to wonder if Ganishka should not have been transliterated as Kanishka, in keeping with the references to real world historical figures.
Silat isn't an omniscient narrator, so what is the contradiction here? I can only see it if your interpretation of instantaneous collapse is taken as fact. He's just espousing nationalist drivel about how strong Kushan is and will probably be proven wrong in short order. If anything, the contradiction I see here is that Silat shouldn't be foolish enough to say this given what he has experienced firsthand over the course of the story.
No, I agree, but you've simply described the opposite extreme, whereas I would situate the typical skullknight.net user on the other tail of the normal distribution of Berserk readers. Neither are representative of the average experience, which is unfortunately what most economically-driven pursuits in our world use to measure their success, and it appears that the average Berserk reader is more or less content with the continuation. I'm not making any particular point here except to say that the experience of people on this forum is simply a window into a small fraction of people who read Berserk, and likely the most fanatical fraction at that, but that the perspective of mega fans is still just one perspective among many.
I'm not confused about anything. I think it's a reference to previous visual motifs and that it is not nonsense because it is similar to but different from what we saw before, as the situation at hand is similar to but different from what has happened previously in the manga. The artistic merit of dropping references like these is another debate entirely. As I mentioned in my previous post, at least until we see what happens next, I find the visual parallel between what's happening at the Kushan palace and what happened at the Count's castle relatively interesting, whereas the reuse of elements like the trolls is rather mediocre.
Haha, this is an exceptional exercise in rationalization. The reality is there is a close-up on him before a shockwave is sent from his body, and immediately afterwards we are told and shown that "the gates of the astral world" are opening (a nonsensical notion, that's not how this is supposed to work according to what Miura had set up in the story).
If what's supposed to be implied by this is that Rakshas isn't the cause of it, then it's extremely poor storytelling. And guess what? That's the point I made in my post!
Serialized forms of media such as manga drip feed us information. We don't know exactly what is happening for you to reach these conclusions. If anything, why should we expect things to work like they did before? Many of your responses to other details I've mentioned hinge on the before vs after of the astral and physical planes merging in the story, which rewrote the metaphysical rules of the world entirely. Before a specialized artifact was required to incite these kinds of events, now there is no such requirement. This hardly seems contradictory.
You're reaching premature conclusions about the storytelling of a scene that we've only just started to see unfold. Furthermore, given what I already said - Rakshas is confused about what's going on and Daiba explicitly remarks that an apostle shouldn't be able to cause what's happening with the astral gates - it seems clear that this scene is foreshadowing whatever we'll see in the next few episodes. Do I have hope that it will make sense? Not really, but I will reserve my judgment for when we see it!
This doesn't make sense though. This is just not how it's supposed to work.
The Qliphoth is a place you travel to, not something you summon and then monsters just spring into existence everywhere in a 3 mile radius.
That's not how this works at all... You're confusing the Interstice with the place where the God Hand conducts apostle ceremonies, which couldn't be more different as one is the border between the worlds and the other is very deep inside the astral world. More importantly, this just isn't what happens in this episode. We're told through Farnese that "the Qliphoth has appeared", which makes no sense mind you, but that's still what they're doing here. The Qliphoth is a specific territory of the astral world that is neither the Interstice nor the unnamed place where the God Hand conducts ceremonies.
And we also clearly see Rakshas making it happen, it's not just his presence but a shockwave he sends out that washes over people.
What's more important is that it doesn't make sense. There is no reason for a tornado to appear above the palace. I mean I did go over this already so I'm not going to repeat myself but they're reusing things without understanding them and it's just stupid.
I'll acquiesce to having been imprecise when I wrote my reply last night, but I don't think these things are as solidly defined as your reply indicates. Furthermore, you keep using examples from before the astral and physical worlds merged as if they're indicative of what we should expect afterwards. I tried to investigate previous discussions regarding the qliphoth and the interstice here on SK.net and found a few, but unfortunately Puella's systematic translations start just after 215, so my access to better non-Japanese text was fairly limited because it does seem that the Dark Horse has some inaccuracies during that sequence.
Do you think that the qliphoth manifests in fixed, invariant locations in the physical world? In 215, Schierke mentions that astral bodies gravitate towards places of similar od. Specifically, her dialogue here is something like:
Schierke: This is the astral world, and not a very nice part. The astral world's region of darkness, qliphoth. The vast extent of the astral world comprises many regions, each with its own characteristic atmosphere. Ethereal bodies tend to gravitate towards ods of the same nature. Warm ods would be drawn towards warmth... Conversely, this place here, the darkness where hearts steeped in darkness congregate... that is qliphoth.
So what is the precise relationship between these elements? Do creatures with dark od travel to qliphoth exclusively, or does qliphoth manifest in the dark places where such beings gather? To me this is ambiguous, perhaps you will illuminate me with the original text. In 377, as Rakshas begins to emerge, Daiba notices his evil prana, probably tantamount to dark od. To me the implication is that Rakshas' od is an anchor drawing other beings with dark od, and that qliphoth is manifesting accordingly. Daiba seems to find this situation very abnormal, so I think we'll find out next episode what's really happening. I suspect some greater evil is coordinating these events to create a bridge for itself to appear in the city.
And yet, we're given earlier precedent that Daiba does know quite a lot about magic and the astral world. As I mentioned before, he gave Ganishka his beherit, and he's the only human magical practitioner we've seen well-versed enough in the dark arts to produce something like the artificial beherit Ganishka used to incarnate for a second time. The actual extent of his knowledge is rather ambiguous, in this sense, even if he took advantage of Ganishka's great power to further his own art. Schierke is also consistently portrayed as a prodigal practitioner of magic and her having an advanced intuition for the mechanics of metaphysics doesn't necessarily cast Daiba in a negative light. That said, I don't disagree that characters like Ged far surpass him, but given that he's the foremost Kushan magician that we've seen and the party is currently in Kushan lands, I don't think what we're seeing is outlandish.
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