The future of Berserk rests on Kouji Mori's shoulders. He's the only one who knows the remaining story straight from Miura. And as the one who approved the Berserk Continuation, he's become the face for the project, even if Yoshihiro Kurosaki is the primary driver for the work itself. This is a unique endeavor, rife with speculation online about what is known or is not known, so I find it useful to pay attention to what Mori has said about the specifics of this project. In many cases he has demystified how it's created, how much he actually knows, and where the fault lines are for the future.
To help others better understand what has officially been said by Mori, Aazealh and I have compiled every notable instance where Mori has spoken about the Berserk Continuation across his numerous interviews, ordered by their importance, along with sources for each comment. We hope it will serve as a useful guide!
Starting the Berserk Continuation
How the Continuation is Managed
The Path to the End
To help others better understand what has officially been said by Mori, Aazealh and I have compiled every notable instance where Mori has spoken about the Berserk Continuation across his numerous interviews, ordered by their importance, along with sources for each comment. We hope it will serve as a useful guide!
Starting the Berserk Continuation
・Before a direct continuation was decided, Akira Shimada, Berserk's original editor, now a higher-up at Hakusensha, was involved in the original plan to get Mori to produce a short book with illustrations that recap the ending of the story. [Oct 2023, DaVinci]
・Mori said he was the only one who knew the ending, so he felt compelled to tell that story in some form. [DaVinci]
・Mori was still deciding what to do when he received a message from Studio Gaga to review their work on the unfinished Episode 364. He saw a path forward by continuing from where Miura left off. [June 2022, Official Press Release]
・Studio Gaga asked Mori for permission to continue the serialization. [Nov 2023, Gamebiz]
・"I will recall the details as much as possible and tell the story. Also, I will only write the episodes that Miura talked to me about. I will not flesh it out. I will not write episodes that I don’t remember clearly. I will only write the lines and stories that Miura described to me." (Official Press Release)
・[Young Animal's editorial department] "We have also found memos of ideas [Miura] wrote and designs for characters that he drew and left behind. We were reluctant to end his story without sharing these with his fans." ... "Since he did not leave behind rough drafts, it is impossible for us to create a manuscript exactly in the way he would have intended. However, we will write the manga so as not to deviate from Mr. Miura’s own words." (Official Press Release)
・Miura regularly spoke to Mori about the stories he had in mind for Berserk. He had similar talks with his studio staff and editor. These were just everyday conversations, but they now form the basis for the Continuation. (Official Press Release)
・Mori emphasized that taking part in the Continuation was necessary for him to overcome his grief and be able to draw his own manga again. Says he's doing it for himself as much as for Miura. [Sep 2023, Digital Asahi]
・Mori said he believes that continuing another mangaka's work shouldn't be done, as "a manga belongs to its creator". However as a mangaka he also knows the pain of a story ending prematurely, before it has been fully told. [Sep 2023, Mainichi]
How the Continuation is Managed
・Mori had a meeting with the assistants that lasted 3 to 4 hours where he told them what he knew. Since then, he's been exchanging messages with Kurosaki, who leads the staff. He gives advice on the storyboards, but the final work is up to Studio Gaga. [Digital Asahi]
・Once a month, Mori meets with Studio Gaga's staff to discuss several episodes at once. He double checks what he had heard from Miura with YA's editorial department, and decides on how the story will progress based on their feedback. Kurosaki is the one who draws the storyboards, which Mori then checks to see if they are close enough to what he thinks Miura envisioned. After that the staff takes care of everything else. [Oct 2023, Yahoo News]
・"My burden isn't that great since I only supervise." [Yahoo News]
・Says his role in the continuation is recalling Miura's vision for Berserk. To that end, he regularly queries Akira Shimada, Berserk's former editor, and he also compares his memories to Kurosaki's (Miura's former lead assistant). [Oct 2024, Magmix (Part 1 | Part 2)]
・On his working relationship with Studio Gaga staff: he explains the content of an episode during a meeting, and when he sees the storyboards, he'll ask them to show a scene from a specific angle or to change the placement of Guts to better match Miura's drawing habits, that sort of thing. After that he's not involved. He insists that he puts nothing from himself in it, only conveying what he knows from Miura to the staff. He thinks they then do a great job of "making it into Berserk". [DaVinci]
・They considered training a generative AI model with a large number of scenes drawn by Miura to help create drafts, but it wasn't viable so they're doing it the "traditional" way. [Yahoo News]
The Path to the End
・Mori says it's often difficult to know what Miura meant, and adds that he regularly forgets important things until after an episode is completed. [Magmix]
・The ending was decided about 30 years ago, as Miura worked on the Eclipse. Mori spent a whole week with him to plan the rest of the story. Since then, new stories and characters have been added, but the goal that was set at the time has not changed. [Gamebiz]
・Mori admits that with only what he knows, parts of the story still don't make sense. So the people involved in the project speculate together to "strengthen" the "original work". [Gamebiz]
・From here to the end of Berserk, "there are still many difficult questions to solve, and there are things on which Miura had not yet made up his mind." [Gamebiz]
・He does not have a complete picture of the rest of Berserk. His memories of conversations with Miura weren't definitive, because Miura's plans often changed in the process of drawing each episode. [Magmix]
・The new chapter (Eastward Odyssey) is the final chapter for the series. [DaVinci]
