People have been agitated about Mori's afterword in the volume, and I've seen some terrible translations circulating, so I thought I'd clarify a few things. First off, here's what he's saying below.
Kouji Mori said:
Guts' despair
Thank you, readers, for picking up this new volume once again.
We are doing our best to convey the story Miura told us, but at the same time I think it's impossible to do it without him... so I thought I would tell you in this afterword about what he told me and what he intended for this chapter.
Miura repeatedly said "Guts is in despair. He has lost everything." while talking about this chapter.
From "that day" on... Guts' desperate journey, that put everything on the line, was simply a journey to land a blow on Griffith.
Unable to fight (Griffith) or to touch him at all, Guts' sword cut through the air.
It was also the moment when Guts' life, on which he had staked everything, came to nothing. As Guts said himself, the sword is everything to him.
He could no longer feel anger, sadness, or even hatred...he was reduced to emptiness. "This despair is necessary for Guts", Miura said.
The next volume will feature the episode that Miura struggled with the most.
It will be a difficult chapter, but everyone at Studio Gaga will do their best to take up the challenge!
We ask for your continued support.
Now for my remarks. This message contains very little new information, but I think it offers us a window into Mori's thinking, which in turn helps explain why the Continuation went so wrong so quickly.
He starts by saying it's impossible to convey the story without Miura. Something we all know, but that
he should have realized right from the start, and that should have led him to veto the project. Of course, he's only saying it to shield himself from criticism and to garner sympathy, but as far as I'm concerned, it's an admission of failure on his part.
He does give us two quotes that are straight from Miura according to him. That's great, it's what we've been asking for, and I hope it continues in the future. But it also reveals just how meager that information is. These quotes are "Guts is in despair. He has lost everything." and "This despair is necessary for Guts".
Now, to be clear, in Japanese and in this context, "he has lost everything" is an emphatic turn of phrase, it means that he feels like that, not that it's actually the case. Even in the Continuation, he still has his friends, the armor, etc. But what's interesting to me is that it doesn't exactly reveal much. Yeah, if Casca were abducted right in front of him and he couldn't do anything to stop it, I'm sure he'd feel despair, especially after having traveled halfway across the world to heal her. He was so close to finally being reunited with her! That's nothing new, and more importantly it doesn't justify the insane way they've depicted him.
Equally interesting is that one thing he does not quote Miura on is the whole sword affair. Instead he merely states that ever since the Eclipse (that's what "that day" refers to, if anyone had doubts), Guts has been on a journey to strike at Griffith and nothing else. Well I'm sorry to say but... that's just not true. Guts certainly still harbored a powerful drive for revenge, but he chose to go save Casca in volume 17, and ever since then has consistently chosen to act for her sake instead of indulging in his desire for revenge.
This is not a small misconception, it's enormous. It's like Mori's completely excluding Casca from the equation, despite the fact the big fucking deal is really (and quite obviously) her abduction. That explains why the Continuation has been depicting things the way it has, but honestly it's so boneheaded it's flabbergasting. It's like he hasn't read the story at all. I hate to say it, but while I'm sure he had many conversations with Miura over the years, clearly a lot was lost on him.
This is made even clearer by his next statement: that "Guts himself said the sword is everything to him". This is, again, blatantly false. Guts talks about what his sword means to him only once, at the beginning of volume 10. He reflects on it being an extension of himself, like a part of his body. It's the tool with which he's gone through the world. And when he said it feels like this has been all his life, he means fighting as a mercenary, which is all he's known since birth.
But what's important about this scene actually comes after that. Because he's relating to Casca the thoughts he had while training, and the fact he couldn't find a dream akin to Griffith's, but has decided to never serve someone again and to keep traveling to meet strong opponents and hone his skills... To which Casca answers by throwing leaves in his face and telling him he's a selfish asshole, just like Griffith. And
then Guts tells her he wants her to come with him. This is the climax (and the point) of the scene. See, even the specific moment Mori mentions is actually about Casca
if you read it to the end.
And that's not going into the fact this was just his young self trying to reclaim agency over his life after having lived from battlefield to battlefield. These were naive plans from a more hopeful time, because after that came the Eclipse and his life was permanently derailed. Which brings us back to the quest for revenge, and his decision to prioritize Casca.
Long story short, I think Mori has been and still is grossly overconfident when it comes to knowing Miura's precise intent for the story, especially given that he's admitted his knowledge is fragmented and incomplete. It's one thing to recall a few sentences from casual conversations, it's another to try and have people recreate a coherent story from these scraps.
