2016 Berserk TV series: Episode 1

And it's out! http://www.crunchyroll.com/berserk/episode-1-the-branded-swordsman-714981

Note: Looks like there is a 1 week holdback for free users.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
DirectDK said:
And it's out! http://www.crunchyroll.com/berserk/episode-1-the-branded-swordsman-714981

Note: Looks like there is a 1 week holdback for free users.

Good thing I decided to pay! I'm waiting for my friend to get here before starting it.
 
Hahahahaha ... :judo: :judo:

What a mess. It's unwatchable.

The animation sucks, the music hurts my ears, the story is like bad patchwork. And I guess a demonic tree replaces the whole lost children chapter ...
 

Feeblecursedone

"This hammer has broken Daemons on my anvil, Elf.
Watching this from work and im shocked with how they've shuffled arcs and characters. Isidro in the tavern where Guts meets Puc, whaa?? Also, where's the hatred in Guts' expression and general evilness that he's potraying in this arc?

So far i've only liked the OST when guts punches Igor. Oh god. And im only around 5 minutes.
 
The score is unbelievably bad.

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The worst part is that when the anime inevitably loses viewers they'll think it's because people don't like berserk. It couldn't be their fault noooooo way
 
Well at least it can't be worse XD.
To be honest we already knew they were going to ruin the first episodes lets see if the arc they have planned to show is at least decent.
 
Its not as bad as what I expected from the comments, there are changes but to me they make sense from a storytelling standpoint. The first few chapters of the manga were also pretty rough and excessive sometimes so I'm not mad at things being changed.

Brace yourselves for a 13 episode series though, based on the episode titles I think they're going to fit the whole of conviction in that amount, the 24 episode thing was never officially confirmed anyways.
 
T

TricksieThiefsie

Guest
Well, it made Golden Age trilogy look like a masterpiece. It's a mess of bad animation and horrible music. An abomination, which shouldn't have existed in the first place. By that I mean low budget Berserk is :rickert:
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
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Laughs aside, I actually liked that opening sequence, and thought it was a better experience than anything in the episode (probably because it was all in 2D). It's what I wanted out of the movie's opening: faithful yet condensed portrayals of the series. (2 clips: click and click). It's really hard for me to complain when I get to see something like this:

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Onto the actual show though... I really wish the animation wasn't so choppy. It makes the action sequences look stilted, and people's faces don't emote properly (again). There was a lot of continuity swapping, but the only thing that really bothered me with this episode was a) making the possessed tree a huge threat and b) make it able to TRAVEL (seriously, wtf?).

Notable moments:

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Will post more here when I have the time! Back in a bit, having a snack...

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Why is Isidro serving drinks?

Why would Isidro let thugs overpower him when he's outwitted similar thugs in his debut episode?

Why is Guts picking a fight with thugs if they cut out the Snake Baron?

Why are the mercenary thugs hanging around a tree if they cut out Jill and the Lost Children chapter?

Why is the disemboweling of a child accompanied with a metal soundtrack?

Why did they show the eclipse again?

Where did Guts get the behirit from?

Why is Guts cooking food at night?
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
My notes:

Beginning with the prophesy is pretty cool.
Schierke?!
Opening doing a recap of GA is good. We shouldn't have to rehash that arc again anyway.
Isidro? Really? And he's with the Koka dudes??? The fuck is happening right now?
Grunge guitar is facepalm
Bar scene was underwhelming to say the least. Good god. How are you going to skip the iconic dragonslayer slash??
We see Guts prepare a meal...We can now rest easy knowing Guts eats food.
Guts is "possessed by evil spirits", that's weird.
Oh god, the Koka crew is pursuing Guts for revenge?? Why? What is the point of this?
No Jill at the possessed tree, but I'm glad they kept the backstory.
"It was bitten by an evil spirit." Apostles are evil spirits?? Hopefully a bad translation...
Chestnut Puck doesn't look right.
BLOOD AND GUTS AND GUTS AND BLOOD AND BLOOD AND GUTS (There's something slightly nostalgic about this though, I guess. I really do like the theme, but can we try a little harder with the libretto? Please?)
Naked Casca because why not.
Femto looks good
Demon Child looks bad
Good god this swirling camera Dragonslayer reveal. Nope.
So everyone is just kind of done fighting? What?
Canon arm was underwhelming as fuck. Scratch that, possessed tree was underwhelming as fuck. All of it. This was dumb.
Stepping on skulls like crunchy leaves in the fall
Offscreen cannon reload? I don't think he had enough time to do that given what we're shown, but sure, why not.
Oh fuck, it's over.
After credits scene?
Next time on Berserk: Guts already has the beherit, and it's blue!

Guys...
Guys...

I mean, I'm committed to watching the whole series, but this isn't good. I'm going to go watch the first episode of the '97 anime to wash my eyeballs out, then read Volume 1 to repair the damage done.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Wenliinvictus said:
Why is Isidro serving drinks?

They scrunched him in early so they didn't have to do it later, I guess.

Why would Isidro let thugs overpower him when he's outwitted similar thugs in his debut episode?

Good point! He was trying to extricate himself from them, though.

Why is Guts picking a fight with thugs if they cut out the Snake Baron?

He heard someone being picked on and had to stop them! :guts: Actually he says he's there to fill up on water and rum.

Why are the mercenary thugs hanging around a tree if they cut out Jill and the Lost Children chapter?

I actually thought it was funny that as a result of the change, these dweebs got promoted to Senior Bandits, who the other, lesser bandits report to.

Why is the disemboweling of a child accompanied with a metal soundtrack?

Don't forget the CLANG sound. They also made the other skeletons stop dead in their tracks, frozen like a Captain N "Pause Button" moment, when Colette is doing her thing.

Why did they show the eclipse again?

He dreamed of it, I thought?

Where did Guts get the behirit from?

They might write it in as the boar/pig apostle's in the next episode. We'll see.

Why is Guts cooking food at night?

4th meal.
 

Feeblecursedone

"This hammer has broken Daemons on my anvil, Elf.
They've totally transformed the evil tree to an evil possessed Ent lol. It feells like a replacement for Snake Baron, who in my opinion would have served better as a potrayal of berserk monsters since he does look like a classical villain with his vampirish appearance and is an apostle, compared to a random tree. We could have even gotten some extended halberd to dragonslayer combat if they're already going with scenes that never appear in manga.

With that said, the opera like ost during the battle with skeletons was quite nice and I cant wait fro them to release DVD soundtrack. Like Walter and others said, a bit more emotions on Guts face wouldnt hurt considering he had one of his worst episodes of hatred/vengeance during blackswordsman arc.

Let's hope they do Convinction properly.
 
The entire cart sequence (excluding the nightmare and the ensuing battle) was rather good in terms of animation. The score was cringe inducing.
The camera shifts in particular bothered me a bit too much, I couldn't stand the cheesy direction.
 

Imperator Hanseatic

Ultimately just a crippled neet who loves Berserk.
Here are a few of my thoughts on the episode.. (Spoilers just in case)

As a whole, I came out pleasantly surprised due to the rock-bottom expectations I went in with. To be clear I'm not saying it was good, just that it wasn't as horrible as I was prepared for. The animation has glaring issues such as times where Guts' movement seems weightless, with no dipping as he steps. It is obvious in some shots that these are 2D overlays onto 3D models. On the other hand, some of the shots I found to be acceptable. Ranting any further about the animation we all knew was going to be bad seems like kicking a dead horse so from now on I personally will only point out particularly grievous offenses. The soundtrack was hit-or-miss for me. I'm not sure whether the scores Shiro Sagisu made are all just utterly inappropriate, or whoever decided which tracks to use where was tonally incompetent, but either way the result was lackluster overall. Many tracks are simply modified versions of the movie OST, including Blood and Guts which I think isn't that bad if you stick to the parts without the chanting. The sound effects felt overdone. The opening theme feels out of place but I very much enjoyed the artwork itself. As for the ending, the theme there is also out of place but I actually somewhat like that song on it's own (outside of a Berserk context) and the sequence had a bit of a lightshow-type deal drawing outlines of characters and such which was nice in my opinion. Walter and I talked about it in the group chat afterward and we thought we might have caught a glimpse of the Moon Child in there but it could have just been Casca.

Anyway, with technical stuff out of the way I'm moving on to the story content and these comments will be exclusive of any opinion on the animation or soundtrack. We open with Farnese and co discovering the aftermath of the Eclipse and we hear about the Prophecy as it cuts to Schierke and Flora viewing the same scene. Overall I thought that was not bad, considering we knew this first episode was going to be screwy in terms of being faithful to the manga. Setting Schierke and Flora up gives us a sense of the scope they intend to cover in this series, and with how much is being cut I'm totally fine with things like that happening sooner than they are "supposed" to rather than not at all. Next we get Isidro and Puck introduced in the same scene which takes away from the memorability of either. Isidro as a tagalong with a Merc/Bandit group fits his character somewhat to me, though it would have been better if he'd been causing any sort of mischief in addition. In this scene the guys Isidro's with are torturing Puck (and eventually Isidro) until Guts enters and beats the crap out of them for being in his way. From what I can tell Puck was handled pretty faithfully throughout the episode (aside from hair being a bit too blue). We get a scene of Guts cooking with a pan/skillet that he seems to Deadpool out of nowhere, and Puck pestering him. Other than that I can't say much stuck with me about it. We cut to Isidro looking for Guts and finding his campfire, then to the Mercs/Bandits from before setting up an ambush for Guts and talking about how the forest is haunted and such, nothing noteworthy. Guts meets Colette and joins their wagon after they insist. Things go down as expected, we get the dream sequence from the Incubus and the subsequent ghost attack culminating in Guts trying to save half of Colette's corpse from the living tree monster? The whole deal with the tree was baffling to me so I may need to re-watch it or have someone explain. Guts wins, Puck is mortified, the Ghosts won't shut up even after the impending sunrise forces their retreat and this irritates Guts enough that he fires his cannon into the air in what was either a frustrated venting of rage or a tactical deafening to drown out the voices. Personally I'd go with a bit of both. We end with the confrontation with Farnese and co, which is the biggest problem I have plot-wise. How on Earth are they supposed to capture Guts if he's not even significantly injured? The only fighter among them I'd expect to make it out of a scuffle with Guts alive is Serpico. We know from the preview for the next episode that Guts gets captured, so I'm anxious to see if they can come up with a reason for him to lose that isn't complete BS.

Anyway, those are a good portion of my thoughts. I'm admittedly still processing some of it. Feel free to agree or disagree with any of my opinions, and I look forward to reading the thoughts you all have.

EDIT: Corrected Colette spelling, which was wrong due to tiredness and the fact that I actually have known a Collette.
 

Feeblecursedone

"This hammer has broken Daemons on my anvil, Elf.
They might squeeze in an apostle like Walter said that could be the source of Guts' beherit and the source of injuries, before the arrival of Farnase and co. But yeah, they've taken a lot out of context and are butchering it quite freely.
 
The anime project's initial goal was to animate the entire series, but obviously this hasn't panned out. These folks attempted to do Golden Age in a single movie for a reason - they wanted to get to new material. This first episode seems to have been pieced together with the same intention. It really was a jumbled mess, thanks to the editing, and everything was moving at break neck speed. The episode shows us that Guts' brand attracks evil spirits, Guts is in constant danger, and he does not bat an eye at taking a life (but not really since he hesitates to kill Colette). We are reminded of the eclipse, shown some main characters, and get a full demonstration of Guts' arsenal and combat prowess. The story was butchered to catapault it into the next phase.

My theory - they haven't adapated the story faithfully thus far because they have no confidence in the post eclipse episodes bringing in viewers. Someone determined incarnation was the way to get the most viewers, so do whatever it takes to get us to that material. We need a band of heroes facing off against a horde of baddies to make fans. I hope that once they get to "the starting point" for their adaptation (we aren't there yet, folks) they will slow the hell down and start being faithful.

I don't think this adaptation hurts Berserk and for that much I am grateful. I am really curious to see how this adaptation goes moving forward. I think it is entirely possible that we reach a point where the writers believe they have adequately set the table and are ready to present the story accurately. I could be completely wrong but I'm gonna give this project the benefit of the doubt for a few episodes before I banish it to hell.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
To be honest, I've enjoyed it. I knew from the start that there was gonna be changes and storyline switch. The animation bugged me the most vs the story. I just hope we can some answers for the beherit etc. I'll sure watch the entire show anyway since I've started it.
 
Walter said:
Don't forget the CLANG sound. They also made the other skeletons stop dead in their tracks, frozen like a Captain N "Pause Button" moment, when Colette is doing her thing.

Something inside me died with the "Pause Button" thing XD. It was one of the most awkward moments of the chapter and the clang sound was a bit too much.
 

Kompozinaut

Sylph Sword
Eluvei said:
If you look carefully, you can spot Caucasian Casca in several frames of the opening.

I didn't even recognize her in the very first shot where the camera pans up and shows the whole group. She's very pale in every single shot.
 
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