The new Berserk anime series

[Infernai]

I liked the 90's anime and, while it was far from perfect, I gave it a pass on it's shortcomings because it was made on a shoestring budget.

I...tolerated and had a love/hate relationship with the movies. While I was pissy at them cutting so much out, I understand it was due to time constraints and the fact it was material that had been covered in the past. Thus, I gave it a pass,

But this?

I could forgive the animation not being up to snuff. But, cutting out practically TWO WHOLE ARCS in an ANIME SERIES. You know, in a series: Those things that have multiple episodes and thus have time to better immerse a viewer in a world and setting.

Why?

It wasn't like this was material that had been animated before. So, why skip it?

Why?

I would have thought that they'd have KILLED to have two arcs to work with and not have to make up filler stories for. But NOPE! We're rushing into the Conviction arc!

Urgh...my hopes are very low right now.

At-least the opening and the Preview song (By susumu Hirasawa) are nice.

 

[EbonBehelit]

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH, why can't Berserk ever catch a break? It's hard to admit that 90's animation is starting to look better than current gen.

That'd be because it totally does look better. There was a sense of warmth and grit in the old style of animation that's been lost with the transition to fully digital production.

One Piece is probably the best example of this I can think of: the anime started in the late 90's with an strong animation style and high level of quality. These unfortunately started declining around the time of the Enies Lobby arc, and have deteriorated to the point that I literally cannot remember the last time I saw even a single episode that managed to keep even the animation style - let alone the standard of quality - from schizophrenically jumping around on a scale between mostly passable and completely fucking awful.

... and that's not even going into the CGI-boners that so many animation studios seem to have grown over the last few years. I get that it's cheaper, but CGI does NOT look cool for objects/characters that need to move organically. Robots, yes. Humans, no.

On-topic though; the only thing I feel when I see the trailer for the new Berserk anime is utter disappointment. Why does this look more like a videogame than the actual videogame that's been teased?
I remember seeing the trailers for the OVAs - the CGI looked so bad it turned me off ever actually watching them. This trailer has even more CGI in it! Why on earth would I ever want to watch this?

Why can't Berserk get the anime adaptation we all know it deserves?

 

[Jandau]

The CGI is so shitty I want pour ten thousand liters of bleach into them.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

To make matters worse, it looks like they're fast forward to the end of the Lost Children arc next episode, with Guts fighting the HICK order. The only reason they were able to capture him in the manga is because he was half dead from fighting Rosine, and even then he killed quite a few of them. Even if Azan and Serpico are kickass fighters, there's no way in hell they can take on an uninjured Guts without a terrain advantage.

Wait their skipping the Lost Children? But that was one of my Fav arcs. and yeah...no way they can take a full power Guts.

Looks like it. The next episode is titled the Holy Iron Chain Knights and the preview shows Guts fighting them. Plus the first episode went and used up the evil tree from the start of the Lost Children arc without putting anything else related to that arc in. Yeah, of all the things from that arc, we needed the goddamn tree.

No Baron, no Count, no Rosine, no showing Guts' softer side with him protecting Jill, no establishing a reason why the HICK order would be hunting Guts (As he wasn't mistaken for killing dozens of children), we're just jumping straight to there.

Oh Christ this is going to suck. Will the Tower of Conviction be done in three episodes? I hope not...Farnese is one of my favorite Berserk characters, I really hope she doesn't get the shaft.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh Christ this is going to suck. Will the Tower of Conviction be done in three episodes? I hope not...Farnese is one of my favorite Berserk characters, I really hope she doesn't get the shaft.

Considering the graphic nature of that arc, along with the animations' pension for censoring it... I'm assuming, no breast hooks or baby soup. Also likely no Farnese masturbating at the thought of people burning alive at the stake.

That whole arc in general was about anticipation; Chapter after chapter of watching the most cruel acts inflicted by the inquisition and the refugees being utterly powerless to do anything about it, but knowing that when Guts shows up he's gonna take some fucking names.

 

[Erttheking]

Oh Christ this is going to suck. Will the Tower of Conviction be done in three episodes? I hope not...Farnese is one of my favorite Berserk characters, I really hope she doesn't get the shaft.

Considering the graphic nature of that arc, along with the animations' pension for censoring it... I'm assuming, no breast hooks or baby soup. Also likely no Farnese masturbating at the thought of people burning alive at the stake.

That whole arc in general was about anticipation; Chapter after chapter of watching the most cruel acts inflicted by the inquisition and the refugees being utterly powerless to do anything about it, but knowing that when Guts shows up he's gonna take some fucking names.

At this rate, it'll be a minor miracle if they remember to put in Silat and foreshadow the Kushan invasion.

 

[Fappy]

I am not impressed. Can't say I had high expectations at all, but the animation was just... really bad, and the pacing seems to be all over the place. The way they are melding and skipping arcs just feels clunky. I don't think we're going to get any of the build up that the Conviction Arc ultimately delivers on, which begs the question... why the hell are we starting here? The Conviction Arc is the turning point of the story in many ways. It's where Guts begins to recover from his trauma and learns to open up to other people once more.

 

[Fox12]

...

*shotgun noise emanating from garage*

 

[Casual Shinji]

I am not impressed. Can't say I had high expectations at all, but the animation was just... really bad, and the pacing seems to be all over the place. The way they are melding and skipping arcs just feels clunky. I don't think we're going to get any of the build up that the Conviction Arc ultimately delivers on, which begs the question... why the hell are we starting here? The Conviction Arc is the turning point of the story in many ways. It's where Guts begins to recover from his trauma and learns to open up to other people once more.

Besides story points that involve major characters, there's also chapters dedicated just to showing the state of the world, how the plague is spreading, and Windham is fallen to ruin. And where we get the first sign that the veil of the physical world is about to get brushed aside, when for a few seconds we see Conrad's form emerge from a horde of rats. And ofcourse the collective dream of the White Hawk. None of which I'm sure the anime'll take any effort in showing.

 

[Solkard]

My disappointed in the stiff CGI is balanced by my excitement that they're finally showing something besides the origin. My guess is that the target audience are people who've already been hooked by the manga and OVAs, and will scarf this down regardless of the corners they've cut.

 

[Jute88]

I was surprisingly satisfied with this. It did some things badly (felt a bit rushed, crappy cgi, though I've seen worse), but I'm still kinda excited. Maybe I'm just glad that there's another Berserk series. Now if they'd also make a good anime from Vinland Saga.

 

[stroopwafel]

I was surprisingly satisfied with this. It did some things badly (felt a bit rushed, crappy cgi, though I've seen worse), but I'm still kinda excited. Maybe I'm just glad that there's another Berserk series. Now if they'd also make a good anime from Vinland Saga.

Yeah me too. Most (modern) anime is unwatchable for me with their predilection for high-pitched chibi characters and suggestive poses of underage girls. So maybe my standard for anime is already rock bottom but I can't remember another recent anime I didn't turn off halfway through the first episode.

 

[Jute88]

I was surprisingly satisfied with this. It did some things badly (felt a bit rushed, crappy cgi, though I've seen worse), but I'm still kinda excited. Maybe I'm just glad that there's another Berserk series. Now if they'd also make a good anime from Vinland Saga.

Yeah me too. Most (modern) anime is unwatchable for me with their predilection for high-pitched chibi characters and suggestive poses of underage girls. So maybe my standard for anime is already rock bottom but I can't remember another recent anime I didn't turn off halfway through the first episode.

Mostly agreeing with you. Sometimes, if I seriously need to unwind, I can find brainless moe-garbage to be quite enjoyable. But usually I tend to gravitate towards animes like Monster and Hellsing Ultimate, with next to no cutesy stuff.

 

[StormShaun]

Don't worry lil' Forces, you'll get that role in the new Berserk anime, just come with me behind the shed.
*Cocks shotgun*

In all seriousness, is it too much to ask to hear this in the show?


For the show itself.
Well, I'm with everyone else with the 3D animation, I'm just less angry about it. I can tolerate it to watch the show, I'm sure I can get SOME kind of enjoyment from it.

...Even though they passed some dang great arcs. The Fairy arcs is one I love the most. :'D

 

[Jandau]

Well, the second episode is out, and it's not much better, to be honest...

The animation is still pretty bad. I'd like to state again, I don't mind 3D CGI on principle, but this is BAD 3D CGI. It's stiff, the faces are poorly done, movements and animation is floaty and unconvincing. It is further compounded by their attempts to make it look more hand-drawn, which amounts to random black lines on shadows and shading. This looks terribly annoying, cheap and quite ugly, detracting from any visual appeal the show might have. At no point in these two episodes did I stop and think "Hey, that looks cool!", and that's just wrong.

The pacing is still fucked up. Events feel like they're being piled on at random, characters keep saying barely coherent things, the events hardly make any sense. It's a shitshow, in short. It just doesn't flow well, everyone is annoying to the extreme and feels like they are constantly trying to talk over each other, like they're in a rush to get their lines out of the way. The whole thing leaves me feeling annoyed.

And the audio is a mess. Mainly, they seem to be going for an unsettling sound with the music and ambient sounds, but since they lack any form of subtlety or nuance, the result is just garbled, grating cacophony for the most part.

Overall, it's like the makers of this have seen anime, have a general idea of what they'd like to achieve and make, but lack any talent to do so effectively.

One more episode. I'm giving it one more episode before I straight up quit and go read the manga...

In all seriousness, is it too much to ask to hear this in the show?

Oh god, I forgot how great that song is. But no, I doubt we'll get to hear it in this series. That would be a good idea, and those seem to be banned here...

However, music aside, that AMV is a great contrast to the animation in the series. It features scenes from the three movies and showcases how much better Berserk can look. Note the combination of 3D and 2D animation, using both to their strenghts. Note how much better shading looks. Note how much better animations are, both in 2D and 3D. Seriously, that's what I was expecting from this series, not the garbage we got...

 

[baddude1337]

I just started the manga quite recently. I read the first few volumes then instantly bought the next 14 volumes. I have to say that this is my first manga, and I am enjoying it immensely.

It's a shame it sounds like the adaptations are a bit meh, a big budgeted and faithful anime or movie would be pretty fantastic. Still, I'll give it a go as a comparison after I finish the manga up to it's most recent point.

 

[Fox12]

I just started the manga quite recently. I read the first few volumes then instantly bought the next 14 volumes. I have to say that this is my first manga, and I am enjoying it immensely.

It's a shame it sounds like the adaptations are a bit meh, a big budgeted and faithful anime or movie would be pretty fantastic. Still, I'll give it a go as a comparison after I finish the manga up to it's most recent point.

Watch the 90s anime first. It's actually pretty solid. It's much better then the recent adeptations. The new show takes off after the last one ended, so you can pretty much jump right into it.

 

[gsilver]

It's a shame it sounds like the adaptations are a bit meh, a big budgeted and faithful anime or movie would be pretty fantastic.

The 90s anime is one of my favorite anime of all time. It's pretty faithful for the part of the series that it covers (stuff like Wyald and the Bakiraka are missing, but otherwise it covers most of the Golden Age arc well)
It even looks pretty good these days, too, especially the Blu-Ray version.

 

[StormShaun]

Oh god, I forgot how great that song is. But no, I doubt we'll get to hear it in this series. That would be a good idea, and those seem to be banned here...

However, music aside, that AMV is a great contrast to the animation in the series. It features scenes from the three movies and showcases how much better Berserk can look. Note the combination of 3D and 2D animation, using both to their strenghts. Note how much better shading looks. Note how much better animations are, both in 2D and 3D. Seriously, that's what I was expecting from this series, not the garbage we got...

Funny thing...
back when those Golden Age movies were more recent, people didn't like the 3D.
Yet just like you, I go back to that, and I think "that's good, why couldn't we have gotten that?"

Unfortunately, I bet budget and time are the biggest reasons it's like that. In fact, right now, I can't blame the series itself, I can't blame Berserk itself, hell naw'. Who I can blame (at least slightly) is whoever didn't give this series the care it requires. In that case, it should have been given to a better company, like Ufotable or some of the higher ranking companies.

At least in my opinion, surely there must be many ways to make a Berserk anime?
Slightly saddening.

Anyway, the second episode was slightly better, and I only hope it can get better by inches... I hope that's possible.
Still, would have loved if Forces was the OP. Sure, the current one was okay, the tone could have been darker, but hey, I've seen worse... although, then again, I remember a certain OP that was both good and bad, but SO very rememberable.


EDIT: One thing I do look forward to (even if he looks weird in 3D) is more Guts. I just want to hear him more and more. Mostly 'cause he has some amazing lines. Like this one from the manga...
"FUCK YOU. I'm human, the real deal, right down to the fuckin' marrow of my bones. Don't lump me together with you ******-ass monsters."

What an amazing hero.

 

[RedRockRun]

I can't stand the animation. It's so stiff.