Evenin’ traveler. It’s me, the blog proprietor again. I know you’ve been dying to hear more about Berserk, so sit down and I’ll tell ya more about it.

I been a lil busy trying to make things look nice around here, so I’ve only had a chance to watch one episode of the thing. That said, having watched an episode of the show I do have a much better understanding of it than I did before, when I hadn’t seen any of it. Here is what I now know:

  1. Berserk is about a guy who wears all black and carries a big sword. Did I tell you about that?
  2. It is grimy, but it’s not only loud. The show is quiet and even pensive at times.
  3. Mind you Berserk is indeed violent. I do appreciate most of it. It’s over the top and a little cheesy, but it’s very to my taste.
  4. The show has used gendered, somewhat sexual violence to establish bad guys, which I’m not so sure about. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself, but the scene that included this violence was a bit gratuitous. And, as a result, that whole scene felt kinda gross. It gives off similar vibes that the Game of Thrones adaptation did: that the show would use misogyny and homophobia and violence to communicate to you who the bad guys were, but it was also extremely into the violence it depicted. I don’t know how this will work out in the long run for Berserk, but after a point GoT felt like it was leering at the nasty shit it showed.
  5. The central guy (whose name is Guts, mind you) appears to have a sort of gruesome bodily debt to a group of scary, powerful magicians/demons. Guts fights a frightening snake lord/demon fellow in the first episode who had enthralled a city. After the fight Guts is visited in a vision by this scary group. They reach out to remind him that his body belongs to them. It’s very spooky, and I’m curious to see what the show does with the body horror-esque narrative that’s developing. I’m excited that this curse, or whatever it might be, may complicate what could be a simple understanding of interpersonal power relations, especially as many shonen action stories use martial arts as a means to discuss learning and how it can grant access to power. With the curse/debt from powerful magicians hanging over Guts’ head, we see that success and security in this world is defined by more than just physical strength.

I’m eager to see where Berserk goes. So far, I’m pleased to find that Berserk may touch on similar subjects that Hollow Knight does, as far as power and control are concerned, and maybe even doing so in thoughtful ways!