Manga whose whole point is about how much a human with enough will is able to fight against super-human monsters and...

>Manga whose whole point is about how much a human with enough will is able to fight against super-human monsters and beat them
>fast-forward 15 years
>hero can wear a magical armor that gives him super-human powers so he can go toe-to-toe with super-human threats
What did Miura mean by this?

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Well , a lot changed in berserk (if you ask me , even the genre , it became more fantasy) and I think it's mostly because Miura got old and changed his views , hell , even the artstyle change . I still hope for something dark pretty soon tough

i think the point is the berserker armor makes him even more mentally vulnerable, and its clearly not invincible, he would have gotten BTFO without loli witch carrying his ass

but you right tho

had to find a way for guts to fight demi gods

since then was that its' main point? it was always just about survival and going against faith, you just added that "fighting equally with monsters" yourself

*when

*fate

You do know that the armor has been forshadowed since the first arc right?

Skull Knight appears to him in the first arc and warns him of the path he has chosen, will eventually turn him inhuman.

Why even stress 'muh humanity' as a virtue if you think using your human smarts to use better tools to help you do the job is a bad thing ?

This argument gets thrown around like it's substantive when it's just really poorly thought out false criticism. The armor further reinforces Gut's struggle to retain his humanity, if he fails to control it he will presumably end up like the skull knight - not human anymore - and the armor taking the shape of the mad dog further illustrates Gut's increasing struggle with his own inner demon. His humanity is being tested at least double what it's ever been and people are actually oblivious enough to say it's not about his humanity anymore. I mean please.

The berserker armor strengthens the connection between Guts and the beast of darkness, so thematically it is not a mere power up. Also, even with the armor Guts can't do shit against the God Hand, so the power gap still is a thing in Berserk.

>hero can wear a magical armor that gives him super-human powers so he can go toe-to-toe with super-human threats

I think Miura got tired of Berserk after the Eclipse 2.0 but he had to go on for money so he made a shounen manga with some Berserk characters.

>human with enough will is able to fight against super-human monsters and beat them

OP mc, asspull, gary sue.

>hero can wear a magical armor that gives him super-human powers so he can go toe-to-toe with super-human threats

This is correct

phoneposter pls go and stay go

>Manga whose whole point is about how much a human with enough will is able to fight against super-human monsters and beat them
No it's not idiot. There is a limit to what humans can do against reality warpers and the likes. What you want is asspulls and bullshit of Batman level.

That's part of why Lost Children's so great. It's the closest he comes to abandoning all traces of humanity and falling off the deep end of "he who fights monsters" to the point people, elves and demons alike are all absolutely terrified of him. Understandably so

ever since the series first dropped, looking at what Guts was in regards to the world around him, the story has been about him struggling against fate. For fucks sake go look at the intro narrative of asking what is the point of man trying to do anything;

>"In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control; even over his own will".

Side step that and look at how the skull knight always refers to Guts by the title "the struggler". When you look at the series on a whole level instead of the fights with monsters (which didn't truly take place until the end of the golden era arc, excluding Zodd beatdown) and you begin to the see the story isn't so simple to water down into something easily digestible. I mean, fuck man, the author is including fucking plot points of revenge, regret, despair, hope, and so many other emotions that if your too retarded to get over the berserker armor (which would of killed him as soon as he put it on and is slowly making him loose more and more of his humanity while he still has it on!) and look at the story since chapter one then you can see that this series is gonna evolve in directions that we literally can't foresee at all even with the numerous foreshadowing that sprinkled in. If your still too retarded to not get over this mental hang up then I suggest you go back and read the whole series as well as look up the major quotes for the manga before killing yourself. Cause unfortunely this story had set us up for the crazy shit that's gonna happen and we as readers are gonna have to strap in and prepare for the mental jumps it's gonna give us cause like any true epic it's gonna have a lot of symbolism and deeper messages that are gonna seem like wtf moments until you take off your training wheels and actually do the hard work of reading upon reread after reread to grasp what the author is laying out for ya.

There's a Hirasawa's interview about Hai Yo that sums up the series pretty well
>Haa-iii” has been, a notable term I’ve used in all Berserk songs in which I recorded. Eh, it doesn’t have any specific meaning, it was used to embody the gusty force. But upon this series, for some reason it connected to ‘ash (pronounces 'hai’ in Japanese)’ in my mind. That’s where the songwriting started. And, um, subjects(poplulace) being treated like ash, suffering from the God based on oppression and fear. The song aims for an image where the subjects overcome that oppression and fear, they display greater force than the God.

I don't get why people get so pissy about the armour. It's basically a tourniquet that can and probably will kill him, and is a far cry from the kind of "power up" he'll need to stand against a demigod that picks up and moves the metaphysical concept of a sword stroke like a fucking ribbon as if it were nothing.

I know that Kentaro Miura has talked in sum length about wether or not his series is saying he's against god and atheism and I forget everything he exactly says about this subject but essentially he explains exactly that
>where the subjects overcome that oppression and fear, they display greater force than the god
And he elaborates that this is essentially why Guts is fighting. That isn't necessarily just against the church, albeit that the church is the symbol for much of Gut's criticisms, but instead playing on the deeper messages of Guts realizing that people mistake power for divinity and that blind faith usually fucks those who follow. Portraying this as almost cult like fanaticism, but also showcasing that going against the grain is also an almost impossible struggle. Which again rounds back to my original point of the story being on the fact that it's about one person who has to struggle his whole entire life and sometimes makes it harder by personal regrets.

The berserker armor is kinda what a lot of people see as the pussification of the MC by making him stronger when in reality it's actually draining him and making him weaker and weaker. Essentially costing him more and more, just like it did with the skull knight. The best point for this is to look at the name of the armor, which any rpg fag will tell you, that berserkers gain power but at costs usually greater than the power granted. I think if you look at how the relationship is with the skull knight and loli witch's master, you'll see the future of Guts on his current path. And that alone should of been enough symbolism for people to understand that it wasn't his way of powering up but becoming more like the demons he's facing. Which again skull knight foreshadowed in chapter 37 of the manga by almost quoting fucking Nietzsche
>"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."

>berserk has been going on for 28 years
>miura is consumed by idolmaster
It will never be finished right?

This isn't Hajime no Ippo. It'll end, if it gets past the fuckin three year breaks inbetween.

>15 years
kill yourself newfag

I have nothing to say but I just wanted to say I enjoyed reading your comments guys :3

Did it really jump the shark when "magic" was introduced?

Magic was in it from the very beginning when Femto blasted Guts across the room in the astral realm and sent the count to hell

if he didn't have that armor or his party he would already be dead, the strength of his enemies went from strong humans to fucking apostles who can destroy entire armies by themselves. what the fuck do you expect him to do just yell really loud and defeat them with the power of courage?

To be honest I would not mind armor as much if it was not for Schrieke who manages to help Guts use armor advantages without him sacrificing too much WHEN fighting. I mean he does not go berserk any more since that lil witch is controlling it and it is kinda lame.

However he still going blind and losing his sense of taste at the very least

>flash-forward 15 years

It's been less than 4 years storywise. The boat ride took less than a week to get to Elfheim.

Did you idiots never read up on Berserk? It was originally planned as a shonen and in large parts it still is, there are just a few details (like the Eclipse) that are too out-there for young boys so he shoved it into a seinen mag. It's not really a shocker that as time went on, he ended up having a majority of things be more for his original intended audience.

>implying guts hasnt killed an entire army by himself :^)

He could handle normal apostles one at a time.
The problem is Slan injuries are a fucking apostle invation at the same time.

he nearly dies against every apostle he fights prior to getting the armor, his bones and shit would break and he would become a cripple at the rate he was going

I though Fair dust covered that.

reminder that shrieke was suppose to get gang raped by trolls and Miura's editors told him to leave her pure

>can't do shit

sheer force of will is a hell of a drug and will prove itself many times over

too bad humans are weak disgusting sacks of shit

Source

That armor just adds more to his pain and suffering and further proves the strength of a human spirit. It does not give him super-human powers, it strains the human body to its maximum.

Stop self inserting.

The astral wound from Slan's what forced them to put him in the Berserker Armour since it has a neat side effect of literally holding people's body and soul together until they bleed out. Puck's healing dust is pretty potent but we're talking about an injury suffered in multiple planes of existence dealt by a demigod of evil.

To defeat the monster you must become the monster.

Is this why terrorism still exists?

>Guts is a child soldier fighting dudes several times his size
>upgrades to the biggest sword he can wield in order to even the odds a bit

>Guts starts fighting apostles
>His sword can cut through apostles, but lacks the durability for extended battles. Also, not enough power to deal fatal damage reliably.
>Upgrades to the Dragonslayer

>Swords not versatile enough for fighting apostles
>Uses knives for precise ranged attacks, bombs for stopping power
>Powerful handcannon to finish enemies off

>the stakes increase again, the apostles are too strong now even with all of the tools Guts has
>Guts does what he has always done since chapter 1: he upgrades his arsenal again, this time with the Berserker armor

Literally nothing new.

The complain people make is that the upgrades before the berserker armor were classical and called on the human capacities of guts. The armor is magic, but as some other anons said, the shit is killing him. Hell he even has some white hair already

>the upgrades before the berserker armor were classical and called on the human capacities of guts
Not really. If anyone else put on the armor they would have probably died after the first use. The only reason Guts can handle it is because he's built up so much more endurance than a normal person.

>Manga whose whole point is about how much a human with enough will is able to fight against super-human monsters and beat them

this is almost the exact opposite of the point of berserk. congratulations idiots.

Yes, but the power up is still magical, while all the other shit relied on Guts' skill and strength

also go back to watch watching ttgl please.

compare a human to a demon in this series in terms of strength its like a cat against a rhino

You forgot about his magic sword that can cut through the spiritual realm, his magic fairy healing, and the apostle radar on his neck.

I get your point, the armor is a much bigger power up than anything else, but it's not like it's an entirely new concept. There weren't many more power ups Guts could realistically get without resorting to actual ancient magic items.

Well Berserk is full of supernatural stuff why not our MC ?

Except for the effects of being branded having him exist in both the physical and astral realm (possible that this may have even started before the Eclipse since he was in contact with the holder of a crimson behelit for years and it seems any contact may be enough to doom you to the Abyss, as we saw with Vargas), his sword soaked in so much apostle blood that it joined him in straddling two planes and he often has an elf to hand for magical medicine RIP Chitch ;_; + the pouch of it he got during the Golden Age from Judeau

>Magic sword
B-but it was a normal sword which got embued by slayed spirits

>apostle radar
B-but that's his fucking CURSE, man

>Magic fairy healing
Eeeeeeer

You're preaching a converted, user, and I agree with everything, but I'm doing that for fun

dude those tiny bombs guts carry are even more bullshit than the berserk armor, they look like firecrakers but go off like a fucking nade.

i mean if we go by the manga the dragonslayer is no longer a normal sword, it's cursed to hell and back but that doesn't make it unfair or an asspull.

it's bullshit to have him wining against demons at the size of building just to prove humans can do anything with storing wil , lol no you can't

it will be asspull everytime and will be full of BS , people can magic stuff > just give him magic armor > problem solved

Berserk has always emphasized that martial prowess is commensurate with a sacrifice in humanity. This is part of the symbolism behind it being literally called a brand of sacrifice. All of Guts' strength in battle is commensurate with the trauma he's undergone - it's largely a coping and survival mechanism, not some kind of arbitrary pit of his will against the monster "race". This thread is dumb as hell. You've seen that "faggot monsters" meme translation too many times. Please stop reading berserk.

>writers should never be allowed to have their characters surpass human limits because that would be unrealistic
>magic is okay though

Yes ?

Bro, your outta your fuckin mind. It was seinen right out the gate with that guy being cut in half and the snake apostle putting children on a pike. Add on top of that the golden arc which hit mainstream fame and you realized that there's no way to even say he could of planned this as shounen. Seriously autistic if you trying to say it got shoved into seine cause when it first got published in '88 it was in monthly animal house which went under and became young animal house. Both seinen publications bro. It was and has always been geared towards more adult audiences. It was in the beginning a seinen dark fantasy. With focus on the fact that the series hasn't changed! Fuck me, it's all laid out early on the series going up to the point where we catch up in the conviction/black swordsman arc. He hasn't changed anything at all to include some younger fan base since it wasn't included at all to begin with!

Personally, I am fine with the armor. It's all the other stuff that got added in when the witch came along that I don't like.
The earlier volumes more or less implied that you generally couldn't obtain magical power without paying some kind of price.

In the case of the armor, the price is the damage to your body.
In the case of his sword, he had to risk his life slaughtering tons of demons to obtain the ability to cut astral beings.
All of the demons that he fought either sacrificed somebody or were dead themselves (the zombies and whatnot).
The elves had limited powers, and were entirely whimsical, helping randomly those who they like and disappearing whenever they felt like it, making them an unreliable source of magic. Earlier I even thought that the main reason Puck stuck around Guts was because of the brand of sacrifice (he is an other-worldly being like the spirits that attacked Guts, just not a malevolent one).

But the witch chapters introduced magical tools and spells that are powered by "thank you's". That's what pisses me off about the later Berserk chapters.

BECAUSE HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE DOING ALL THAT SHIT WITH SHEER BADASSERY, WITH JUST HUMAN STRENGTH, NO MAGIC BULLSHIT
>swings around a blade as long as him and twice as heavy

I just wish they'd show witch magic going wrong. Concentration interrupted at a crucial moment or an unnoticed enemy manages to sneak up and ambush them and the result's fucking catastrophic. The only time we've seen a witch "lose" was Flora... having already accepted her death as an inevitability.

Considering the fact the story starts with Guts fucking a literal succubus and having a magical mark engraved on his neck plus a literal cannon for an arm and your saying the problem is that when witches show up and start explaining why and how all this shit works as well as giving him the ability to cope with his brand (blacking out for a minute to forget he fucking traversed Interdimensional planes of existence to try and kill beings who operate on the scale of time and space) as well as reluctantly giving him armor that is slowly killing him? Yeah, can see how witches fucked everything and made this story so fantasy when it wasn't to begin with.
>all these golden arc fags need to read the first two volumes.

Why I get this Sup Forums vibe from all the tread? It's some kind of holiday in the state?

That happens when she's (loli witch schierke) protecting the church and gets possessed by the local water spirit. She ends up causing a bunch of damage and feels bad as well as almost getting killed by trolls who try to sneak up on her. Reread that chapter as well as the series progresses that it is actually one of her insecurities.

Yeah Shierke says multiple times that magic is dangerous. I'm expecting Farnese to mistep at one point

Yes, the problem is when they start explaining how it works.
Turning magic into an exact science in a fantasy series is fucking stupid. Keep that shit for the generic technomagic isekai battle harems.
There's no good reason every little thing in the series has to be explained. It's an obnoxious trope that when done wrongly ruins the immersion of a series.

>the upgrades before the berserker armor were classical and called on the human capacities of guts.

Not really, no human could wield the dragon slayer and his artificial arm barely makes sense. Also he's been using fairy dust, which is straight up magic, to survive all along. He's been pretty super human all along, and if anything the fairy dust is more of a magical crutch than the armor because it doesn't even have any drawbacks.

I'm betting that as well with this latest dream adventure

Hunred
Man
Slayer

No Magic
No Armor
No Dragondildo

Do we have a date besides "end of april" yet ? I can't fucking wait

>retards thinking Berserker armor gives you magic powers
>when it's explicitly said that the armor has no such properties and that it's gimmick is literally holding your shit together even if you sustain mortal injuries just so you can keep fighting unti you fucking bleed out
It's not fucking called BERSERKER armor without reason.

The author actually uses old knowledge known to the celts as well as old traditional forms of magic. So it's not actually them bombarding us with made up shit, it's just them keeping it actually accurate. So instead of ruining it, if one has the knowledge of wiccan as well as pagan traditional magical ceremonies and rites then it immerses one even more so as well as give more creditability to the fantastical elements beyond what isn't explained at this point.

Plus in ancient alchemy it was an exact science that became the foundation for modern day chemistry. So, I get what your saying but at the same time if the author didn't explain this shit then people would, as they're doing now, bitch about where this is coming from as well as not understand why or how this works beyond the simple narutard watery explaination of how it works (talking about jutsu and chakra and how they explain it is fine for children but this series is geared towards adults so we need more than just faith).

Not really. I'm gonna wager 23-24th cause that usually the popular release date.

Wasn't that more a case of accidentally using way too much force for what was required because she's still young and learning? I might have to go and reread that part. But I meant something going majorly wrong, as in the complete opposite result of the intended effect. So in that case something like the flood drowns all the villagers and the trolls just got a bit wet. Or some other witch tries to burn some apostles attacking Elfheim but instead she's the one that bursts into flame. Something that turns ominous warnings into "Oh god what have I done..?" All the best fights Guts has have him being beaten to within an inch of death, the magic's always gone a little too well after all the horrible downsides everything else has had (portable cannon at the cost of hacking off half your own arm, landing the killing blow on Rosine at the cost of impaling yourself on a barb in one side of your face and out the other etc).

And that's precisely why he's able to fight powerful apostles now. It's called character building, showing you that no one else aside from Gaiseric would be strong enough to handle that armor and fight powerful apostles.

You people act like they just took the armor and used it to power up some wimp, apparently oblivious to the fact that the whole story has been about Guts actually being a strong enough dude to even handle that shit in the first place.

That was because he is still abnormally strong, the result of harsh training. Looking at chapter one/two when fighting that snake apostle he actually gets his fucking ass beat and barely manages to kill him with his tricky dick arm cannon. Oh! Let's not forget he almost gets killed by the next apostle (thank puck for his gay fairy magic) as well as getting fucking dominated by Zodd in the golden era. Hmmmm if I didn't know any better it actually looks like before Guts gets the dragon slayer, or even after that, he has been just struggling to get on even footing with apostles. Using tricks or just pure instinct to survive. And that wasn't when he was even fighting fucking higher rank apostles or that ass reeming he got from the god hand who completely stomped his ass.

Last day of easter m8.

Ahhhhh I see what your saying now. Welp, you gotta keep in mind that she's no longer an apprentice but a full fledge witch with knowledge and skills that she has honed over the years. Now that they're on witch island I'm sure you'll see plenty of those younguns who are going to make mistakes or have magic that isn't strong enough. Loli witch has had tons of personal tutoring with a master as well as lots of time learning the mistakes. Tack on that the real world experience she's getting now and she's a step above most other magic users in the series. I believe she's even called a prodigy as well, so looking at it I guess that's why her teacher said that Guts needed her and her abilities and made sure that she was to go with him even though she didn't want to.

>Berserk still doesn't have a single good anime or video game adaptation

97 anime, PS2 game
Now fuck off

Kek.

>No mention of the DC game

It's substantially worse than the PS2 one, but still ok.

I said good

(You)

Casca being healed and joining the party as an evolved version of her Golden Age self would be the best thing to happen to this manga in years. If Schierke and Farnese succeed here we'll be able to start getting hype for the inevitable conflict with Griffith and the role Casca would play in it.

Plus, I really want to see her ass in armor again.

...

What I was kinda worried about the armor was the potential that it would just be an instant win as long as he keeps himself composed while wearing it.

But the sea god fight shows that there are way for him to still get killed in the armor. The heartbeats by the god put him through more hell than most apostle fights have earlier. Although I don't find the Sea God Arc to be all that strong, I did appreciate that part of the fight.

Without the berserker armor what chance Guts would have against a god-like monster who can bend space and time and throw you like a doll USING ONLY HIS MIND?
The berserker armor isn't just an asspul either, whenever Guts fights using its power he pretty much turns into a vegetable for weeks because of the toll it takes on his body.
That AND he needs the support of the loli witch.
If anything Berserk is still surprisingly balanced for something going for decades.
The "power level" was already set in the beginning of the manga too, when the godhand first appeared.
That said, fuck off.

>that intro

youtube.com/watch?v=TdpqV7RPnTE

The problem with the Sea God fight is that it was pretty much devoid of emotion. There was no burning rage directed at it for having slaughtered his friends like we get in the better apostle duels, it was just there and dangerous. Important to show just how serious the world merge is, what with long forgotten gods waking up and merrow making their presence known a long way from Falconia I guess?

Sign is Berserk in music form. I love it.

Berserk was as much shonen as Fist of the North Star or Devilman.

This makes me wonder, How long were you guys on the boat for?

Pre-Schierke Berserk was as much shounen as the early chapters of Violence Jack that ran on a shounen magazine but was cancelled for disturbing content even for 70s standards. After Schierke, it's as much shounen as Fist of the North Star

So it's like a darker Yu Yu Hakusho?

>teen kills 100 men with large sword
>guy survives injuries that would kill anyone else
>Guy weilds even larger sword and uses it effectively
>Larger sword turns into anti-monster weapon
>"Gosh guys I thought this story was about a human that gets by on his own strength, not powerups!"

What's his endgame?

>whole point
You missed the point.