Berserk Episode 12 Discussion

szympus11 said:
Why even bother with this cgi trash adaptation.

Jasmin12e said:
Only thing that made me cringe during this episode was the weird animation to Griffiths face, when he turns his head and looks at the viewer it almost felt like some cheap doll knock off of Griffith it hurt. Are there any still images of this scene? I need to cringe again.

SaitoHajime said:


I think they did that on purpose, just so you would cringe.

Jokes aside, I think he looks like that for a reason, however I didn't read the Manga, so its an assumption based on the fact that he's a "new" Griffiths.

Jasmin12e said:

I feel like, from far away he looked fine? Like I didn't have a problem with his face when he was looking at the beast petting its head, it was just this single shot just felt so...lazy? Maybe i'm just picky.

antonn said:
Brilliant. Best looking anime to date. The future of anime is bright.

RealCW said:
Had to post this after my friend showed me:

http://inactivenobody.tumblr.com/post/152087880542/side-by-side-comparison-between-the-blu-ray-left

I hate this series even more now. What a shady practice. Everyone should boycott this anime, just so others don't follow this kind of bullshit marketing "strategy".

If you don't want to click the link:


Blu Ray vs TV broadcast

Lord_Odous said:


Such difference lol. But it's common marketing strategy in Japan, it seems. Dragon Ball Super did the exact same thing.



Hopefully the 2nd season of Berserk can have something closer to the BR release?

RealCW said:


That is such backwards marketing to me. I can see the point of little enhancements (and indeed, DBS is nowhere near as bad as Berserk was), but shouldn't you make people want to buy your series?

And also, doesn't it cost more to produce any other version, crappy as it may be? Why not just do your best, show your best, and offer more little perks for those who buy it?

Imagine if Hollywood implemented this strategy. You can't see the *real* movie unless you buy it, and the theater versions are acted instead by a group of high school students vs big name actors.

Lord_Odous said:


My guess would be Berserk (2016) suffers from an inexplicable low budget and created by a newbie studio GEMBA, who most likely is terribly understaffed and probably lacking in experience (most notably the facial expressions and movements of human characters). It's very likely they had to rush out the TV episodes in time and resulted in crappy results.

As for the BR release, they had more time to refine it, find the right formula and thus much better results. After all, they had to rely on the BR and DVD sales to make some money back for the production of S2.

It's really sad to see something as glorious as Berserk unable to secure a large production budget. Anyhow, S2 is confirmed, Miura-sensei is still the man supervising it, if they really found the right recipe to improve the show, by all means, entertain us.

(Just my 2 cents, feel free to correct me if I am wrong)

RealCW said:


I did a little more research on the BR as well, and it's not even most of the show; I guess it's just the parts that were the worst. So... most of the show will still be incredibly awkward to look at.

The pacing and a lot of little story details were wrong to me, which is why I like Berserk so much. Such attention went into every little nook and cranny; it's admirable.

Little things, like the Holy Iron Chain Knights stripping Guts of all armor right there on the battlefield BEFORE the haul him in. Why do that and make even more work for your battered troops to then have to lug it all?
Little things like that add up quick.


Hmm, I don't get why you're excited that "S2 is confirmed". Wasn't it always? It said 24 episodes before it even started, so, that was a given already, I thought.


It still blows my mind that Berserk is the #1 rated manga and it gets the low budget treatment. It should be given the HxH or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure treatment. That would be a perfect way to adapt it, but I think I know the problem.

Berserk's level of violence and nudity and everything else makes it extremely hard to run on TV, so, it's a double edged sword.

The last chance for a truly great adaption is when the manga finally finishes (or is announced to be almost done), then someone has the opportunity to do it all, correctly, so long as they can work around the violence content (but hey, that's what the BR's are for, right?).

But even then, I seriously doubt it'll be done correctly. I have an inkling it'll be cut down as well, since someone will have to do the Golden Age arc AGAIN, for the third time and now even the Conviction arc for the second time.

Older adaptations can ruin newer ones just on the basis that it's been done already.

Lord_Odous said:


Yes it was listed as 24 episodes before it started airing, then MAL changed it to 12 episodes after it begun airing. Maybe it changed to split cours and I misinterpreted it but there's always the possibility that the studios are not making sufficient profit and thus the project is scrapped. Luckily it didn't happen that way.

As for the armor part, they removed Guts' armor immediately after as it will make him less resistant. He will be much lighter to drag around, and if he decided to resist somewhere in the middle, it will be much easier to subdue him being naked than trying to knock some sense to him through some heavy armor. I think it's pretty much a given to remove his armor as soon as you brought him down, unless he's dead.

When the manga finally ends (who knows when will that be), depending on the studios' interest, we might have a truly glorious adaptation, or a crappy adaptation like this one, or none at all. Slam Dunk and Rurouni Kenshin, for example, did not receive any newer adaptations after being completed, their anime adaptations ended before the endpoint of the manga.

Based on the current trend, where anime are mostly made in the one-cour or two-cour format, it is difficult to foresee how Berserk will receive an adaptation consisting of hundreds of episodes. Unless we have true fans handling the adaptation, like how David Production handled JoJo, then it's good.

Until now, it's all speculation until the day the manga finally ends.

RealCW said:


I guess. I think the manga did it right though by just not showing Guts be stripped of equipment at all. He's brought down, cut, next scene, he's in camp stripped down. Then that quandary is never even brought up.
Funny how the story is already perfectly told right there and they just have to follow it, and they can't even do that.

Kenshin did get an adaptation of the later arc (though not complete), in the form of films branded Samurai X when it finished. There was no hope left for the anime at that point, because the filler saga had already killed any chance of that being adapted, to say nothing on how it would've fit with tons of filler beforehand.
And I feel they never redid it completely, only because the anime nailed the middle section so flawlessly, it would've been a massive retread. It's a double-edged sword, the anime series. Almost a paradox where you do one thing perfectly, then screw up the next part.

I do agree; people who are fans should be in charge of doing the adaptation, if preferable. This is akin to a director making a film out of a series they truly love.
I don't even like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, at all, but I have to admit they handled and adapted it almost perfectly. And JoJo is no tame, easy on violence kind of show; so if that could work, there's no excuse why Berserk can't.

We've gotten the Eclipse and even now the Conviction arc shown on television with the gore only somewhat toned down, but the impact all still there. Then it can be uncut on BR; I guess I don't see the problem.
Someone just needs to do it right. And NOT in CG. The actual hand drawn animation this series can do is pretty good and represents the manga well enough, and the designs are way better than the 4c films.
And even the original anime did a good job in that regard too. It captured Berserk fairly well. So this whole it has to be CG because it'd be too expensive otherwise is BS. They're not putting enough faith in it, is the issue.

Funny how for all the money they wasted on the 4C films and this lousy new series; they could've made one truly excellent series. But they've just got 2 (more like 6) failures instead.

And honestly, CG can look good. I recall JoJo having a CG opening that was pretty cool, and I'm not sure if you've ever played on a 3DS, but any of the Fire Emblem games all have CG cutscenes that are absolutely amazing in quality. Honestly, I could watch a whole series with that kind of animation and I would love it.
So, it can work really well when done right. It's pretty common knowledge, though that even for CG, Berserk's quality is absolutely abysmal.

Check out the FE scenes on Youtube (just search) if you're curious. I don't want to post an unrelated video here.

Lord_Odous said:


I'd say the anime industry is entering a transitional phase regarding the usage of CG. The use of it is undoubtedly increased over the years, with many shows incorporating in moving vehicles, depicting a vast sea of people walking, etc etc. But for most part anime is still made using hand-drawn animation, which is something most animators are used to in Japan.

Using full CG animation to create anime, I believe the experience is still lacking, and this extends to the budget utilization where they might have not fully grasped yet. I have yet to watch another full CG anime other than Berserk, so I dare not comment further on this.

Sadly I do not own a 3DS, I've seen some FE videos, while good, I believe the better examples, albeit a bit far-fetched, would be the recent movies made by Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks. Then again, anime can't dream of having such a colossal budget, for now.