Berserk

Not to be confused with Berserker.

Jesus Christ, look at the size of that thing!

It's no secret that the giant sword trope is pretty famous among video games and anime. But when you ask people what started the whole giant sword trend, they might think of Bleach or Final Fantasy. But the one series that started this common trend is a manga series known as Berserk.

Berserk is an on-going Japanese fantasy manga series written by Kentaro Miura in 1989 which started as a one shot prototype manga in 1988 and it's also the most hardcore manga ever. Berserk has everything, gore, fighting, demons, Lovecraftian nightmares, rape, pedophilia, gay sex, child murder, etc.

Plot

Berserk follows the story of an emo mercenary named Guts (or Gattsu if you're retarded) who carries a giant sword and still somehow managed to get his ass beat by a gay guy named Griffith. Griffith leads a mercenary band called the Band of the Hawk and then later takes in Guts as his right-hand man who totally isn't gay for him. After 3 years of glory, Guts decides to leave the Band of the Hawk and then Griffith tries to prove he's not gay by having hot sex with the King's daughter, but fails because after having sex he still ends up thinking about Guts. Griffith was then tortured for a whole year for popping the princess's precious cherry and then gets his ass rescued by Guts and company. After all of that, Griffith almost becomes an hero and accidentally summoned a bunch of demons and four mini-gods. Then he agrees to sacrifice the entirety of the Band of the Hawk and becomes a flying bat demon-thing. Then the bat demon thing rapes Guts's girlfriend right in front of him while Guts is pinned down to a pool of his friends' blood. After all of that, a Ghost Rider knock-off bursts through the sun and saves Guts and Casca. Guts then gets a huge fucking sword and devotes his entire life to murdering Griffith painfully and brutally as possible, which is going to be hard because Griffith basically a god at this point.

Characters

• Guts: Also known as the Black Swordsman. He wields a giant sword and kills demons every single night, no joke. And he's also probably the most hardcore protagonist in all of animu. Seriously, he was born from his mother's corpse, raped as a child, stabbed through the face, took 1000 god-punches at once, and jumped into the mouth of a giant sea god and killed it from inside. And after all of that he STILL FUCKING SURVIVES!

2016 Anime

The Berserk anime is known for its QUALITY animation, the bemusing result of its attempt to combine 3D and 2D animation, CGI, and cell-shading. The animators were so embarrassed with the (un)finished product that they redid some scenes for the Blu-Ray release.

• Blu-Ray (left) release vs. TV (right) release
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2017 Video Game: Berserk and the Band of the Hawk

In February 2017, KOEI Tecmo release another shitty Musou type of game under the Berserk franchise titled Berserk and the Band of the Hawk. Unlike all the other Musou ripoffs, this one kept the elements of what Berserk is. Wait until the price greatly drops if you're into Musou games. For now it's only worth renting it.

Almost horse-raped

Farnese is almost raped by a horse, but Guts gets triggered by the scene and saves her.

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But critics agree, the animated version is far superior due the level of quality in its CGI 3D animation.

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  Nope.
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  Eyes Clippy would be proud of.

Berserk is part of a series on Anime Visit the Anime Portal for complete coverage.