What sacrificial ceremonies are actually called in Berserk
Added 2023-01-13 13:00:05 +0000 UTCThe sacrificial ceremonies of the God Hand aren't without a name.
While we usually just refer to it as "the apostle ceremony", Void uses a specific name when the Count gets his second chance in volume 3: 降魔の儀, pronounced こうま の ぎ (KOUMA NO GI). Notably, Miura added furigana to specify the pronunciation (KOUMA and not GOUMA) and therefore the meaning of it (unrelated to buddhism).
In English, the best translation I can think of is: "the ceremony of receiving evil". The full nuance of the phrase can't really be conveyed across languages, because the kanji evokes the idea of shamanic possession, of welcoming a superior force inside your body.
If you know a bit about how those ceremonies work in Berserk, it's easy to understand why Miura chose that particular wording. Apostles receive evil power inside them, which twists their souls and in turn transforms their corporeal bodies. And it's not just used for apostles either! During the Eclipse, Void also called the ceremony by that name.
Now, this mention of a ceremony may not ring a bell to you and you may be wondering why. That's because Dark Horse botched the translation pretty badly. They went with "invocation of doom", which is basically gibberish. They omitted the word "ceremony" (儀), which is insane and has no justification, and somehow translated 魔 (MA) as "doom", which is completely wrong and very misleading, no matter how you cut it. And it doesn't even make sense in the context!
