Artwork of Berserk interview - Page 3 (part 1)

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Page 3

Interviewer: When it comes to “the feeling of the brush”, I guess there can be very unexpected situations.

Miura: For brushes, their expression changes each time, so I can find them interesting or feel uneasy (with them). The same goes for pen nibs. Some nibs become unusable quickly, some last long. Anyway, they are random encounters and I can’t control them. Even some of the nib sets I bought weren’t a good fit (for me). Digital can constantly draw a flat line but it doesn’t have very rare encounters like “the ultimate Maru pen” that fits me perfectly. There are also some brushes (whose bristles) are split just right that fit my habits perfectly. These ultimate items that happen by chance are impossible with digital.

Interviewer: Now, my next question is about the way you conceive the story and characters. Has the way you create manga changed over the past 30 years?

Miura: It probably hasn’t changed. It often happens that my assistants advise me about storyboards and I’ll think “how it will be if I do it?”, which is, I think, supposed to be systematized and verbalized. However, there are things I still do unconsciously.

Interviewer: Please briefly summarize to us the way in which you conceive the manga.

Miura: It would take a long time to recount how Berserk was created, so I’ll tell you about recent developments from the second half as an example. Until Guts’ band reaches the Elf Island, Guts gets companions and they head for their destination together: the story flows RPG-style. I thought “this series will go through every cliché of Fantasy”. When they go out to sea, I make a framework with all these famous fantasy elements: a pirate ship, a ghost ship, a kraken, mermaids… and I use them as landmarks. Within those boundaries, I create depending on how the characters that are being fostered work, it’s my method.

After the characters grow, I create depending on the framework of the story, but there is trial and error until this stage. “I create a sequence (1) to show this side of this character”, “when this character is involved with that character, this side of them is highlighted”… Thinking these, I go on. When Guts gets involved with Griffith, he looks up at someone in a higher position and takes a challenging attitude. As a result, his immature side is highlighted. When he’s involved with Isidro or Schierke, his reliable side is revealed as if giving a talk to a child… manifold facets of the character come out.

First of all, “how I want to show Guts” is the fundamental part and I place characters accordingly. Since all of the characters are practically main characters, I place characters to show this side of Isidro this time, and again, from there a new side of the character comes out… I’ve got to be able to do this in succession. I think the story flows well by expressing the characters through relationships.



Note 1: Miura uses the word “episode” in Katakana here (エピソード), but its meaning is unrelated to the term “episode” as a way of denominating issues of the Berserk manga (e.g. 第360話). In this usage, it refers to a definite scene or sequence of events within the narrative, like for example “Roderick’s naval battle against the pirates”.

Note: Miura’s big reply is originally a single block of text without paragraphs. I only split it in three to make it easier to read.