Uses of the word "angel" in Berserk

The word "angel" has a very specific association to the God Hand in Berserk. But it isn't used all that often, and different words are used throughout the manga. Let's take a closer look.

● The first occurrence is in volume 1, with the title 欲望の守護天使, pronounced よくぼうのしゅごてんし (YOKUBOU NO SHUGOTENSHI). 守護天使 (SHUGOTENSHI) means "guardian angel". It's very straightforward, but for some reason Dark Horse's official translation skipped "angel" here to just say "guardian". Whatever their reason, that is incorrect as the word specifically means "guardian angel".

● Another word appears in volume 3, when the Count refers to Void as 天使長 "ボイド". 天使長 (TENSHI CHOU) basically means "chief angel". 長 means chief, head, leader, etc. A common use is in 部長 (BUCHOU), which means "director" or "department head". Note that 天使長 isn't the word for "archangel". 大天使 (DAITENSHI) is "archangel". Miura did not use it in Berserk.

● In volume 10, as Judo tells the tale of Gaiseric's end, he simply uses 天使 (TENSHI), the generic word for "angel".

● However when Flora talks about the God Hand in volume 24, after Guts asks her what she knows about his beherit, she calls them 御使い, pronounced みつかい (MITSUKAI). It also means "angel" but is less commonly used. The construction of 天使 (TENSHI) is heaven + messenger. 御使い takes the word messenger and adds a polite honorific prefix to it.

● In volume 26, episode 222, Guts tells Schierke he beat a "monster pretending to be an angel". The line in question is 天使気取りのばけもんを. We can see that the word 天使 (TENSHI) is used.

● In episode 345, Ged asks Guts about Griffith and refers to him as 欲望の主護天使. This is a variation on 欲望の守護天使, which we saw at the beginning. What Miura did here is that he replaced the first kanji of the expression 守護天使 (guardian angel) by one that has the same pronunciation in that context: 主護天使 (SHUGOTENSHI). The kanji that was removed (守) means protector, while 主 means "master" and can be used to refer to "the Lord" in Christianity. In our case the resulting expression could be translated as "chief guardian angel".


Bonus word: Some of you may remember that in episodes 321 & 322, the sailors call Farnese "the guardian angel of the Sea Horse". That is how we translated it at the time on Skullknight.net. However they don't actually call her a "guardian angel" and the expression "守護天使" isn't used. We took a slight liberty at the time to make it sound more natural. What they say is 守り神 (まもりがみ), meaning "guardian deity". It's a common concept in Asian cultures (Shinto, Taoism, Buddhism...) but also in ancient Greece (daimon) or ancient Rome (genius).