The Bearded Skeleton

Is there a more beloved character in Berserk than the pirate boss? Well, yes. But he's still pretty cool! In volume 35 (episode 309), he finally introduces himself to Roderick and crew.

He goes by the nickname "Bearded Skeleton" (髭骸骨) and commands a ship called the "Captain Shark Rider" (キャプテンシャークライダー). However, if you've read Dark Horse's version of the manga, you'll have noticed they translate his name as "Bonebeard".

Dark Horse takes liberties

It's not hard to guess why they decided to do that. Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, is one of the most famous pirates in history. The problem, though, is that it's not correct. In Japanese, Blackbeard translates as 黒髭 (KURO HIGE). But the Berserk character's title is 髭骸骨 (HIGE GAIKOTSU), two words that individually mean "beard" and "skeleton".

You'll notice that 髭 comes first, indicating that it serves as an adjective to 骸骨, whereas in Blackbeard, 黒 is the adjective to 髭. So the construction of the nickname is different, the meaning of the individual words doesn't match, and really, if you look at the Captain Shark Rider's figurehead, you'll find it's literally a bearded skeleton riding a shark.

Furthermore, the characters themselves refer to him as such, like Schierke in episode 319 when she calls him ガイコツ船長, literally "skeleton captain".

This sort of decision on Dark Horse's part – to ignore authorial intent in favor of substituting their own references – is quite regrettable. The "groovy" incident is another instance of this, something they thankfully corrected in recent reprints.

Not as stereotypical as you might think

Another interesting thing to note about this character is that he doesn't speak in a "piratey" way at all in Japanese.

Like practically all pirate depictions, he is in large part inspired by Captain Long John Silver, from the classic novel Treasure Island. But Miura's exposure to this story came from Japanese media (like the 1978 anime adaptation by Osamu Dezaki that gets referenced in volume 33, episode 290) rather than from Hollywood movies, where that style of ahistorical talk was created.

More importantly, Miura gave the character his own style as a brutish and stubborn leader, not unlike a drill instructor at times in the way he berates and motivates his men (we even learn that he used to be a naval officer). This is a main source of humor for his dialogue, the way he continuously pushes his men without acknowledging the reality of their situation (even after they get killed and become tentacles). And lest we forget, this single-minded relentlessness also gets him compared to... a shark.