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Mori: On May 14, 2021, Miura’s family and my wife and I saw off Miura Kentarou.
Mori: I was in a complete stupor…
Mori: Is it real?
Mori: I felt like he was going to get up, saying “Hmm? Mori-chan?”
Mori: What are you doing now, Miura… hmmm...
Merry Christmas everyone! In the spirit of giving for the holidays, we recorded a bonus podcast just for you guys. It's a non-Berserk talk where Walter & Aazealh just casually chat about what video games they're currently playing and what they're looking for in 2022. And you won't believe it, but we don't even mention Elden Ring!
Want more of the podcast? Click here for the public epis...
2021-12-24 09:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Here is a rough translation from Aazealh of the message to the fans at the end of volume 41. It is very similar to the one that was published in Young Animal #18 alongside episode 364 and contains no new information.
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To all the fans,
Thank you for reading "Berserk" and for your continued support.
The final episode of volume 41, "Tears of Morning Dew", is the final manuscript on which Miura Kentarou sensei worked while he was alive.
T...
2021-12-23 23:35:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Also posting some information gathered from looking through the digital edition of Dur-An-Ki, which is available right now from Hakusensha-e. Here is a link to our guide if you're unfamiliar with the website and wish to purchase t...
2021-12-23 20:28:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi everyone,
Volume 41 of Berserk is now available to purchase on hakusensha-e.net. Duranki is available as well and contains a lot of previously unseen content about Miura's plans for that series. Here is a link to our guide if you're unfamiliar with the website and ...
2021-12-23 19:57:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, I'd say I "gotcha" with this one, but the picture pretty much gives it away. I'm talking about the fact "Lost Children" is actually written in katakana from English, of course. It's a direct transliteration, which gives us ロスト・チルドレン (ROSUTO CHIRUDOREN).
You'll notice the use of that middle black dot (nakaguro) we learned about in the entry for "God Hand", too.
An...
2021-12-19 10:33:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Here is probably the first painting of Miura that was ever published. It appeared in a special issue magazine that Hakusensha released between the last issue of Monthly ComiComi (December 1988 issue, released in October) and the first issue of Monthly Animal House (May 1989 issue, released in March), which took over from it.
It was called (コミック読本) ヒーロー大集合, which translates to "The great gathering of heroes", and likely came out in January 1989. It bridged the g...
2021-12-15 12:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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Part 1 of this translation can be found here.
Part 2 of this translation can be found here.
Part 3 of this translation can be found he...
We revisit the main heroine of Berserk and her difficult role in the story. From her introduction during the Golden Age, her survival of the Eclipse, her years as a shell of herself where she's paradoxically the one thing keeping Guts sane, and why she is the one and only woman for him.
Want more of the podcast? Click here for the public episodes.
2021-12-10 10:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Recently we talked about words for "angel" used in Berserk, of course in reference to the "Guardian Angels of Desire", A.K.A. the God Hand. But what about desire? Well, in Berserk, the word used is 欲望, pronounced よくぼう (YOKUBOU). It's a common word for desire in Japanese, with no particular connotation for one type of desire over another.
In the context of Berserk, the title "Guard...
2021-12-09 08:14:15 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
In volume 14, we're introduced to Farnese and her Knights of the Holy Iron Chain just as they find the prophesized Red Lake that marks the advent of the Falcon of Darkness. In Japanese, the words used for "red lake" are 赤き湖, pronounced あかき みずうみ (AKAKI MIZUUMI).
赤 (AKA) means red, and if you remember our entry about the Black Swordsman, you'll recall that adding an "i" at the end turns the word into an adjective. Like 黒い (KUROI) or 赤い (AKAI). So why is it ...
2021-12-01 21:50:19 +0000 UTC View PostThis post is now accessible to Bronze patrons. Thank you for your support!
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Part 1 of this translation can be found here.
Part 2 of this translation can be found here.
Given those conditions, I repeated to myself that I should expect (it to be) “very rough”, “really rou...
Here are a couple of Puck figurines I acquired online in the mid-2000s.
All information I had on them is lost to time as my early efforts to document all things Berserk were tragically lost years ago when my HDD went bust. However I'm pretty sure they were sold during one of the Wonder Festivals at the time (where non-professional artists can acquired "temporary licences" that allow them to sell fan products at the event).
I only have these two, but a third one was also made by th...
2021-11-21 13:21:06 +0000 UTC View Post
You know what really grinds my gears? People who don't write proper nouns properly. Well, it doesn't actually bother me all that much but I needed an excuse to talk about this topic so here we are.
In Japanese, God Hand is written in Katakana: ゴッド・ハンド. That is why it should be "God Hand" in every language, and not "Main de Dieu" in French, "Mano de Dios" in Spanish or "Gott Hand" in German.
You'll notice that little ・ here (called 中黒, nakaguro), which ...
2021-11-17 12:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
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Part 1 of this translation can be found here.
I'm not specifically choosing to talk about his work. However, in those days Miura-nii, who dedicated his whole life to manga, was always searching for "something to create, something that can be a seed for his creative ideas" like a...
2021-11-14 15:18:35 +0000 UTC View PostFollowing a work as it is released is quite a different experience from finding out about it years after all's said and done. In this mini-podcast Walter and Aazealh recount their own encounters and explore how Berserk might be different for future readers.
Want more of the podcast? Click here for the public episodes.
2021-11-13 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a few more pictures of goods sold at the Berserk exhibition, focusing on paintings this time. The Berserk volumes are there to give an idea of the scale. Note that the illustrations are still shrink-wrapped in the photos.
Several types of color reproductions are being offered at the event (I'm using the present tense since it's resuming next month in Osaka):
-Printed on semi-rigid paper and slipped in a small plastic frame (All sized in A5)
-Printed on canvas and stitche...
Remind me, which is the correct one: "Nosferatu Zodd", or "Zodd the Immortal"?
Trick question, of course: it's both.
As you can see in the image above, ノスフェラトゥ (Nosferatu, spelled like the title of the 1922 movie) is written next to 不死の. Text written like this is called furigana, and is used to indicate how to pronounce a word.
Typically, hiragana will be written above some kanji to make reading them easier. In this case, katakana is used...
2021-11-08 23:36:28 +0000 UTC View Post
I (Aazealh) was lucky to have an acquaintance in Tokyo who attended the Berserk Exhibition and was willing and able to purchase some goods on my behalf. Those items should eventually be purchasable online, meaning fans outside of Japan should be able to get their hands on them without having to pay triple price to a scalper.
But in the meantime, I figure I'd take some photos and answer some questions if y'all have any.
The Artwork of Berserk
The top picture sh...
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A story about Miura Kentarou-nii
Greetings, readers of Young Animal, it has been a long time. I’m Hoshi Takashi, the author of Schäferhund (2). This time, being told that I was given a space, I thought very hard about “what on earth should I write?” Even at this very moment when I’m facing the manuscript, I’m in a state where I don’t have a clea...
As Halloween approaches, what better topic than witches! Of course, in Berserk the word is most closely associated with Schierke and her late teacher, Flora. But we even got to see a very traditional witch recently, in episode 361, with the one and only Volvaba.
In Japanese, the word for "witch" is 魔女. It is pronounced まじょ (MAJO). Some of you may remember that we've encountered that first ...
2021-10-28 20:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
A little while ago, I teased that "Gaiseric", the name of the mythical emperor who conquered an entire continent a thousand years before the events of Berserk, should actually be spelled "Gaizeric".
Why is that, you might ask? After all, "Gaiseric" isn't something Miura came up with, it's the name of an historical figure. Gaiseric (born in 389 - died in 477) was king of the Vandals, a Germanic tribe. He is mo...
2021-10-25 21:42:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Japan is a golden land for hobbyists. Among other things, twice a year there's a big convention in Tokyo called the "Wonder Festival" or Wonderfest for short where anyone can buy a temporary license to sell small series of products based on many intellectual properties.
Some of the most interesting Berserk merchandise has come from there, like that beherit that can open its eyes and mouth. Another one is thi...
Today the organisers of the Great Berserk Exhibition revealed a new bonus available for the attendees of the Osaka edition. It's a Dragon Slayer paper knife and... it looks pretty good! I happen to have two Dragon Slayer paper knives already, but I'll take a third, no problem. 😏
The first one is actually a paper weight and paper knife combo, now how...
2021-10-18 21:27:40 +0000 UTC View PostThis post is now accessible to Bronze patrons. Thank you for your support!
Part 1 of this interview can be found here.
Part 2 of this interview can be found here.
Puella is now working on the "Messages to Kentarou Miura" material, starting with Takashi Hoshi's story about how he met Miura, and the bac...
Now that's what I call an easy word to write! Yeah, no it's not. But amazingly, that's the word Schierke uses to describe some of the creatures she and Guts' group encounter when they venture into the Qliphoth, in volume 25. The most famous of these is the "face monster" that Puck & Ivalera end up playing with, and that our very own Walter dubbed "the Schnoz" at the time due to its prodigious nasal appendage.
In Japanese, 魑魅魍魎 (CHIMIMOURYOU) refers to a traditional type of e...
2021-10-12 23:10:11 +0000 UTC View Post
This month's special Patreon podcast is all about video games. Walter and Aazealh give their thoughts on the Berserk video games of the past, but also discuss what they would like to see in future games.
Want more of the podcast? Click here for the public episodes.
P.S. By the way, we're looking into setting up a special RSS feed for Patreon subscribers that will allow you to...
2021-10-09 09:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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 libe...
2021-10-08 09:11:48 +0000 UTC View Post
The Berserk exhibition featured a banner for the Band of the Falcon amongst its more original displays.
Interestingly, a flag of the Band of the Falcon's emblem was once sold as merchandise in the late nineties, following the release of the TV series. Like most goods from that era, it was produced by Movic. It's less fancy that the one at the exhibition, but pretty cool nonetheless. And it's actually closer to the real design used in the manga, as you can see on that page (the flags in ...
2021-10-02 13:56:41 +0000 UTC View Post