Hello everybody, this is SandyTree! I’d just like to point out this was not written by me, but by a redditor on the Berserk subreddit. I just collated all of the currently nine parts into a single post, for ease of reading. Other than that, I added headings and images for an improved reading experience 😊. I also like to do this, because I often experience online posts being deleted, and being unable to access the original material. Now in 2020, three years after Sado22 first wrote the post, it’s now been deleted along with his account. Luckily I have found his Tumblr, where he added the rest of his analysis (parts 6-9). Go check it out! ~ Sincerely, SandyTree.
My sources:
Part 1 (09.09.2016) Introduction and beginning to look at Guts.
Part 2 (11.09.2016) analyzes the aspects of Guts' character.
Part 3 (19.09.2016) centers on fatherhood
Part 4 (26.09.2016) analyzes Guts through other characters.
Part 5 (01.10.2016) is about Casca.
Part 6 (05.10.2016) looks at Griffith.
Part 7 (23.10.2016) looks at the central band members: Pippin, Rickert, Corkus and Judeau.
Part 8 (31.10.2016) looks at Guts' new party: Puck, Isidro, Serpico, Farnese and Schierke.
Part 9 (21.11.2016) is the finale looking at other important characters.
CONTENTS:
Hi Berserk fans. So it’s finally complete! My 56 page, 32,000 word analysis of Berserk (that was supposed to be 2 pages originally :/). I’ve been at it for a few weeks now and though it isn’t fully tweaked, I’ve decided to share it with you all. I’ll post Part 2 soon.
Thanks for all your feedback :)
~Sado22
“So long as I have my sword to fight with, I’m sure to survive. Year after year I prove it to be true. Before joining the Falcons I always survived, no matter the odds, no matter how hopeless a losing battle […] In truth, I don’t believe that’s any way to live one’s life. I’ve been fighting in battles for as long as I can remember. The mercenary leader who raised me taught me nothing except how to wield a sword. I’ve never had anything except my sword. I don’t want to die. For me that is the only reason I keep fighting. There is nothing to save myself for or give myself to. I fight because I know nothing else. Once, I was willing to do just that, to commit myself to fighting, and let anyone else find the reason for me.” Guts, Season 1, Episode 14.
Berserk is the chief argument for considering Kentaro Miura one of the best mangakas of all time. Everything from its themes, its awe-inspiring art and its gripping characters is a master class in the art of storytelling. I have been a fan of Berserk since the anime came out back in the 90s and have considered it one of the best told tales of all time ever since. The purpose of this analysis is at once an attempt to explore its many rich characters and themes, and a tribute to a work of art that remains deeply compelling, rousing, heart-wrenching and relevant to the human condition despite being an on-going work since 1989.
The focal point of Miura’s epic tale is The Black Swordsman, Guts. A cursed ex-mercenary forever doomed to an endless battle against demonic monsters, he is one of the greatest examples of a Byronic hero. Complex and conflicted, as sympathetic as he is inspiring, Guts is the fulcrum on which virtually all the main themes and motifs of Berserk are balanced on. What struck me, while writing this analysis, was how I did not need to separately talk about Guts as a character because everything theme, every motif, every idea central to the story had to pass through him. In the end, dissecting Berserk as a whole becomes a deep character study of its main character.
One of Miura’s greatest accomplishments as a visual storyteller is how he makes Guts so nuanced and magnetic through design alone, and how we get a sense of the major themes and motifs of Berserk simply through Guts’ appearance alone.
Naturally, the immediate thing that grabs our attention is Guts’ enormous sword, the Dragon Slayer. Bigger than the man himself, the blade represents Guts’ titanic strength and skill in wielding it. Yet its size also speaks of an immense burden that Guts carries, which is a major theme in Berserk. The fact that the sword is too large for there to be a sheath adds a sense of exposure, of vulnerability as it is susceptible to rust, cracks, the elements and other harmful effects—an idea that is touched upon in Volume 17 when the blacksmith Godo compares Guts himself to a sword without a sheath, always at the risk of being broken.
The closed eye with his rugged-yet-boyish face exudes a sense of vulnerability, another theme in Berserk. The fact that he can see out of his non-dominant eye, so to speak, adds to this. The closed eye also conveys a sense of the un-seen, a secret or mystery that only he is aware of. Like the Norse God, Odin, it speaks of secret knowledge or power that is at once dangerous yet alluring. More importantly, like Spike Speigel’s prosthetic eye which he said could only see the past, we get a sense that Guts is stuck in a moment in time, a constant reminder of a trauma or injustice that he must relive every day but which also propels him onwards—obviously the Eclipse. His being blind in one eye also serves as a symbolic blindness: perhaps there is something that he failed to see, an unconscious flaw in his character or choices, which continues to cause him pain.
Another sense of mystery comes from his cape which more often than not he swaddles himself in. The cape serves as a triple metaphor: mystery as that which is concealed, vulnerability in the tattered fabric of his cape, and lastly as a shroud that serves as a reminder of the perils of his journey—and perhaps, his eventual fate in the manga.
Like the gigantic sword, Guts’ armor symbolizes immense dangers and the burdens he carries. Yet again it also suggests a sense of vulnerability, especially an emotional one. As Godo explains in Volume 17, hatred is the place where a man goes when he can’t look sorrow in the eye. It is a line that hits particularly close to home when it comes to Guts. Aside from Griffith, Guts is the most armored character in the cast. This is all the more glaring in the New Party where he is the only armor-clad warrior. To this end, the armor is an extension of Guts’ burdens as well as his growing vulnerability. This idea is bolstered by the fact that as the story progresses, Guts’ armor begins to cover more and more of him, with a basic armor at the start of the series where he’s operating with relatively little in terms of burden; then a heavier, more plated armor when he sets out to find and protect Casca; and lastly, the Berserker armor which covers him completely. Interesting enough, the thicker his armor gets, the more his health and general well-being plummets, culminating with his pronounced weight loss and heavily-scarred body underneath the Berserker armor.
Guts’ heavily scarred face and body evoke our sympathy and speak of his great sacrifices in battle. His prosthetic arm, though a potent equalizer in combat, is a handicap that evokes our sympathy. In literature amputations imply trauma, pain, loss and even betrayal or a great injustice. Think of Captain Ahab who viewed his lost leg as the single greatest injustice that he had to avenge at all costs. Guts and Ahab parallel each other in this regard: they charge headlong against insurmountable odds, illicit a sense of respect and fear, are an embodiment of human will whilst their antagonists embody nature, god and the implacable tides of Fate. Interestingly, like the whale, Griffith’s color scheme is also white and like the whale, Griffith (particularly as Femto) operates outside of the realm of morality and logic. Griffith in his mind is no more guilty for the Eclipse than Moby Dick was for chewing off Ahab’s leg.
Much has been said of Guts’ bestial appearance, particularly his pointed ears and pronounced canines. They instill a sense of rabid carnality. These are of course portents of the Beast of Darkness that resides in his psyche, constantly goading him into give in to his hatred and become what the title of the series implies: a berserker. But when paired with his jagged hair, his ears and canine make him look more weathered, like a stray animal in neglect. When it is revealed how Guts was raised by Gambino like some unwanted mutt and how Guts chased after him his whole life like a stray dog, we again must sympathize with Guts. The scar on the bridge of his nose also plays into this idea of him being some kind of a stray dog. As such, one has to acknowledge the numerous canid motif when it comes to Guts: the Beast of Darkness is designed as a black dog; his Berserker Armor’s helm is shaped like wolf’s head; Guts spends his life as a dog-of-war; he’s compared to or flat out called a dog by Caska, Gambino and others; his lone wolf persona; and as previously stated even his pointed ears and longer canines. Lastly Guts is extremely loyal and protective, even at the cost of his own well-being when coupled with his bestial appearance is akin to a guard dog.
As the Black Swordsman, his color scheme is also important. The color black has been employed to convey or explore a great number of themes in literature. The obvious connotation is “death” of which there is no shortage in Guts’ life. Danger, harm, grief, foreboding omens, evil—these are all ideas often symbolized through the color black. Guts after all has been marked with the Brand of Sacrifice, a curse that seals his fate as an offering to demons who hunger for his flesh and shadow him until the very last drop of his blood has been consumed. Like Kenshiro from Fist of the Northstar and his ominous presence as “where ever Hokuto arrives, chaos follows,” Guts too is a harbinger of death and destruction. Guts has warned people as early as Volume 1 not to associate with him if they want to live, going on to explain to Jill that if she follows him her life will be “nothing but a battlefield.” In that respect, his color scheme is highly appropriate.
That said, the color black is also associated with strength, mystery, elegance, and most importantly it is used to give an impression of depth. Out of this, I’ve already spoken about the sense of mystery the surrounds Guts. Strength, of course, is integral to Guts’ characterization. His strength of character and his resolve are arguably his most defining traits.
Elegance might not be the first word one uses to describe Guts. Yet there is a kind of raw beauty in the sheer brutality of his fighting style. As the great Rocky Marciano once said, “why waltz with a guy for 15 rounds when you can finish him off in one?” But Guts’ elegance isn’t limited to just his swordsmanship. There is a moment in Volume 17 where Farnese watches Guts catching his breath after an entire night of slaughtering demonic creatures. The scene is of particular gravity because Farnese loathes Guts as a heretic at this point, yet can’t help be moved at the sight of Guts panting like a wild animal under the morning sky. This moment encapsulates the kind of primal elegance that Guts possesses not unlike the tiger in William Blake’s famous poem, “The Tyger.” Guts’ elegance is in his animal vitality, his ferocity, the desperation of his struggle and the lack of reason or logic in his suffering. If anything, it is this carnal aesthetic that draws many of the female characters in the manga to him, from Farnese (who arguably began to fall in love with him at this point) to even the Godhand, Slan. Even Griffith can be said to be drawn to Guts because of their diametrically opposed natures: Griffith represents angelic beauty, restraint, intellect and logic while Guts’ embodies ruggedness, a feral nature, intuition and instincts.
Depth is of particular significance when it comes to Guts. It is his depth that truly make him such complex, multi-facetted and unforgettable a character. In a genre where so many protagonists are one-dimensional, angst-ridden bundles of cliché, Guts is a truly fleshed out character that deserves a PhD level-thesis to fully explore him. It is this very depth as a character that inspired me to dedicate this essay to the Black Swordsman and to Miura’s magnum opus in general.