Berserk

My introduction to the Berserk series was in 2000 through the Sega Dreamcast game, Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage. The depth of the themes and plots suggested more than the usual hack and slash fantasy title. The internet giving me a glimpse of more, but it was still the age of 56k modems. It wasn't too long before I had track down VHS fansubs, and ordered a copy of Susumu Hirosawa's accompanying soundtrack.

When I first moved to Japan it was one of the first manga series that I chased down at my local Bookoff. Although with my then rudamentary Japanese, I struggled through the first 3 volumes before they were relegated to the book shelf, for future reference once I had learnt a bit more kanji, and I searched for something a bit easier. Although Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys wasn't much of a step down in difficulty.

2012 saw the release of a new series of movies by Studio 4°C which also cover the Golden Age arc which was the story line covered in the original anime by OLM. The Golden Age arc covers manga volumes 4-13. I'm hoping Studio 4°C also continue on with the Conviction arc (volumes 14-21), Hawk of the Millennium Empire arc (volumes 22-35) and the current Fantasia arc (volumes 35-).

The 3rd film in the current Studio 4°C series is just about to hit cinemas in Japan in February 1st.

And for those that have always wondered Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage takes place between volumes 22 and 23 during the Hawk of the Millennium arc which also featured in an additional PS2 game.

The Berserk manga has just been made available in digital format in Japan, I've been reading it on my Sony Reader. So it's a good time to try and jump into this mammoth series if you have access to an epub reader or there's also an android app.

Also catch the author of Berserk, Kentaro Miura, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kentaroumiura