Boy oh boy, I’m going to have to start pointing to a different author for Berserk soon. Kentaro Miura passed a couple years ago, and it was only recently decided by the publisher that the comic would continue, penned by his understudy. My dearest hope is they focus on wrapping up all the hanging storylines as quickly as possible, wrapping things up nicely with a succinct and satisfying bow, as opposed to drawing it out and risking the entire production. Either way, given that the editions I read are 3 bundled tankobans, minimum, and each of those is like… 6 or 7 chapters, and they’ve only released one or two new chapters, I’m looking at reading #15 late in 2024 if I’m crazy lucky.
Spoilers ahead:
At long last, Casca’s sanity is returned! After her traumatic encounter during The Eclipse (perhaps the most stark example of the problematic trope of rape being used to inspire Manly Rage TM instead of… you know, caring at all how it impacts the woman) her sanity is restored. Seeing Casca with her faculties returned was so strange, her voice on the page so different, I wondered at first if there was possession or something at work. Instead, the primary problem now seems to be that she cannot see Guts without her PTSD flaring up.
In a prime example of Berserk being a weird little guy, the monsters faced by Farnese and Schierke in the deepest parts of Casca’s brain are made of penises. Like, seriously and with no exaggeration. It isn’t funny, because the stark imagery is meant to exemplify exactly what traumatized her, but it’s also so absurd that I found myself laughing just thinking “how on earth could you get through drawing this?”
As with reviewing edition #13, I do not recommend Berserk to a broad audience. It is gross, it is sexually violent, it is physically violent, it is full of torture to the point that I’ve had trouble reading some of it. #14 is no exception. I’m powering through because some of the manga art of castles and fantasy trappings is top-tier, and the story underlying everything is legit good, I just wish they’d chill the edgelord elements a bit so that a broader audience could enjoy it.