Kaeru Ranawa's Blog

Berserk (2016) Episode 1 Review

Berserk Tag | Episode 2 Review

I knew after I heard the announcement for the new anime series that I wasn’t going to be impressed with the new Berserk anime. The manga is my favorite, and a huge reason why is how well the atmosphere supported the dark events in the story. Largely, part of this atmosphere was the detailed and realistically styled art. Every nightmare was drawn out with impressive amounts of detail from the beginning, only improving more as the series went out. In contrast, the new anime monsters (that were not skeletal) were barely even visible due to the amount of darkness present. Plus, the 3DCG was really jarring at times and to add to the difficulties of following action, there were too many cuts. I’m also worried about the changes to story events and inconsistencies in writing, one of the source material’s strengths was tight development brought upon by the events in the order they were in.

Another piece of lost atmosphere was the opening theme. While original anime’s opening was extremely inconsistent with the series tone, the new opening seems to be more pop-rock styled. It’s not particularly bad, but it really feels too light. My favorite opening by far was the militaristic third movie opening, complete with Japanese accented German! I realize having openings that are too similar would get boring, but at the very least, the tone of the series should be reflected instead of the current opening sound trends.

Final complaint: There was absolutely no reason to make Casca white. Her race didn’t impact the story, but that also doesn’t mean this adaptation can change something that all the other series iterations seemed to be fine with.

I’ll go with the 3 episode test and give this anime a chance, but I’m really not impressed so far. Let’s hope it does better, the series as a whole deserves more.

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Comments

4 responses to “Berserk (2016) Episode 1 Review”

  1. Dominic Cuthbert Avatar
    Dominic Cuthbert

    I’m only really familiar with the original anime, so I was coming to the new series relatively blind. It was desperately cool and embodied a heavy metal aesthetic, not to mention the current trends in dark fantasy but, as you said, the atmosphere overwhelmed the themes, monsters and the nightmarish environment. The race switch was also a weird change, and for no good reason either.

    Like you, I always give a new series the benefit of the doubt and the three episode rule is a good one. There’s stuff to like in the new series, for sure, and I’m quite looking forward to seeing where it’s going. I really hope it’s somewhere good.

    Reply
    1. Hua Ming Juan Avatar
      Hua Ming Juan

      Thanks for your comment! If you ever have time, you should totally read the manga (and I’m sure you’ve head that line a ton by now). There’s a review for it in my drafts, but I have no idea when I’ll finish that. And for sure, it’s in everyone’s best interests that this goes well. But I’m really not confident that it will. I hope they surprise me!

      Reply
  2. The Otaku Judge Avatar
    The Otaku Judge

    I loved the original anime and would gladly check out the manga if it wasn’t so lengthy. Shame that they are still using ugly CG. I was hoping they would learn their lesson after the movie trilogy.

    Reply
    1. Hua Ming Juan Avatar
      Hua Ming Juan

      The manga length isn’t that bad honestly, it was such a pleasure to read. The art and atmosphere really just Make the experience on their own, it’s solidly my favorite manga out of anything else I’ve read.

      Reply

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