Review - Berserk (1997)

 I am rewriting this review in spite of the kind of hate that I know will end up coming from the fanbase. This because it is worth speaking about, especially to anyone who cares about what kind of morals or values are represented in a series.

Berserk, simply put, absolutely fails at representing women. Besides Casca, all other women are depicted merely as doting after men in order to be married. Casca, unfortunately, is unable to break free of that either regardless of a few faux attempts to try and fake it. Yes, Casca is a survivor of rape. This is why she joined the troupe because she wanted to defend herself. This series gives you the inkling of a plot where she can overcome her struggles with her defeating her nemesis of the series, womanizer and rapist Adon. The issue is the ending of this series has her being raped and murdered by demons in order for Griffith to ascend to become a member of the God Hand. This completely overturns what would have been a relatively positive arc for Casca and her overcoming her struggles. If Casca was killed that wouldn't be an issue. The fact is though that Casca was the ONLY person raped by the demons and that was only because she was a woman. This is sexist writing. It is horrible. The remakes of the series aren't any better, while Casca lives following the remake trilogy, she was still raped and her mind regresses to that of a child.... which is arguably even worse. Casca's roll within the band is not much better. There is a scene where Griffith orders her to sleep with Guts in order to 'Fulfill her duty as a woman" while Guts was recovering from a wound. The result is that this series reeks of foul conservative values when it comes to gender roles.

The series also suffers from poor production quality. The art is very amateurish, as well as the music. There are scenes where the music is attempting to fit in the baroque genre during a party scene, however it constantly breaks some of the core rules of baroque composition. This is due a lack of proper experience of the Composer, who never studied music in a University nor had at that point yet gained much experience professionally. The soundtrack also suffered from a repetition problem, it only had 12 tracks that had to somehow fit into a 25 episode series. The result is the same tracks repeating during the same times which would quickly become grating, even for the tracks that were more well written.

The only redeeming quality of this series is the dynamic between Guts and Griffith. They are one of the best written character foils in fiction, of all time. Both characters are not only extremely three-dimensional in their motivations, but they also have inverse character arcs where were directed in a spectacularly good way. If it were not for my aforementioned issues I would rate Berserk much higher. However it breaks rules which I find to be completely unacceptable, so I cannot.

 Rating: 4/10