Title: Berserk
Author: Kentaro Miura
Date of First Publication: 1989
Place of Publication: Hakusensha
Type: Graphic Novel (Manga)
Characters: None
Themes: ANY; ANDROID; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; POSTHUMAN AND LAST MAN; BYRONIC HERO
Critical Summary: Berserk is an on-going manga about the main protagonist, Gattsu, or Guts, and his struggle against demonic forces that seek to destroy him. In the very beginning of the manga, the split Black Swordsman Arc, Guts is shown as an antihero, relentlessly slaying monsters, demonic apostles, and caring for no one that gets in his way. Golden Age Arc, Guts’ backstory sheds a light into why Guts is how he is in the Black Swordsman Arc. In the backstory, he befriends a man named Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band, who is bent on achieving his dream, his own kingdom. At the end of the arc, Griffith betrays Guts, Guts’s lover, Casca, and the last remaining men of the mercenary band. He sacrifices them all to demons in order to gain godlike power to sustain his dream. Guts and Casca survive the slaughter but are branded in the process to mark them for the apostles to kill. Guts, after the end of the Golden Age Arc, is known as a “struggler,” a man doomed to struggle in life as he continuously fights apostles that relentlessly seek to kill him. At the end of the Black Swordsman Arc, which continues right after his backstory, Guts makes it back to Casca , but she has gone mad from the experience of Griffith’s betrayal and losing the mercenary band. As the story continues on still, he travels through the country of Midland, fighting apostles and protecting Casca, making friends along with way that become his new family. He makes it his duty to restore Casca’s mind despite the dangers and the warnings against his wishes, and readers anxiously awaiting how things will turn out for Guts and Casca.
How Berserk connects to Frankenstein is through the Android, Sympathetic Monster, Posthuman and Last Man, and Bryonic Hero themes. Both stories have Byronic heroes as main characters, smart, obsessed and madly driven. The Creature is an “android,” a corpse brought to life through the means of science and technology. Guts is an android to some degree as well. His arm was bitten off and a friend of his replaced the severed arm with a robotic one, one that can shoot cannonballs from a mechanism in the rest and is capable of wielding his greatsword through a magnet in the palm. The Creature is a sympathetic monster because his backstory allows the readers to feel both pity and understanding for him despite his amoral standing. Guts too is a sympathetic monster because even though he is killing apostles and hurting innocent people in the process, the reader knows his tragic backstory that allows them to understand his actions. Guts, like the Creature, follows the theme of Posthuman and Last Man because Guts goes to great lengths to survive. By doing so, he attains inhuman strength through sheer will and not even monsters from other planes of existence are unable to defeat him. The Creature is a strong being as well, far stronger than any human and is able to live in harsh conditions that no human could withstand.
Administrative Notes: Hallie Houdetsanakis, CSUF; David Sandner, CSUF (editing)