Well I caught up with Berserk, at least the pre-humous chapters. It’s sad this story will go no further but I am truly glad they hit the big turning point plot moment for Casca before the creator’s death.
If the book reminds me of anything it’s Alan Moore’s Miracleman in that it contains some of the worst things ever printed in comics and then establishes a ‘utopia’ that only works as long as you do not look too close. But that book has clear before and after…
While Berserk can just spring some truly awful surprises on the reader with the turn of a page. But the real surprise of Berserk is that the stakes seem to plummet as soon as the Golden Age ends and Guts decides to return to Casca instead of hunting the Godhand.
As more and more people start following our murder machine around the sense of risk, on the micro scale at least, gets lower and lower. An entire city can get killed but you do not worry that the eight people you have been following will not make it out.
Part of it might have to do with the gradual shift in the art but it’s really about how the three main characters have already had the worst possible thing happen to them so any other trauma will be extraneous.
But I do not think it’s a coincidence that the gloomy main character gets a whole slew of sidekicks and then gets a suit of armor that really looks like Batman while the book gets less nerve-wracking.
