The Artistic Evolution of Berserk (1989-2021)

berserk has come a very long way from a grimdark manga to a medieval esque manga to a fantasy manga the journey of guts the black swordsman has gone down countless twists and turns with new characters and stories developing all across its 31 years of publication Kentaro mera the author of berserk is famed for his incredibly detailed illustrations though this detail comes with some should say package one of the better parts of this baggage is that berserk has been able to grow and change with the times from the 1980s to the 1990s - mm to the 2010s and now we're in the 2020s with its prototype releasing in 1988 goods character design was completely different from how he'd come to be known with an eyepatch simpler armor and demeanor attitude altogether Miura is open about his inspirations of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Conan the Barbarian for guts and for the Cenobites from Hellraiser for the original godhand back in 1980s as we step into the 90s goods would change to a simple clothes die more detailed sharper armor and a great sense of humanity which is expanded as we learn more about him for his youth though Goods character design was more a typical of manga at the time the 90s for berserk overall was a time of development as characters looks changed and altered until me or I found a comfort zone scouring the fan website school night net I managed to find out that Mira took some criticism to heart back in the 1990s and actually altered a ton of character designs in vol 5 because of it this attitude of perfectionism is something common across the evolution of berserk as each volumes seemingly builds and redefines the details of the last the Golden Age whilst following more typical designs is in no way composed of simple drawings in terms of artwork it is for gone far too often sometimes the relatively simpler artwork is better for things like a guts and Casca's love scene and goods childhood this early arc of berserk has some of the most touching moments in the whole series and the relatively simpler art that comes with it displays a great mix between simplicity for some moments and countlessly detailed work for it's something which you simply don't find in current berserk and going back to reader that's a real charm to the material Cantara Miura Illustrated this and most of berserk using Japanese ink and a G pen the flow of ink in Mira's artwork is one of the most professional I've ever seen the amount of detail and all of his frames with something like ink is so impressive when you factor in there are almost never any mistakes or breaks in the line art or any imperfections at all at this stage of berserks publication the series was releasing every two weeks something which seems like a novel idea at the moment but if we just take that fact at face value and look at some of this artwork they can be seen how unparalleled a bi-monthly manga berserk really was berserk is known for its great artwork but that isn't something new this has been something that was attached to the series for almost the entirety of its thirty years the new projector looks additions which are printed on massive paper compared to the original volumes really help get this point across the hatching effects and the use of black against white are used to them most efficient by the time of the conviction art and thereby the 2000s world by to signify the dark nature of goods reality after the Eclipse but also to depict something as cataclysmic as fen toes birth ceremony surrounded by famine poverty and strife we are once said that by the end of the conviction art he finally felt like berserk at God started a crazy statement to make looking back story wise but in terms of the growth and evolution that the series would undergo a surprisingly fitting on the Falcon of the Millennium Empire Ark is one of the biggest changes to the Zarek's art style which I believe at least cemented it as one of the best illustrated works ever created if you pull out the first volume and then pull out the last volume of this art and then put them side by side the differences are almost incomparable the character designs the features the backgrounds the two-page spreads everything in this arc improved immensely from beginning to end and it's insane when you factor in how good it looked to begin with this arc saw guts changed from looking like a young man looking like a worn-out battle-torn soldier which I mean he is but almost hurts to look at the difference when you factor that he's 24 years old the double-page spreads towards the end of the arc have more characters in them more detail on surfaces more dynamic actions and more flair to them than anything that came before and yet the Fantasia art somehow takes the improvements that we are made and furthers them as the 2010s came so did yes another age of berserk though admittedly if not even because of this increased our work the 2010s didn't see much in the way of berserk releases at all though to see why we need but simply look look at the interiors of falcone a-- from the structures of the walls itself to the markets and armories throughout the city the sheer amount of things going on in these panels is astounding during this time in 2014 Miura worked on another series in his spare time the first time that he had worked on anything beside berserk in about 25 years the series Giganta machia features similarly detailed work throughout its ex chapter run the work on this series no doubt helped me our approach to some of these locations and definitely tuned his attention to detail to its absolute max the art style has literally gone from incredible manga to biblical levels this immense artwork however would come with incrementally longer hiatuses between chapters it's been no secret that berserk has been releasing less and less chapters for longer than 10 years now this wood OSHA in another final era for the evolution of berserk after 27 years of berserk in 2016 Kentaro mera changed from a physical manga production to a digital one this process changed the course of physics evolution in an interesting way as one lends to draw digitally it is in many ways like learning to draw for a second time albeit a much quicker process Mira's artwork accordingly changed but things started looking strangely like they did around the time of the Golden Age and the conviction arcs with Goods adorning a clearly less rugged appearance in favour of his more youthful face there were even a couple of panels that looked like this spitting image of something that you'd see in the black Saltzman are not that this is a complete it's just a byproduct of adapting to their digital method Casca and the rest of the team looked much more like their old cells at this point as well this change would coincidentally start on chapter 342 the very first appearance of a film the home park many people assumed that Miura purposefully chose to altes art style to match the whimsical nature of the island by making everything pop in contrast to the gritty and realistic feel of the rest of the world there's no denying that it's quite a fun assumption to make that even the power of the world itself is enough to affect me or his work but these things are probably more tied to the fact that Mayer had to change everything about his production method this happened in 2016 and less than four years later Cantara Miura would completely shuffle the method of production yet again in late 2019 young animal announced Duran ki a manga by Miura and the newly upgraded studio Gaga the team of people who edited the effects on berserk and very very very occasionally worked on bigger things like the floor basically the ranky is a separate manga that I'll be covering in another video coming soon but this manga exists purely as a creative runaway for those on the team studio Gaga to improve their artwork and match level of Katara's the photos released around the time of this announcement showed the level to which production for dessert will change yet again with Mira working literally next to the other artists as the series was pretty much finding its footing in the digital landscape already it'll be interesting to see the true repercussions of this artistic change with a team of people now drawing guts kaskus go light and more the compromises made for the series are necessary and whether the art quality increases or decreases because of it this last evolution of berserk seems to be in place as a decisive choice to ensure that berserk reaches an actual tangible ending and at the end of the day that's something that I just have to support it's up to interpretation of course but in many ways I see this as the final evolution of berserk the only thing that could shake the series production as much as this would be if Kintaro me are always to fully pass on the series to another artist and that's never gonna happen because based on his interviews he is very very possessive of berserk but hey even if that does come to pass this video worked to focus on the evolution of canto Ramirez artwork alongside his own series now that that artwork will be mixed among others it's very likely that we are looking at the final form of berserk thanks very much for watching if you want to read the script for my next video then please upon me for a dollar on patreon like these lovely people right here it's only a dollar tier but if you want to put down more than that then that's greatly appreciated as well but hey subscribe for more content either way and have a wonderful day [Music]

Channel: AlexEnterprises

Views: 835,726

Keywords: Anime, berserk, analysis, manga, golden age, conviction, black swordsman, falcon of the millennium empire arc, soul, super eyepatch wolf, eyepatch wolf, spired, the masked man

Id: 1EqZ0yExkhI

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020