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Review* Berserk
by Colton Haupt (Gatts)
Gatts was a young warrior from the start who had no one to look after him. He was born from the corpse of his mother after she had been slaughtered, as well as all of the other villagers. He fought as a mercenary until early adolescence when he ran into the Band of the Hawks! The Hawks were a mercenary group that favored royalty. Their leader, Griffith, challenged Gatts to a duel in return for the loser to serve their life to the other! After a long grueling battle, Gatts lost and with that loss relinquished his pride.

The anime starts to pick up from this point and soon becomes a great love story and action thriller. Caska is the lieutenant of the Band, she serves only Griffith and in times of Griffith’s absence she takes control. The story develops with Caska falling in love with Gatts and vise versa. Meanwhile, Charlotte, the king’s daughter, is secretly in love with Griffith. Since she is the princess she would only be able to marry a prince.

Gatts is a violent swordsmen who carries a Broad Bastard Sword that is roughly seven and a half feet long! The Band that Gatts is now in debt to fights valiantly and slaughters thousands of people and armies. Gatts decides he is turning into a carnal being and needs to go find him self. He challenges Griffith to a duel for his freedom and of course Griffith excepts. Gatts defeats him and leaves without saying good bye to anyone! Griffith is in so much shock that he no longer has the will to live and decides to go make love with Charlotte. Sadly, the kings general catches the two and sentences Griffith to the darkest and deepest torture chamber in the land.

The Band is now led by Caska and she takes them through many battles. Gatts goes to the black smith that crafted his weapon and asks him to fix it. The black smiths name is never revealed and leaves you on a cliff hanger. Gatts thinks about his whole life and where he supposed to be. After one years time he finally realizes he needs to go back to the Band. The Band greets him and devises a plan to invade the castle and save Griffith. When they make it to the lair that Griffith is in they see nothing but a corpse, or so they thought. His wrists, knees, ankles, and elbows were all cut where the tendons were Griffith could no longer move and no longer talk! They’d cut out his tongue. The prosecutor of the dungeon tries to stop them by locking them in the dungeon; the particular door is five times as thick as a regular door. Gatts in a rage of pain, anger, and guilt slashes his sword right through the door killing the prosecutor and more than one hundred soldiers. When Gatts gets to the top of the dungeon he kills the generals and everyone surrounding him. The Band is the only thing that matters now, or does it? What does the strange Talisman that Griffith wears mean? What is it? All these are unknown. The only thing that we know about the Talisman is Griffith got it when he was a young boy........

Buy Berserk to find out the rest!!!!!!!!


Analyzing
Most medieval anime consists of magic and mystical powers that consist of unnatural beasts; Berserk doesn't have any of those things. Berserk consists of regular medieval themes and traditions. But something is different about this series. It triggers an emotion like none other in anime. This is unexplainable and you will just have to watch it yourself. Take it from me because I have seen many anime in my life.

I noticed my sister Sasha had owned Berserk so I gave it a go. I thought it looked amusing and I watched it on DVD. I was surprised by the overall idea and plot and was instantly connected to the series. My younger brother Cutter actually was pretty much mesmerized by this artful masterpiece! With the slick animation and wonderful music, it makes for the full experience we all seek in anime. Anime Works did wonders with their voice actors and their well translated English dubs! The characters sound lively and real and best of all Berserk has the most hilarious outtakes on the DVD's. For any sure anime fan this is a must see.

The series consists of 25 episodes on 6 DVD'S,

Berserk is rated for mature audiences! There is extreme scenes of human gore and blood, language, and brief moments of sex/nudity but mostly tame. It is also hard to grasp some concepts.

Audio: A+
Animation: B+
Dub: A+
Japanese: A
Replay value: A


Pluses: Music is very good and has infinite replay value

Minuses: Once and awhile sketchy on minor or major details

Overall: A