Berserk: A Super-Dick Slaughterama the Whole Family Can Enjoy (Except Grandma and Grampa. And the Kids. And Probably the Significant Other. You Might Not Like if Either.) 
 [NOTE: This is really a review of the entire series. Reviewing every single volume sounds like one of those repetitive, mindless exercises used to break down the ego of a subject prior to brainwashing. Explicit and possibly offensive images and language follow, so don't scroll down if that sort of thing makes you feel twitchy and weird.] 
 Berserk! If I had of discovered this shit when I was a teenager, I probably would've suffered a fatal wargasmic stroke. Dark Age mercenaries with massive fucking swords cutting their enemies into bloody quivering chunks on the field of battle! Sorcerors and demonic knights and characters who aren't all that interested in right and wrong! Huge, anatomically incorrect tits! And the breasts look a bit off on the female characters too! 
 Oh yeah! Badly drawn manga-tits! Actually, it's not too bad by this point. Miura overdoes everything early on, but I've seen much worse anatomy in manga: 
 Guts:_____________A Tit-pixie stole my nipples. 
 _____________________I'm hideous. 
 _________________Can I borrow one of yours? 
 Casca: They're kind of attached. 
 ___Maybe yours will grow back. 
 Alright, I've used up my monthly GR allotment of exclamation marks. Most series get better as they go on, but the truly epic length of Berserk, now over 37 volumes and counting, has yielded a huge leap in artistry. The quality of the art in the second half of the series is light years ahead of the relatively crude renderings of volume 1, and there's been a gradual refinement to Miura's storytelling that comes with maturity, greater complexity and restraint, letting the tension build, much sharper character development and pacing. 
 Look at that texturing. The choice between this level of beautiful intricacy and computer coloring ain't no choice at all: 
 That doesn't mean that volume 1 is terrible, by any means; it's just not on the same level as Miura's recent work. The European influence of artists like Francois Schuiten and Moebius is evident from the beginning; but it's particularly clear in the beautifully rendered battlefield sequences of volumes 34 to 36, in which the Band of the Hawk's war against the god-like Emperor culminates with a stunning transformation, as Griffin's troops reveal their true demonic selves. The imaginative firepower is very impressive and visually distinctive, with Miura's clean outlines and controlled hatching making every page a work that could stand alone on it's visual merits. 
 Taking place in a peculiarly Japanese vision of Medieval Europe, Berserk is a relic of the Dungeons and Dragons-style fantasy boom of the 1980's. It always manages to make me nostalgic for something I never knew, in the same way the film Akira makes me nostalgic for 80's science fiction and cell animation. Berserk attracted a huge fan following immediately, and has since become an international multi-media hit, thanks to the anime and the Dark Horse translation of the manga. 
 The sex-and-violence factor has contributed to its popularity, as Guts, the Black Swordsman, goes 'berserk' and kills everything that breathes, bi-secting his enemies with an eight-inch wide, six-foot long broadsword that is obviously and ridiculously phallic. While swords can always have phallic associations, it seems like Miura has to be conscious of the exaggerated super-dick fantasy he's illustrating every time Guts splits another enemy in two. Then there's the weird, almost-gay rivalry/bromance between Guts and Griffin, the oddly effeminate demon-warlord with a platinum mullet... but that has nothing to do with the early volumes. Or, you know, anything. 
 The only thing more obviously phallic is a dick. Guts might as well be swinging around a five foot long dildo: 
 Each volume of Berserk goes by ridiculously fast considering the amount of effort it represents, with the cinematic pacing that is so different from European and American comics. This means that the 'time-lapse' between the panels is much shorter, resulting in more work for the artist. A story that takes 48 pages to tell in a European comic album will take 200 pages as a manga 'tankobon'. In Vagabond, for example, over 120 pages are devoted to a duel; specifically, the seconds spent waiting for the other man to launch his attack. 120 pages detailing the silent, psychic battle that is waged between two indomitable wills. Fear and uncertainty are created or indicated by the slight shift of a sandal. That's not typical, and as much as I like 'Vagabond', I have to admit, that shit got tedious. 
 Miura adds a homage to Bosch in one of the more recent volumes; he's unquestionably one of the best manga artists alive, on par with Otomo, Satoshi Kon, and Taiyo Matsumoto. He wasn't this good in the early going, but he developed quickly: 
 Berserk has no such subtlety, but you still end up going through each 220 page volume pretty fast. I deliberately slow things down to enjoy the carefully crafted artwork, but unfortunately, manga does not encourage art scrutiny. I'd like to see Berserk and Blade of the Immortal collected in the larger-sized omnibus editions like 'Viz-Big', which collect three books together, use a better grade of paper, and provide a bigger page to show off the art. They're also far more economical. 
 A Mysterious Review By A Friend About A Manga Very Different From This One, But Even More Influential, In Many Ways... 
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