Berserk: Ougon Jidai-hen I - Haou no Tamago

Few stories can capture your mind and soul in a visceral way from the beginning, and never leave you. Berserk is one of them. Written and illustrated by the legendary manga artist Kentaro Miura, Berserk (ベルセルク) is an epic fantasy saga that knows no time, no boundaries, and no has end. It tells the story of a Guts (ガッツ, Gattsu), a boy born from the corpse of a woman hung on a battlefield, who struggles to fight his unfortunate destiny. Set in a fictional version of medieval Europe, Gatsu is a young mercenary who travels with no direction nor purpose, swinging his huge sword in mercilessfights in order to survive. He buries his blade deep into the flesh of his opponents, fighting like a madmen in battle, reminiscent of the nordic berserks, coming closer and closer to death, maybe to finally feel alive. His life is meaningless, his actions have no honor nor reason, except survival. He strives to escape his nature, that of a man born from a dead body, already between this world and the other, with nothing to lose except his miserable life. That is, until he meets Griffith, the impossibly beautiful and charismatic leader of the undefeated mercenary band called "the Band of the Hawk" (鷹の団 Taka no Dan). This encounter will forever change his life, and that of everyone else. Miura began the prototype of Berserk in 1988, releasing the first volume in 1990. Twenty-two years have passed since then, and the saga has been religiously followed by millions of enthusiasts, selling more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the most successful manga series ever written. It has been widely recognised for its excellence in Japan and throughout the world, winning the outstanding award at the sixth installment of Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2002. It should come as no surprise that the manga has been constantly at the top of the best anime list globally. Beware, Berserk is not an ordinary series. It is hard, violent, and not easy to follow. There are no flashbacks constantly reminding you of what happened before, no fill-in episodes, no sweetening of the pill. It is a solid punch of crude reality hitting you in the stomach, and you have no way of guarding yourself. Miura's genius permeates in each page, down to every minute detail. The themes treated are difficult, and never simplified for the sake of the reader. Reality has no shortcuts, no easy way, and that is reflected in the story. The characters in Berserk are genuine, real, endlessly complicated, troubled. They hold secrets, they cheat, murder, conspire, but they are also capable of great kindness. Friendship, ambition, causality, the supernatural, our ambivalent nature, the struggle for power, love and hate. Twenty-two years in, still going strong, in what is possibly one of the greatest stories ever told. With that premise, you would think that the task of turning such a story into a series of animated feature films would be arduous. And you would be right. In 1997, OLM produced a series of 25 animated episodes, which covered the first thirteen volumes of the manga (currently at number 36). While the series was generally well done and positively received, it failed to capture the real essence of the story, the subtle messages, the details, the moments to savor again and again, the climatic drama that builds up until it becomes unbearable. Only an animation studio capable of immense greatness could be up to the task. STUDIO4°C is one such group. They were responsible for creating masterpieces such as MEMORIES (1995), the award winning psychedelic avant-garde film MIND GAME (2003) and five segments of the cyberpunk dystopia "The Animatrix", in collaboration with the Wachowski brothers (now brother and sister). From the opening scene we know what kind of film we are dealing with. A clear, peaceful blue sky is contrasted by the presence of ominous birds flying in circles, while balls of fire fly over them. Guts looks up at the sky with sad eyes, a scar in the middle of his nose and a helmet on his head immediately tell us what he is. A heartless mercenary. The deaden sound of the blasting gives us a hint of where we are. Everything moves slowly, as if underwater, or inside a womb. How appropriate for someone who was born in a battlefield, who is neither truly alive nor dead, until he begins to fight. Gatsu's heart starts pounding, as he watches a black hawk fall down, the sound increases, until the bird drops dead in the middle of the fight, crushed beneath the boots of armed mercenaries, assaulting a castle. That is the time when the sound rises up at full blast, and we are catapulted into the battle. The fight is cruel and violent, unlike anything I have even seen. The Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Game of Thrones, list what you want, nothing compares to the level of horrifying realism that Berserk has to offer. The animation is top notch, the colours vivid and stunning, you could take any frame from the film, hang it on the wall, and it would work as a painting on itself. The soundtrack by Shiro Sagisu is perfectly calibrated to match the already spectacular animation sequence, the epic chorus elevates the scenes to a sense of greatness, without ever overdoing it. The first eight minutes are a masterpiece of action down to the last second, flawlessly directed by the talented Toshiyuki Kubooka. In every moment we can see something in motion, be it the clouds in the background or the hair on someone's face, the level of maniacal details is lessened only by the overuse of 3D animation (which is a bit irritating at times). But action sequences of crude violence, great animation, and impecable sound effects are just a spec of dust in the whole opera. The real value lies in the moments of silence, when the characters quietly ponder about their lives, or study each other, looking into their souls. We can see through their fears, their dreams and aspirations, their hate, without them needing to utter many words. And the few words that are spoken weight a million tons. Berserk Golden Age Arc I: The Egg of the King covers volumes 4,5 and half of 6, each of which requires a few hours to read, all delivered in 70 minutes. As you can imagine, they had to make some choices and not everything was included. When this happens, the story usually loses value, the characters are simplified, and everything becomes dull. Surprisingly, this is not the case here. The first part of the Berserk Saga Project, which should cover the Golden Age Arc of Berserk does not disappoint. In fact, it excels, in both execution and presentation. The climatic drama and the anticipated tragedy yet to come reach the peak at the end of the film, accompanied by an epic final score by Susumu Hirasawa. The second film, Berserk Golden Age Arc II: The Battle for Doldrey, will open in a few days in Japan (June 2012), while the third one, Berserk Golden Age Arc III: Descent will open sometime later this year. When I first heard about the Berserk Project two years ago on twitter I was burning with excitement, but at the same time I was afraid it might fail to live up to my expectations. Having read the manga and watched the animated series several times over, I imagined it would have been boring to see it all over again, only with slightly better graphics. Boy, was I wrong. STUDIO4°C has delivered a compelling and engaging story, masterfully animated and directed, which breathed life to Miura's pencil, and gave it voice. I can only hope that they continue along this path with the other two films, and why not, the whole story. I can dream, can I not? Review from: http://www.federicopistono.org/blog/berserk-golden-age-arc-i-the-egg-of-the-king-2012-film-review

A pretty bad adaptation of one of the greatest manga arcs of all time. I do think adapting this arc as a movie trilogy provides more positives than negatives. Although it would suffer from some cut content (which in turn would affect the characterization and thematic depth) due to not being able to adapt everything in comparison to a TV series that has more time, it would be able to reach the extremely high artistic standards of the manga. Berserk has some of the greatest art in any comic book, which makes it one of the hardest manga to adapt properly (also in part becauseof other aspects, like how it uses the comic medium to its full potential). A TV anime would not be able to do it justice because of the limited budgets and extremely tight schedules that plague a lot of shows in the industry. The budget, resources, and schedule of a movie would be able to emulate the ridiculous standards set by the manga to a much larger degree than a TV series. Unfortunately, the movie fails here and in many other parts too. Right from the start, the film is littered with janky and bad CGI in a mediocre battle scene that showcases many of the other issues to come. CGI is used a lot in this film and it does not fit well at all with the 2D animation (which by itself is relatively decent). This in itself is pretty disappointing considering the art is one of the biggest strengths of the Berserk manga. The movie fails largely in the animation and a lot of the visuals, not living up to the transcendently dark yet beautiful atmosphere of the manga. Although, an apparent strength in this movie is the background art, which is pretty good most of the time. As mentioned before, although some depth could be lost by reducing this arc to a movie trilogy because of cut content, this can be saved by some rewriting and making each film around 2 hours. The runtime of this film sends a bad sign as when removing the theme song, the preview of the next movie, and credits it’s less than 70 minutes. This issue is reflected in the terrible pacing, and an egregious amount of cut content that removes almost all the characterization, thematic depth, and subtlety that make this manga so amazing. If this is your first time getting into this series, these fantastically written characters like Casca, Guts, and Griffith will seem stale and boring to you. This film also weirdly prioritizes a lot of action scenes and trivial scenes that are largely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. In turn, largely skipping a lot of the character-building moments and dialogues (until the last 15-20 minutes) that make Berserk so beloved. Important parts like Guts backstory are skimmed through in an uncreative and poorly directed 30-second nightmare sequence (where if you were new to this series you wouldn’t get it at all). Speaking about the directing, IT’S ASS. It seems this director has a pretty limited idea about what makes the source material so beloved based on a lot of decisions in this movie. Even with the running time being bad, the film itself could have probably been a lot better if it were handed off to somebody more experienced. If you want to get into Berserk just read the manga because this series will not get a great adaptation anytime soon. It’s one of the best dark fantasy series in fiction. The 1997 TV anime adaptation of the golden age arc is pretty good, the only issues are some cut content (although it’s mostly minor and nowhere near as bad as this movie) and a limited budget which could be seen in the animation being stiff at times.

For my review I will simply break things down by the rating system here and explain my choices. A little background on me.. I have been a Berserk fan since I discovered the series back in 2001. This is the series that originally got me into anime and eventually manga. I have owned and watched the 25 ep anime countless times and have read and own all the currently existing manga chapters. This is my favorite story series, bar none. Okay, lets begin.. Story: The problem with the story is pacing. The movie leaves off way to many character building moments in favor of actionand try to compress all of it in a laughably short time frame(88mins if I remember correctly). There is simply no time to make the connection with the characters and hurts immersion badly in my opinion. Many scenes were cut and not for the better. To be honest not many movies nowadays have such a short run time and it did not do this one any favors either. The movie needed another hour. Also, for those who expected something more "faithful" to the manga, this movie cuts out just as much, if not more, then the anime but keeps just enough to make sure the story can progress. Art: To be honest the new style did not bother me visually as much as some other reviews I read have mentioned. I believe some said how.. "it made their eyes bleed" along with other colorful self mutilating descriptions of horror. I will say however, that it is hit or miss. Literally. There are some scenes that are beautiful and really well done but there are also a few parts that are awkwardly animated to say the least. For me it was not a deal breaker but something I did notice. The action segments were well done overall along with most of the still 2d scenes. Sound: This will be quick. The original anime series soundtrack was better at carrying the mood and keeping a good theme. No contest, hands down, the end. I am glad Susumu Hirasawa was able to contribute "Aria" to the production(which is a fantastic track), but only to hear it once at the beginning intro and not as part of an overall theme was unfortunate. Characters: I have to say, none of the voice acting wow'd me. Don't get me wrong, it was not awful but the original anime simply had a better voice cast with more versatility. Character design and shading was also funky at times with consistency. I have already mentioned the lack of character development so I won't rehash all of that again. Overall: As a Berserk fan, its very much watchable. Sad to say though it was not what I hoped for when I was excited to see my series reborn. It could have been done so much better with all the story and material available to use from years of Miuras work. I'm also not sure their abridged version will attract the new fans they hoped which is a shame for a great series. I will admit one caveat, that as the entire movie series is not yet out my comments about character development may change depending how they handle key character and plot moments over the course of the next film. I do also realize how unfair it is to compare it to an anime which had way more content when this movie series is not yet complete. I am holding my judgement on the entire series until I can watch it fully. My opinion with this movie: As Berserk fan its something you will want to see...but(and it hurts to say this) don't expect to much.

Just earlier this morning upon writing this review, I had the privilege of watching this movie in theaters in Japan. For the longest time, virtually everyone who has watched the original Berserk anime series have endlessly demanded more. And now that day has come upon us though not really in the most idealistic of terms. Many of us wanted a continuation of where the series leaves off, but for now, we have to settle a re-telling of the Golden Age arc which will eventually pave way for the rest of the manga to be adapted. As for what it is covered, if you're already familiarwith the source material you of course know what to expect and it's once again faithfully adapted (spoiler: there is no blackswordsman arc at the beginning). But I feel that for those already familiar with story, you want to see it with whole new animation which the original series was harshly criticized, then new animation is what you get and it's pretty awesome. But I suppose starting from the Golden Age, it can attract new audiences as well. The action is very fluid and I feel that the postures and the weight of the armor and swords are properly depicted in the battle scenes. There are no still shots or any corner cutting. It really felt like an animated 300 but without all the trendy slow-mos and bullet time. What I really liked in the opening battle sequence is that the soldiers on both sides show fear in their eyes and that their arms and hands do shake when in battle knowing they could die. I like how more danger is more implemented with the battle scenes. Of course the battle scenes are violent, but I feel there is more psychology behind the battles as well. I like how Guts in his earlier days is portrayed as someone who fights off his experiences and instincts. When he's on that field, to him, it's just a day at the office. I felt that the shaky camera angles you see in the Borne films was utilized too much. The panning both zooming in and out and the circular shots try to give it a live action feel. At this point, the fighting isn't drastically defying the laws of physics so the action does feel realistic. What I felt somewhat upset that they changed the voice cast from the original TV series who were also used in the DC and PS2 games. I felt that the new seiyuu for Guts didn't have the same intimidation and that don"t fuck with me attitude that Nobutoshi Canna had. Sakurai Takahiro did capture some of Griffith's qualities but strongly lacked his charisma. Casca's new voice actress is nothing compared to the great Miyamura Yuko. If they could get those voice actors for the games, why not for something as big as this? Was this Miura's choice like masami's when they did the new Saint Seiya oavs? Thankfully the music is once against compared by Hirakawa Susumu. To me, not having him for the music is like not having Kanno Yoko not doing the music for a Cowboy Bebop sequel and it would also be like Initial D without the Eurobeat. The style is still the same but brought to a whole new intensity appropriate for the epicness this project will bring. For now, this movie does a great job of being just the beginning of what is to come. I understand this is supposed to be released internationally. I hope when it hits theaters or is on DVD wherever you are, you support this movie.

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