Berserk - TV series
Berserk - TV series
How cute is this bunny ... splat!!!! Oops, my 100-pound broadsword fell off ... does anyone want to be crushed?
Today I want to tell you about the Berserk TV series. What do you want me to tell you? What did you say? That you didn't understand a heck? Well, I understand you, I don't understand that guy either and sometimes, probably, he doesn't understand himself either. Oh well I understand, in this review I have to do everything myself ...
The story of the TV series follows more or less that of the manga: Gatsu, a man with a mysterious past, enjoys killing monsters in search of an elusive Grifis, part of the "The five of the hand of God".
What pushes one man to go against the five is explained after the first three/four episodes. Similarly to the manga, in fact, but placing itself chronologically in a different period, a long flashback starts in which every little background of Gatsu's life is revealed, from his birth, to the murder of his father, up to the meeting with Grifis and the members of his "Team of the Hawks", an encounter that will profoundly change his life and his way of being. In fact, behind his angelic face, Grifis hides a disproportionate ambition and skills as a skilled strategist and warrior. However not all dreams are meant to last forever...
The manga is an explosive mixture of action, violence and psychological introspection, seasoned with a respectable plot and a trait that is refined from volume to volume: a true masterpiece.
Speaking of the anime I can say that the animators did a good job. The choice to anticipate the flashback with respect to the manga seemed right to me: Miura had made an original narrative turn by starting the long flashback immediately after the fight with the "Five of the hand of God", but, having reached the end of the flashback, the interest decreases because for better or worse we imagine the continuation of the story (if Grifis became one of the "Five", he could only have done one thing ... ). In short, the manga is always beautiful, but it's as if, in a book, you read the last page first, if you know what I mean...
I also appreciated the way of numbering the episodes, representing them as a notch of those used by prisoners to mark the passage of the day (four notches plus a transversal one to indicate five, etc.), very in tune with the movie.
The drawings are very good, even if one can only regret the splendid and detailed stroke of Miura, but on the other hand it would have been impossible to render it in animation. At the character design we have Masami Suda, also famous for the TV series "Ken the warrior", even if here he seems to have worked a little harder. The animations are normal and the direction has some interesting ideas, even if in any case there are no exciting performances (I noticed a large use of close-ups).
The Japanese dubbing seemed good to me, but still questionable: Grifis with the thick and low voice doesn't fit at all and Caska deserved a better voice.
The music is few but good, starting from the superlative opening theme "Tell me why", very rock style, up to the splendid and a little melancholic "I'm waiting so long" which closes the episode emphasizing the splendid portraits of the protagonists. All passing through the epic "Forces" which enhances the combat phases. There is little, but when there is you can hear it!
A well done series, therefore, even if honestly I continue to prefer the manga, because it manages to give me that "I don't know what" that so far few manga have been able to give me.
There is the possibility that it arrives in Italy through a distributor ...
