DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

MANGA ActionBerserk

REVIEWS

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  TheGruesomeGoblin

  0/100
  The darkest page in the Berserk 2016/2017 saga. I'm so sorry, Miura.

  Berserk: The Flame Dragon Knight

  

  This is a review for the Berserk light novel. But it should be noted that before you read any further into this review that it is going to spoil Berserk as a whole. Chances are if you're interested in this light novel to begin with, you've probably read Berserk.

  But it must be underlined just in case that this would be the absolute worst possible starting point to choose if you're looking to get into Berserk. Additionally, this review is also going to spoil the entire light novel because I'm going to tear it apart piece by piece to satisfactorily describe how expectantly disappointing it was.

  ...Also, I'm going to be quoting a bunch of passages straight from the novel that are really... they're a bit graphic. And I know, I know. This is Berserk, right?

  

  thanks berserk musou, I find the sight of blood very nauseating.

  But um... nothing... that happens throughout the entirety of the manga of Berserk has made me feel the level of actual disgust towards a real human being that this light novel did.

  So you know... just be cautious if you choose to proceed reading this review... or god forbid, this light novel.

  ---

  Chapter 1: The Background

  First, an introduction is in order. For some, it’ll mostly likely be a recap. A few years ago, the well known and well liked action manga Berserk by Kentaro Miura got a brand new anime adaptation. To some, it was quite exciting. Barring the Golden Age movies and the PS2 games, the last adaptation Berserk received was the anime in 1997. But at long last, it was announced!

  Berserk 2016! And then Berserk 2017!

  While some were excited, there were of course those who were worried or at the very least had tempered their expectations. I was not among them, I staunchly argued just because it was CG didn’t mean it was going to be shit. And then it was shit anyways.

  Anyways, once the smoke cleared, a lot of the problems of the new Berserk anime ended up being traced back to the director. Who, ironically, stubbornly clung to the idea of doing Miura’s art justice and… well…

  

  But honestly, a lot of my issues with Clang Berserk lied more in the writing department and its general structure as an adaptation. The screenwriter of Clang Berserk was one Makoto Fukami. I didn't really bear the man any genuine ill will because his position wasn't really an enviable one. Considering how much of a disaster Clang Berserk was.

  “Shit. Gotta cut this out, gotta cut that out, gotta introduce these characters from later in the manga in the first episode, gotta cut these plot details out… what? People who have only watched the 97 anime or the Golden Age movies don’t know why a weird monster baby is stalking Guts? That isn’t my problem!!!”

  And I also even watched a couple of episodes of the anime adaptation of his violent dark war magical girl series which was just… let’s just say this, I’ve yet to finish watching it at the time of this review.

  But anyways… in addition to the literally incomplete trash heap of an anime, Berserk also got this light novel back in 2017. And also a musou game but I don’t talk about the musou game because it was both a good musou game but also a good adaptation. Written by… you guessed it, Makoto Fukami.

  The… the existence of this light novel kind of boggles my mind. It may just as well as be a Berserk fanfiction.

  

  Or at least, that’s how I’m going to think of it as moving on beyond this review. Like I can kind of see the reasoning behind how it came into existence…

  The fight with Grunbeld was the last time Guts has fought an Apostle at the time of this review. Moreover, the ultimate moment of the entire second cour of Clang Berserk is Guts donning the Berserker Armor and battling against Grunbeld. In theory, doing a light novel about Grunbeld is probably a better idea than just literally picking at random among the Apostles. In addition, ideally the other Apostle members of the Neo Band of the Hawk have more room for future development… but you know… in the manga.

  Grunbeld’s the completely safe option.

  

  He’s a warrior type, and we’ve already seen him fight with Guts. Get the fanfiction pen out, it’s time to whip some shit out. So what is Grunbeld’s character as a human? Well. He’s… a warrior.

  ...

  He's basically just red haired Guts. Except he favors war hammers rather than big swords. And also he's less interesting and less well-written.

  ---

  Chapter 2: The Futility

  So, there was another obvious option outside of just focusing the novel on a different Apostle character who might have been potentially more interesting than old Grunbeld. This light novel… could have been about Guts. Makoto Fukami so clearly wants to write about Guts, so why not just write a story about Guts wandering around as the Black Swordsman. He wandered around for two years before he met Farnese and Serpico and the Conviction arc kicks off.

  During that time, Guts has apparently killed countless Apostles but we’ve actually only seen him kill like a total of five from that period of his life? The Female Apostle, the Hound Apostle, the Snake Baron, the Count, and Rosine.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. TGG, there’s no fucking way Miura would give Makoto Fukami access to creative control of Guts at any point of the Berserk timeline. Which to be honest is a pretty good argument, although he did give some leeway to the old Berserk games which does include some original content which as far as I can remember is canon in the sense that “sure it’s canon but also the manga’s probably never going to mention or reference any of this.”

  But also he apparently actually was INVOLVED in those.

  

  Could have just done that. Guts could have had a little wacky novel Apostle slaying adventure, and it could have been at least a little interesting. Sure as hell would be more interesting than how Grunbeld becomes an Apostle.

  Because here’s the fundamental problem that sabotages this novel from the very first page. As I said before, you should absolutely only read this novel if you’ve read through the manga. But if you know Grunbeld’s character in the manga and also how Apostles work in Berserk, then you already know exactly how this novel is going to end from page one. And mind you, this would have been a problem even if it had been one of the more potentially interesting members of the Neo Band of the Hawk.

  1. Grunbeld gets a Behelit, eventually falls into despair thus activating the Behelit and summoning the God Hand.
  2. Whichever characters are closest to Grunbeld are going to get killed and eaten by a giant fire dragon.

  So like… all that’s left to read the novel for is if you’re genuinely interested on learning more about who Grunbeld was as a human and also maybe more Berserk world building. As far as the world building goes, there’s really nothing… to gain from this. And what I did gain from this about Grunbeld’s character and his transformation into an Apostle did nothing but piss me off.

  As a matter of fact, pretty much all this novel accomplished doing was making me not like Grunbeld anymore. And also making me feel disgusted at myself for actually buying this book.

  But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start with Grunbeld.

  ---

  Chapter 3: Grunbeld Alqivist

  

  ...Berserk characters were never supposed to have last names.

  As a matter of fact, there pretty much aren’t any at all apart from Farnese and a couple of the noble characters. Did you know Guts’ last name is actually Terskererewrkwrwkrvt? I came up with that just now by slamming on my keyboard! It’s pretty great, right?

  Grunbeld’s last name in the official english translation is… Alqivist? Grunbeld’s just one of those characters in Berserk that should never have gotten a last name.

  Grunbeld the Flame Dragon Knight. Simple and cool.
  Grunbeld Alqivist. Fuckin’... I audibly groaned when I read Grunbeld’s last name for the first time. Like it really just looks straight out of a fanfiction.

  Anyways, let’s expand a bit more on who Grunbeld is. I know I did that earlier, but let’s just expand it a bit more. The story of the Flame Dragon Knight begins with Grunbeld suffering the misfortune of… watching his incredibly prideful warrior mother be brutally assaulted and gangraped by attacking Tudor soldiers.

  Just a real quick note. It kind of fucking bothered me seeing it as Tudor. Because I thought it was Chuder. And apparently, it is. For Dark Horse's translation of the manga. Not this novel. In this novel, it's Tudor. So like... did Dark Horse forget which one they used, or is this Makoto Fukami just getting it wrong??? Just wanted to note this because I go with Tudor for the rest of this review because that's what this novel uses. Anyways, back to talking about rape.

  ...

  ...It took twenty four pages. Before the first instance of sexual violence. Or let me put it as bluntly as I can, gangrape. It was right here where it dawned on me that all the terrible things I've heard about this light novel prior to finally mustering the effort to pick it up were probably true and not exaggerated at all.

  But, Grunbeld. Oh, wait. First.

  I really hope you took my warning about this review spoiling the whole of Berserk to heart, because I'm about to start spoiling.

  Like, massively.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When Guts gets raped as a child after being sold out by his adoptive father, it is such a fucking traumatic event that fucks him up psychologically to the point where he can’t stand even being merely touched by another person. It has a clear and obvious effect on his character. And much later in his life when his former comrade Griffith rapes Guts’ lover Casca after sacrificing both of them and pretty much every single other person Guts is close to in an effort to be reborn as a member of the God Hand, it almost destroys both of them.

  Casca’s mind reverts to the state of like a child, and Guts becomes a walking personification of anger and violence. Not to mention, prior to her rape, Casca is a full fledged and properly developed character.

  ...Grunbeld's mom doesn't even get a fucking single line of dialogue. Hell, we barely even fucking know Grunbeld at this point of the novel. Grunbeld gets almost bullied to death by the village bullies, meets a strange blind girl in the forest who saves his life, and then it just cuts to the Tudor are raiding the Grand Duchy of Grant and Tudor soldiers are violently raping Grunbeld's mom to death because she had the audacity to kill some of them.

  Oh, I'm sorry. They technically didn't rape her to death, they got tired of rape so they just brutally tortured her to death. In my head I'm just comparing this scene to that scene in the manga. Because let's be honest, there's no fucking way that isn't what Makoto Fukami was attempting here with Grunbeld. Both Guts and Grunbeld are forcibly held down and made to watch as a loved one is raped. And they're both obviously quite displeased with what they're being forced to watch.

  Guts? Fucking furious, chops his own arm off to try and break free to stop it.
  Grunbeld? Supposedly angry, but basically just watches without resisting. Even has a line along the lines of "I'll get killed if they sense I'm angry."

  In place of sadness or fear, a powerful anger rose steadily within him. He knew he'd be killed on the spot if the Tudor soldiers could sense it, so he remained expressionless.

  Should note that he is like fourteen years old at the time so it's not like he could do much anyways except genuinely get killed. But... also does this guy even know he's writing a BERSERK novel???

  Griffith (the rapist) and Casca (the victim)? FULLY FUCKING DEVELOPED CHARACTERS.
  The Tudor soldiers (the rapists) and Grunbeld's Mom (the victim)? Nameless soldiers and again, Grunbeld's mom does not get a single line of dialogue. Rather, it seems Makoto Fukami really wants the reader to know that she's a proud woman and a strong warrior just so he can twist the blade of her being brutally raped even further.

  And finally, let's talk about the timing or rather the placement of these events.

  Casca's rape happens at the very end of the Golden Age as the ultimate moment of the Eclipse. The Eclipse was foreshadowed and built up throughout the entirety of the Golden Age and again, Griffith raping Casca in front of Guts basically almost destroys each of them. The rape scene isn't there just so there is a rape scene. Griffith has literally discarded his humanity and is fully embracing having been reborn as a demon god.

  Grunbeld's mom... not only does the novel pretty much basically start out with it but... actually, you know what? Fuck it, I'm just going to type it all out. I want you to see exactly how it transitions to the scene.

  What had transpired rapidly lost any sense of reality. As if to recall Benedikte's touch, Grunbeld put his hand to his chest.
  He thought back upon her words--"If this ever gets hurt, just come back here again"--and then started for home.

  __3__

  "Take a good look."

  "HEY GUYS, TUDOR'S HERE AND WE'RE HERE TO RAPE AND PILLAGE BECAUSE I GUESS THAT'S ALL OUR NATION DOES."

  And then Grunbeld threatens the captain of the Tudor soldiers that did it who... ALSO IS NAMELESS. So you go, oh, okay. Makoto Fukami really is just doing way worse Guts with Grunbeld. Grunbeld's gonna grow up and he's gonna start slaughtering Tudor soldiers left and right until he makes it to the Tudor captain that had his mom rap---annnnnnnnnnnnnd he kills him four days later.

  The Tudor Knight, Abecassis tries to make an example out of Grunbeld and has the Tudor captain fight him in a "mock battle." But Grunbeld puts a broken wooden training sword through the back of the captain's head. Wow, vengeance achieved. Must be a new speed record for a Berserk character getting their revenge, damn.

  Except... I don't... I don't feel anything. The captain, I don't even think raped Grunbeld's mom. He just kind forced him to watch it happen which granted is still fucked up, but it's treated like Grunbeld's gotten his revenge. But even Grunbeld doesn't really give a fuck. He just wants to fight more.

  He had avenged his mother, but what passed through Grunbeld's heart wasn't a sense of accomplishment, but the excitement of defeating an enemy in single combat.

  This is when the dread really just fully kicked in. Grunbeld's entire character after becoming an Apostle is that he wants to fight. He wants to battle against strong foes. His character prior to becoming an Apostle, like seventy pages in this two hundred page novel is... he's finding that he really likes battling.

  I WONDER HOW HIS CHARACTER IS GOING TO DEVELOP FROM HERE ON OUT?

  Well, there’s a timeskip of fourteen years. We don’t see any of Grunbeld’s new life as an adopted son of General Kirsten. We don’t see any of his training to become a knight. We don’t see any of that boring useless shit because what really matters is getting this man straight into a battle and…

  He basically is already just straight up the Apostle Grunbeld. The massive size of his body or his warhammer stops being cool the moment you add in the detail of “oh well because of that, he literally can’t ride a horse. So they made him his own special chariot because how else is Grunbeld going to get around? He’s so heavy that EIGHT HORSES are needed to pull him around.”

  And I just imagine Miura drawing this cool art of Grunbeld in his war chariot completely oblivious as to how fucking lame Fukami is going to make it come across in writing.

  

  And also let’s be honest here, there were a bunch of pretty big knights in the Golden Age all donning thick ass heavy metal armor and they all were capable of still riding a horse. But I mean, he is wielding a huge ass war hammer and shield yet…

  You could have just not added in that detail and thus given me the mental image of the Grunbeld Corps busting their ass to just load Grunbeld into his chariot. And also going back to the point of Grunbeld basically already being Apostle Grunbeld, this is what he has done to the Tudor prisoners his army takes.

  The final remaining prisoners were condemned to die from exposure inside gibbets. A gibbet is like an iron bird cage, large enough for a man to barely fit inside. A prisoner would be stripped naked and placed inside, and the gibbet was then suspended from a long pole. Left there, the prisoner would slowly starve to death.
  These captives weren’t simply starved to death, however. To encourage the decay of the corpses, they were wounded before being put in the gibbets. Horizontal cuts near the eyes, the removal of thumbs and forefingers, the severing of heels and Achilles tendons, the prisoners were rendered useless as soldiers in the unlikely event they were rescued by the enemy.
  Depending on the weather, a rotting corpse could swell up to fill a gibbet to bursting, with the iron bars biting into the body. These cadavers, when lined up along the highway, had been known to cause tremendous unrest among Tudor soldiers.

  ...Wow! Grunbeld is such a honorable warrior and likable character!

  Like don’t get me wrong, I get it. He obviously has no love for the Tudor given what he’s been through, and since the man does eventually become an Apostle, you gotta establish he’s got some evil. So… you know… just have him have the prisoners killed humanely???

  Iron cages packed full of rotting corpses… this really isn’t the work of an honorable knight who’s obsessed with the thrill of an honorable battle! WHO IS STILL HUMAN.

  “Oh but TGG, Berserk is filled to the brim with humans being awful! Remember the Holy See?”

  YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO SYMPATHIZE WITH THE HOLY SEE, THOUGH. THEY BROKE PEOPLE'S BACK ON WHEELS AND ALL SORTS OF OTHER FUCKED UP SHIT. GRUNBELD IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THIS NOVEL AND I HATE HIM AND HE’S NOT EVEN MADE HIS SACRIFICE TO BECAME AN APOSTLE YET.

  ---

  Chapter 4: The Point of Berserk Isn't the Gore and Rape

  This section of the review is... gonna be rough. I'm gonna share with you... some direct excerpts of this novel. Let me just say this. If as the person who wrote the Berserk light novel and oversaw the script of two cours of Clang Berserk, Makoto Fukami genuinely is a reader of Berserk...

  ...and not solely just a random body being paid to write this slop...

  ...he's definitely not into Berserk for the same reasons as I am.

  There's no denying that Berserk contains a lot of gore and rape. But as far as the manga's concerned, it's not the sole purpose of the series. The gore and rape is to paint the picture of how fucking terrible the world of Berserk truly is. And mind you prior to reading this novel, I thought there were some pretty fucked up moments in Berserk. But like... Miura doesn't have his foot fucking slammed down on the pedal going full throttle. He's not trying to be as shocking and disgusting as possible, he's trying to make a goddamned series.

  So let's just get this nightmare really going.

  After the rape, the Tudor soldiers toyed with Euphemia like she were a bug, enjoying their torments. They punched her, kicked her, peeled the fingernails from her hands with pliers, and finally slashed her throat horizontally with a knife. They then yanked her tongue out through the gaping wound.

  Regardless of gender, the child prisoners were taught fighting skills. When a gentle-looking girl suggested to the instructor she would never be able to handle this, she was immediately led away. The prisoners next saw her the following morning. She was hanging by a rope around her neck from the prison tower's main gate, her naked body bearing signs of having been gang raped. After the hanging and subsequent public display, the corpse was sawed into pieces and fed to pigs. One of them bit into the girl's freshly severed head as it rolled along. Many of the children vomited at the sight of the flesh being stripped bit by bit from the skull.

  Another boy had to take part in military training despite being sick with a cold and diarrhea. As he desperately swung his wooden sword while his own feces soaked his pants, the Tudor soldiers showered him with scorn. The boy eventually collapsed from his high fever, and a Tudor soldier used him for archery practice as punishment. As the boy pleaded for his life, he was tied to a nearby tree, and dozens of arrows were loosed at spots that wouldn't quickly kill him.

  Now, you might be thinking.

  “Wow, the Tudor sure are terrible!”

  Let’s have a brief look into what the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Grant gets up to in his free time.

  But currently confined in the hidden room’s jail was no prisoner of special circumstance, but an innocent girl from town who didn’t know a thing. It was three days prior that she’d been bound hand and foot, desperately pleading for her life. Her tongue had been cut out and all her teeth removed, so she could only emit moans from the back of her throat. The grand duke, Haakon, was thrusting his--

  NOPE. CUT IT THERE. That’s… okay. Haakon afterwards just starts being all grumpy and shit. This sucks, my people hate me for some reason! They only like Grunbeld! While Grunbeld’s out turning the Tudor army into entrails and just blood mist and almost singlehandedly preventing their invasion of our country from proceeding, I’m working myself to the bone torturing and raping young towngirls and they don’t appreciate it at all! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY PEOPLE?

  And I’m just fucking losing my mind reading this. Like the absolute wildest Apostle of all of Berserk who really is just only interested in violence and rape, Wyald of the Black Dog Knights from the Golden Age arc is tame compared to the shit I just read.

  

  Because Miura is still trying to make a story. Makoto Fukami, he like got the call about like writing this novel and he went like

  “Oh cool, I get to write about rape and torture porn! Because that’s all Berserk is!”

  And I just went like ok maybe, MAYBE… there’s a twist and like Haakon actually is also an Apostle. But no, he’s human. He’s human, but his level of evil is just so impossibly high that it’s just…

  Simply killing her was no sport. He wanted to watch the girl suffer in despair as her flesh was scraped off a little at a time with a bamboo spatula.

  What the fuck is this novel? For real, like what.

  ---

  Chapter 5: Grunbeld’s Sacrifice

  So I’ve focused pretty much solely on Grunbeld, but let’s talk about Grunbeld’s friends and the general plot of this novel. Benedikte, Sigur, and Edvard.

  

  The best parts of this thing are obviously Miura’s drawings. I actually really like their designs. I don’t really like Grunbeld because again human Grunbeld basically is just Apostle Grunbeld but less cool.

  But Benedikte, Sigur, and Edvard all could have been good characters. If Miura was in control of them. Instead, excluding Benedikte, I’m just looking at a hollow replication of the trio from the Golden Age.

  Grunbeld’s obviously supposed to be Guts, Sigur is Casca with her completely obvious love but in this case it’s towards Guts/Grunbeld rather than Griffith but he spends most of his time instead with Princess Charlotte/Benedikte. And gee whiz, I can only wonder who Griffith is!!!

  ”That’s not true.” Grunbeld didn’t pick up on Edvard’s self-depreciation, but spoke glumly and with a straight face. “You’re my… you’re the brain of the Flame Dragon Knights and Flame Dragon Heavy Infantry. Without a brain, the flame dragon wouldn’t know what to do.”

  COULD YOU BE ANY LESS SUBTLE?

  YOU MAY AS WELL HAVE HAD HIM SAY OH YOU’RE LIKE THE GRIFFITH TO MY GUTS.

  GOD DAMN IT.

  So when Edvard ended up betraying Grunbeld I was just shocked. It blew me away. Griffith’s betrayal of Guts? That shit was spoiled like from the very beginning of Berserk with the Black Swordsman arc! We’re presented with Femto this demon god that Guts keep calling Griffith and thus we know in their past Griffith did a big bad to Guts which made him real sore towards him. It’s not like despite this you read the Golden Age and then become pretty attached to the character of Griffith anyways and thus you’re still emotionally ruined by the nightmare that it is the Eclipse sequence and even before that Griffith’s tragic fall from glorious hero to a tortured and mangled empty shell.

  ...When Edvard confronts Grunbeld and asks him

  did you fuck my mom, Grunbeld???

  

  I was just floored away by the mastery of Makoto Fukami’s storytelling. And having Edvard attempt to rape Sigur as Grunbeld’s dying and falling to despair to activate his Behelit? Wow! It’s almost like it’s as if it’s just Guts and Griffith but switched around! Guts is making a deal with the God Hand so he can stop Griffith from raping Casca! But also he’s going to eat them anyways because now he’s a big old fire dragon and the novel’s spent 200 pages

  HEY GRUNBELD I’M A BLIND PRIESTESS AND I ONLY SEE YOU AS A FIRE DRAGON.
  HEY GRUNBELD WANT TO BECOME MY ADOPTED SON AND TAKE OVER FOR ME AS THE MASTER OF OUR ISLAND’S LEGENDARY FORTRESS, THE FIRE DRAGON’S LAIR???
  AH, I’M FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GRUNBELD, I WANT TO PICK UP THIS BIG WARHAMMER AND SPLATTER THIS TIGER’S BRAINS BUT IT’S SO HEAVY. WHATEVER, I’M A DRAGON! I’LL PICK IT UP ANYWAYS WITH MY DRAGON STRENGTH!!!

  FUCK IT, I’LL SACRIFICE ALL MY CLOSEST FRIENDS, I’M A GODDAMNED DRAGON AND I WILL BECOME A DRAGON LITERALLY! BECAUSE THE GOD HAND ARE GIVING ME THE ABILITY TO BECOME SO!

  WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I WAS FLOORED AWAY WHEN GRUNBELD BECAME A FIRE DRAGON EVEN THOUGH I ALREADY KNEW HE WAS GOING TO BECOME A FIRE DRAGON BECAUSE I READ BERSERK I REALLY APPRECIATED THE MASTERFUL 200 PAGES HINTING THAT HE IS PROBABLY GOING TO BECOME A FIRE DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGON

  ---

  Chapter 6: The Pinnacle of Despair AGAIN

  Sorry! I kind of lost myself a bit there! Uh, anyways. After Edvard strangles his mother to death after learning she tried to have sex with Grunbeld, he decides to go all in on selling the nation out to Tudor with his father, the quite honorable Haakon...

  With Tudor's support he takes the Fire Dragon's Lair and finally almost kills Grunbeld. It literally takes multiple barrages of cannonfire to do it, but he almost finishes the job. But oh no, Grunbeld has a Behelit! And it's activating!

  

  oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  So the God Hand gets summoned and this is the most pathetic part of this fucking novel. Like if nothing else had convinced me that Makoto Fukami was just getting paid to write some extra cheap trash to release on the side of the new Berserk anime, then this really is the breaking point.

  Like Miura obviously had to be at least a little bit involved in the general course of this novel's plot right? The final illustration is of Grunbeld the Fire Dragon coming to eat Edvard who is still over Sigur who he was about to start raping. So like obviously Miura did these illustrations, he probably did at least a general outline of the plot? Right?

  In that plot outline probably didn't include "oh write a scene where Edvard's mom seduces Grunbeld and also an entire paragraph describing Grunbeld's very large penis."

  Likewise, I can't help but imagine that Grunbeld's sacrifice was supposed to be different to how it turned out. Because every fiber of my being wants to defend Miura because everything about Grunbeld's sacrifice, the God Hand, the sacrificing ceremony. It’s all fucking wrong. Like these are some of my favorite elements of Berserk. Characters being forced to sacrifice that which is closest to them for a new life and power!

  The four members of the God Hand just bluntly introduce themselves and just hurry through the motions as quickly as possible because Fukami is running out of pages. Blah blah blah, sacrifice, fissure in your heart which evil will surge, invocation of doom, you know the whole routine! It’s not like this is the most important part of the novel! It’s not like this is what it’s all been leading to! It’s not like this is the whole point of this novel’s existence!

  All the lengthy descriptions about rape and torture were way more important and necessary! Putting how rushed it is aside, it’s just done wrong. When a Behelit activates, typically, along with whoever is holding it, the potential sacrifices are dragged into the Interstice with them. This is established at the very start of Berserk in the first three fucking volumes of the manga.

  Instead, like Edvard sees Grunbeld just suddenly pulled into a dark cloud on his own and then the Brand of Sacrifice just randomly materializes on him, Benedikte, and Sigur. You go through the whole novel wondering who Grun-Grun’s gonna end up sacrificing among his three closest friends and turns out it was pointless.

  Makoto Fukami just went “well why not all three?”

  Fuckin'... really? All three of them? But let's not kid ourselves here, out of all of the Apostles in Berserk we've seen, Grunbeld probably gets the sweetest deal out of all of them! One of his three sacrifices literally just betrayed and shit on their friendship and was in the process of attempting to rape one of the others. Then the other two, Sigur and Benedikte, are both going to die anyways.

  Hell, Benedikte just straight up fucking gives her consent to get eaten.

  "holy shit I've been calling you a fire dragon this entire fucking novel and you still haven't gotten the point yet???"

  But what pissed me off more than any of this, is what the God Hand tells Grunbeld before he agrees to sacrifice his three closest friends.

  "If you do, we shall give you a new battle. It will be so fierce, all the battles you've fought will seem insignificant in comparison."
  When Grunbeld heard the words "fierce" and "battle," his heart pounded.
  "We shall give you all the thrilling combat you desire..."
  "If you are reborn, and join in the Hawk's battle, hellfire awaits. Endless conflict worthy of a fire dragon."

  ...What the fuck happened to DO AS THOU WILT?

  The coolest thing about the God Hand and them making Apostles is that they don't give a fuck about them. They can fucking see causality, they'll know exactly what Apostles end up dying and which ones will eventually end up serving Griffith in the Neo Band of the Hawk. Hence, they tell them DO AS THOU WILT just go and do whatever the fuck you want with your new life and power. And I'm pretty sure all the Neo Band of the Hawk members join him in the manga because they too also have the dream Griffith sends out after he gets reborn at the end of the Conviction arc.

  The implication that the God Hand also actively told all the Apostles who end up joining Griffith's new Band to eventually seek him out before Griffith even became a member of the God Hand himself just...

  Benedikte even just straight up uses her dying words to tell him the finding and serving Griffith was his destiny. Yeah, everything that just happened and your origin story? Doesn't fucking matter.

  

  Your true destiny is to get your ass kicked by a Berserker Armor Guts and then you're just like a background member of the Band because you suck. Maybe every once in a while if they need something heavy moved, Griffith'll ask for your help.

  ___Fuck.___

  ---

  Conclusion

  ...The worst piece of Berserk media that exists and hopefully will never be topped. Because I can't possibly imagine how much more Miura can be insulted than this novel. A Berserk novel could have been good. I refuse to not believe that just because of Makoto Fukami's wild rape and torture filled ride. Betrayal Edvard literally leads a force into the temple and the soldiers just have a rape-for-all and Edvard's just like "wow being on the other side of this, this is pretty fun actually."

  She screamed "Mommy! Mommy! Save everyone!" as she was violated. The beautiful priestesses convulsed horribly as they hung there and suffocated to death. As for Edvard, he felt like he no longer cared, so he let it all happen.

  It's just... it's just vile and just an absolute misery to read. It's only like two hundred pages long but it just dragged on and on and on. And in the original draft of this review that was a lot more jokey and light-hearted, I said something along the lines of

  Can we please just have thirty pages without some form of sexual violence happening?

  And then I read the part where Haakon gets pissed off at a young girl he's raping in the mouth because she started coughing.

  Haakon struck her and shouted. "You idiot! Swallow it!" He picked up a pair of red-hot tongs that had been hung on the wall and hit her with them, gouging her flesh until the bone was visible.

  ...I just really can't put into words how much I truly hate this novel. I'm honestly going to probably cut Miura's illustrations out of the novel and just keep those as well as the cover and throw the remainder of what's left into the garbage.

  This is a 0 out of 100 and I deeply, deeply lament that I ever gave Dark Horse my fourteen dollars for this steaming pile of horseshit.

  I'm sorry, Miura.

  
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