Berserk volume 3
This book ends the Guardians of Desire story arch and begins the greatest Berserk story arch, The Golden Age.
Volume 3 starts in the middle of the fight between Guts and the Count, who transformed himself in a terrible Apostle (read monster). The little flying elf, Puck, is there too. It is amazing what distorted and amazing monster come from the imagination of Kentaro Miura. His art is really at the top when hideous monsters make their way into the story. And take notice, Miura wasn’t even close at his best in the conceiving of this volume. His art development will be noticeable with each volume that you read, making it an amazing journey into the evolution of an artist.
So, this time is the Count. It looks like a huge snail (or how Guts calls him, a slug) with a big human like mouth and some big feet.
Plus the tentacles that grow from his head. It can push his spiky tails through the floor, impaling anyone that come near strike range. The count is on the verge of victory, with Guts standing broken on the floor.
But then, the Count’s daughter appears, Theresia. By the reaction of the count, it is clear that he doesn’t like the fact that his daughter sees him in this hideous shape. His rage goes even higher when she is terrible frightened by his shape, running to hide behind some stone columns. He turns his fury upon Guts and Puck, but with Theresia near, Guts exploits the opportunity to grab her, knowing that the count wont risk to harm her. Then he attacks the count with the gun that he has in his metallic arm. When the monster lays down, defeated, we can see Gut’s hate towards the Apostles and anything related to the The God Hand.
The art takes another shape for two pages, the panels transform in a rapid game of shadow and light, as Guts unleashes his fury on the defeated count, stabbing his head with a knife under the terrified eyes of Teheresia. His hate goes very deep, yet its roots are still unknown to us. Its more than one brave man defeating a killer monster, its a personal crusade. To the death I may say. Looking at Guts, covered in blood and wounds, with some broken ribs and fingers, it is obvious that he is no longer 100% sane. For a man being capable to do what he does and to accept the horrors that his mission implies, sanity would be a burden.
But, as the Count’s life begins to fade, the reality starts to distort, the castle disappears and a weird twisted labyrinth engulfs all of them. Now we can see the Archangels that form The God Hand, as they appear in all their evil splendor. As the count starts to beg for his life and asks revenge, Guts raises his huge sword from the ground. He can barely stand on his feet, but they are there, in front of him. The creatures that he hates most in this world, those who control all the unseen strings of this world and see this only as a game, as life and death is a mere distraction for them to give and to take. With his last bit of strength, he swings his sword at the one that it seems it symbolizes all of his hate, the creature that looks like a human Hawk. But he cannot even touch it, as he is blasted away into a wall. Its hard to think that he will walk ever again.
The God Hand asks a sacrifice from the Count, in the exchange of his life. But no ordinary sacrifice, as the Count finds out. It must be someone close to his heart, someone of his blood… Theresia. Only in this way his bonds with this world will be cut, his heart and soul will die and the last bit of his humanity will vanish. It is a terrible decision that the count has to take. Or he will dissolve into nothingness, a very palpable hell that the count can see raising from the bowels of the labyrinth. But his love for Theresia is too big, and his humanity prevails. He cannot kill Theresia, he cannot kill his daughter. The scene is very moving, and probably will touch your heart. It is a victory of humanity in the very center of evil.
The count is taken away by countless mixed souls and thrown in hell. With his last words, he cries after Theresia, and his daughter cries after him. And then all disappears.
The castle is there again, the throne room ravaged by the huge battle between Guts and the count…and there is Puck and Theresia. As Guts leaves the castle, Theresia stays behind, as she yells her hate towards the man that killed her father. Guts takes all of it, hate, curses, pain… it is his fate, but we can see him almost crying. It is the limit of his heart and his soul. He leaves, carrying his huge sword on his shoulder, like a cross. In a symbolic way, that huge sword it is his cross, his fate that he cannot escape. He must carry it and go ahead, no matter how desperate his future is. And he does.
At the almost end of this volume, The Golden Age starts, and be ready for some treat. It is the story arch that almost all Berserk fans agree that is the most fascinating in all the Berserk manga. It is the real beginning of the story of Guts, and how he became what he is. We can see a small boy who lost his mother, as he is picked from under a grim tree full with bodies by a passing mercenary, a very young Guts that is considered a cursed boy by all the people around him. As the time passes, he is dragged after his adopting father, a ruthless mercenary called Gambino. As he grows between mercenaries, he cannot but embrace their life and be a mercenary as well, beginning from a very young age.
But as Guts tries to earn the appreciation of Gambino through brave acts during combat, the mercenary proves that he considers Guts just a nuisance that he carries around, as he sells him for a night to a mercenary that likes boys. In that way yes. A staggering blow to a life that was already very hard and full of sadness and sorrow.
The beginning of The Golden Age changes the art, in the sense that the tones get lighter, there are almost no shadows at all compared with the hard inked chapters of Guardians of Desire. The tones change into light grays during the battles, but no further, almost until the end of the volume, when it gets a heavy doze of inks and shadows again, when Guts is subdued by the beastly mercenary. Miura’s art quality took a boost with the beginning of The Golden Age, no doubt. What it impresses is the pleiada of details that make the difference, with huge castles being assaulted by hungry armies, the details on the weapons, the realistic look of the mercenaries, the way they behave and they speak. No one is perfect, they are missing eyes, teeth, some are ugly and disgusting, they are all wearing different pieces of armor that they found on the battlefield… all this influences the credibility of the imaginary, medieval like age imagined by Kentaro Miura. So, is no way that I would recommend any other edition of Berserk than the uncensored one, the Dark Horse edition. Reading a censored edition will nullify most parts of the story, decreasing the feeling and spoiling all that Berserk is.
But is late and I am tired after this rather long review. See you at the next volume, otaku.
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