Okay, it seems like we're past a main turning point in the manga, and I'm here for it. The magical world that was only hinted at so far has made its full entrance, and it's a new paradigm through and through for the plot and the characters, which I like a lot. It reminds me of The Witcher or Shadowrun, where you have a pretty normal world up until some kind of major shift occurs and pof! All the fantastic beings that were the stuff of the legends appear in the normal dimension.
There was a weird blurry chapter, 83 I think, that I read without thinking about it too much... Before finding out that it was cut from some manga versions because the author didn't fukk with it anymore
it seems like either he thought it was too revealing too early, or he thought he wrote himself in a corner. Reading the chapter, I think I get it, it pretty much sums up the metaphysics of the world in an interesting yet confusing way. From this point onward, I've tried to not think about it too much, and the manga is helping me in that since it gets to entirely other things.
Griffith raped Casca in all the positions he could imagine
At least,
this time, the assault serves the narrative and makes sense. It seems to me that even if he didn't care about her like that, he was bitter at the fact that her and Guts could have their own relationship without it revolving around him? So he wanted to flex his power over both of them? Whatever the case, at this point, it's just Berserk's brand.
One of my guesses was about right
Skull Dude came to the rescue and got them out of hell. He's dope asf, I wonder what is his whole deal, and if he's alone in his quest or not. Interestingly enough, it seems like he doesn't
need Guts and is just amused to see him struggle (
"the Struggler"), but then why save him besides saying something akin to "it was written"?
Casca can't even talk or remember anything no more, that's understandable... They destroyed her physically and mentally.
The most interesting part from this slew of chapters, to me, is that they still wear the brand of sacrifice and will attract bad spirits forever
That's an insane curse when you think about it. It allows them no respite whatsoever, unless they both stay confined to the cave Casca seems to be spending her days in. Can't even sleep for real, unless you try to do it under the sun? Your cortisone levels would be high asf. That's not good sleep. And what if the clouds cover it?
It changes the dynamics of what they can do or need to think of quite a lot and I can't wait to see more of how it affects them.
Guts seems to have definitively lost his arm and eye too
so I guess that's his new design? Mechanical arm and all? Interesting. Damn. I like that he got out of that traumatic episode with physical consequences testifying how crazy that was.
So he now hangs with the elf we saw earlier... Wonder how they met. That's another thing I didn't expect. I wonder how long it'll last too. Usually, those types of defining characteristics are introduced right from the beginning (mechanical arm, tiny companion...), but here, it's only after almost a hundred of chapters that all these parts get set into place. That's dope. It's like reading a brand new manga.
Same goes for his quest to exterminate the demons. It's in the continuity of what we know of the character, but it still represents a big change from the aimless Guts trying to find himself we had in the first part of the manga. That's fresh.
All in all, I'm excited about what's in front of me. Right now, Guts just splattered those bug-elfs all over his sword (the way it was drawn was disgustingly gruesome by the way, that was amazing). and he's about to face their boss, the one that watched the other part of the Band of the Hawks get munched on.
I think it was 42 Monks that was telling me to watch out for how many references/inspirations to Berserk from other mangas I could spot during my reading, and while I'll admit I can't tell when those are coincidences or not, there's a lot of small parallels that could be drawn:
- First of all, breh looks like Ike from Fire Emblem
- The new big sword he got seems pretty similar to Ichigo's zanpakuto
- He got the Edward Elric
mech-arm now
- Carries a little flying companion around like... Like... Peter Pan? I don't know who does that in manga really, but I'm pretty sure you can find plenty of that. Now it doesn't necessarily mean Berserk served as direct inspiration. Idk.
- He sounds like Eren, but for the demons.
Finally, chapter 99.5 was a manga submission the author made in college. Fascinating to see that even if some aspects were different, much of what would become of Guts was already in his mind and under his pen. As somebody who writes, this is very inspiring. You don't get it right at the first stroke. You work on it and you iterate, again and again. Lol at the little girl having Griffith's og design.
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