by Robert Smith

Created on: November 05, 2008   Last Updated: November 21, 2008

Berserk in an anime adapted from a successful Manga story. The anime consists of 25 episodes and is compromised of the first two main storylines from the manga. It has a reputation as a brutal and violent Manga most of which had to be cut down in the anime. However saying this the anime still has a lot of blood and quite a bit of violence and adult themes. I say this as i personally wouldn't advise those under 15 to watch it even though I have never found animated violence to be that bad certain episodes of this anime are not suitable for younger teens.

The Story
The plot is set in a medieval timeline. As with most anime this is an alternate universe that resembles are own but the inclusion of the extraordinary doesn't seem strange. There are always many wars or battles happening between the major powers of the worlds. Due to the amount of warfare there are many mercenary bands who fight for the highest bidder. Our hero "Guts" is quite young when we first meet him and is part of a small mercenary group. They are given the task of killing a very strong warrior who fights on the enemy's side. Guts steps up to challenge the man when his companions chicken out (to put it bluntly). Guts wields a huge sword that looks much too big for him. He has seemingly unlimited strength however and fights recklessly to defeat the warrior. Guts is praised as a hero but leaves the scene on his own. He is followed by another mercenary gang known as "The band of the Hawk". They were watching his previous fight and are interested in having him join them. At first he refuses and fights many of them. He is stronger than all of them until their leader Griffith gets involved. He looks much weaker than Guts but easily defeats him. Guts is in awe of Griffith and joins the band. Quite a few of the episodes involve the bands struggle to help the king to gain territory around the country. Their band becomes well known as an impressive force and Guts too becomes known as one of the strongest warriors. There is a particularly brutal scene where he is cornered by 100 men and defeats them all. I very much enjoyed the plot of Berserk. It doesn't follow traditional methods and is ultimately very unique. It has a very good balance between action and Character development. I find some animes get completely lost in the many relationships that the original theme of the anime gets lost. That isn't true here however and there is rarely an episode that doesn't have fights. Also good to point out is the

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