Reread of the Hawk: Berserk, Volume 4

What Happens

The Golden Age, Chapters 2-6

Donovan rapes Guts, claiming he paid Gambino for the privilege, but the next morning the latter seems unaware of what happen and Guts convinces himself Donovan lied. Later, Gambino’s men ambush a retreating enemy column and Guts kills Donovan in the confusion. In another battle, a cannon ball costs Gambino a leg, and his status as leader.

                Two years later, the other mercenaries have lost their respect for Gambino and he responds by lashing out at Guts. One night, he enters Guts’s tent and tries to kill him, blaming him for Shisu’s death and the loss of his status. He also reveals that Donovan did pay him, and he gladly accepted because of his hatred for Guts. Horrified, Guts kills Gambino.

During the fight a lamp is knocked over and causes a fire, which brings some of the other mercenaries rushing into the tent to find Guts kneeling over Gambino’s body. They try to stop Guts, but he manages to fight them off and escape. During the pursuit he is shot through the shoulder by a crossbow bolt and left for dead when he falls into a ravine. He isn’t, however, and despite of thoughts of how much easier giving up and dying would have been he fights off a pack of wolves and is found unconscious the next morning by another group of mercenaries, who take him with them as good luck.

                Four years later, after a castle gate is breached the rush into the courtyard is stopped by a heavily-armoured man named Bazuso, the enemy general’s pleas to knightly honour and the chance for fame falling on deaf ears among the mercenaries under his command. Then, one young soldier steps up and agrees to fight Bazuso after negotiating his reward with the general. Bazuso taunts this “greenhorn” and the paltry reward he’s about to die for, but against the odds the young soldier, none other than Guts, kills him. 

Reread of the Hawk: Berserk, Volume 3

A bit longer this time, but with the conclusion of The Guardians of Desire there was a bit more to say.

What Happens

The Guardians of Desire, Chapters 4-6

The Count taunts a seemingly unconscious Guts, mocking the fragility of human beings, until Puck calls him out, arguing that by becoming a demon in order to hide from his pain, he’s the fragile one. The Behelit falls out of Guts’s pouch and Puck tries to escape with it, but they're interrupted by the arrival of Theresia, who recognizes her father’s face on the monster she sees before her. Guts reveals he was only faking unconsciousness but causes the Count to hesitate by taking Theresia hostage, which gives Guts an opening to shoot the him with his hand cannon and, because his fingers are broken, take his sword in his teeth (!!) and decapitate him. He then repays the Count for his earlier taunts by torturing him in front of Theresia. As he lies bleeding to death, the Count calls out desperately that he doesn’t want to die and his blood flows onto the Behelit, which causes it to rearrange itself into a face and cry tears of blood, transporting everyone to a new dimension that resembles an M.C. Escher drawing. The Brand reacts especially strong as five beings the Count calls “the Great Ones” emerge from the shadows.
 

Reread of the Hawk: Berserk, Volume 2

A bit later than I was hoping, but here's Volume 2

What Happens

The Guardians of Desire, Chapter 2 & 3

The physician reveals himself to be Vargas, formerly the personal physician of the Count, and tells the story of how the Count obtained the Behelit, and how he became the way he is. Seven years ago the Count, always a cruel man, came into possession of the Behelit, supposedly by chance, and became truly monstrous. He subjected prisoners to horrendous tortures and began to eat their flesh, his quest against heresy no more than an excuse to acquire fresh victims. Wanting no part in it, Vargas tried to flee with his family, only to be caught, mutilated, and forced to watch the Count eat his family. Feigning his death with a concealed poison (where, I wonder?), he managed to steal the Behelit and escape, but despite seven years studying religion and the occult he has been unable to deduce its purpose – which Guts promptly explains. The Behelit is a key to another dimension, the means to summon demons who have manipulated humanity from the shadows since ancient times – the five members of the Godhand…

                Meanwhile, Zondark, the captain of the guard, has lost his eye in the recent fight with Guts and hungers for revenge, which he is offer the chance to do after receiving a rather disgusting boon from the Count. Back at the laboratory, Puck examines the Behelit curiously, only to discover it’s alive. Vargas shows Guts a map of the castle and a secret passage, begging the former to avenge what the Count has done to him, but Guts rebuffs him; he’ll kill the Count, but only because it suits his own purposes. Zondark bursts into the hideout and proves to have become something other than human when the dismemberment of his right arm results in an alien, tentacle-like appendage growing to replace it. The new limb is able to swing his battle-axe with blinding speed, and Vargas and Puck look on in awe as Guts seemingly blocks every blow. The loss of half his head proves to not be much of a deterrence either when the Count-faced demon the latter gave to Zondark emerges from the wound to taunt Guts and Vargas, but the former cuts some ceiling beams that trap Zondark, knocked-over candles setting the lab on fire as the rest make their escape.

                Emerging from the sewers, Guts rudely takes the Behelit from Vargas and heads off to confront the Count. After exchanging some kind words with Vargas Puck follows after and chews Guts out for his ingratitude, but the latter insists Vargas would just be a liability. Meanwhile, the still-living Zondark captures Vargas.

                At Vargas’s execution, Puck sees Guts hiding nearby and thinks he’s come to rescue Vargas, but the latter, using the pretext that it’s a trap for him, insists he won’t, that this is the price Vargas has to pay for trying to oppose someone more powerful than him. Puck isn’t convinced and insists Guts is afraid he’s just like Vargas – caught up in something far over his head. Puck makes an attempt to save Vargas himself but only succeeds in bouncing off the headsman’s axe. Before his death, Vargas predicts that the Count will pay for his crimes and be dragged to Hell by his many victims.

Reread of the Hawk: Berserk, Volume 1

What Happens

The Black Swordsman
Guts, the Black Swordsman, kills some thugs in a local tavern in order to provoke their lord, the Baron of nearby Koka Castle, a mysterious man who eats the flesh of women and children sent by the town as tribute in order to guarantee its safety. The Lord Mayor tries to explain the town’s innocence in the incident to the Baron, only to find out the latter never had any intention of honoring their pact.

                In his cell, Guts is healed of the wounds he sustained after his arrest by Puck, a fairy-like elf whom he (indirectly) saved from the thugs in the tavern. Puck is horrified that Guts would sacrifice the entire town to pursue his own goals, but the latter brushes it off, saying those too weak to defend themselves don’t deserve to live. Puck then notices a strange mark on Guts’s neck, which the latter calls the Brand, and when it starts to bleed he knows the Baron has arrived.

                As the men of Koka Castle rampage through the town, Guts appears and proceeds to dispatch them in rapid succession with his repeating crossbow and oversized sword. Then the Baron appears and we find out he’s something called an Apostle, but Guts seemingly dispatches him as quickly as his men. Only for him to re-appear as a giant cobra/lizard-like monster who promptly gives Guts a sound thrashing, declaring himself unkillable by mortals. But Guts reveals you just need to get creative, and that he conceals a hand cannon in his artificial arm, as he proceeds to blast, cut in half, and skewer the Apostle before trapping him under a burning beam. He asks the still-living Apostle the whereabouts of a group called the Godhand is, which the former insists he doesn’t know – although he does recognize the mark on Guts’s neck as the Brand of Sacrifice. Unable to find out what he wants to know, Guts leaves him to burn to ash and departs the ruined town.

Reread of the Hawk - Prelude

Naming convention swiped from the Read/Reread series on Tor.com.

I was first introduced to Kentaro Miura’s fantasy manga Berserk through the anime adaptation, which is still very good in its own right, but the changes from the manga turn it into more of a medieval warfare story, which can make the ending somewhat of a shocker if, like me, you had no existing familiarity with the series. It’s still worth checking out if you’re looking for a good fantasy warfare anime with few magical or supernatural elements and don’t mind a downer ending. I enjoyed it a lot and was easily motivated to check out the manga once I learned it was much longer and more complex than the anime.  So shortly after seeing the anime I picked up volume 1 of the manga and promptly spent the next nine months wishing that the average manga volume couldn’t be blown through in 30 minutes.

Needless to say, Berserk is currently my favourite manga (which isn’t saying much given how few of them I read), primarily because it appeals to my sensibilities as a fan of dark, gritty fantasy with a pseudo-medieval setting. Of course, these are probably the same elements that turn people off the series – it’s hard to deny that this is a series filled with heavy, and rather gory, violence, shady, self-serving, or just plain unpleasant characters, and a seemingly endless string of bad events. That’s not to say that the story is all violence for violence’s sake, and over the course of this reread I’ll hopefully be able to shed some light on what (if anything) deeper meaning the story has to offer beyond an angry guy slicing up people with a giant sword.

Format-wise, I’ll be following the structure used in the various Tor.com series and probably a million other reads/rereads on the internet , summarizing the events of what I just read and then posting my reactions and analysis. The update schedule will be to do one volume at a time every few days, so I’d estimate updates about twice a week, but always at least once a week barring something truly unexpected, and  I might cheat a little reading-wise if a volume begins or ends with the first or last chapter of a story arc. This is my first attempt at this kind of reread, so I’m not sure how things will go at first,but you've got to start somewhere.

Since this is a reread, obviously I already know the story and should have an easy time spotting most of the hints and foreshadowing. However, for the purpose of this reading I'll try my best to suspend my judgement and evaluate a given volume only on what occurs in it and prior volumes.

So without further ado, on with the show. Expect the first update sometime tomorrow on Tuesday.

Introductions are in order...

Hi there, and welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere.  Me, I’m no one special (yet), just a university graduate (BA in Communications with Minor in History), aspiring writer, and newbie blogger who thought this would be a good way to practice his writing – and to force himself to produce something on a regular basis.

Right now I’m not really sure what to make this blog about, so I’ll in all likelihood use it to talk about things I like, primarily fantasy, anime, history, and whatever other geeky topic strikes my fancy at some point, as well as use it to blog about things I’m watching or reading at the moment. If I’m sufficiently able to get my act together, this will also serve as the repository for my first attempt at a NaNoWriMo novel. No idea how all this is going to turn out, but hopefully it’ll prove interesting to somebody.